jeff mikels

Last Friday, we experienced a great success in ministry. We served people free mugs of hot chocolate and coffee in front of Wal-Mart. It was a great experience.

It came to me on Black Friday

The whole idea came to me last year on the day after Thanksgiving (“Black Friday” as it has been called) while I was standing in line at a Best Buy store in the bitter cold of November in Chicago. » Click here to read the rest. «

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I was driving around today running an errand for the church, so I decided to make some phone calls to try to connect with some people. There’s one fellow that I have been trying to get in touch with for a while, and as I was going through my address book, I saw that he was the next one on the list.

I wasn’t interested in calling him at that moment, though because I had been thinking about getting in touch with the head of Purdue’s Campus Crusade ministry, and that was on my mind, but this fellow was the next one on my list, so I just decided to call him anyway.

He picked up the phone and as always seemed very excited to hear from me, but this he was even more excited and told me about a couple guys he’s been sharing his faith with. One of those guys was there with him and wanted to talk to me! I talked with him for a bit and suggested that he go through our Bible 101 program. He seemed interested, and I said that maybe all four of us could get together sometime to start it.

He passed me back to the first guy who then asked me, “So why’d you call me? Were you just thinking about me or what?” I told him that actually I had been calling to see if he would be willing to let me lead a Bible study at his house for him and some of his friends, and that it seemed like he already had some guys who would be interested. He said, “Well, that seems like something God wants me to do!”

Then, just before we both hung up, he said, “Thanks for being obedient.” There’s no way he could have known what an encouragement those few words are, but they were. I hadn’t really felt like making that call at that time, but it was just about the perfect time for the call, and he knew it, so he said, “Thanks for being obedient.”

So let me be the first to say to you, if you have been struggling with something and you aren’t sure whether you should follow God’s promptings or not, do it, tell me, and I’ll say to you, “Thanks for being obedient!”

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It has been a while since my last post here, but that’s been for a good reason. For the past month, I’ve been working on getting ready for Southside Church’s first public information meeting. We held it last Sunday evening at McCutcheon High School here in Lafayette.

For the past month, we have been putting together marketing materials, soliciting donations, securing the location, and organizing the service. We passed out by hand maybe 800 invitation postcards and mailed about 100 to our mailing list. We put flyers up at local businesses, we sent out email invitations, and we talked about it to everyone we knew.

It ended up being a really good evening. Here are the details:

• It was September 10, 2006, 6:30pm – 8:00pm in the choir room at McCutcheon High School.
• Tarah Kitchell of Tender Loving Childcare (TLCC) provided the children’s program.
• Doug Griffin, Kurt Kincanon, and Chip (?) provided the music.
• Buffalo Wild Wings donated 250 wings.
• Euro Cafe II donated about 6 thermal carafes full of gourmet coffee.
• LA Fireworks donated table coverings and such.
• Chick-fil-A donated 150 brownies.
• The Carpenter’s Son bookstore donated at least $100 worth of merchandise!
• One count had over 40 (43 I think) people in the main meeting room and we also had 11 kids and 3 workers outside with the children’s program. That put our total at nearly 60 for the evening which was exactly what we wanted in terms of numbers.
• Special guests were Brad Bush, pastor of Maple Ridge Community Church and chairman of TEAMM (Tippecanoe Evangelical Association of Ministers and Ministries), Gregory Hackett, pastor of First Assembly of God, Justin Hutts, associate pastor at Battleground Bible Church, and Gary Rohrmayer, director of Midwest Church Planting. My coach Rich Wollard wasn’t able to make it so he sent us a video clip that got lost somewhere in the tubes of cyberspace.

We sang some songs, some guests spoke for a few minutes, I gave a vision message, and then I entertained some Q&A. After that, everyone filled out a “level of interest” survey, we had a closing song, and Greg Hackett gave some final encouraging words and a closing prayer.

All in all, it was a great evening! I plan to post some video of it soon.

Thank you for your prayers.

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According to this personality test, I am an Enthusiast. Here are some quotes from the website:

• The Busy, Fun-Loving Type: Spontaneous, Versatile, Acquisitive, and Scattered
• Easily become accomplished achievers, generalists who do many different things well: multi-talented. Practical, productive, usually prolific, cross-fertilizing areas of interest.
• How to motivate me. Sevens want to maintain their freedom and happiness, to avoid missing out on worthwhile experiences, to keep themselves excited and occupied, to avoid and discharge pain.
• People like me: John F. Kennedy, Benjamin Franklin, Leonard Bernstein, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Elizabeth Taylor, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Steven Spielberg, Federico Fellini, Richard Feynman, Timothy Leary, Robin Williams, Jim Carey, Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Bette Midler, Chuck Berry, Elton John, Mick Jagger, Gianni Versace, Liza Minelli, Joan Collins, Malcolm Forbes, Noel Coward, Sarah Ferguson, Larry King, Joan Rivers, Regis Philbin, Howard Stern, John Belushi, and “Auntie Mame” (Mame).
• My Tendencies: When moving in their Direction of Disintegration (stress), scattered Sevens suddenly become perfectionistic and critical at One. However, when moving in their Direction of Integration (growth), gluttonous, scattered Sevens become more focused and fascinated by life, like healthy Fives.

So, take the test, and tell me who you are!

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I just thought I’d write a follow-up to my previous blog…

The church consultant had just a few things to tell me:

1. The problems at NWBC were there long before I ever came, and in no way did I cause them.
2. My leadership was such that many of the problems that were “under the table” were brought to the surface.
3. There is nothing that I or anyone else could have done to turn the church around without the drastic process of a complete restart.

He told me that he had clearly communicated these three points to the leadership team of NWBC as well as the Executive Director of the Midwest Baptist Conference.

Therefore, the concerns he had about me were in no way related to the results at NWBC, and that alleviated my fears quite a bit.

He told me that he had done 40 interviews, and one theme came up in about 15 of those interviews while another theme came up in just about all of them.

Some people had mentioned that I wasn’t willing to do any visitation or personal pastoral care. Along with this, some gave specifics of why they perceived me to be insensitive in some way or another. I had failed to make personal face-to-face contact with them in response to certain events in their lives that I would have known about from prayer requests printed in the bulletin.

The consultant and I talked about that for a bit, and he basically told me that making personal face-to-face contact is a necessity for demonstrating to people that you care. I’m cool with that.

The second theme was that nearly everyone said something like I was stubborn or unwilling to change my mind. On that point, the consultant told me that he wasn’t really sure where it was coming from, and he didn’t even have any specifics to tell me. We talked about it a bit, and my own conclusion is that I am very firm on certain principles, and that can be perceived as a general stubbornness if there isn’t the personal connection with people to help them feel comfortable enough to really talk with me about challenging issues.

The bottom line is that I need to

• Make an extra effort to build relationships through being physically present with people rather than relying on phone calls, emails, letters, or even church programs.
• Make an effort to draw closer to people who are my antagonists rather than pulling away from them. If I withdraw from them, they will find other (more damaging) outlets for their frustration.
• Initiate opportunities for me to listen to others so that they begin to see that I really am open to talking about things and even to hear them challenge me on issues. I need to initiate those discussions to establish that the open door really is open to them.

I can do those things.

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Warning: self-critical blog alert.

NWBC Update

It has been a few months since I left Northwest Baptist Church, and in the intervening months, NWBC has been going through a process of evaluation with a church consultant.

From what I have heard, the process has been challenging and helpful. The bottom line is that the consultant reported on some key spiritual problems in the church and asked the leadership of the church to seriously consider what the future would hold. Basically, the question boiled down to this, “Do you currently have the emotional, financial, and spiritual resources to address these problems as a church?”

The answer was, “No.”

So, the only other option for the church was to seek the help of the denominational district (The Midwest Baptist Conference) and to initiate what has been called a “restart.”

The process of a restart boils down to these things: The district identifies a church planter to be the new pastor; then the congregation affirms him; finally, the congregation hands over all assets (name, constitution, property, bank accounts, etc.) to an advisory team comprised of a district representative, the new pastor, the pastor’s coach, and a few members of the congregation. From that moment on, the previous church is officially dissolved, and the assets are used in the formation of a new church fellowship.

This model has had great success in the transformation of dead churches into living and active churches, but there are of course difficulties along the way.

Last week, the congregation voted to do a restart, and I’m glad they did. » Click here to read the rest. «

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I’m just posting this as a quick note to all of you who care…

We have a new house!

This morning at 9:30, we signed the final paperwork to close on our new house. There still are some things the builder is doing to put the finishing touches on it, but we have started moving things over!

Please join us in prayer that God would make our new home a central point for fruitful ministry in Lafayette.

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