…for the night anyway. She took the kids and went to my mom’s for the night. The house is empty and I have been reading Ed Young’s new book, “You.”

We are starting a new series this week called, “LIFE.” Life is so fragile and we aren’t promised another minute. That thought has been on my mind so much lately. I am excited about it. Of course, after preaching on sex for the last 6 weeks, I am just glad to preach on anything different.

Just took a break and added Pink Floyd to the playlist. Marty from INXS: Rockstar got me craving them again. The guys are great.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my wife and kids but the quiet in the house is nice. Tonight I am going to open the windows, find some great music, and just enjoy life.

I have a lot of thoughts on my mind right now so I will probably post about them later.

Mark Batterson is the pastor of National Community Church in D.C.

Man, this cat kills me. Every thing I read by him convicts me.

Read this post.

I’m sitting here listening to some OLD SCHOOL country music and I just saw my precious 4 year old daughter wake up and go to the bathroom. As she was leaving, she came to the hall, wiped her eyes, as she was still half asleep. She then very quickly looked around and noticed that DeAnna and I weren’t around, so she snuck into our room, into our bed.

That is a no-no but it was so cute, I will probably leave her.

I’m a very blessed man.

Today Tim, Preston, and I went to Beef O Brady’s to take the challenge. If you can eat 20 wings in 20 minutes you get a T-Shirt and your picture on the wall. The only catch is they are wings on roids and they have to be nuclear AND you can’t eat Ranch or Bleu Cheese with them. Let me say up front I can eat some food and I can eat fast. I thought I would be able to do it 10 minutes top. I started fine then about wing number 7 I begin to feel a burning on my lips like I have literally never felt before in my life. It was so bad that I pressed the WHOLE picture of ice water against my lips to cool them down. I was in such pain. My nose was running, my eyes were Georgia Bulldog red and I couldn’t even let the wings touch my lips they burned so bad. Well we are all proud owners of new T-Shirts. Tim was a machine. He didn’t drink a sip one time and finished in 12 minutes. I was done in 13 minutes and drank 4 huge glasses of water and a glass of tea. Being the great team we are, we pushed Preston on and at the 19 minute mark he finished.

It was a good time and I am paying for it now.

Team building is important. Maybe you aren’t stupid and you won’t do it the way we did but get away with you team and have a good time.

The Leadership Blog has been doing a great series of posts where he has interviewed great leaders asking the same questions. I guess he ran out of great leaders and had to settle for me today. Thanks, Josh for allowing me to do it.

To read the interview, click here.

BTW, I was only half kidding on that last answer.

I recently was asked these two questions by men I greatly respect:

1.) If God would allow you to build the largest, most effective church in your city but no one outside of your city would ever hear of you, would that be enough?

2.) If you planted and remained faithful to what God called you to do but God chose to never grow your church to what you thought it should be, would you be fine with that, knowing that God was in control?

I wish I could tell you that instantly I said yes to both questions but to be honest, I couldn’t. I wanted to say yes. But I had to really stop and be honest.

It is so easy as pastors to put our self-worth in our latest attendance. If the attendance was high, we feel good. If it was low, we feel like failures.

I am a church growth guy. I DO NOT apologize for that but if your happiness depends on your church attendance, you will never be happy. We think if we could only get to 200 then we would be happy. We hit 200 very quickly. All I thought that day was now I have to hit 300. We have hit 300 and I finally realized that if I don’t find my happiness in who I am in Christ, then attendance will never be enough.

My problem is it has always been that it was people with non-growing churches who said those things. Recently it was someone who God had used to build a church who said it. That changed my outlook. I mean of course a person whose church is struggling is going to say those things.

Do everything in your power to allow God to use you to build a church. Read, study other churches, learn from other pastors but at the end of the day rest knowing that God loves you no matter what happens. I don’t know if RSC will ever hit 400 (I have a pretty good idea we will) but if it closed down this Sunday, I could look myself in the mirror and know that I could not have given it anymore.

I have given it my best and guys, that is all God expects.

I am learning very quickly that “no” is a word that church planters must use very often. The minute you start to see a little success, then every one wants a piece of your time. The people or things that want your time aren’t bad, they just take time.

What happens is as your church starts to grow your denom wants your time. They want to you to teach, mentor, speak, etc. Nothing wrong with ANY of those things but in the early days, those are things that simply take away your time, which is your most valuable asset.

Another thing that wants your time is other church planters. NOTHING wrong with other church planters. Matter of fact, we were in their shoes before. BUT, I could literally meet with a church planter every day. As much as I LOVE church planting, I don’t have time for that.

Added to that is your church people. I am a people person. I love our people but there again, I could meet with people every day.

As Church Planters I have learned it is a balance. These people want to meet with me because we have planted a decent church but the catch is I give them all of my time, my decent church loses out and isn’t decent anymore. Then those people don’t want to meet anymore. Isn’t that ironic?

Nelson Searcy told me not to take any extra stuff until we hit 500. 500 allows you to have some staff, key leaders, etc. who can help pick up the slack at the church and keep it going.

I wish I would have listened. I didn’t and I have suffered and I think our church has as well. About a month ago I had to make a decision about what I was going to do with my time.

85% of my time (work time) goes to Ridge Stone. 10% goes to me growing as a leader by meeting with key people that stretch me. At this time I can only give 5% of my monthly time to these other things. I love these other things and as we grow and become more stable that number will climb.

Remember God called you to plant a church, having time to do that, means sometimes saying NO.

Mister Orange and I are the only ones out there that have been calling JD for a while.

Marty was GREAT but he wasn’t the best fit.

A lot of GREAT churches planters have never made it because they weren’t the right fit for their area.

Never underestimate the importance of the “fit”

Congrats JD!
You rocked!

OH MY!!!!!!!!!!! What can you say? This show is wrong on so many levels but it is so funny! I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Finally they have done a show I can relate too. I think that was my family on that show.

If you didn’t see the series opener tonight, you have to check it out next week.
Very funny.

I am really waffling but I am sticking with JD. I have rode him since about week 3. It could be Marty but I don’t think he is the right fit.

I just can’t see them going with Mig.

It is going to be good.

JD is my choice.