My friend Charlie Pharris bought me some books for my birthday and they arrived yesterday.

Confessions of a Reformisson Rev. by Mark Driscoll - Got it yesterday, finished it today. GREAT book, MUST read. He breaks it down by growth periods in the church. I have a friend who calls me the redneck Driscoll. I love the dude. The stuff he talks about as they have hit the 4,000 mark and are trying to break the 10,000 mark is great. He even talks about crapping (his words) in his pants one time while being so sick while preaching. What else can you say?
Buzzmarketing by Mark Hughes - Starting it tomorrow. I have heard GREAT things about it and can’t wait to read it.

Chazown by Craig Groeschel - Pastor of Life Church and I can’t wait to start reading it. The dude is getting it done and I can’t wait to read the book.

Communicating for change by Andy Stanley - Best teacher around, book should be good. Only problem is it isn’t out yet so it should be good WHEN it comes.
Thanks Charlie!

I downloaded the new song by the Dixie Chicks. It is called “Not ready to make nice,” Let me say up front that I don’t agree with the comments they made three years ago. They spoke (as was their right as Americans) and they lost a lot of fans (as is our right as Americans).

However when I saw they had a new song out, I had to get it. The song is actually pretty good, they have always been able to sing. The thing is they still aren’t backing down. They don’t care if you like them or not and while I don’t agree, I respect the fact they are willing to stand by what they feel is a conviction.

That is gutsy…

My wife is sort of a health nut. She grinds her own wheat, all of our bread products, desserts, etc. she makes from whole wheat that she has grinded up into mush. She is big into growing her own junk in the garden, and that is fine. To be honest, I’m not really into it but she can do what she wants. I eat like crap every day so it is good to come home and eat healthy. Don’t get me wrong, it is a little weird. She won’t cook with ground meat, it has to be ground turkey, she won’t let us eat anything “white” like white rice and potatoes, and I have grown to deal with. After going to Greg’s last fall, all we are allowed to drink is green tea now. I could go on and on. Don’t get me wrong she isn’t Amish or anything, matter of fact she is pretty hot but, she just makes us eat weird food.

Like I said, I don’t eat very good during the day and I have actually gained a lot of weight since we started the church so I guess it is good she watches out for me.

BUT…I am thinking she has crossed the line now. We now have moved to only drinking raw milk only. What is raw milk? It is milk that goes straight from the cow to the bottle, you don’t pass go, you don’t collect $200. It is actually illegal to sale in Georgia so she and a couple of other ladies drive to South Carolina to get it. I actually had to buy another fridge just to hold it because she buys 12 gallons at a time because it is so far away.

I have avoided drinking it for two weeks now but she has made brownies tonight (from wheat) and how can you eat a brownie without milk? It appears to be very watery to me but they swear it is healthy.

I don’t know……

Got about 20 answers yesterday from people answering my question about series length. Got about 25 emails wanting to know what everone else said.

The average was 6-7 weeks.

That seems long to me but, I think we are going to try it….

I thought we had the best day ever after a big day. Does that make sense?

We continued on with our series called Y and we answered the question Y do we do what we do? I talked about the vision of the church, why we do this style of church, etc.

I talked about Luke 15 and talked about how we like to make heaven party. We ended the service with Tomlin’s new song called, Party. Fun song, that the crowd got into big time. I about flipped out (in a good way) when during the bridge of the song, the band transitioned over to “You got to fight for your right to party” by the Beasty Boys. It was pretty cool.

That will give some of the blogs our there plenty of fodder to write about.

Could you guy share with me the average length of your sermon series?

We normally do about 4 weeks because I get bored about week 3 but sometimes we put a lot work into something for only four weeks.

Anyway, if you would e-mail me with your answer, I would appreciate it.
(I know I could turn comments back on when I ask these questions but it isn’t worth dealing with)

Thanks!

Gary Lamb is the Lead Pastor of Ridge Stone Church in Canton, Ga. Started on August 15th, 2004, RSC has quickly become known for it’s passion for innovation, creativity, and reaching those who are disconnected from church. In it’s two years of existence, RSC has grown from 6 families to over 500 people in weekly attendance.

Prior to starting RSC, Gary started a church in Ames, Iowa. He has a huge passion for church planters and works as consultant for a church planting group in Georgia and teaches church planters at the West Ridge School of Church Planting in Hiram, Ga.

Gary has a been married to DeAnna since April of 1997 and has two great children, Ashlyn and Avery.

You can contact Gary at garylambjr (at) gmail.com

Today is supposed to be my finish up studying day. The message is done but on Thursday I put the finishing touches on it and begin scale down my notes and cut stuff because of time and all that jazz. Nothing stands in my way on this day…normally.

My day began early with a call that I had to deal with. I had to go into pastor mode. Going into pastor mode is good and bad. I am glad God allows me to do it but the bad is that it normally means something bad has happened. I can tell God has really grown me in this area because when our people hurt, it tears me up. I hate it. I hate knowing the devil gets a small victory. It makes me angry.

Today after dealing with the situation, I never could get back into the frame of mind to study. I tried and I got a little done but for the first time since I can remember I feel as if I am behind the eight ball. DeAnna is out of town and I get to watch Ashlyn and Avery Friday and Saturday so there will not be much time to study but, I will stay up late tonight tweaking it.

We plan as a team and we plan ahead. Tonight I see the advantage of that as never before.

If you get a chance, sling up a quick prayer for me.

Thanks!

I’m convinced one of the reasons we have seen God bless RSC like he has so quickly is because God has sent me some guys who are great leaders, planters, and pastors who for whatever reason have taken a great interest in me. I am blessed by that and I will never take it for granted.

One of the first in my life was Greg Rohlinger. Greg is the pastor/planter of Palm Valley Church in Arizona. Palm Valley is running about 2,000 people and doing it while meeting in a high school. Greg was there when I was pastoring a sinking ship in Iowa. I and the people of RSC owe a lot to Greg for the investment he has made in my life.

Well, Greg has joined the blogging world. Check it out and he assures me that come tomorrow you will be able to get a feed on it.

I can assure you that Greg will quickly become a must read blog for pastors. Check it out here.

This is what we did today after lunch. We watched Preston’s snake eat dinner. It was actually pretty cool, the mouse put up a good fight but in the end, it lost.