About two months ago, we started creative team planning for our Sunday morning messages. I have to admit this was a hard change, yet we stuck with it and the last two weeks we are finally getting in the grove. If you are a pastor, order this CD from Creative Pastors and put this into action. It is amazing the difference in my sermons. The stress I feel during the week is so much less. The pressure to do it al myself is gone. The different ideas have been great. It is very hard work to get in the grove and there is much I have to learn about tweaking it but, try it, stick with it, and be amazed at the results.

It is an odd feeling when your people are talking about how much better a speaker you are over the last month but, ego aside, that is what they should be saying.

All I can say about today is WOW!!!! I stand amazed at how God chooses to use our people to impact this community. Today was off the hook. There was no where to sit, the music was insane, the message seemed to connect, and we took up our special offering for our move. I’ll post more soon but right now I am speechless about how to put it into words.

Our Administrative Pastor, Tadd Grandstaff has joined the blogging world! Tadd is a great leader and has been a key part of RSC since before we ever started. To check out his thoughts on whatever, click here.

One of the greatest mistakes I see planters make is they start pastoring their people the moment they get a crowd and stop thinking like a church planter. Before launch, we are all about building relationships, getting out in the community, staying active and visable to people, then we launch and every thing changes. Instead of doing what you were doing and should still be doing, you start pastoring the small crowd you have.

Right now, if I let them, I could stay busy all day long just “pastoring” the people of RSC. Between counseling, doctors visits, telephone calls, returning e-mails, etc. I could stay so busy that I never get out to get new people in.

Remember whatever you start with is going to be very hard to change later. Start and stay with a planters mindset. Equip your leaders to do the pastoral things that hinder you from building the church.

Remember the mindset you had before you launched? Stay with that mindset and don’t change that mindset too soon. If you do, those 50 you have now, will be the same 50 you have a year from now.

When hiring staff in a church plant, I am learning more and more the importance of hiring people who have bought into the vision of the church, not the vision of some title. Over the last week I made the decision to change some roles at our church. In an effort to streamline our staff and what they do, we moved some people around. It was easy to see that the two guys who got moved around were sold out to the church and not their specific job.

That to me is important. Jim Collins in Good to Great talks about getting the right people on the bus and worrying about where they sit later. Church Planters, take this advice and tattoo it on your arm and read it over and over when you hire people.

I made a decision today that will cause me some heartache over the next week. The blame will be placed on me and it will not be really fun. However I would make the same decision again and again. Remember sometimes our people like at the here and now, while you as the leader are looking long term.

God called YOU to the church you planted and you will give an account for how it is run, not them. Make the decisions, admit when you screwed up if you did, smile at the backlash, and lead knowing you made the right decision even if it isn’t the most popular.

Every planter will have to make decisions that are not popular, that is part of leading. Make the decision and then stand by it, no matter the backlash.

This post is more for the people RSC who lurk here reading what I write. I thought you guys would get a kick out of this post about the suit tribe and the flip-flop tribe. You didn’t know we had a tribe did you?

Mill Creek Community Church in Buford, Georgia is pastored by Tony McCollum. MCCC is about 3 years old and doing a great job in a booming area. Tony literally started MCCC with no core and no money at all. I have spoken at MCCC and what is happening there is amazing. They met in the Movie Theatre in the Mall of Georgia. How cool is that?

In a area where church plants are a dime a dozen, God has used Tony to a great work.

Some of the things I notice about MCCC:

1. Great Marketing - In the early days, Tony did a great job with mailers. Their marketing is second to none.
2. Great Teaching - Tony is one of the better teachers I have heard. His people really connect with him
3. Making Do - They didn’t start with a lot of money and yet Tony has made it work.
4. Focus - Tony has stuck to what he always wanted MCCC to be.

There are many other things but those really stick out to me.

If you are ever in the Buford area, check out Tony and Mill Creek!

It is weird to me that you can post something on a blog and then become friends with people who read it. I had the honor of chatting with Tally Wilgis today on the phone today and it was just awesome. Planters are a strange bunch and it is good to talk to people who are going through the same highs and lows that you are.

Charley Miller is a friend who is in the early stages of planting a church in California. He is planting in a very artsy area and I think he might have one of the coolest church names I have ever heard: The Canvas. Very cool name.

Anyway, this post isn’t about Charley but about his dog, Mabel. Yes, you heard me right, it is about his dog. Mabel might be the only blogging dog in America. I thought it would interesting to keep up with Mabel and her thoughts on the extreme sport of ministry. Anyway to read Mabel’s blog and her thoughts on the whole church planting adventure, click here.