another politician, another preacher, another businessman/woman, another and another and another. We are sinners at heart. We fail. We suffer the consequences of our sin and failure. Don’t offer that we all need forgiveness and should not be disciplined for our misdeeds. When you prove that you have learned from your failure, have sought repentance (and one day is not enough for most) and show genuine sorrow for your broken relationship with God, then we’ll talk restoration. But I won’t vote for you, rehire you, or protect you from your sin. I expect you to hold me accountable also.

Is that harsh? Then don’t ever discipline or punish your children again and see how that works for you. The scripture says that like a good father, “God disciplines those He loves.” No discipline, no love. Thank you Father that you don’t let me destroy myself. Help me see your discpline and change before you force me to.

And btw that “Who are you to judge?” Read all of scripture. Paul says the Spirit-filled man (or woman) “appraises all things.” I don’t judge anyone’s salvation, that is God’s job. I sure appraise behavior though, as do you each time you discipline your children.

I am tired! No complaints, I have a job. A great job. But the last month has been way beyond a lot to do. I still have a bunch to do before I take vacation next week. I can’t imagine the stuff that will need to be done upon return. That’s the reason I have a hard time taking a vacation. Plus we’re just hanging around town. Real vacation in August.

What are you doing this summer to refresh, renew, replenish, or re anything else? For a lot of folks that is a most difficult task. I was raised up to believe that “real men” work all the time to support the family. You don’t take time off or someone may step in and take your job.

“Real Men” that don’t want to burn out take time off. You need it, your wife and children need it, and your church needs it. If you are afraid that the church will fall apart when you leave, then there is something seriously wrong with the church. I think sometimes the real fear for pastors is that they may discover the church continues without them.

Set up systems – Take time off – Come back ready to take the mountain. It’ll be there when you get back.

staying accountable: ww weigh in Saturday up .6 pounds. not so bad after a week at camp and a week not being able to exercise because of my stupidity in the sun. back on points today.

Great commissioning service for church planters yesterday. West Ridge Church has a great legacy in church planting. Partners with 47 churches around the world. And if everyone makes it off the ground this fall and winter we’ll have that many domestic church partners.

NEW CLASS FORMING FOR AUGUST – DECEMBER 2009. If you know of someone in the metropolitan Atlanta area looking to plant a church and they want some training and coaching through launch this is a great place to start. Tell them to email me at jima@westridge.com. They can also find information on the WRC website: www.westridge.com.

 Partnering with Michael Lukaszewski @ Oakleaf Church, (who according to his website is going to have a church in every municipality in America ) for a coaching group for guys that have launched. LaunchandLead. WRC will coach through launch and Michael will coach you through leading the first years. A good foundation is essential. Studies indicate a guy that is being mentored or coached is almost 3 times as successful as one not getting coached. Don’t think you have all the answers, we have all the answers, but togeether I bet we can find most of them. See Oakleaf’s website for application to LaunchandLead for this fall. The group is almost full. Don’t hesitate.

Just completed a meeting with the staff at Revolution Church. Pray for Tim, Preston, Chad, Carol, Jennifer, Jenna, Thad, and Ricky. Good group of folks working under difficult conditions. They deserve your prayer and support. My sense is that they love Revolution. They love Canton. They love the original vision of Revolution and want to see the church move forward reaching those far from God.

I am trusting God that Satan will not gain victory in this situation and that Jesus will “build His church and the gates of hell will not prevail.” The church cannot lay down and die. Revolution will live and thrive. Let it be so, Jesus, let it be so.

The last Church Planting Class for this school year is this Saturday. The topics are Leadership and Impact Churches. Good stuff. Of course our staff will handle most of the teaching responsibilities but we do have a guest speaker. Anthony Murray, pastor of Oasis Family Church of Dallas, GA is speaking on leadership. Anthony is a young African American pastor that is knocking the ball out of the park weekly.

Oasis is averaging about 1200 in attendance each week after only 2.5 years of meeting. Anthony does this despite the fact that only about 8% of Paulding County is African American and that he meets in a  building that looks like a broken down factory. The inside looks great and they keep expanding but from the outside you’d never know it was a church. Phenomenal young leader. I look forward to hearing him.

We are inviting some of our old attendees to come this weekend to hear Anthony. Especially if you are an African American church planter you ought to make time to come and hear what Anthony has to say. Just let me know if you are attending so we can order lunch. Anthony will speak just before lunch. You don’t have to stay but you’re invited.

If everyone gets off the ground this year or in the winter of 2010 WRC will have partnered with 47 churches domestically and 6 internationally. 53 churches! Thank you Jesus. This week we will commission 12 more guys.

Sign-ups have begun for the fall class. Give me a call or contact me at jima@westridge.com.

I went to RUSH Camp last week as a small group leader for middle school. Which is cool I have always seemed to get along well with Middle Schoolers. The problem was it was at the beach. The beach is not my favorite place for a couple of reasons. One I look a little like a beached whale when lying in the sun with no shirt on. (still working on that)  Two I hate sand in my dwarws.

Well here’s the deal. I have not been to the beach in over 15 years. So, Tuesday I’m on the beach. Start feeling a little burn on my shoulders. I put on my shirt and covered my head and face with a hat and laid back down on the beach. STUPID! I fell asleep. Did I mention Stupid? Anyway my legs burned pretty badly. They hurt the first day, started to ooze the second day, and the third day they began to swell. My legs look like I’ve got leprosy and they’re still oozing and still swelling as the day progresses each day. The pain is pretty much gone.

I still hate the beach and now that includes pain and swelling. I will not be stupid next time, I hope.

Henry Blackaby says, “As a pastor, I always prayed and then went to talk with them (people having problems with the church). I had a responsibility to bring all members of our church into a deeper relationship with Christ. If I saw them not walking with Him, then I would risk everything to go and talk with them. And if they are Christians and they become offended, we will make up in heaven.”

Scripture says that “as far as you are able, be at peace with all men.” There are several different responses when you talk with people about issues. Obviously the best is for the people with issues to come together and deal with the problem and get it over with. Some people hold grudges and will never get over it, some people will hear you and walk away, then there are those who genuinely will hear and seek to be at peace. Relationships either build or destroy the church. I believe there is no in between. If your people are loving each other the church can move forward. But if people are gossiping, back-biting, or even just ignoring each other at best the church will stagnate.

When the church stagnates there may appear to be life. But in life, stagnation is death, spiritually, emotionally, physically. When you stagnate you are dead and you may not even know it because no one has pushed you over yet. The church is supposed to grow. Not from transfers but from leading others to Christ. It’s all about relationships. Lead people to healthy relationships, the church will grow.

And I love the conclusion that Dr. Blackaby makes, “if they become offended, we will make up in heaven.” You be at peace. You’ll sleep better.

I have an iphone. It is an amazing device when it works. But as my friend John says, “it’s a great gadget, a terrible phone.” Been having trouble for about a week with having the phone ring when it’s asleep. I look over and there’s a message. Finally googled solutions to my problem and one websites big solution was to use the button on the left and push it up. If you’ve had the phone for a while surely most people know that right?

Well not exactly. There were all kinds of responses exclaiming how that had fixed the problem, “if they had only known how easy it was.” Kinda “doh”.

I’ve reset all kinds of resets. Tried everything. But this thing is harder to wake up than a guy on a malt liquor drunk. Don’t ask.

I’m open to solutions. jima@westridge.com

Kinda like church planting sometimes. Someone must have the solution. If you’re not asking questions. You may never get the answers you need. Find a someone that’s been there done that and ask questions.

Never could be gangster.  Anyway.

What a way to begin the week. I had a call from the summer intern at one of our church plants where he had left a message on my phone Sunday evening. His truck had broken down and he needed a tow and a garage and…Unfortunately I didn’t get the message until Monday morning. Well I call this guy first thing. I had heard he was sick over the weekend but lots of people get sick, he’s young, I’ll check on Monday I tell myself. Anyway I call this guy and he’s been moved to a motel in Hiram (obviously not the Marriot or Hilton) because the Dr. on Friday told him he had the SWINE FLU. Well, I’m not the world’s most compassionate guy (didn’t somebody sing that?) but if I had known I would have at least left food at the door of his room. This poor kid has been through it this week. Trying to get him a Dr.’s appointment to confirm the Urgent Care Dr.’s diagnosis and find out when he is safe to be around people. It is hard to believe a Dr. will tell someone something like that and not even test. If his test is positive, I will call the CDC and report the Dr. She potentially exposed a lot of people to a dangerous disease. As of this morning he is feeling better, but the family he is staying with for the summer needs to know he’s okay.

On Saturday, my truck stopped. Beautiful day, decided to go for a ride. Needed to stay close to home because I was the MOC (minister on call) for the week. We rode about 4 hours. Stopped and looked at some property. Stopped and had dinner. Stopped at Walmart (where my truck automatically heads on weekends). Went back to truck and it was dead. Fortunately the car center was still open. They tested the battery. It was good, gave me a jump start, assumes it is the alternator. Sunday had to shuttle with my wife to church. Monday jump start, truck is at the shop. Good thing we did the Ramsey thing, don’t have to charge it. Not complaining but it would be nice to save the “baby step” money for more than one month at a time. Seems like every time we get ahead a little bit something happens. But we are able to stay away from the charge cards.

Great day at church yesterday. Pastor Brian threw a grenade over the bow of the ship, notifying everyone that WRC was going to be different and we would not tolerate some of the complaining, gossip, and other stuff that goes on around churches. I do think that has been one thing that has made WRC unique. From day one the leadership (Brian) has consistently challenged and confronted gossips, complainers, and naysayers. WRC has stuck to its purpose and has not been sidetracked by someone that is obviously not walking in the Spirit. Church planters and pastor here is a good lesson. Don’t let problems fester. A sore unattended in the body can kill you, same in the church. Put some salve on it, if it’s not healing up, then do the surgery and get rid of it, even if it is giving major dollars. The money is not worth the infection. And if you are reading this and you are the sore spot in some pastor’s life, do the cleansing yourself and go somewhere where you and the pastor are on the same page. Nuff said…   He who has ears to hear let him hear.

Good week.

And oh yeah…Happy Birthday to my wife, although she never reads the blog.

I believe that knowing who you are and how you function is one of the wisest things you can do for yourself. If you are managing people it also helps to know their strengths and the things that make them tick. We do a lot of testing at WRC to get to know one another, the people that lead us, and the people we lead.

I was reviewing the Strength Finders for myself this morning. My top five are Relator, Command, Ideation, Strategic, and Achiever. I don’t know whether that’s a good combination or what, but I do know it pretty much describes me. For instance as a Relator, I like deep friendships, it is very hard for me to deal with surface relationships and that makes me appear sometimes to be aloof. That part I need to work on. The Command in me says “you don’t mind forcing your opinion.” good and bad, have to work on presentation. Ideation, sometimes I can run ahead of people and on the other hand can get disappointed if you don’t like my idea. Strategic, “you can see more repercussions than others. Achiever, “you do not require much motivation from others.”

Anyway, that is me. Do you know who you are? Honestly? How others see you? How you see and relate to others? I encourage you to use a lot of tools. Here is some we have used, all can be found on line: Leading from Your Strengths. Strength Finder, Uniquely You. There are others. If you are honest with the test and with yourself most will give you an honest measure. If you try to think too much and choose the one that makes you look good in your own mind, you will screw up the results. “Know thyself,” some smart guy said that years ago. Still applies.