I’m a huge believer in budgeting.  Not only personally, but for church as well.  Gary’s post is so true that in the first year you can’t really set a budget because there’s no pattern to work from.  But after the first 12-18 months you may be able to start considering budgeting in a little more concrete fashion since you will be able to see some trends forming in your church.  At our last staff meeting, our administrator handed out a P/L sheet for each ministry and a set of guidelines for preparing a budget (If you think this might be … Read More

Today we kicked off a new series called "Love Story".  I’m teaching through the book of Ruth.  The whole service was great.  I felt great about the message (You can listen to it here if you want).  The drama we did was hilarious.  The band played "One" by U2 (I love that song).  There were several people who prayed to receive Jesus and start a relationship with Him.  It was an awesome Sunday. 

Yesterday was Jason’s last day.  He has served in many capacities over the last 5 years, most recently being our children’s Pastor.  Jason, John Solaroli (Another one of our Pastors), and I started this church just over 5 years ago together.  We had no idea what we were doing.  None of us had ever read a book on church planting (to our shame), but God was gracious and we have seen Him work in amazing ways in us and through us.  But it was really weird saying goodbye yesterday.  I felt as though it was the end of an era.  … Read More

Does anybody really pay attention to clergy appreciation month? I think I’ve received 1 card in 5 years. I think some of that is because many of those in our church don’t come from a church background and this tends to be a churchy thing. I’ve always felt kind of weird about it. Is anybody with me on this? Also, why is ti a whole month? Mother’s get a day. Father’s get a day. Christmas is 1 day. So why is Clergy appreciation one month long? I don’t appreciate it…

People are under the impression that church work is easy. I talk to people who say, “You guys at church have it easy. You sit around waiting for the phone to ring. You pray and read the Bible all day until someone needs help.” These comments make me feel like Clubber Lang did about Rocky Balboa: “I’m gonna hurt him…real bad!” The truth is church work is probably the most grueling work there is. I believe it can be fun and rewarding, but it’s not easy. so here’s my list of the not-so-fun-stuff in church world: #1 – teaching a … Read More

We have a staff member leaving at the end of the month. This staff member has been with me since we started. He and I go back about 11 years. When someone decides to venture off and do something else with their one life, you start to think (selfishly) about how that’s going to impact you and your organization. Here’s what I realized: you can hire people to fill the position, but you can’t buy loyalty or trust. Trust is built over time and loyalty is proven when a person has to opportunity to be disloyal. So consider that when … Read More

Once again, the Christian community has shown itself to be the most judgmental people on planet earth.  Frankly, I’m so done with this.  Having seen this post talking smack about Granger Community church, I’m just shocked at how rude Christians can be in the name of being right.  People, if you don’t have anything nice to say, __________________________.  We can probably fill in the blank…I think.  My deal is this: If you don’t agree with the way someone is doing something, fine.  This is America and everyone is entitled to an opinion.  But can we please stop shooting people that … Read More

Well, my book is finally released.  I’ll be sharing this with our church this weekend.  I am really excited about this.  This book took months to write and the process of editing, design, and proofing takes forever!  But it’s all worth it becasue it’s finally out.  The book is a walk through the life of John the baptist.  The premise of the book is that John was a revolutionary person and he had elements that made him the great man ever (Matt. 11).  So if we can discover these elements and implement them into our lives, then we could live … Read More

john Maxwell spoke to us as the elder statesman that he is about the stages of a leaders life and what are the characteristics of a person that God uses. Here they are: #1 – They have Passion #2 – They develop a team #3 – They have a niche #4 – The understand the times John spoke to us from the perspective of a person that is in the latter years and is challenging us youngsters to make the wise choice because we will spend the rest of our lives managing the decisions we make at this stage of … Read More

Donald Miller rocked the house. He spoke about 13 paradigms that the church needs to understand if it is going to reach the world. It was basic stuff, but it was profound. By the way, he only gave us 3 of the 13. But here they are: #1 – Other people exist #2 – Nobody will listen you unless they know you like them #3 – People want to know if they are lovable He was hilarious. He challenged me to look around and see that there are hurting people are around. Too many times we are looking for people … Read More