Just got home from New Spring Church and their first day of services in the new building. WOW! Their building is off the hook. They stayed very true to who they are and the building feels like what I think New Spring is. The building is incredible.

The two things that stuck out were:
1.) The Sound - Literally that was the best sounding building I have ever been in. The mix was off the hook. It was so clear that I was speechless.

2.) The Video - We have used Ken several times at the Stone and the video he did (I assume he did it) for the opening song was INSANE! It was the best video I have ever seen. It was done to the Rich Mullins and Third Day song called “Creed” (I think). It was GREAT. The band nailed that song. The place was electric. The screens with double stacked projectors was like nothing I have eve seen. It was so vivid and bright.

It got me so excited about a building.

BTW, You have to see Perry’s green room. It is tight.

I kept seeing all these bloggers getting tagged and prayed that it wouldn’t happen to me but it did. I was going to respond and told my wife how dumb it was. She then informed me how dumb I was and what a party pooper I was so I am responding. Thanks Michael and Tony for tagging me…

Four Jobs I’ve Had:
Dairy Queen
College Pastor
Motorola
Lead Pastor

Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over:
Tombstone (You tell them I’m coming and I’m bringing hell with me.)
Godfather
The Apostle
Shawshank Redemption

Four Places I’ve Lived
Dacula, Ga.
Ames, Iowa
Dallas, Ga.
Canton, Ga.
What can I say? I’m a Georgia boy…

Four Shows I Like To Watch
24
My Name Is Earl
Prision Break
Survivor (I acutally lead a survivor Home Team)

Four Foods That I Like
Hot Wings
Meatball Pizza
ANYTHING Mexican
Oreo Blizzards

Four Sites I Visit Everyday
Google
Bloglines
Cherokee Tribune
Atlanta Journal

Four Things I Want To Do Before I Die
Ride A Live Bull For 8 Seconds
Become THE Ultimate Fighting Champion
Walk on stage to a full house, pick up one of the electric guitars and just shred “Sweet Child Of Mine” as people stood amazed. (No, I can’t play it)
Be there live as Georgia wins the National Championship in Football

Four People I’m Tagging
Tadd Grandstaff
Anthony Coppedge
Charlie Pharris
Perry Noble (I think I have seen him tagged about 10 times so I thought I would join the crusade)

So there you go. Tag, somone else is it….

I was looking at my schedule for the next couple of weeks and realized I am about to be rocking at some awesome shows over the next couple of weeks.

February 15 - Bon Jovi
February 22 - INXS
February 24 - Scott Stapp

It should be awesome.

The Bon Jovi tickets were what I got DeAnna for her birthday. She has never been to a real concert so that should be fun. Jon might be the only person she would leave me for.
Tim and Courtney are taking DeAnna and I to INXS. They rock for doing that! I am excited to be able to hang out with them. Marty and Lovehammer are opening the show so that will really be cool.

Tim and I are huge Creed fans so two dudes in our church are taking us to this show. These dudes have some awesome stories of life change. They are former meth heads and now they servce on our stage crew. I love watching them worship on Sundays. They are so into it that it gets me pumped.

Should be an awesome 10 days of rock and roll!

Anyone else seen any good concerts lately?

We are adding so many new people that it is insane. I have literally met with someone every day the last two weeks to answer questions and share the vision. I am more busy then I have been since before we launched. It reminds of those early days when we were killing ourselves. I got hom after 10 the last two nights and tonight I have my Home Team.

It has been awesome and has reminded me why I love church planting. Meeting with people who get “it” is so awesome. Meeting with people who know nothing about church but know they have had their lives changed is awesome. Meeting with people who don’t get “it” and telling them this isn’t the place for them is awesome.
I LOVE CHURCH PLANTING!

It is time for The Stone to get a major overhaul on the webpage. We are hurting bad. We had a nice site at one time and I have let it got to pot and to be honest it doesn’t fit us. When we started I thought The Stone would look a lot different then it does so that is why the webpage looks like it does.

Anyway we are redesigning so tell me what are some of the coolest church websites you have seen so we can steal…ur…borrow cool ideas.

After church Sunday the crew will be heading to Anderson to check out New Spring in their first service in the new building.

It will be a nice getaway and fun time. Erick (our new youth pastor) will be coming so that will be a blast. He starts full time at the office the week after next but this will be his first time with Preston, Tim, and I together.

I put the big ask on Erick when we started and the bum turned me down but you can’t run from God so he is here now!! He is moving here next Friday and I am excited. I went to college with Erick and when I went to Iowa to plant, he moved to St. Louis to plant an inner-city church.

Now he is back in God’s country and already knocking it out of the park for us.

I am looking forward to seeing how New Spring opens the building. I bet it is going to be off the hook.

I will leave there wanting a building I just know it.

This Saturday I will be teaching for West Ridge Church at their church planting school. I am teaching on learning your community. I am pretty excited. They have a cool group of planters and it always gets me pumped up to be around planters.

For the rest of the week I am making the guys in the office call me Professor Lamb.

RSC is finally building! We moved into our new offices last month and now we are building. Okay, so it really doesn’t change anything because we won’t be using it on Sundays but we are building and that is all that counts. In our new offices the front is offices and the back is a huge warehouse. We had plans to build it out next year but the door has opened for us go ahead and do it. So we are building a worship space that will hold about 125 for our youth. This will also be where we will hold membership classes, newcomer lunches, the band will practice, and anything else we can think of. Then we are building a smaller multi-purpose room that can be used for childcare during other meetings.

It should be a rocking place and it is going to save us so much money on rent. We currently have to rent stuff for every thing we do. Now we should be able to do everything BUT Sunday mornings here at this location. I am also thinking this might become our first video campus for maybe a traditional or unplugged service down the road.

I always find it funny the things people hear about Ridge Stone. I’m not sure where these rumors get started but they make me laugh.

Some that I have heard:

We are a cult
We put the ATM in the movie theatre
I don’t use the bible ever
We hate Christians (this one might be a little true. )

Today we had a man come up to me after the service and he wanted a few minutes. He then told me how his dad pastors a very traditonal church in town and he told his dad he was visiting our church today.

His dad told him, “Why would you visit that church. That church is where all the “gays” in town go.”

WHAT?????????

Where do people get this information from? We do have a couple of homosexual couples that visit from time to time. We won’t let them join, we will not allow them to serve BUT we are glad they come because this is where they need to be.

The thing is I doubt anyone in the church knows these people are homosexual but me and a few others.

So how in the world another pastor hears this and how it showballs into we are the “gay” church in town is beyond me.

Gossip is a weird thing and it is amazing how quickly is spreads.

But at least they are talking about us.

I know that is a cheesy title especially since today is Super Bowl Sunday but we had an incredible day!!! We broke our attendance record again for the third time in 06!!!!!!! The worship was incredible. I felt in the “zone” teaching today. Do you ever have those Sundays were everything is clicking? We ran out of seats and had to pull our curtain down in the theatre.

The energy was off the hook!!!!

I talked about RESPONSIBILITY and the responsibility we have to invest in the lives of our friends. We copied Rob Bell and did a sort of Nooma video to start the message. It was good then we talked about it. We had shirts made with the word Responsibility written on them to look like the CASH shirts that are so popular. Every worker was wearing them and then we threw them out in the crowd during the closing song.

It as awesome.

Days like today make me want to do it again next week!!!