– I didn't teach this morning.  

– Yes, it's been a while since I taught.  

– For those keeping score at home, I'll be back on August 30th to teach Revelation 20. 

– I heard that Pastor John did a great job teaching Revelation 18.  Not an easy area, but he did a great job. 

– I've had a great time with my family these weeks that I've been off. 

– My close Pastor friends strongly encouraged me to take some time off when my son was born, but with my wife's complications in the last 2 weeks of her pregnancy, it became a little longer than I thought. 

– I've never taken a sabbatical or a summer study break like many pastors do, so I guess this is it. I can see why they do it. It's refreshing to not feel like a sermon maker/ preaching machine. 

– As much as I love to communicate God's Word, the break has been really nice.  

– I have been in the office a couple of days a week (I still have a church to run 🙂 It's been great to get caught up on the back end church stuff that's going on before I jump back into preaching. 

– I'm really excited about my new coaching network kicking off next week. It's going to be great! There's an awesome group of guys that have joined this group.  

– I do have 1 spot left, so if you're interested in joining, click here. But don't delay!

– My new resource about direct mail (and other forms of outreach), "21st Century Outreach Strategies" has been really well received and inspired a lot of questions about direct mail. So this week on the blog I'm going to be answering questions about direct mail. Lots of churches are doing direct mail this Fall and I want to help churches be more effective.

– Through the strategies I talk about on the resource, we've seen an increased response of over 300% and we've spent less money than in previous years.  It sounds nuts, but it's simpler than you think. 

– I've loved teaching Revelation, but I'm really excited about our Fall series in Proverbs. It's going to be great!