– Awesome day at Calvary! – We launched our Capital campaign today. – Our goal is to raise $1,000,000 between now and the end of 2012. – You can read about it at www.blueprintcampaign.com – We’re adding the video of the service tomorrow – The response has been incredible. – We did some advanced meetings with our leaders and raised 1/3 of the money before today! – It’s a great place to be: 1/3 of the way to our goal on day 1. – Our goal is to raise the money so we can be serious contenders in buying property. … Read More

There’s more bad information about outreach than there are crooks in Washington. Why I speak thus? Because it seems like every book I read every seminar I attend by the “experts”, the more misinformation they share. Here’s some of the nonsense I’m hearing: 1. “Churches with limited budgets can’t do outreach well because it takes lots of money to reach people.” 2. “Direct mail is dead. Social media is the only way to reach people.” 3. You can’t do both evangelism and discipleship in your services. You must pick one or the other.” Seriously, listening to these guys is like … Read More

A guy walked up to me a few years ago and said, “Pastor Bob, I love Calvary!” He had just started attending with this family and plugged in to the church immediately.  Then he said something that was meant to be a compliment. It wasn’t. He said, “Calvary is the best kept secret in Miami!” It was bothered by this statement. Not because this recent attender said it.  Instead, I was annoyed because it was true. We were a secret in our city. Not a lot of people knew about us. I vowed that day to change that reality. Instead, … Read More

– Great day at Calvary! – I taught Nehemiah 2 on the subject of, “How to Turn Vision into Reality” – I love talking practically about how God wants people to live His vision for their lives. – The band sounded especially good today – We had some technical difficulties before our 1st service. Ah, the joys of being portable 🙂 – After 11 years, I’m still blown away when I hear the stories of God working in people’s lives – In the last couple of weeks I’ve been telling stories of how God called us to start Calvary. Today, … Read More

– We celebrated 11 years of ministry! Wow. and they said it wouldn’t last. – What a day. Not sure how to describe it all. – I think the biggest highlight for me was the video that the media team shot of people whose lives have been transformed. Very moving. It’s amazing to see how every person in the video got saved at Calvary and are now leaders at Calvary. (I’ll post the video this week). – The band sounded outstanding today. I’m always impressed by those guys, but they are flat out awesome today. We’re come a long way … Read More

– Great day at Calvary! – We finished Romans! Our 5 1/2 month series through this book has matured our congregation, but it wasn’t easy. – However, what a joy to teach God’s people God’s Word! – I’m looking forward to starting Nehemiah next Sunday. – If you aren’t aware, we’re celebrating our 11 year anniversary as a church next Sunday. Very excited about that! – We celebrated Communion today. It’s always special to go to the Lord’s table. –  The band sounded great today. – We’ve got a new staff member starting on Monday. Looking forward to George Martinez … Read More

My 4-year old daughter has fallen in love with Star Wars.   She wants to watch Star Wars night and day. She loves to wear her Star Wars t-shirts. She even wants me to grow my hair out so I look more like a Wookie (OK, I may have made up that last one).   But in watching Star Wars recently I was reminded of Han Solo’s description of his ship, The Millennium Falcon. He said, “She doesn’t look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.”   Calvary Fellowship, the church I pastor, doesn’t have a building. We’ve … Read More

– Awesome day at Calvary! – I taught Romans 14:1-15:7 – Talked about reducing conflict. Got lots of feedback about the message. – The band sounded great. I’m amazed at how they keep taking it to new levels every week. – Our 11 year anniversary is in 3 weeks! – Rolling our some big plans on September 18th. Can’t wait to see what God does! – Been meeting with a lot of Pastors over the last month. I’m continually reminded and encouraged that God is working in all denominations and movements. – I did a survey asking our church-strategies.com newsletter subscribers … Read More

As a Pastor, the most important thing you do is teach the Word of God to your congregation. Yet our study time doesn’t scream for attention. Everyone else is. Staff want to meet with us. People in the church want to talk to us. Other organizations want a few minutes of our time. But Sunday is coming (with amazing regularity). So I encourage you to schedule your study time first and don’t break that appointment for anything or anyone. Emergencies come up, but if it’s happening every week it has ceased to be an emergency and now it’s routine. When … Read More

With the prices of Facebook ads rising upwards of 40% in the last year, we decided it was time to do a webinar to help you get the most “Bang for your Buck” with your Facebook ads.  So tomorrow (Wednesday August 17th) @2PM EST I’m leading a one hour webinar called, “Reach your Community with Facebook”.    Here’s the deal: this webinar is for those who are going to implement  what’s taught. There’s no theory taught here. It’s all practical, nuts and bolts, real world stuff that’s tried and true.    In fact, here’s what we’re going to be talking about: … Read More