We were able to host Henry Judy and his team from Life Point on Sunday. They are getting ready to launch their church in the Naples/ Bonita Springs area in November. They are going to meet in a theatre, so they decided to come hang with us for a weekend. Here are his thoughts on their experience. It was great to meet Henry’s team and spend some time with them. Plus, Mia seemed to like them, so that’s good enough for me 🙂

“To make it easy for them, it’s going to be a little harder for us.” – John Solaroli (Assistant Pastor @ Calvary Fellowship with Yoda-esque wisdom) Our goal is to see people take their next steps in their walk with Jesus. So we try to give people opportunities to do so (Baptism, small groups, classes, etc…). So we give them different ways to sign up and take that step (email, web, connection center @ church, our connection card). Does this make the system more effort to manage? Yes, but we think it’s worth it because our desire is to make … Read More

A couple of bloggers visited our church on Sunday: Bill LaMorey, who used to be on staff with us and is now the Lead Pastor of Calvary Fellowship in Hartford, CT. Here’s his thoughts… Lew Graff, who is on a church tour of sorts, shared on his experience at CF. Here’s his thoughts…

We normally do our baptisms at a Baptist church down the street and have everyone being baptized share their story before they go into the water. But this past Saturday we went back to the beach and I’m torn. I prayed as each person came forward and asked God to give me a word for them. So as they walked up, I prayed for them and spoke into their lives something that God had put in my heart. The “indoor” baptisms are great because each person’s family and friends are able to hear them tell the story of how Jesus … Read More

Warning: Some Pastors may be insulted by this even though it’s true… I have watched people’s habits of choosing a church for many years now and here’s what I have discovered: People choose a church the same way we choose a supermarket to frequent. It’s got to be good and close. There might be one better that we know of, but if it’s not good and close, chances are we’ll be infrequent attenders at best. Case in point: My wife and I love Whole Foods. If we could choose 1 place to buy everything, Whole Foods would be it. So … Read More

This morning I had the opportunity to teach from Mark 6 where Jesus feeds the 5,000. I really felt led to challenge our church about what we’re doing with our 5 loaves and 2 fish. So I issued a 90-day tithe challenge. I didn’t know how it would be received, but I know the blessing of honoring God with my finances and I truly want every person in our church to experience that blessing as well. The challenge is that an individual “bring the full tithe” for 90 days and see what God does. For every person that indicated on … Read More

I was asked recently, “How do you get it all done?” In you’re in ministry, then you know that there’s way more to be done that you can possibly accomplish. With a little girl at home now, I need to manage my time better than ever, because I want to give Carey and Mia my full attention when I’m home. So here’s what I personally do… #1 – Group tasks together – I don’t know why, but it takes me only slightly more time to respond to 5 email as it does to 30 emails. So I plan to respond … Read More

I can’t tell you how awesome it was to be back speaking to my peeps at CF today. I spoke at a friend’s church last weekend and while it was great to be there, it just wasn’t the same for me. It’s like wearing someone else’s clothes. They fit, but it still doesn’t feel the same. There’s just a connection that a Pastor has with his flock. I speak their language and they understand me (miraculously). I tell Pastors that it’s good for them to not speak once in a while or for the worship leader not to lead on … Read More

One of the things we’re been working on is a resource for new believers called “Start Here”. (Don’t bother looking on Amazon.com for it. It’s not there.) Here was our dilemma: most new believers stuff that we saw is very good at explaining what salvation through Jesus is in very theological terms that it takes an M.Div to understand. So we wanted to develop a resource that is very simple to understand and that led people to take some practical next steps. So we developed a small booklet that tells my story of how I came to know Jesus and … Read More

I think one of the challenges of ministry is to handle the extremes that we live in. I officiated a wedding on Saturday and once it was over I hopped in my car to get to a funeral for someone in our church. I wasn’t officiating the funeral, but I wanted to be there and express my condolences to the family. Pastor John did a great job with the memorial service. But it got me thinking about how extreme ministry is. July 7th was the happiest day of someone’s life and for someone else it will be a day someone … Read More