One Month is Rolling

Hey! One Month to Live is rolling! We're giving folks one more opportunity to connect to a group tomorrow at 1st Wednesday. If you're a group host and want some more people in your group, come on and get some! Be here at 6:30pm. In the past few weeks we've gone from about 75 groups to 120 groups. Now that is incredible growth! I am, however, taking a "wait and see" attitude because it will take a couple of weeks to see who is really serious about this hosting thing and who was just kidding and signed up cause it made 'em feel better. So, in a couple of weeks I hope to report to you that we have 120+ groups who are engaged in the ONE MONTH challenge. We'll see.

Hey...it's not too late to start hosting. Come by the LifeGroup table, get a free kit, invite friends, play the dvd, eat chips, love Jesus. Pretty simple.

april fools

From cnn.com. The top ten april fools office pranks.

1. Placed a pair of pants and shoes inside the only toilet stall in a men's room to make it appear someone was using the stall. It sat there for hours until someone called security to check if the person had died.

2. Sent a fake love note to a co-worker from another co-worker.

3. All the women in office individually spoke to the president, confiding that she is pregnant. By noon, he 'knew' that all of his female workers were pregnant and he could not tell anyone because each asked for confidentially.

4. Called the electric company, used a co-worker's name and told them he was moving so the electricity got turned off at the co-worker's house.

5. Filled the vending soda machine with cans of beer.

6. Rigged the boss' chair to drop suddenly during a staff meeting.

7. Placed a sign on the restroom door that read, "The company ran out of toilet tissue; please use your own resources."

8. Paged a co-worker over the loud speaker claiming the CEO was looking for him. The worker went into the CEOs office and the CEO didn't know who he was or why he was there.

9. Shrink-wrapped everything in a co-worker's cubicle.

10. Put a 'house for sale' ad in the newspaper regarding a co-worker's home.

Easter

Here's some thoughts about yesterday....
1. Over 5000 attended one of 4 campuses of Highlands.
2. The new Marion campus launched yesterday with over 300 in attendance. That pretty much means two per seat! :-)
3. Our volunteers stepped up big yesterday. We had tons of new faces in First Impressions. We had tons of veterans pulling double and triple shifts. Way to go!!!!!
4. The band was particularly good yesterday. They're playing heavier which I like since I'm a death metal fan at heart.
5. Had a great ribeye yesterday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Yes, a cow did die to make the celebration possible. But Jesus lives!!!!!
6. I had a volunteer come up to me yesterday who said..."I finally figured out what I'm supposed to be doing! I love greeting." That was a cool deal.
7. We had a bunch of people come to christ yesterday. I'll have some figures soon...there were two that I know of personally. What a priviledge to get to talk to them yesterday....
8. We had a bishop from kenya visiting highlands yesterday. I met him in the restroom. Jambo!

Well that's enough for right now. We're looking forward to our LifeGroup orientation and connection tomorrow starting at 6pm. Hope you'll be there to here what's cooking.

Conference Possibilities

Recently, I got the chance to attend Saddleback’s small group conference in Orange County and NewSpring’s Unleash in Anderson County. :-) Several times now, I’ve had opportunities to share things that I’ve learned at both those unique moves of God. I loved each experience and learned a bunch. Conferences are designed to mess up your thinking…to throw you off balance…in a good way. I’m going to share a series of posts on how we can put a conference in the proper context so that we maximize their benefit.

Everybody says at a conference… “Don’t go back and copy everything we do,” and yet people will go back and do one of two things. They will either go back and copy everything or fail to leverage the momentum that the conference gives. You go to a conference to glean from the corners of another man’s field. Instead, many folks try to dig up and bring back the soil only to find that the container they brought to hold the wheat won’t hold the dirt. That soil has been fertilized, tilled, planted, watered, and weeded. For us to assume that we can have the same crop without the same toil is folly. On the flip side, a conference exposes you to the white, hot passion of people who are on the same ultimate mission that you are. Why not capitalize on the momentum that an experience like that can create? What you are doing then is saying, “What if…” which is about the most powerful phrase in Christendom. Conferences allow us to see possibilities that before now have gone unseen and that is a good thing. What are some possibilities you’ve seen from the conference you attended?

Part two coming…

Unleash was great!

Props to Perry Noble and the team at NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina for an incredible conference. Our team from Highlands had a great time and learned a ton. Here's a couple of things I was impressed with...
1. The energy of the volunteers. What an incredible first and lasting impression!
2. The Awake Cafe. I love legal stimulants.
3. The organization. Everyone is moving in one direction...
4. Great breakouts with Sherry Moorhead (volunteers) and Michael Brown (small groups).
5. Worship experience. What happened musically, emotionally, and spiritually on the song "hosanna" is a watermark in my journey.
4. Perry Noble...bringing the deep, deep hooks.

It was great fun to eat wings with my team at the best restaurant in the world. Wild Wing!

One Month to Live is Coming!

I'm looking forward to launching our new campaign called One Month to Live. It's going to be challenging and exciting. We have incredible LifeGroup Leaders here and I'm sure that this challenge is going to be faced head on. Our goal is 250 total LifeGroups. That would represent 2500 people in a group and would be more people in a small group than attend our weekend worship experiences. That is a God-sized goal. To reach that goal we need everyone's help! Imagine what would happen if all the folks in groups now were released to HOST their own group. I know that would push many folks outside their comfort zone. Guess what? We haven't been called to be comfortable but to reach the world! Hosting is simple. Simply put, it is Have a heart for people, Open your home, Serve a snack, and Turn on the dvd player. That's it! These HOSTs would go out and invite friends, neighbors, and family to their home for a six week study. HOSTing is easy. We hope that you will partner will us to see our region in a LifeGroup!

Three acronyms from Saddleback

Here's some more learning from the Saddleback small group conference.

From Leonard Sweet:
Sucessful enterprises have the following characteristics...

E - Experiential
P - Participatory
I - Image Rich
C - Connective

From Leonard Sweet:
The original intention of the church...

M - Missional
R - Relational
I - Incarnational

From Josh Surrat:
The tool seacoast uses to provide guidance across 14 campuses...

I - Initial (things you've got to have in place before you start)
P - Priorty (things you've got to get done in the next 6 months to year)
0 - Optional (things that you have freedom to do on your own)
D - Discouraged (things you shouldn't do)

Pretty Good Stuff

Saddleback Wrap Up

My first trip to Southern California was awesome! Here are my top five six experiences in no particular order.

1. Driving with sun roof open down the pacific coast highway radio blaring.
2. Steve Gladen's description of the 18 families in his neighborhood. Convicting.
3. Sherwood Carthen talking about the power of the Holy Spirit.
4. The 10 minutes I spent talking with Josh Surrat from Sea Coast Church.
5. Eating coconut encrusted mahi mahi at King's Fish House with my friend Brian Conner.
6. Seeing the Rockies from 32,000ft.

Saddleback Day Three

Well I'm back home now and I'm still reflecting over the events of the past few days. I didn't want to leave out day three of the Saddleback conference. It was great! We heard from Leonard Sweet, author of Soul Tsunami and The Gospel According to Starbucks. Steve Gladen interviewed him and I learned quite a bit. Here’s some highlights.

1. Steve asked him about the decorations in his home which were obviously on the antique side and the fact that he connects with culture so well and he said, “you get to choose your furniture not your culture.”
2. He talked about how he has a hard time releasing a book to be published because he is constantly making adjustments and that our lives are a draft (That really doesn’t do what he said justice).
3. He talked about the EPIC challenge of the Church. He said that any successful enterprise is “ EPIC”.

Experiential
Participatory
Image Rich
Connective
4. Steve asked him about the current state of the church and Leonard responded that the church is returning to its original programming which is Missional, Relational, and Incarnational.
5. Starbuck coffee is $40 a gallon. Starbuck is an EPIC enterprise.
6. Worship should be connected to mission.
7. The more high tech we get, the more high touch we need to get.
8. He said that Christianity is about the destination AND the journey.
9. He has a new book coming out that asked the basic question, “who do you have with you.” In it, he says that everyone needs a timothy, a paul, a barnabus, etc…
10. “Jesus had 3 years to build a ministry and what did he do? Did he build a mega church? No, He developed a small group.”
11. Sanctuary is not a safe place from risks but a safe place to take risks.
12. He used this phrase, “mind marinated in the word.”
13. “If I don’t want to talk to someone on a plane I read my bible.” Ouch. Here he was talking about evangelism in our post modern, post Christian society. He said that our chief responsibility is not ‘tell and show” but “shut up and listen”. We are to discern where God is already working in their lives and help them be made aware.
14. “Christians hate cloning but we are the biggest clone makers in the world. As we become more like Christ we should become more unique.”
15. “Jesus didn’t come to make a difference he came to make a different world.”

Nick Vujicic spoke at the end of the conference. He is a powerful speaker with a great testimony of how God uses people for His glory. Here’s a couple of quotes…

“How does a man without arms and legs become the hands and feet of God?”

“If the world says you’re not good enough…get a second opinion!”

“Without arms and legs I can fit through cracks that you cannot.”

“It takes time to see God’s glory.”

He said that we should pray for miracles but continue to serve our circumstances.

I don't behave at conferences

I like going to conferences and wish I could go to more but I’m learning this week that I don’t behave at conferences. For instance…I know it’s a small group conference and I should be more relational. When the conference speaker says “turn to your neighbor and talk about your situation,” I cringe a little. I want to know what the speaker has to say. I struggle to connect with complete strangers even though most people think of me as an extreme extrovert. It’s a flaw. I do like talking to people in groups and one-on-one but more naturally and out of a genuine concern to know that person or learn from them. I wonder if other folks (including Highlanders at home) pushback a little when community is forced. It did seem that folks enjoyed talking to one another (and so did I) when we were directed to. Maybe it’s just an edge for personal growth. I know that I connect deeply to God when I hear a powerful speaker and wish that I could hear more from the conference speakers but at the same time I long for more nuts and bolts from speakers like Rick Warren, Steve Gladden and others. Do you suppose I could just follow them around for my own personal conference? I’ve been really surprised at the completely different levels that people are at when it comes to small groups. You’d think that by attending a small groups conference at Saddleback you’d buy in to purpose driven groups. I talked with a guy yesterday who said that many of the people in his church and denomination would think small groups were a sin. Now can you imagine designing a conference for such a wide spectrum of people? I’m wanting small groups 2.0 and many are just learning what purpose driven and small groups are all about. I will say this…I am learning a ton. I talked with josh surrat from sea coast church today about multi-site strategy for groups and that was helpful. I’d love to hear more from him. Listened to Dave whitten talk about campaign strategy (Again, he spent a lot of time in convincing and I’m already convinced so I want more). I met with Steve Gladen and others at lunch today about networking. I’ve never been all that interested in networking but my interest is growing. I met a couple of neat people from Georgia. One girl from Destiny Church. I learned some good stuff from her about coaching. All in all a good experience. The design of things at conferences seems to be Macro from the plenary speakers and micro from the breakouts. I wonder if it would be possible to design a conference that is backwards. At least at the beginning of the conference say, “all the people that don’t know what a small group is, follow fred into the basement. There you will receive your first dose of the kool aide. For the rest of you, sit back and listen as Steve Gladen explains exactly what you should do to get your small groups out of the hole you put them in.” I guess that is a little ego centric.

Saddleback Day Two

Ok. Day two. I’m learning a ton. Sherwood Carthen brought it on day two. He is chaplain for the Sacramento Kings and leads a church in that area. Powerful stuff. I can’t even describe the passion that flowed from the guy. Here’s some highlights…

1. He started off by making fun of every denomination. How many (fill in your favorite denomination) does it take to change a light bulb? Hilarious.
2. 2 peter 3.9 God is patient…that none should perish. He’s waiting on us to get our act together.
3. He spoke on the proper response for a difference maker from Jude 20-23.
4. Said that 75% of people going to church are declining or are in a critical moment.
5. A difference maker is someone who changes the destination of another.
6. What is your defining moment?
7. We spend a lot of time trying to convince people how good we are when we should spend our time telling people how God rescued us. “If God did it for me, he can do it for you.”
8. Programs without passion and the love of God won’t change anything.
9. We must get to a point where we realize that a soul means something to God.
10. You can think of two or three people right now that you don’t care if they go to heaven or not.
11. Difference makers bank on God’s power.
12. It’s not elbow grease, it’s God’s power.
13. If God is not empowering your ministry your just doing stuff.
14. Acts 1.8 He gives us power to stand on the witness stand and testify not become a lawyer and argue.
15. Everyday is orchestrated by God all we have to do is live.
16. Glean from steve’s (gladen) field but realize that unless God builds the house those that labor, labor in vain.
17. When you get ready to go big you’ve got to go deep.
18. People in this world don’t need perfect people, they need delivered people.
19. Difference makers don’t say “we don’t have time.” Wow. Others have planted. Reap the harvest.
20. Difference makers don’t say “it can’t happen” or “it’s impossible.”

Sat in with Dave whitten to hear about campaign strategy. Evidently, lots of other people wanted to know about campaigns as well. I knew a little about campaigns. Here’s a couple of things that were new.
1. Saddleback asks existing groups to stop meeting during campaigns. I think this is a good strategy but I wonder how they keep up with reforming groups, new groups etc. I would imagine there are a lot of Saddleback groups that exist but are not tethered to the mother ship because they have disbanded, reformed and nobody knows about it. This happens at Highlands a lot. Campaigns generate lots of groups and the growth outstrips our structure every time. I think that is the reason we return to a baseline number of groups. Saddleback is providing more post campaign care. We’ve got to figure that out or we’ll be right back here in the same spot next year.
2. Connections are important but to achieve 110% participation you’ve got to place the burden for inviting new people on the host. This is a great idea. One guy asked “well what happens to people who don’t get invited?” The answer went right back to the old standby…we create a list of groups, put it on the web, etc. Boy, I’ve been down that road. Creating a list of any kind is not the solution (in my opinion). You’ve either got a list of groups which makes attending group awkward and places too much responsibility on the guest, or, you have a list of guest and that places too much burden on the staff. It also creates a list of people who are having a negative experience while they are unconnected. Our solution is to have the connections, explain to hosts that they probably won’t get a full group at the connection and send them out with instructions to fill their group. There is no list, anywhere. If someone wants to get in a group, they come to the connection or are invited by a host. Period. I think this is the best way for us right now. I think with the combination of hosts inviting and connections we can reach 110%.
3. Clear the Calendar. This is a good idea. Every ministry clears their calendar for a campaign. I wish I had known this little piece of info about 3 months ago. We need to plan campaigns earlier out so that we can give ministries leaders margin. At this point, shutting stuff down will cause fires but in the future we can give people more lead time.

Saddleback Day One

Reflections from Wired Small Groups Conference Day One.

1. Russ Lee is leading in worship taking me back to the old NewSong days.
2. Steve Gladen led sessions today on the 5 purposes and their relationship to groups. It was fairly introductory and I was a little disappointed. I went to supper with a guy from Murfeesboro, TN and after talking with him about his situation, I realized why Steve was so basic in his material. Many folks are dealing with traditional mindsets and lay people who do not get it. Everyone deals with that stuff from time to time but I felt really bad for this guy’s situation.
3. Steve used a polling device that I thought was cool. Everyone was given a device that looked like a small calculator to respond to questions about small group experiences and general information. Instantly the results were posted on the screen so that Steve could see info like who had small groups versus Sunday school.
4. Stuff Steve said…
a. Spend 80% of your time talking with new group leaders and leaders who are quick to adopt change. Spend 20% of your time talking to veteran leaders and late adopters.
b. Everyone has a spiritual next step.
c. Specialty groups spend 80% of their time on one purpose. These include serving groups, missions groups etc. Small groups are balanced in the 5 purposes. We should strive to have folks participating in both kinds of groups.
d. “How dumb were the Israelites? I’m just like them.”
e. He said that a previous church a deacon came forward to take the offering and was asked to pray over the offering. The deacon said, “God, thank you for this food…”
f. This quote from a girl in a video clip… “ I wanted to be closer to God but I realized I couldn’t be closer to God unless I believed in his Son, Jesus Christ.” Powerful.
g. “EGR” refers to people who require extra grace. Saddleback calls these kinds of people “heavenly sandpaper.” Funny.
h. Nobody gets into a spiritual hole with a backhoe. It’s usually with a spoon.
i. Everybody knows the 80/20 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. We must teach the 20% to say “no” so that responsibility if reflected onto the 80%.
j. We launch groups for life.
5. Rick Warren led session two.
a. Said he was watching foo fighters last night and realized that the 11am drummer is in the foo fighters. Cool.
b. In typical fashion, he threw out his message and decided not to talk about the conference subject.
c. Began by saying that he was burdened by Willow Creek “Revealed” study and the alarming number of pastors who have “flamed out” or “burned out.”
d. Spent a good bit of time talking about how Willow and Saddleback are different and that the results of the study made him sad because they showed that Willow lacked maturity and that could have been avoided.
e. He explained how easy it is to make a process of maturity and that’s what should have happened.
f. Direct quote, “Saddleback is the most spiritually mature church in America. There’s not a church in America with the spiritual depth that we have.”
g. Too much focus has been placed on the front end. It is not all about the weekend. It’s about the process.
h. Gave statistics on how many are in group, how many do quiet time, how many tithe, how many have gone on missions trip, etc. “What you measure is what you succeed in.”
i. “I can teach you how to have a spiritually mature church.”
j. 8 laws of spiritual growth…Spiritual growth is…
i. intentional (growth by making commitments)
ii. incremental (“not 3, not 4, not 6, there are 5 purposes)(the starting point for discipleship is “come and see” the ending point is “eat my flesh and drink my blood.”
iii. Personal
iv. Habitual
v. Relational
vi. Multi-dimensional
vii. Seasonal (growth in summer and spring, dormant in fall and winter) (too fast growth is swelling. Growth other than conversion growth is no good. Church goers are attracted by coolness. They’d rather be cool than effective.) “Have you noticed God likes to bless people you disagree with?” Yes, I have. ☺ Growth through campaigns was stressed. (people don’t come to groups for relationships, they come for content. They go for content and stay for relationships).
viii. Incarnational - We shouldn’t strive to be more like Jesus but for Jesus to live in us.

Traveling Day Reflections

Here’s some reflections from yesterday. I traveled from Abingdon, Virginia to Lake Forest, California.

1. Airports are boring places but great for people watching.
2. My arrangements were made by becky and she did an incredible job.
3. I’m amazed at the streamlined processes that exist in an airport. Great signage, short waits, easy.
4. The airplane ride from tri-cities to Atlanta was rough. I thought I might lose my lunch. The lady in front of me almost passed out.
5. The ride from Atlanta to Orange County was pretty smooth. All the seats had tvs. Between my new book and the food network, the trip went by pretty fast.
6. After dark you can’t tell if the plane is descending or ascending. With no visual reference up can’t tell up from down.
7. I don’t think I will ever get over being at 38,000 feet. My son thought that was way cool.
8. It still is bizarre that I’m in California. I traveled over 2000 miles in less than 7 hours.
9. Looking forward to seeing my sister tomorrow night!

small groups conference

I'm looking forward to the Saddleback small group conference next week. It will be my first trip to the west coast. I'm sure there will be lots to learn. Steve Gladen is the groups guy at Saddleback. They have about 3000 groups. That's pretty good. More in groups than in attendance. Truthfully, I'm still being sold on the idea of campaigns. Campaigns are a way of getting people into small groups. You set the bar pretty low for leadership and try to start as many groups as possible then when the dust clears you see who sticks. Early on in my small group journey I found this method pretty attractive and tried to sell the idea to the leadership of my church at that time, NewSpring but we went for another model and it worked pretty good for that season. Since coming to Highlands I've been trying to tweak a plan that includes the best of both models. I've been curious to see the campaign plan working at Saddleback and to see how they manage so many groups and keep up with who is sticking and who is ditching. Anyway, My sister lives about 45 minutes from Saddleback so I'm looking forward to seeing her and my neice. I usually see them about once a year. I leave on the 19th.

connection speed

We had a great connection last week at Highlands. Lots of people got connected into a LifeGroup. Lots of those people have never been in a LifeGroup so it was interesting to see how they reacted at the event. Something pretty cool happened just yesterday. We've been looking for a LifeGroup Coordinator in Johnson City who could help us with LifeGroup "on-ramps" and group health and we've found a great couple who have a heart for this. At a meeting with all the campus coordinators I asked them to give me a list of FAQ that new group leaders might ask. The new couple helping with groups in JC haven't had as much experience with small group ministry as some, so I was interested to see what kind of questions they came up with. There questions came in yesterday and I was blown away. I talk about easy on-ramps for leaders and guests into the ministry but my "easy" is not the same as a new leader's "easy". What I learned from our new coordinators is that we assume too much! We must simplify our message, take out small group jargon, and break this up into bite-sized pieces. So, we are looking at creating training opportunities that focus on taking leaders to their next level, removing confusing language and not assuming anything!

Thank you for too much.

I'm watching my little girl eat a happy meal right now. Her mom just gave her some ketchup and she said, "Thank you for too much." She likes a lot of ketchup. That's really my attitude toward God right now. I've got lots of things on my plate that take lots of time, I've had a bad hot water heater this week, a bad car battery, and lots of other incidentals. But, I'm so so blessed. God has given me so many good things. What a family! What a job! What incredible people to work with and for! I say, "Thank you for too much!"

Network News

When I came on staff here at Highlands, our executive pastor told me about a networking opportunity with area pastors but I was, frankly, uninterested. “I’ve got so much to do, there’s just so many hours in the day, etc.” Later, I went back to him and said “hey, I think I’ll reconsider that, perhaps I might would like to connect to learn and share. Except for answering a couple of emails, I haven’t done a thing with this though. Just this week I received an email from a nice lady on staff at Saddleback inviting me to a meeting of “regional point persons” while I’m out at the small group conference later this February. Related to that, I’m reading a book right now called “Never Eat Alone” by Ferrazzi on the importance of building relationships to help accomplish goals. So, my thinking is that events are conspiring to help me learn how to build relationships for growth. I’m open to it. I have no idea what I’m doing yet but I think I’ll start by just trying to help people in this region and go from there.

The Door

I've been reading a great book lately called the Bible. It's probably the best book I've ever read. Ha! Anyway, i was reading in Genesis 6 about the flood and I read the words "make a door". Isn't God amazing. When there is judgment there is always a way of escape. I'm so glad that has been true in my life.

kickoff party

I'm real excited about our Kickoff Party for LifeGroups this Thursday night. All three campuses! It's going to be a blast. I hope you can make it. 7pm. Come get in a small group!

Winter stinks

Ok. I admit that at one point this summer, I was looking forward to getting some snow. But now I can't wait for spring. I'm not used to having actual seasons. In SC there is about 4 weeks of ice, then its in the 70s for about 2 weeks, then, its in the 90s the rest of the year. Well, that may be a little bit of an exaggeration. Well this is Virginia and it seems that it has been snowing for 2 months straight. No accumulation to speak of. Just cold, snow, sleet, ice, grey and nasty. Where are you Spring?

New Volunteer Process

I'm excited about the new volunteer process that we are rolling out this week. I’m sure we’ll have some tweaks to make in the next couple of weeks but overall I think we’re ready. Basically, we want to make it as easy as possible for someone to become a volunteer at Highlands. That means we are ramping up Volunteer Central as the hub for our volunteer activities. Now, at first, this will impact our First Impressions ministry the most, but eventually, I’d like to see all of our Sunday teams enjoying the benefits of this volunteer hub. We are going to make the area a little bit more visible to passers by so that they are drawn into what we are doing. We are staffing VC with more volunteers to show the love to our dedicated volunteers. Our Volunteer Central Hosts will be welcoming new volunteers, training, and equipping them to serve right there in Volunteer Central. We are attempting to make a seamless process from start to serve. We are moving some people into key spots to make this happen. We are moving furniture. We are upping the stakes. We want folks to experience the joy of serving Jesus!

Change is Hard

Change is hard for everyone. We create patterns and habits in our lives and those patterns and habits are comforting in an ever-changing world. No matter how visionary you are, you desire sameness in some area of your life, whether its that evening cup of coffee or that specialized routine that you go through every morning (alarm, toilet, shower, deodorant, shave, teeth, contact lenses, clothes, kiss the wife, out the door). God has built some of us to enjoy and generate change more than others and that is where most all the tension exists in an organism like the church. Since it is a living thing, it is growing and changing constantly and when that process stops, decay and death begin. However uncomfortable change is, it is the avenue for growth. Can you imagine how uncomfortable it must be for a crustacean to shed its exoskeleton? They are getting rid of their house! For a time, they are vulnerable and defensive. Just as the crustacean must shed its exoskeleton to make room for new growth, we must put away old systems and processes and habits that keep us where we are, so that we can reach our potential.

Bitter Cold

Yea, I’m whining about the cold. Yes, I should have expected Virginia to be cold. I remember it being cold when I was a little boy. But oh my goodness! Single digits? You’ve got to be kidding me.

By the way, I’m journeying through the bible, and here is a powerful verse that I ran across this morning…
“Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door: it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

That’s pretty robust for a Monday morning…it goes right along with the cold☺

choices

Here’s a bit of a fascinating blog post by Tony Morgan on offering choices.

“In one experiment, they set up a tasting booth at a grocery store. They offered 24 different exotic flavors of jams for people to taste in one instance. In a separate instance, they only offered 6 varieties. Customers who stopped by the booth received a coupon for a dollar off the purchase of a jar. In this experiment:
More people stopped at the booth that offered more choices; however, folks tasted the same number of jams in both locations.
More importantly, 30% of the people with a choice of 6 jams actually purchased a jar. Only 3% of the people with a choice of 24 jams made a purchase. Fewer choices generated more purchases.”

He is offering this as a lesson in church programming but as I began to think about it over the last couple of days, it occurs to me that the implications of having so many options affects our personal lives as well. I think that as we lead ourselves well, we have to ask the question, “Are we spreading ourselves too thin.” I’m not really talking about work, although that certainly plays a big part of our lives. I was talking to a good friend about church the other day and he said that they were going to focus on Sunday experience, groups, and kids and that was it. That’s the hyper-focus we should all desire in our personal lives. Saying, “I’m going to focus on God, family, and work,” would keep a lot of us from over committing our lives and being ineffective. I talk to people all the time who say, “I’m going to volunteer at church when everything slows down.” When will that be? Learning to say “no” to good things in favor of the best things is a very hard thing. When we say “no” to those things, we have room to say “yes” to the right things.

Sunday Reflect

Another great Sunday at Highlands! We broke 3000 for the 3rd consecutive week. Amazing! Pastor Jimmie brought it yet again with a message on stewardship and tithing. We finished the day at the Abingdon location with all 4 classes offered. Pastor Jimmie taught 101, Pastor Bill 201, I taught 301, and Pastor Brian taught 401. We all had lots of help teaching. In 301, we had seven volunteers give testimonies while people were eating lunch. They all had these diverse experiences but in every case, you could see their passion for ministry and the desire to have new people on their team. I thought the testimonies were a great addition to the class. David Brightbill, who is an all-star volunteer leader in First Impressions, split the class up with me and did an outstanding job. I came away from yesterday so impressed by our volunteers and the job the do every Sunday. We really have a group of volunteers who “get it”.

Purpose Coaching

We’ve decided to take a little bit different approach to coaching in 2008. Well, really, it’s a very different approach to coaching in our LifeGroups. In the past, we’ve asked a coach to connect with 5 group leaders for support, encouragement, and accountability. We’ve found that it is insane to ask a coach to be an expert in all the things that a group leader needs in the course of their group leading experience. We want to empower coaches to lead group leaders and empower group leaders to lead the people of Highlands. With that in mind, we came up with this idea of Purpose Coaches. The basic concept is that coaches are becoming the purpose champions for our small group ministry. We’ve tasked each coach with a specific responsibility and they are becoming experts in that area. Now group leaders have an entire network of people they can call on when questions arise. For example, when a leader feels stuck in the area of discipleship, they will be calling the coach that deals with that area. When they are looking for a project in the community but are stuck, they will call the P.E.A.C.E. coach. We’re manning the bases, we’re allowing coaches to operate within their S.H.A.P.E. and we’re giving group leaders the resources they need to succeed. I’m hopeful. 2008 is going to be a great year for groups at Highlands.

Teaching my son

Last night I started reading to Jae out of the Message Bible. We started in Genesis. That’s a good place to start. Here’s what I consider the greatest stretching opportunity for me this year…How do I communicate the truth of God’s word to a seven year old? As we read and he asked questions I realized that the explanations I give adults for things won’t work for him. So… that got me thinking, maybe the explanations I give adults for things needs to be simpler: after all, we are to receive things of the kingdom like a child. We read Genesis 1-3 and I made a feeble attempt at explaining sin and separation from God. I plan to prepare better for my time with my son. He is the greatest discipleship opportunity and challenge that I have.

Here’s an example of how profound a child’s thinking is…how unbelievably profound. His mom is telling him the story of Gideon and how Gideon’s army was trimmed from thousands down to 300. She explained to him that God was on their side. His response was “so, really it was 301”. Now that is big time thinking from a seven year old. I’m so looking to see how I learn from Jae as Jae learns about God. Going to be fun.

Bible Journey

Bible Journey

Today begins a new walk through the bible for me. I’m going to be reading a chapter in the Old Testament, a chapter in the New Testament, one Psalm, and one Proverb each day until I’m done. I’m excited about chasing God this year, maybe more than ever. I feel that this will be another great year of learning. I want to be sensitive to his guidance and not rush this but squeeze a little juice out of each chapter. Should be fun. God is preparing my heart for something great… humbling me, making me teachable. I want to hear his voice clearly like never before. So…In the beginning…

301

This coming Sunday I'm getting a chance to teach our 301 class which is all about finding purpose and significance through ministry. It focuses on spiritual gifts (we all have one). Meanwhile, I'm chipping slowly away at an older book called "Training of the Twelve". This book is all about leadership development from the greatest leadership guru of all time...Jesus Christ. It’s all about the 12’s spiritual formation. As I read the book, it occurs to me that spiritual gifts are sometimes hidden and must be revealed or unleashed. I'm thinking of a sculptor who can look at a block of marble and see inside some incredible masterpiece but only through a painstaking process of chipping, sanding, grinding can that masterpiece be revealed. I’ve found that I haven’t always been open to that kind of shaping because it doesn’t always feel good to find out what you’re not good at or gifted in. Anyway, this Sunday should be fun. I’m hoping to learn a little bit more about myself and those I’m leading. Come if you can.

Sunday wrap up

It was a great day yesterday as we began our new series "What If". Pastor Jimmie brought an great message "What if we were devoted". He fired both barrels. What a challenging message!

We saw 3190 in attendance across the three campuses. Incredible!

Yesterday at the Abingdon campus, we began interviews with our LifeGroup coaches. This year is going to be a great year for newness and change. Our coaching structure is undergoing some positive change and growth. More on that soon. It is awesome to hear from our coaches the passion they have for people and God. That was fun.

What does your volunteer structure look like?