Someones Lying :)

From the looks of our survey there are some big time fibbers posting on the blog. Maybe I need to do a 10 week sermon series on what the truth is......

Saw this today and wow....is it true.

Saw this post on Perry Nobles Blog today......how true it is......this is not just true for people in leadership though.....it's true for everyone......Remember in a previous post I tried to make the point that Delayed Obedience is Disobedience.....check out what Perry has to say......one of these days I have got to meet this dude.....he can read my mind and heart....

"Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made As A Leader–Part One

One of the privileges I have is getting to meet with and pour into the staff that God has given me the privilege of leading. About once a week I assemble a group of people who do not directly report to me for a time where we discuss leadership issues…they ask questions and I try my best to answer them. (God has placed some REALLY sharp people on this staff!)

One of the questions that often arises is, “What are some the biggest mistakes you would say you’ve made is a leader?” I thought I would take a shot at answering that one on this site…

#1 - Not Listening To The Holy Spirit

There are times that God will give a leader insight that He gives to no one else–THUS the reason for making him the leader. And, in my opinion, THE toughest time to lead is when you KNOW what God has said…but no one else is quite seeing it the way you do.

David faced this in I Samuel 24:1-7 when Saul was “delivered” into his hands. The “leaders” around him were pressing him to make a decision–THEY EVEN HAD BIBLE VERSES to back up their desires…but David just KNEW in His heart what God had said…and he was unwilling to violate that.

THE biggest mistakes I’ve ever made is when God clearly said to do (or not to do) something and I went against His command because I could not get everyone to agree…or because it just didn’t make sense.

#2 - Not Being Who God Called Me To Be

When I first began in ministry I really struggled with being the unique creation that God called me to be. I wasted a ton of time trying to be other people because I was convinced that I could never be the man who I felt was trapped inside of me and was desperate to come out.

God didn’t call me to be anyone but me…and when I try to imitate others rather than gravitate towards the character of Christ uniquely displayed in me…I dishonor my Creator!"

Sunday Mind Dump

You have gotta love controlled chaos!

I love seeing the kids do there thing during our family worship experiences! It's really fun. The funny thing about having kids lead is, you never know what you're going to get. Today that ranged from kids falling (or jumping) out of their boat prop to singing slightly off key to the teachers getting really nervous about speaking in front of the adults. It's all good and it's all fun.

So let's dump:

*Did we have a full house today or what?
*Thank you to everyone who helped make today possible.
*Giving has be stellar over the last few months!
*We had our highest attendance ever today!
*Really excited about the next few months. Some great things coming.
*Next week we are going to bring it with our new series iMarriage. It's going to be great.
*Gotta love Diaggios pizza. As many props as we give them you'd think we'd get a sweeter deal on the pies!

I am watching the second day of the NFL draft with the windows open and a cool breeze. April is taking a nap and life is good.

See You All Soon!

Truthiness

One thing I love is good ole fashioned sarcastic humor when done really well. There is no one better at it than Steven Colbert. A few years ago he invited this word "truthiness." Which basically means something that is sort of true or has elements of the truth in it.

I was thinking today that many of us have a truthiness sort of relationship with Jesus. We are sort of have a relationship with him. We sorta don't it depends on how much we need him at any given moment.

The Bible is pretty clear that "truthiness" isn't going to cut it. In fact, the Bible tells us that for those of us who call ourselves Christians we need to be either hot or cold. God won't except a lukewarm kind of faith or life. Just a reality check for all of us. Are you living a true life? Or a life full of "truthiness?"

We're Close To Something Big

Over the last few months I have felt a stirring in my soul about Real Life being close to some really big things happening in terms of ministry and growth. I am sitting here at the computer this afternoon and I am really overwhelmed at just how close we are. All I can say is man God is so good. He has provided some amazing things.

How about this for a first year recap:

1. We held our first practice worship service a year ago today. All but a small handful of the people at that first practice service are still with us. Many of those people have taken on new ministries and are leading them with amazing success.

2. We have more than doubled in size. If you take the core group we started with and add in the new folks that call Real Life home we have more than doubled in a year.

3. We have exceeded our budget in terms of income every month since we started. Even in the midst of a bad economy we are doing quite well.

4. We have a great band. Churches 10 times our size wish they had the talent we do. Trust me, I have heard them say it.

5. We have some of the coolest people on the planet as members of our church.

6. We have a great building at a killer price.

7. We have been given so much in terms of technology it's almost scarry. Wait until we really get cooking on it. We will be the MOST CUTTING EDGE CHURCH IN TOLEDO. I can promise you that.

8. In terms of numbers, we baptized half of our church in 2007.

9. We have one of the best kids ministries in town. Period. I have never heard our kids come out of kids church saying they didn't have fun.

10. We have some of the best volunteers in the world. Most people never see what Shelly, April, Shelly #2, Carla, John, Martha, Jackie, Chelsea, Jake, Tony, Aaron, and everyone else I forgot to mention do. I am humbled to be your Pastor. Thank You!

Sunday Mind Dump

Not too bad of a day for most Real Lifers. For me, today was one of those days were everything was going wrong. Our Power Point person had a migrane and wasn't able to make it to church so I had to do that Power Point. The presentation was probably 80% correct. It's really tough to put one together on the fly when it's not really your thing!

• Finished the series today. I am pretty happy with how things turned out. We have had some breakthroughs and that is awesome to see.
• The music has steadily gotten better. We have two things the band is going to have to begin to address. First, dynamics. They need to build songs up and tear them down a little better. No complaint's here, it's just something that comes with musical maturity. The other thing is they need to do a better job leading people in worship as opposed to playing songs. Part of that comes with dynamics the other part is just knowing what to do and when to do it. If you are a worship leader or a worshiper you'll know what I am talking about
• Next week is Family Worship Experience. Talk about fun! I am going to work on Diaggios pizza....no promises though....they are great but a little pricey!
• Our next series is called iMarriage. It might very well be the most important series we have ever done. Get your friends and family there. IT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME~~
• Small group in 45 minutes! I love small groups!! Sad though we are going to take a little time off for the summer. Don't worry, we have a ton of other things going on. Trust me a ton!
• Looks like we are in go mode for a few events:

1. A church wide garage sale the weekend before Memorial Day. We'll run it from 9-3. We are going to do free food for anyone who comes out and just have a ball with it. Start boxing up your stuff now!
2. May 31'st we are going to do a guys only Texas Hold Em tournament. We have some great idea's for prizes. That is going to be a huge event. We have some plans for doing this again in the future and they are going to blow you away! I promise....and you can quote me on that!
3. We are planning a huge church picnic for this summer. Still a little fuzzy on the dates but it's going to be huge with live music and tons of great food. I know you all like food.

• Since there were no complaints voiced about the Tony Trezzo nomination for the leadership team his appointment will become official at the end of the month. Speak or forever hold your peace.
  
• On a personal note. I only have 29 more school days left. How awesome is that?
• My wife has been awesome lately. She is under quite a bit of stress trying to prepare herself for the other band tryout. She's taking it all well. And the keyboard playing sounds good too. She actually made the comment "I kinda like playing this thing" last night. I smiled.
  

The Beginning of the END!

I knew I'd hook ya with the title!

Ok, so this week we are closing out our series based on 6 of Jesus most famous miracles. As we are learning our obedience to what God is asking of us is a huge thing. We have found plenty of examples of God providing for his people upon their obedience.

I thought I would take a few minutes and lay out some of the things God is hitting me with.

1. I need to be more intentional about my personal growth as a Pastor and Leader. I run in stages where I get focused about growing but God is challenging me to spend more time regularly growing.
2. I need to be more intentional about my quiet time with Him. I've been pretty busy lately and God's been hitting me with the notion of I am leaning too much on my strengths, talents, and abilities and that I am not sold out enough to his. This is hitting me pretty hard right now and it's something I need to deal with, in that respect most people in ministry need to deal with on a regular basis.
3. I need to be more intentional about my alone time with my wife. It seems like we are always together and that is a good thing. The problem is much of what we do together is ministry related. We and by we I mean I, need to schedule more time where the phones are turned off and we are doing more couple stuff.
4. I need to be more intentional about forming better quality relationships with the people at church. I have a few close friends and I need to do a better job getting outside of that circle. Or better said, I need to expand that circle of friendships making more room for the awesome people God has brought into Real Life.

So that's me....what is God asking you to do at this point in your life?