Instead of getting bummed out about the Summer, use the summer as an opportunity to do 3 things:   1. Grow – Yes I said grow. You can grow in the summer. There are still guests coming to your church every week over the summer. Keep the quality high over the summer and you'll reap the rewards in the Fall. Plan some Mini-Easters in the Summer and you'll see lots of interest in events that take place over the summer as people invite friends.   2. Plan – Summer is the time to plan out the Fall and begin to think about … Read More

This question is about creating a culture of evangelism in your church. We did not have an evangelistic culture in our church when we started. In fact, after 18 months we didn't see one person come to know Jesus. That was a wake up call for us. Then we started taking steps and eventually the culture of our church changed.  Here's 5 steps we took that changed our culture: Step 1 – Confront Reality (don't sugar coat it. Admit that things are bad and start from there.) Step 2 – Start teaching on evangelism (We did a 4 part series on sharing your … Read More

I get questions about new believer follow up regularly, but today I want to highlight one thing that you must do if you're going to have a successful follow up system for new believers: Get their information. This is a non-negotiable. If you don't collect information, you can't do any follow up.  Also, the chances of that person who just made a decision to follow Jesus falling through the cracks is more likely. There are several ways to collect information and several strategies that I talk about in the New Believer resource for collecting their information and using it to … Read More

– Amazing day at Calvary! A great start to a new week. – We finished our 10 Words series. I taught on the last commandment – coveting.  – I had plenty of illustrations to use in this message 🙂 – I loved teaching through the 10 commandments. You should do it sometime.  – Joel did a great job leading worship – We had both of our campus Pastors on vacation and things went as smooth as can be – Looking forward to teaching through the book of Ephesians starting next week.  – If I haven't said it lately, I believe … Read More

Several things on the horizon this summer that I'm looking forward to… – I just finishing up a new book.  The tentative title is "A Thousand Dirty Buckets:Finding Fulfillment on the Most Unlikely Place". It's a book about servanthood. It's going to be a book in the same vein as my books "Watermark" and "Start Here". My goal is to get God's people out of their seats and serving faithfully. It should be out by early Fall.  – We're starting a new series at Calvary on the book of Ephesians on Father's Day. It's called, "ReThink: Change your Thinking. Change … Read More

On May 25th 2000, we had our 1st home bible study as a church. That's 10 years ago today! We officially launched our church in September, but May 25, 2000 was the 1st time we met as a group. It was Carey and I and 5 other people (2 of whom are still at our church. 1 is our Miramar campus Pastor) I'm in awe of all the Lord has done in these 10 years.  Zechariah asks the question, "For who has despised the day of small things?" (Zech. 4:10) We started as small as any church I know of, … Read More