– Fantastic day today! – I thought attendance was going to be light because of the Dolphin game and the race in Homestead, but we had a really good turnout. – I taught on “The Challenge of Trust” and talked about how to navigate the financial crisis – We also kicked off our Christmas offering this weekend. I’m really excited about all that God is going to do through it. – This was just a smooth Sunday. – We also had a membership class today that was well attended and I’m excited about the people that decided to commit to … Read More
Upcoming Events
Just wanted to put 2 events on your radar: 1. Activate Small Groups Seminar – If you’re trying to get 100% participation in small groups, don’t miss this all new seminar in Tampa on November 20th! Nelson Searcy and I will teach you a small groups system that has worked all over the country. You can sign up here. 2. Growth Barriers Seminar – on Tuesday, December 9th, I’ll be leading a seminar in Miami on breaking growth barriers. I have a passion to help churches reach as many people as possible for Jesus. I’m looking forward to telling our … Read More
A Couple of Thoughts for the Auto Industry
The car industry is in trouble and they believe the problem is money. Wrong. More money is just going to keep them doing more of the same. I believe the auto industry would turn around if carmakers did the following: 1. Make better cars – I don’t own an American car and don’t plan to get one in the near future. Why? Because American cars aren’t as reliable as Japanese cars. Honda isn’t in the brink of disaster. Why? Better cars. Improve your product and things will get better. 2. Use your influence to make buying a car a better … Read More
New Website
After months of working on it, our new website is done! Mad props to Alex and The Creative Complex for all their hard work. So if you get a chance, head over here and check it out!
Update from the Road
I’m writing from my vacation just to say that we all need breaks. I’m having a great time with my wife and my daughter. I’ve taken a nap every day I’ve been gone. It feels good 🙂 I have been doing some writing as I’m trying to finish writing my next book. I should be done by Thanksgiving. More details on that later. Also, I’ve read some good books while on vacation. I’ll post some reviews next week. I’m looking forward to teaching this weekend on the subject of trusting God. I’m going to be talking about how to navigate … Read More
Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 4)
Most Pastors don’t preach 52 weeks a year, nor should they in my opinion. The reason is because it’s not possible for a Pastor to hit 52 home runs a year. Plus, a Pastor should be grooming and raising up other teachers who are gifted and need to express their gift. A healthy church needs to have more than one voice. It needs to have a few voices that can speak into the lives of the congregation in the power of the Holy Spirit. So what should a Pastor do to introduce these other gifted communicators? 5 things: 1. Decide … Read More
Things I’d like President Obama to Fix
Congratulations to President-Elect Obama. It’s an amazing time to be alive and see a historic moment like this. I believe my kids will ask me someday if I remember when he was elected. While I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, I am nonetheless proud to be an American and will pray for President Obama as I am commanded to by Scripture. I know he has a lot to work on, but here’s a couple of things I like President Obama to fix if he can get around to it: 1. The DMV – having dealt with them … Read More
Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 3)
What makes the Fall different than the rest of the year? I didn’t think anything, but my friend Nelson encouraged me to notice what people are thinking about during the Fall. School is starting and people are hitting the books. I noticed that every Fall I want to buy new pens, pencils, and a Trapper Keeper (do they even make those anymore?) So we experimented with doing a spiritual growth campaign in the Fall this year and it has been a tremendous success. This is where the entire church is studying the same thing. This year we did “The New … Read More
Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 2)
Yesterday I talked about looking at the calendar, today I want to talk about balancing the calendar. I believe there’s a couple of different types of series that as Pastors we should teach each year: – Evangelistic/ attractional series – I believe Easter is a time of great harvest, so we always plan a series of teaching that focus on a felt need, but end with a presentation of the Gospel. – Book studies/ Spiritual Growth series – I try to teach 50% topical/ 50% book studies in a given year. I want the people in our church going through … Read More
Planning a Preaching Calendar (Part 1)
I want to spend some time this week talking about planning a preaching calendar. I believe the first thing a person should do when planning their preaching calendar (besides prayer) is looking at the calendar. There’s several things you need to know so you can maximize the calendar: – What are the natural high days (Easter, Mother’s Day, etc…)? Easter changes every year, so if you want to start a series of teachings on Easter, find out the date and then decide how long that series is going to be? I almost always start a series on Easter and end … Read More
