The Goings on and Work of Sam Mahlstadt

Here is a look back at 2009 through some photos:

Wedding and honeymoon in March

Moving from Des Moines to Winston-Salem in April

Helping brand and develop stopslaveryhere.com and our event in downtown Winston-Salem

Helping launch One Church (opening service 9/13/09)

Coldplay: Viva La Vida tour. Coolest live show. Ever.

Guster in Charlotte on their anniversary tour for Lost and Gone Forever. Brilliant band – incredible show.

And of course, a huge moment to end 2009 was finding out that we were going to have a baby!

To stay in the loop in 2010, you can subscribe to Creating Culture through RSS or email.

On our wedding day, many people commented about the scripture that was used during the ceremony.

It comes from Ecclesiastes 9:9

Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!

Taking a look back at this past year, some pretty cool stuff went down. Our wedding day, however, was a moment I won’t forget. It was a time of celebration with family and friends, and the start of a new life together.

To echo the words spoken at our wedding, if you are going to work for something here on earth, let it be your marriage.

For all the single folks, don’t fret. Paul’s got your back.

The following were the 10 most read posts of 2009 on Creating Culture:

10. One Church Launch

9. Church Planting Strategy

8. Ever Feel Like This?

7. Game Changers

6. Your Kingdom Come

5. Gay Marriage; The New Interracial Marriage

4. The Conversation: Faith vs. Science or F

3. Major News!

2. Geoff Surratt on Being Less Stupider

and the #1 read post of the year (by quite a bit)

1. The Conversation: In the Beginning

I have learned a few things from this list.

First of all, when Geoff Surratt tweets a link to your blog, traffic goes way up.

People are interested in discussing issues of faith in an open forum.

Having a baby is good for blog hits :)

Here’s to a great 2010! Did you have a favorite (or least favorite) post, or have something in mind you would like to see discussed on Creating Culture?

I just had lunch with a couple of guys who have taken on an initiative to create a model for a sustainable community of orphans called Heroes Helping Heroes. They are starting their project in Masoyi, South Africa, with a vision to spread to other sites by partnering with Samaritan’s Feet.

These dudes are the real deal! Game changers. They have a heart for helping those who are tragically left without a family structure due to disease, poverty, lack of basic education and sanitation.

With a sustainable community, orphans will have the opportunity to go to school, learn a trade, seek employment and break the cycle of poverty in Masoyi. And the business plan is brilliant: with 3 different options, anyone can get involved

• $12 a month to feed a child for a year
• $100 to provide a child with shoes, school uniform, and school supplies (without which they cannot attend school)
• $6000 to adopt a family – build a house, provide the entire family with meals for a year, the materials to start a vegetable garden, and shoes, school uniform and school supplies

You can donate to Heroes Helping Heroes here

I received Brennan Manning’s The Ragamuffin Gospel for Christmas from my in-laws. I’ve been wanting to read it for a long time.

In the introduction to the book, Manning clarifies the book’s intended audience. He writes several descriptions about for whom the book is not intended, followed by several more about for whom the book is intended. One description captured my attention and heart:

It is for inconsistent, unsteady disciples whose cheese is falling off their cracker.

That is an eloquent description of my attempt to follow in the Way of Christ.

What about you, how would you describe your attempt to follow Jesus?

I have always loved the churches who’s names are The Church at…

It makes me think of the power of a local community, banding together in their area (neighborhood, town, city, etc.) for the cause of Christ. Serving the people of their area. Having all things in common.

Moving on.

This past Sunday, Winston-Salem had quite a freak snow storm, at least by North Carolina standards. The result was our trailer, full of our equipment – stuck in a storage facility by the snow and ice.

Enter the advantage of being a small, mobile, flexible church: we went to Starbucks.

We honestly only expected a couple people to show up. After all, we weren’t having “church” and didn’t think people would respond. Wrong. Over 30 people crammed into the Starbucks, including a couple first-time guests. And shocking to me, the guests knew we weren’t having a service. This was eye opening to me, and I think speaks to the nature of our corporate gatherings. Let me say this before I proceed: I love a good corporate gathering, worshiping together, hearing a sermon (and/or giving a sermon). I love it all.

Here’s the thing, though…

One guy made the comment at Starbucks, “this was great, I love talking to people.”

Yes, we allow talking at our weekend gatherings. Yes, we encourage people to connect, and we make space for it. But, people who have ever come in contact with, or even heard of church, have a mindset that they are there to observe. Passively. And people aren’t just passive by nature, but we lead people to be passive by producing a good show. You watch a show.

Over a cup of coffee, crammed in a Starbucks, all church growth principles go out the window. We encouraged people to meet someone they haven’t talked to before, and share what’s going on in each others lives. That’s about all the control you can have in that type of setting. And that’s all it took.

I talked to a girl who goes to our church regularly who had just gotten accepted into college the day before, and had the opportunity to celebrate with her. I would have never known that otherwise. Some things can’t happen during a “church” service.

It proved to be one of our coolest Sundays to date.

Scrap the weekend gathering? No. Hold random church services off site? Maybe. Probably not.

Create environments where community can begin, grow and thrive? YES!

We, as people who follow Jesus, have to acknowledge that some things can happen over a coffee, latte, doppio espresso or chai tea that simply cannot happen while people are watching a production and listening to one person talk.

What works, and what doesn’t when it comes to creating a culture of community?

In time for the turn of the year, the digerati team from lifechurch.tv are taking things up a notch with the new reading plans available on YouVersion.

A few quick features of the new YouVersion reading plans:

• Over 20 plans to chose from
• Sync your plan and progress between your computer and phone
• Join the community of readers/commentators for support and accountability
• Adjust the pace of the plan (for those of us who tend to fall behind our reading plans)

Terry Storch and team have made it very easy, very clean and very efficient. Well done guys!

Here is a video walking through the process.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fTZwb40opM]

We are planning on utilizing YouVersion in our weekend services and discipleship efforts this next year at One Church.

Do you use YouVersion? Church leaders: are you planning on using YouVersion in your programming? I would love to hear what folks are doing or planning to do with it.

On our way back to North Carolina from Iowa, Amanda and I flew on a CRJ-50, pictured above in case your were curious.

We sat in row 8.

As we were waiting for our flight to begin, the pilot made an announcement to the passengers that the plane was overweight. Not overbooked, just overweight. Due to body weight and cargo weight, the plane couldn’t take off. If we would have taken off, we would have crashed (I am glad he made us wait for someone to get off the plane).

An irritated guy had to get off the flight because no one would voluntarily give up their seat, and the flight was delayed (delayed is better than dead). Nonetheless, people were less than thrilled, especially the dude standing back at the gate watching his flight leave without him.

This happens when we:

don’t count the cost before we start a /project/program/ministry

and always forces:

people to unnecessarily deal with frustration/delay/disruption

Some things don’t require 40 people sitting around the table (body weight) and the green light by every department in the organization (cargo weight).

We also can’t take an idea and outrun ourselves with it.

Assessment is the friend of the gungho leader.

Here is the link to the official video for a song you have probably heard by now; Fireflies by Owl City. I would have embedded, but Owl City is apparently not down with embedding any of the versions of this version – or their label perhaps is thwarting the embeds.

If this music doesn’t make you feel warm and fuzzy, I don’t know what will.

The guys from Endeavor Media did the video, and they did a phenomenal job. You can also catch a video commentary by the director and producer on their blog, explaining where the toys and ideas came from (for the curious among us).