Sunday, December 30, 2007

Sunday Mind Dump

Wow what a great way to kick off our family worship experiences. The kids did an awesome job and it was so much fun! We had a great time. Martha and Jackie do such an awesome job with the kids it's hard to imagine a better kids ministry. The pizza came in right on time and everyone loved hanging out and munching after the service.
  • Diaggio's can pizza actually get any better?
  • The kids sing their hearts out today. I was so proud!
  • Tim did a great job leading on the guitar today.
  • Did I mention Diaggio's has awesome pizza?
  • Nice crowd today that's always cool.
  • Really looking forward to next weeks vision 2008 message. It's going to put quite a bit of context on many of the things we are doing right now.
  • We have some of the biggest servants around. How cool is that?
  • Did I mention the pizza?
Really looking forward to the next family worship experience. We are planning on doing four per year. The next one is booked for the first week in April. We are getting their on the things we need for the new building. We have raised 10% of the money in the first week and we have 3 months to go. We are starting to see some of the furniture and other items come in.....how cool is that?

Friday, December 28, 2007

Post Vacation Hangover

We're back and I have a little of that post vacation hangover. I am home but things just feel out of sorts. I have a ton of stuff we are trying to get ready for the next few church services. I am really excited about them. This weekend we are doing the family worship experience and that will be sweet!

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Vacation Updates

Having a great time so far. The place we rented is awesome and has all the amenities of home. Ok, more than the amenities of home. In fact, I am off to the spa in a half hour for my deep tissue massage. Gotta love that!

We have a great view. I am getting excited about getting back to the grind I have so many new things I want to get working on for the next year. Doing quite a bit of reading up here as well. That is something I do every vacation I try to read an entire book.

Looking forward to the family worship experience this weekend. It is going to be cool!

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to everyone...here is an up to date run down of our Christmas so far. We left Toledo yesterday at 8:15 we got to Pigeon Forge at 4:00. Not too shabby on time :) I tried to pay attention to most of the local laws and ordinances as we went from town to town.

So here is what we have done so far:
  • Checked into the resort. The condo we have is awesome. We are on the 6th floor and have a great view.
  • Had our "Traditional" Christmas eve dinner at Red Lobster.
  • Went to Walgreens and overpaid for a few things we really needed. Gotta love resort towns:)
  • We just finished our Christmas dinner that consisted of wonderfully prepared Stouffers French Bread Pizza. The chef really knows how to make a french bread pizza right!
  • I am waiting...and waiting...and waiting....for April to finish the beautification process so we can get out of this condo and go to the park. We are going to take a driving tour today since it's Christmas and everything else is closed.
  • Looking forward to dinner tonight. We get real food since most of the eatin' places open up around 4 pm.
Will update more later!

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Sunday Night Mind Dump

First off, I am freaking tired. All this Christmas stuff, all the food, all the presents, makes a guy need a good nap! Had a nice service today. The message was really good and the worship went over really well. We went unplugged today with just a guitar a bass and two voices. It really helped to make Christmas songs more worshipful. I just don't like trying to rock out traditional music. For most people, those songs are too comfy and rocking them out only leaves people wishing they'd have heard them another way.
  • Signed the lease on the building yesterday. That is exciting and scary at the same time. We need to raise the funds to pay for a bunch of stuff so we are doing this in faith. We'll have an updated list and progress report in a week or so about where we are in the process.
  • Shelly was off the hook with the Christmas food and decorations today. The YMCA looked great and we would be lost without that girl!
  • Getting ready to have Christmas with the kids. Since we are going away this week we are opening presents tonight!
  • Off to Tennessee tomorrow. Looking forward to being away for a much needed mental break. Not looking forward to the eight hour drive.
Church planting is a great ride. I can't wait to see what God is going to to over the next year. I'll be talking about that in the first message of the new year. Next weekend is the kids program that got postponed last weekend because of the snow.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Christmas 2007

Got a great Christmas message ready for tomorrow. I am really pumped up about this one. It's going to be really big for some of our people. Set up was a breeze today we were done with the whole thing in just over an hour. Usually set up and band practice takes us slightly over 2 hours so we were pretty amazed that we actually had some free time when we were done!

See everyone tomorrow! Everyone that is left in town. It feels like half our church is away this Christmas!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Friday Pizza

April and I went and had pizza with Tony and his family tonight over at Diaggio's. I don't know how they do it but they clearly have the best pizza in town. That stuff is off the hook good. I am psyched that we are getting a whole mess of it for next weekends family worship experience.

We had the pepperoni delight or something like that tonight. Oh yea, plus they have some really good Gelato too. Better get off to bed we have to get up early tomorrow to set up for church Sunday!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Leadership Vs Pastoring

Been thinking quite a bit this week about myself in ministry. Six months ago I made a decision that I was going to focus more on becoming a better pastor. I wanted to focus more on people and focus less on tactical things. The problem is, if you're not careful, you can pastor yourself right out of church growth.

For me there has to be a balance between loving people and pastoring people and leading God's people to take more ground than they thought they were capable of taking.

Over the next few months and years my struggle is to find a way to pastor God's people while leading them. I have made a personal commitment to spend quite a bit of time over this next year focusing on just that. Over the last week God has hit me pretty big with some stuff.

I sat down and wrote two messages out of it. One is a leadership message. The first Sunday in January we are going to spend the morning talking about where God is going to me taking us over the next year and years. I can see that picture clearer than ever. The third Sunday in January I am going to do the pastor thing and stretch your faith big time.

If you can't tell. I am pretty fired up about it too!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Sunday Night Mind Dump

I took today as a true sabbath day. I did almost nothing (except for shovel the driveway.) It was kind of relaxing since I don't get many of those. April kept trying to get me to do stuff, I kept ignoring her:) Since we didn't have a service today I don't have all that much to dump but here goes:
  • Had a business meeting yesterday we decided the building on Reynolds is a go. So we are going to be working on that.
  • We have a TON of things to get done over the next month if we are going to move.
  • We have to buy chairs, decorations, tables, and a host of other goodies.
  • Everyone is pretty pumped about the new place.
  • We rescheduled the Family Worship Experience because of the snow. It'll be two weeks from today. That's going to be a blast!!

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Building Update

For all the Real Lifers that read the blog I just wanted to give you all a quick update. We did get the price and the terms that we needed from the Realtor on the rental property on Reynolds Rd. We are going to sit down Sunday before small group and take a hard look at the budget and see if it makes sense to make the move.

It's a close call financially on the building and if we do make the move we want to make sure it's the God thing to do. We are really just a baby church and taking on this kind of responsibility requires some serious prayer. So hang in there we are going to be taking a few weeks to make the call on this one.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Minding Your Own Business

Real Life is going to partner with Lifechurch.tv in January to bring the message series Minding Your Own Business. This will be an awesome time of learning and relearning how we can become better stewards of God's resources. In the series we'll learn how to look at our family finances as a business, how we can eliminate and reduce our personal debt, and how we can begin the process of giving back to God what is rightfully his.

You won't want to miss a single one of these messages. In fact, they are so good that I am going to allow Pastor Craig from Lifechurch.tv to teach them to us. This kind of thing doesn't come up nearly as often as it should in church and I am pumped to be able to do it here at Real Life. Check out the promotional video's at the top of the blog.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Sunday Night Mind Dump

A nice service today. We had a solid turn out considering the freezing rain storm which turned out to be not that big of a deal. The car was covered in ice but the roads were just wet and not really slippery at all. A couple of thoughts about today.
  • John did a great job with sound. He has only done it a few times and we aren't using the perfect gear for what we are doing so just getting a good mix is a pretty good thing.
  • Tiffany stepped in for Jackie today and did a nice job with the preschool class.
  • Martha has been doing a killer job getting the kids ready for the family worship experience next weekend.
  • April has been working with them teaching them a couple of songs to sing for the church and it is really cute (or so I hear!)
  • Getting excited about Christmas in a few weeks. I need some time off work and it can't come too soon.
  • We are going away for a few days over Christmas and I am really looking forward to getting some quiet time to get message ideas and do some writing!
  • The building we visited yesterday looks like it might really work for us. We just need to get a deal that will work in terms of finances.
Everyone steps up every week and that is so cool. I am looking forward to not having to set up every week. That will be sweet!

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Community

One of the values we share at Real Life is learning to live life in community with others. Why do we need to live life in community? It's simple, because alone is never a good place for us to be. All of us will struggle on occasion, all of us will fail from time to time, and all of us will need some encouragement now and then. Living a life connected to others provides a venue for that to happen.

Is it easy? Nope.

It means we have to allow ourselves to actually be open to others. It means we have to allow them to see things in us that are less than perfect. Most of us aren't willing to go there. We don't want people to see the imperfections in us. We want to put on our happy faces and let people believe the illusion that we have it all together.

Don't fall for that trap. Allow people to love you for who you are. Be who you are...but be it together.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Forgiveness: Say What?

This year we are doing a Christmas series called Christmas is... The theme of the series is that Christmas is a time when we should be seeking forgiveness from those we have hurt and offering forgiveness to those who have hurt us.

As I sat down over the last few weeks to work on these messages I got to thinking about something. When it comes to Judging people we have different standards. For, example:
  • We judge other people by their actions.
  • We want to be judged by our intentions.
Think about those for a second. We judge others by what they do and we want to be judged by our intentions. If we didn't mean to hurt someone then they shouldn't have taken what we said in a hurtful manner right?

Wrong. We need to realize that this runs both ways. Other people are judging you by your actions and themselves by their intentions. Remember that the next time someone is hurt by something you have said or done. That will make it easier to go to them and ask for their forgiveness.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Sunday Night Mind Dump

We had a decent service today. Music was a little rough it was almost like the band was fighting each other over the tempo. The message seemed to go over well. I saw a lot of people nodding along with me and laughing at the funny points....which is nice!
  • Went and looked at a possible new location today. It's nice and looks like it might be a fit. Now the hard part getting the money stuff to work out for us. They are within a few hundred dollars of where we are at the YMCA so it's going to be close!
  • I love our people. Every week I see them stepping up in a bigger and bigger way.
  • My wife really puts up with a lot. It's tough to lead a worship band anyway. Let alone being the only female. She tolerates a lot of boyish behavior and jokes. Everyone should thank her!
  • Last month was our second largest month in terms of giving. That is so cool, not because we think dollars equal success but because we have been self-funded from day one and God just keeps providing for our needs.
  • Martha is doing a killer job with the kids. They all have their Bible memory verses down and keep coming up to people quoting them. The kids really love what she has done with that ministry.
  • We still REALLY need to find a couple more singers. Ideally a guy who could sing lead and a girl who could sing harmony would give us everyone we need.
  • I am really pumped about where we are as a church and where we are going.
Church planting is a huge rush! I can't imagine doing anything else in ministry. I love just watching God bring people in as we need them.