I don’t need people for me…I need people with me. - Ed Young Jr.

WOW!!!!! My post on being yourself has hit a nerve. I have already gotten 17 e-mails from pastors who thanked me for the post. You would not believe some of their stories of people trying to change them.

I posted what I felt and to be honest, I never expected others or thought others might might feel the same way. I guess I was wrong….

Guys, keep being you!

We hired Anthony Coppedge to come in this past weekend and do some consultation work for us. I have known Anthony for a while and we got to hang out this last October when I was at Palm Valley Church. I can honestly say that bringing in Anthony was one of the best things we have done. The dude knows his stuff. It was awesome to see him come in and evaluate our set-up, equipment, volunteers, and knowledge. Instantly he was pointing out things we had never thought of before. He spent so much time answering questions our people were asking. He spent time talking to our volunteers and looking for bottle necks. His views on our service were very solid. He met with us and showed us how to do better improve our creative meetings.

Seriously, if you are a church planter, you need to find the money to bring Anthony in. We brought in a media consultant and I felt we got an entire church consultant.

But be warned….Tadd says he snores like no one he has ever heard in his life.

I have debated about posting about this subject but I have never backed down from saying what was on my mind whether it makes me look like a jerk, weak, or a wuss. This is a hot button issue with me at this moment and I almost have not written about it at this time. However I want to get it off my chest so a public internet page that a lot of my church, friends, and people I don’t know read seems like the private place to do that. ☺

Since day one of pastoring Ridge Stone Church I have had people who have tried to change me into something I am not. We started with a core group of people who freaked out when they found out I was not going to be exactly like the Lead Pastor of the church we came from. They were constantly trying to change me. We have a constant stream of church planters in our services and for the most part, many of them freak out after attending our church and seeing our emphasis on the unchurched and connecting with them. This last Sunday we had a person visit our church from one of the churches who has done a lot for us. These people were so offended by something I said that they caused a scene and left the service. Today that pastor who I GREATLY respect called and I could tell he was a little frustrated with me.

We actually talked about this in our staff meeting Tuesday. We talked about IF we (the church) should change and tone things down. We could knock a little edge off and without a doubt grow…from other Christians. Bigger offerings, Bigger attendance….sounds like a no brainer.

However we begin to think about:

• The couple of lesbians couples who come to The Stone because they feel welcomed even though they know where we stand.
• The man who is a self-professed atheist but serves on our set-up team and is so close to accepting Christ. He has never been in church.
• The man at the gym who is so unchurched that he didn’t even know how a church service works. Oh yeah he knows now because he has been there the last two weeks.
• The people who have attended church sporadically for years, yet now attend every week and serve.
• The lady who was at the office today helping with stage curtains who is so on board with our church because several of her neighbors who would never attend church with her in other places, will attend here.
• The Salon owner who literally brings half her salon with her every week.
• All of the people who can finally invite their unchurched friends to a church because they know they will be welcomed and hear God loves them.

On and on we could have went with stories like this. We then begin to think of those who have had problems with us being us. It has been Christians from other churches, pastors, and planters. Not our target.

We concluded we were going to continue to be who we are. God has really been dealing with us lately on this subject. Ed spoke at the conference over and over about being who you are because you are the best you.

I’m thank God that our people get the vision for Ridge Stone and they allow our staff to be who we are because they know who we reach.

As I stated in my previous post, I think every pastor goes through a time where they have to decide they are going to be themselves because that is all they can be. Along with that comes a few thoughts…

1.) People will criticize you.
It doesn’t matter if you are the most edgiest pastor or the most inside the box pastor. It doesn’t matter if you teach verse by verse or topical, someone will criticize who you are. Some people will like it, some will not.

2.) People will try and change you.
Mark my words, people will try and change you. There again it doesn’t matter how you are, other people will want you to be like so and so. They will drop little hints, make snide comments, etc.

3.) Some people will not connect with you.
You can’t reach every one and connect with every one. Some people are going to be drawn to who are and some will not. That is life.

4.) If who you are goes against scripture, it is wrong.
I hear a lot of guys say, “well, this is who I am.” That is great but if who you are is against Scripture then it is WRONG.

5.) Stick to your guns.
Dont’ change to make someone else happy. Be who God made you to be and reach who God designed you to reach.

I posted earlier this week about attending the C3 Regional at New Spring. I wanted to be very careful about what I said because I didn’t want to come across as being negative against Fellowship Church. If it was not for Fellowship Church I honestly can say I would not be pastoring RSC. It is that simple. I was saved at 19, went straight to a traditional church and was miserable. Somehow I came across Ed Young and that along with the Purpose Driven Church changed the way I viewed church. When we planted RSC, we modeled A LOT after FC. I even had knock down fights with people about whether we could think for ourselves. At that time we couldn’t. We launched and grew and I didn’t have a clue what we were doing. I still don’t but at least we can think for ourselves a little. So when I posted I wanted to watch what I said but I am who I am and I wanted to say what I thought.

Well today, Preston Mitchell (Ed’s right hand man) called the office and said a little bird with the initials TS had read my comments and he wanted to follow up with me. I was very surprised that they would even care what I thought. After all, why change? They are helping churches and probably making good money doing it. But that isn’t why they do it. They want to do it better. WOW! That convicted me about always striving to do things we do better. I was VERY honest with my thoughts and Preston was very cool about it.

That is why they are in my mind THE church in America getting it done (after The Stone, of course. ) and why Ed and the crew will continue to impact the young, modern church because they are still learners….

Very cool….

Been told I have to get MindJet for mind mapping. Checked it out, dig it. However it isn’t made for a Mac and those who have tried to get it working on a Mac have had mixed results.

Got any suggestions or other software to look at?

We left Sunday after church and took the crew up to New Spring for the C3 Regional Conference. Ed preached on Sunday night and the conference was Monday.

As always, it was cool to be at New Spring. They did a great job Sunday night and were great hosts. I have been to C3 so I would have been happy if they put on their own conference but, overall the conference was good.

Ed was GREAT in the morning. I have heard both of those talks but it was good for my guys and gals to hear it. Some of our new part-time staff really get “it” after those talks. That was cool.

I’ll be honest, the breakout sessions were rough. At first I thought it was just me because I had heard them before but I was hearing all kinds of people complaining in the foyer afterwards. I was surprised by this. As far as I am concerned, Ed could have done all the sesssions and it would have suited me fine.

Overall, just hanging out with my crew was the best. I honestly love what I do and I love who I get to do it with. Working for me isn’t always easy and it is never dull, so I appreciate what our guys do.

I have been promising a review of this book since I got it, so here goes. I go in spurts with reading. There are times where I literally read a couple of books a week, then I get bored and quit reading for a year. Not reading in about a year is where I have been but, I started reading again in January. I’m now back in the zone.

Anyway, I started Bob’s book in January and was done in two days. I have always been a freak about John the Baptist. I dig cat’s that don’t fit the norm and tell it like it is. The problem with liking John is there are very few books on the subject out there. In this book, Bob does a great job of looking at aspects of his life that I never thought about.

The chapter on Baptism is GREAT. I am actually preaching a lot of it this week. I was so impacted by the book that we actually started a teaching series this week called Revolution based on the life of John the Baptist.

Bob does a good job of holding your attention and I imagine reading him is like listening to him speak. He does a good job of mixing bible with stories so that is cool to me. His stories are so relevant that it actually was weird reading something so new. I wonder how those stories will hold up to someone reading it ten years from now?

I judge most books by two things:
1.) Does it challenge me?
2.) Can I preach it?
In this case it was “yes” to both.

I recommend you checking it out, it is worth it.

We probably had one of the longest weekends every at The Stone. The devil was on the prowl and it was obvious. Sunday’s pre-service was rough. Due to some circumstances beyond our control, we knew going in that it would be rough. However I watched our volunteers never get frustrated and make things happen. We were literally trying to get stuff working at 9:55 and we hadn’t let people in the worship center but they neve gave up and at 10 on the dot, the service started.

I was very proud of our people. I sat back and watched them and it just made me happy knowing how much they love the church and will do whatever it takes to make things happen.

Very cool….