Tim Harlow

Kids are the Kingdom!

Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.”

I think that’s why it’s so much fun to work with kids. We do get to the place where life is boring as adults, don’t we? That’s why VBS is so cool here. I think the adults have as much fun as the kids do.

But this is a great scripture for thinking about all the work we’ve done here. We are told to “remember our Creator in our youth.”

We are commanded to “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6

And “Assemble the people—men, women and children, and the aliens living in your towns—so they can listen and learn to fear the Lord your God and follow carefully all the words of this law.” Deuteronomy 31:2

One of the things I really love is the amount of men we have working VBS. That’s one of the reasons we have it at night so we can get people who work during the day involved. Which gets us more men hanging out.

Ephesians 6:4 - Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

I love seeing the guys dancing and singing and teaching and leading and showing the kids that they are excited about Jesus too.

I tell you, Monday night I went up to the balcony and hung out with the parents for a little while and just watched the sea of blue shirts praising God all over the place and I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of PCC. It’s just amazing to see 722 kids (with 170 more junior highers in the gym) and 479 adult helpers - all of whom are way too tired by this point in the evening – having a blast worshiping Jesus.

Thank you to all of you who worked so hard. To Lori, Jenn Otto, and Dawn Cox and the crew who work on this year round, and to all of the volunteers who cooked or taught or did something to love on these kids this week. They are “remembering their Creator in their youth,” and hopefully “when they are old they will not depart from it” (even if they do get boring).

Kids are the Kingdom,

Tim

Kid's rule

It’s Vacation Bible School time at Parkview.

Carl Sandberg said, There is only one child in the world and the child's name is All Children. There is only one Maker in the world and His children cover the earth and they are named All God's Children.

There aren’t many churches that give as much energy, time, and resources to God’s Children as Parkview does. It’s because we believe that children are truly important! It’s because we know that one of the times Jesus because “indignant” was when they tried to keep the children from coming to him.
Because he said, “

Mt 10 42And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

But you can do VBS, or you can do VBS. And WE DO VBS. It’s one of our best programs. It’s not a bunch of little old ladies with flannel graph boards (if you don’t know what that is – Lori will demonstrate it for you some time). Our VBS rocks – the music, the teaching, the missions, the fun time – everything is top quality and it is Parkview’s best foot forward.

Even if you don’t have or know any kids that might be interested in this week at VBS, I still encourage you to pray for us as we involve more volunteers and have more crazy stuff going on this week than probably any other time in our calendar year. While other people are taking their last minute vacations and golfing and catching ball games and enjoying the last part of summer – Parkview is busting her backside to make sure that Kids find Jesus. It’s the most important thing. Plus we’ll be raising money to help our kids in Africa too.

Be there this weekend because I don’t care how old you are – this is going to be a powerful service.

Tim

Parkview from another perspective

One of the advantages to getting out of my environment every once in a while, especially for several weeks in the summer, is that you don’t know what you have until your gone. Am I right? How many of you have traveled this summer and been to other churches and just couldn’t wait to get back to Parkview. I mean, I’ve been in great places and with great people. It’s always an encouragement. But this place is special. It’s not because of me, or my family, or any of our staff, or our culture – I truly believe that God is in the house in a special way.

When Paul Williams, my friend and church planting guru from New York, was here a few weeks ago, he sent me this note afterwards:

Tim,

Okay, here is the deal.

Your staff culture is excellent. The environment you have created with the staff is among the best I have seen. There is a great combination of focus on excellence, risk-taking, and fun. What a delight to talk with them.

You have an executive pastor who is great in front of a crowd, is quite personable, and can carry a tune. Has no one told him that if you are an executive pastor, you’re not allowed to be good at any of that stuff?

Either that was the best sermon I’ve ever preached, or you are an incredibly bad preacher, or they are the most thankful and expressive congregation on earth. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.

Your Saturday evening service rocks. You should travel the country and show all the other guys with dead Saturday night services how it should be done.

So many people are so pumped about working with us in Manhattan. Lots of good conversations about that after each and every service.

That was the most dynamic church I’ve been to in a very long time. And I get to a lot of megachurches. You guys are smokin’.

Thanks for the opportunity, and thanks for your commitment to Orchard. The last two days have been a delight!

Paul

I really hope you can be around this weekend as we kickoff VBS. I know you may be thinking "I don't have small kids," but you don't get it. "Of such is the kingdom of Heaven," Jesus said. And the service is going to be incredible. You should definitely come by one night and see Parkview at it's best.

Back in the Saddle,
Tim

The Church United

I’m back in next weekend as we start VBS (which will rock – don’t miss it) and then I do a three week series on Ruth and a cool series after that called God’s Frat Party. So we’re back in the swing. The past two weeks of study break for me have been for the purpose of giving me time to plan the years preaching and work ahead on the things I think we need to be talking about as a church. It’s very hard to do that on the fly, when I’m working on the next weeks message. I’m now planned up through Easter and have a lot of things already rolling.

However, you also need to know that I’m going to be more committed to stepping away from the pulpit. I think this place is a little too dependent on me and that’s not healthy for any of us. So my goal is to do 4 or 5 weeks and then be off a week. We obviously have some great preachers on our staff (pray for Bill this weekend, he has a great message for you), and I obviously have some talented friends that we can bring in from time to time. So please don’t be disappointed if you show up every once in a while and I’m not in the pulpit. I promise you it’s always going to be Parkview quality. (and if you’re bringing friends for a weekend, you can always call and see who’s on).

Anyway, speech over. Part of the advantage of some time away from this place is that I can see what other things are going on in the world. I got to visit my brother in law, Doug’s new church in St. Louis last weekend. It was really fun because Doug has used several of our videos, like Christmas in the Attic and Krispus Kremus, so it felt like we were already a part of the church. It’s a great group in a great location and I’m very excited about what God is going to do. Please pray for the Wildwood Christian Church. We already share some members there, and I’d love to share our heart and soul with them. Doug is the one who preaches along side of me most weekends and he is very important to our ministry here. He’s kept me going, and vice versa.

Dominic is home!

Thank you all for praying for Dominic DiAngi this past week.

In case you missed it, he is our faithful young Parkview child who was hit by a foul ball and seriously almost died last week at a Cub game. As a matter of fact his dad told me that the doctors said if it would have been an adult hit in the temple of his head with the full force of a baseball, he would have died. Yes, God does show up at Wrigley, and more important he shows up when we all band together and pray. The DiAngi family has been a special part of Parkview for a long time and we can’t wait to have a reunion with Dominic when he gets back.

Let’s thank God for his healing power.

Tim

Tribune Article

ABC News Video

Great Investment Update

Let me take this opportunity to update you on the Great Investment. If you aren’t a part of our building and expansion program, it’s never too late. Great Investment

• Lockport Campus
Renovation has been underway for weeks now on our new campus in Lockport and is on schedule for grand opening on September 21. As of this writing we are working on finalizing our last staff position and Brian Hunt is ready to lead this team. We do need your prayers, because some things are messed up (go figure). But check this out, the Olympics are affecting us. Because all electronics come through China and they are closing ports to get ready for the big show, we are having trouble getting some of the new equipment we need. So please keep that in your prayers.

• Orland Campus
Parking – Construction of our new 300 parking spaces began on June 30. It is scheduled to be completed by the end of August just in time to make room for our new guests in the fall. I know parking doesn’t sound exciting, but do you know that by adding these spaces we are making room for around 500 additional people to come and hear about Christ? These parking spaces represent people that need Jesus.

Friends

I had a great time with my friend John and his family this weekend. He did a great job, didn’t he?

We played some golf, did the Cell, Navy Pier, Millennium park – the whole experience.

Thank you for being so open and welcoming to outside speakers. Bob Russell really loved it again, and all of them comment about how much they enjoy being here. Thank you for that. And for giving me the break from the pulpit I need.

John wrote about his experience here and I wanted you to get a chance to read it (and maybe start following his blog) John Scott's Blog

Tim

Change or Die

I’ve been in Cincinnati this week for a convention. I was on the Executive Committee this year for this convention that has been around for 80 years. Parkview is not a part of a denomination but there is a group of churches that we identify with and partner with and this is our once a year, national convention. It’s not about setting policy or deliberating doctrine; it’s just an inspirational gathering to help strengthen our churches and encourage the leaders.

This convention was really good. We had some great “outside” speakers and heard some excellent sermons and workshops from our top leaders. But I couldn’t help feel the underlying murmuring of “what used to be.” The glory years of this gathering are well behind us. Like all organizations, the life cycle moves on toward demise unless you radically alter the course of direction. It’s possible that we don’t need this convention any more. I think we still do, but it’s possible. We have tried to change it (and you know how that goes). Whenever you make changes to an organization some people embrace it and say, “it’s about time.” Others tell you to quit messing with it because they like it the way it was.

But the truth of the matter is that organizations that don’t change – die.

As I work with this group of leaders and pastors on this convention, it seems to be a microcosm of the whole work of Christianity. This is the 21st century. 20th century stuff doesn’t work any more. Most churches I know are still operating in the 20th century (many are MID 20th century – you walk in and wonder where Beaver is). Many Christian organizations are behind the times.

I’m not working through all of these musings to tell you how I have got something figured out here. I’m just contemplating what that all means to Parkview. Obviously most people walk into our church and instantly realize that they “this is not their father’s Oldsmobile.” We are as contemporary as any church in our area.

But that doesn’t mean we always will be!

The key to healthy organizations is to find a way to keep changing – even programs that are going well – so that you never get to the down side of the curve. It’s easier to keep growing when you change while you are growing, and not after you’ve realized it’s “change or die.”

Now I know that all of this sounds like a big set up for some big new change we’ve decided to make, but it’s not. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. But we ARE going multi site next fall in Lockport. We are going to build a chapel as a video venue on the weekends. All of these are very new ways of doing church, and they might not work – but we will try them. You already know about all of that, I don’t have anything to tell you now except that I have witnessed what happens when you don’t make changes quick enough.

This convention was excellent. Probably one of the best we’ve ever had. But it was not the best attended. It’s on a downward turn. I don’t want to see that happen to Parkview, so I’m just telling you that the Elders and Pastors of this church are always out there fishing around to try to figure out where our culture is going – so that we can meet them here with something relevant.

Jesus said, “The gates of Hades will not prevail against his church.” But that’s not a promise for Parkview. It’s for the Church – big C. Parkview will have to work hard to adapt and to retool itself to continue to reach people for Christ.

I will see you this weekend,

Tim

Orland Campus Parking Lot Underway!!

On Monday, June 30th, construction finally began on the additional 300 parking spots at Parkview's Orland Campus! Weather permitting, the lot should be complete by the end of August. Let's pray for the safety of the workers, and for the people who will be coming to Parkview to fill those spots!! And thanks to all of you who are being faithful in your Great Investment giving so that this work can be accomplished!