A great night at WRC last night. I think about 5 other churches participated in the prayer meeting. It is amazing to me how much we as pastors encourage others to pray, say we believe in prayer, and yet we don’t show up to pray. I think the attendance was almost double the first Engage Atlanta prayer meeting.

Prayer for our churhes, our county, cour country, and ourselves/families. Paul couldn’t find another “C”. He’ll never make it as an SBC “preacher” if he can’t alliterate better than that. I know some of those guys would have found a “C” word.

Yesterday was a good example of a failure of leadership in the House of Representatives. I don’t care which side of the issue you are on. A leader knows when to speak and knows when to be silent. Here is the Speaker of the House trying to muster votes on an issue she says will save the country from financial ruin and she makes a political speech. If you want to blame the President and who doesn’t these days she could have done it after the vote. That would have shown wisdom and political savvy. She just proved how inept she is at leading and understanding how to get your way without alienating others. Now on the other hand you had Republicans crying over the statements of an incompetent leader and sold the country down the river (assuming it was bad to vote for the bill, although they blamed the Speaker not the bill for their votes). I take no stand either way. I’m only talking about leadership.  

So Pastors and Church Planters here is the lesson in leadership today. Remember the old song, “You got to know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em.” Know when to speak, Know when to be silent. Silence is sometimes golden. It takes wisdom to know which you need to do. Pray before speaking, seek the wisdom of wise counselors, and sometimes boldly say nothing. But remember this our motto is not “in our IRA we trust.”

I am five days from marrying off my youngest daughter. It is feeling kinda weird. We moved all her furniture to North GA this past weekend. We’re (actually mom and daughter) are making the last minute purchases and completing details. Although I still have to write the wedding service. I’ve been delaying. I did send the Campus Minister at UGA an outline so he could be ready. Franklin is doing the intro, scripture, prayer and asking who is giving her away, that would be me and my wife. Then I’ll go on stage. The family is placing bets on whether I can get through it or not without breaking down. Anna was a little concerned about the vows and I told her “you know the usual, love, honor, and obey.” She was not amused at the obey part.

She is marrying a great guy. He has always been a gentleman and at least to us never complained about some pretty strict rules when it came to dating. They hung around each other in high school for more than a year before we would even let them watch a movie at the house. Here is a dating tip, it is not exactly original with me but here is my thoughts on curfews: My children never had a curfew when it came to dating. They had a time limit. Movie starts at 7, last until 9 home 9:30. Movie starts at 11:30 pick her up at 11:00 movie lasts 2 hours, be home by 2. It’s not the late hour that gets kids in trouble it is the length of unplanned time they have together. Also if he came and hung around at our house we didn’t give him a time limit either but we were ALWAYS up and walking through the room periodically. I remember several girls I dated whose parents would go to bed and leave us in a private room by ourselves. In my teens that was not a good idea.

Also I have to say they have done everything the right way. Waited, didn’t live together, got their education, got jobs. They dated almost 8 years it could have been a temptation to marry early.

Anna and Ray I am very proud of you. I look forward to the new addition to the family. Now we don’t have to rush around getting the junk out of the living room every time you come over!

I have come to despise home owners associations. I had some problems on the front of my house so instead of replacing with the same old stuff I put some nice decorative rock that matched my front porch, same color, same scheme. Other houses in my neighborhood have rock fronts or partial rock fronts, so it was not out of character with the neighborhood. Today I get a certified letter that the HOA was going to fine me because we didn’t ask permission. You know what these dummy’s (in private I use much stronger language, but don’t want to be sued) this gentleman has never made a house payment for me, he has never volunteered to paint or repair the front of my home. All he does is sneak around in the dead of night and send nasty letters to home owners. He is a coward by not at least knocking on my door.

My second is the contractors I have working on my house. The major work was done two weeks ago, but there is one strip and all of his equipment still in the driveway (take that HOA, I hope that bugs you), ten minutes and he is finished. Haven’t seen him in 10 days.

There are others but these are bugging me today. I’ll gripe more later.

Here’s my lesson, it doesn’t do me a bit of good to gripe and complain. I don’t go to HOA meetings I know I should get to know the “gentleman.” I didn’t complain to the contractor, he’s an acquaintance. Quit being a wimp, Jim. Do something.

Brian and I were on kinda the same wave length today.

I have been having breakfast or lunch with a guy almost once a month for the last 8 years. We’ve missed a few because of vacations or ministry schedules but pretty much we’ve held to the schedule. Today was probably our last meeting for a couple of years. Alvin and his wife are going to China for two years.

Alvin and I have similar career paths, we’ve both been counselors, we’ve both planted churches, and we’ve both worked for the denomination. Because of similar paths we just struck it off. When we met sometimes I would gripe, sometimes he would gripe, mostly we just kinda shared life. What was happening in our ministries, how our families were doing, how to solve the world’s problems.

It was a tough “goodbye” this morning. I’ve been praying for God to open the door for this ministry in Alvin and Ruth’s life for the last year. He will be a counselor to the IMB mission team in the East. I admire that after retirement Alvin and his wife Ruth will be traveling 1/2 way around the world to do something new in a totally foreign environment. You’re never too old for God to use you. I said to him today, “I think if you are called by God to ministry then no matter what age you never retire from ministry.”

Alvin I’ll miss our monthly meetings. Pray God’s most rewarding blessings and protection over you. Thanks for being my friend.

This weekend I had this thing on my upper thigh. It got infected. I mean scream and cuss if anyone touched it infection. My wife, who should have considered the medical field, helped me drain it several times. It kept getting bigger and sorer. So anyway yesterday after some meetings at the office I called the doctor.

By the time I headed to the doctor I was nauseated, woozy, and didn’t know if I was going to make it to the doctors office. When I got to the examining room the nurse immediately started laying out the instruments for surgery, scalpels, razors, scissors, lots of gauze, etc. Doctor walks in doesn’t even examine me. He leans back the table, lifts up the covers, sprays some icy stuff on the infection, takes the scissors and stabs my leg and asks humorously, “Are we still friends?” He cut me several times with the scissors and then got deeper with the razor. Finally to really make me scream he washed the wound out with saline solution, burn! The nurse had asked him about a pain killer, but NO, the icy stuff will do. Well I’m moanin and groanin and about to lift off the table as he cuts and squeezes the crap out of my leg.

But…within a very few minutes most of the pain was gone, the nausea was gone, and the wooziness I had been experiencing was gone. My leg is still sore and I have a slight limp but I’m not sick like I was this past weekend and most of the day Monday.

I think that sometimes this is the way trouble starts in the church. It’s small we try to handle it, ineffectively. Put a little salve on it, schmooze some people’s egos, and sweep it under the rug. But it keeps getting bigger until the infection has to be cut out. It is amazing how the air gets clearer and the church seems to breathe easier when infections are dealt with in a timely manner.

Here’s the lesson: 1. Deal with issues early. Don’t be a wimp. It will not go away. God is not going to answer your prayer that the person miraculously gets a job in another town.(I know because I prayed that prayer once or twice myself.) 2. Let people know up front that you will deal with issues like gossip, backstabbing, immoral talk and behavior. 3. If it is required don’t be afraid to ask people to leave. Sometimes you can’t be nice to people. At least not as the world sees “nice.” Confrontation in love goes a long way in the life of an individual seeking God, will fall flat in an unrepentant person, but if they’re unrepentant send them to a church where they might listen and repent. But don’t keep them at yours. 4. If it is a private matter, keep it that way. 5. If it is a public matter, give credit where credit is due, don’t confess someone else’s sin, thank them on their way out the door, pray for them.

I feel better already. Still taking medication to further rid my body of infection, but amazing what a small amount of surgery will do.  

Yesterday our staff took a play day. Church paid for their lunch at a good bbq place. (Briar Patch if your looking for some que.) Then spent a few hours bowling and playing games at Stars and Strikes, a new place in town.

It was good to just hang out and have some fun. I am much older than most of the other guys but I hung in pretty well at bowling and even with 1/2 a leg and 1/2 an arm still beat some of the young guys.

I encourage you to take your team for some fun stuff once in a while. Don’t make it all about work. Pay for it too. Most of your team works long hours, stay behind the scenes and gets little recognition for their work. This is a way to make them feel special. Include everyone (part time, secretaries, etc) and have a good time.

“A merry heart doth good or is it doeth good” I sometimes forget my th’s. Anyway hath a good dayeth.  

I was very concerned when I first started this blog thing. Would I have anything to say? Would I forget about it after a few weeks? Would anybody read it?

Here’s the deal. When I started blogging I started paying more attention to other’s blogs. I have a series of 2 0r 3 guys I check daily and another 3 – 5 guys I check at least weekly. Here’s my advice: WRITE SOMETHING. I hate looking at sites and nothing has changed for weeks at a time. I know you’re busy. Use it or lose it.

There’s probably church planting advice in there somewhere. Find it. Just kidding. We have so many communication methods available to us. We ought to use whatever is available to communicate to our friends, supporters, and church members. Prayer requests, information, education, and a lot more but not if you don’t write. Look forward to seeing your updates.

This past week was a great week. We spent some time at Liberty U and Thomas Road Baptist Church trying to figure out if there is a potential partnership. It was a very positive meeting. Here’s where your imagination comes in…

Imagine 10 – 12 summer interns available to work at your church each summer. WRC would help house and feed them and church planters would put them to work getting real world experience in a church plant. I’ll be going up to Liberty U in November to talk to students about doing just that. I hope we can start getting some names soon after November. I’ll need a job description from the church plant outlining what kind of work you want a student to do. (no one cutting grass or cleaning windows). Imagine what a driven, motivated, student could do for you in 8-10 weeks.

I think this is one of the more exciting benefits that came out of last weeks meeting. There is more but I’ll spread that around later. God is at work. Don’t miss Him.

I must admit I get really excited about college football. I watch Division 3 football if that is all that is on TV. I love the Dawgs and anybody that plays those guys in yellow and black from North Avenue A bad college game beats the pros any day. I do fantasy football to be a part of the staff team here at WRC but I really suck at it because after they leave college I forget their names.

I find little else that I get real passionate about. Being on a diet the last few months has diminished my passion for food.

I do love to worship. I think WRC does that as well if not better than anybody. I love to hang out with guys which I don’t get to do enough.

But I get really excited about church planting. From the earliest time that I was introduced to the idea of starting a church I was sold. You get to practice leadership, you get to speak, you get to meet new people, set up new systems, you get to see life change, you get to cast vision, there is just so much that a church planter gets to put into practice that a pastor of a 100 year old church doesn’t. I’m glad there are guys called to pastor established churches. That’s important.

But here is the thing, guys who say they want to reach unbeliever’s that don’t want to at least sponsor a new church plant. In my mind they really don’t want to reach their community. They may scream it from the rooftop, but it doesn’t matter how big your church gets you will not reach the entire community. So plant a church that will reach people your church is not reaching.

I had a lady tell me one time, “I’m glad you start churches that way those new people won’t come in and change ours.” Maybe impure motives, but I will take her money any day. Because truth, we’ll reach her children that refuse to go to church with her. Pastor, if you love people then show it and help a church planter get started.

One of the guys showed up for the church planting class yesterday. Sorry. The class meets the SECOND Saturday of each month. Hopefully he is able to return on the 13th.

Gonna be a good class, talking about legal stuff, systems, and administration, as well as vision and values. The guys will receive some stuff that will keep them out of jail and legal trouble if the advice is followed. Also might save you some money down the road.

Awesome stuff happening this weekend. The Gathering started in Decature and Revolution kicked off their second location. Can’t wait to hear the reports.