I found out yesterday that a guy WRC has supported for the last couple of years has thrown in the towel. The church goes on and the people still gather. But the pastor has moved on.

Why is this frustrating? Pastors move all the time. One we didn’t learn about it until it was over. Two he evidently didn’t reach out to the closest people around him. Three he allowed himself to burn out without seeking any help. Fourth he is leaving the church with no apparent place to go.

Guys, if you are burning out, then seek counsel, find someone that will give you some rest. Don’t walk the road alone. We can’t afford spiritual casualties. We lose too many good men. We want to help. If you are struggling please do not be afraid to give us a call.

I did it. I hated to do it, but I joined facebook. Someone sent me a message that they had pictures of me tagged on facebook and being the vain person I am I wanted to see them. But I couldn’t because I wasn’t a member.

The interesting part was having to scroll down all those numbers everytime they asked me about a date. My birthdate appeared to be in the stone ages, my h.s. graduation was during the middle ages, and college/seminary brought me up to the civil war at least.

There are blessings and curses to what I do. I get to work with some of the brightest, most talented young men in the ministry world today. I always say that keeps me young. But…every time I try to keep up with their technology I am reminded of how old I am and am reminded that at one time I could use a slide rule. (I bet most of you have no idea what that is.)

They say with age comes wisdom (or senility). I’ll let others decide which of these is true of me.

How do you follow up a weekend like last weekend? Plan bigger and better? Go large? Invite the world into our world? Or do you allow God to give the increase and allow God to bring the partners?

It would be easy to start focusing on next year. But the community is here today. There are needs today that will not wait until next year. It can be very tempting to be a church that grows from event to event. But we need to grow from Sunday to Sunday. The work on Monday must match the message on Sunday.

Do we want to grow bigger? Absolutely! But…we also want to become a church and servant community that will 1. work with our sister churches daily, 2. serve our community daily, and 3. make Jesus famous all the time, not just in July. Taking the battle to the devil not waiting for him to come knocking. We want to be on the offensive, not be offensive.

I am going to guess conservativley: 5000!

What a service! I moved to Paulding County in 1990. Started a small country church in 1991 that launched the first Sunday of 1992. As I researched I discovered that only 4 counties in Georgia had a lower percentage of people attending church than Paulding. I began to pray about Paulding. God please bring some pastors that want to impact a community not just play church. 

Last night there were almost as many people on the parking lot at SAM’S as there were attending church in Paulding in 1991! In 1996 7% of the population of Paulding attended church, in 2008 11% now attend church. Community Transformation, Church Planting, and a Passion for People driven by the Grace of Jesus Christ have made a huge impact.

Brian said it well last night, something about making it difficult for anyone not to know about Jesus Christ. I like the way my friend Tommy Duke in Pittsburgh says it, “making it hard to go to hell from Pittsburgh!” Jesus said, “I will build MY church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Last night 8 churches went knocking on the door. We are in the battle. Next year 15% in church, 7000 in worship and 15 churches and 5000 serving the community. To know and make Jesus famous in Paulding and Atlanta.

about 250 projects – over 3000 volunteers – worship 5000? (worship is Sunday evening so we don’t know the numbers)

This is what being the church is about. 8 churches in our area are partnering to conduct the first Community Makeover. African-American churches, white churches, charasmatic churches, baptist churches, methodist churches, modern churches, traditional churches. All part of “the body.” Different parts, different functions, all working together for a healthy, growing body. All in the name of Jesus.

That last part is important. If you don’t add the name of Jesus you are doing social work not social gospel. Gospel = Good News, Good News Paulding County, God loves you and the church with all it’s expressions intends to prove it to you this weekend.

Are we having fun yet?

This summer has passed way to quickly. The new year of CP classes is beginning in a couple of weeks and I’m behind. You’ve heard the old saying, “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.” Well that’s me the last couple of weeks.

Looks like a good bunch of guys attending the class this year. Can’t wait to see what God will do this year.

I hope I haven’t lost my vast following.

It is good to be home. Baltimore is a great city! Ellis and Ginger and the team are working hard in a hard city to break into. But people recognized our blue shirts everywhere we went or they were asking questions.

A few years you couldn’t get anyone to move into the city. Church Planters wanted to go where the money was. Now the cities are hot. It’s about time. Church after church and denomination after denomination has abandoned the city. Let’s trust that God is raising up an army to retake the city. It is there where America will experience a renewal not in the burbs. (now I’m a prophet)

Good to be home in the burbs. I know I’m hypocritical. A few years ago Tanya and I prayed about moving into the city. The call and the opportunity just never presented itself. I learned a long time ago, be where God plants you, He’ll take care of the ministry for you. Anyway we will soon be working with 3 churches in downtown areas. Looking forward to that new challenge.

Leading a small team up to Baltimore (Gallery Church, Baltimore) for the week. Leaving Saturday. We’ll be doing some community service type work, prayer walking, and hanging out and meeting people. Matt Evans’ youth, Rockbridge Church in Dalton, went up earlier this summer and made over 2000 contacts in one week.

Ellis and Ginger are already making an impact. The service of the youth teams were written up in the Baltimore Sun on July 4. Advertising campaign underway across the city: Together: What if we decided that everyone matters?

That’s a good question. The VAST majority of our churches have left the city. I think truthfully we wish the problems of the city would disappear. That won’t happen apart from life change, and Jesus brings life change. If we want to change the city then we must pray for others like Ellis and Ginger who will be called to reach our cities. Too many of our acitivities in the cities turn into social services (not bad) and fail to present the gospel. Cities will change when people change, people will change when their hearts are changed. Jesus is in the business of changing hearts. Pray for us this week as we travel and pray that God uses us to impact someone’s life with the good news of Jesus.

I am probably going to show my ignorance but I don’t know what “spam” stands for. But here is what I have decided:

Stupid Pitiful Attempts (at) Marketing. Who falls for this stuff? It is such a nuisance. Some gets through the filter no matter what I do.

Just an encouragement. When you do marketing, however you do marketing, make sure it is “SEE” worthy. Don’t put out some lame, half baked idea just to have your name out there. It is embarrassing to the church and to God. I think the Bible says, “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord.” Would you give the Lord junk? Then don’t advertise God’s ideas, plans, with junk.

This afternoon I’m in a meeting and the phone rings and it is someone important so I excuse myself and answer the call. Well I hear my friend in line at what sounded like a movie theater, amusement park, shopping center check out cashier, or something. I yelled out his name but I didn’t get a response. That has happened to me a few times. One time was fairly late in the evening for me and I called back because I wondered if my friend was in trouble.

Anyway this is one of those little pet peeves that I have with technology. I hate accidental calls. I don’t know whether to call the person back and confirm that the call was a mistake or whether to let it go. Most of the time now I let it go, but what if someone was having a legitimate emergency? I finally learned how to lock the keyboard on my phone so I don’t call others accidentally.

So, no church planting lesson today. Just a shout out: Lock your phone.