Man, I have been looking over my sermon for in the morning and I am pumped up about the topic. I will get a lot of backlash about some of the things I am going to say tomorrow but the bottom line is what I am saying, needs to be said especially to our crowd that is so young in their faith.

I often get told that being so focused on men is my hobby horse.

I can honestly say that this is not the cause.

Here is my hobby horse and my conviction: Reach the man, you reach the family.

God has been really dealing with me on this thought: “You have planted this church and your focus is reaching men. NOW what are you going to do with them?”

I can’t shake that thought. We have reached a lot of men and actually probably have more men then women BUT now that they are here, what are we going to do with them? Our mission is not complete with reaching them. We need to teach them how to be better husbands, better fathers, better Christians, etc.

Tomorrow I am going to challenge our men like never before on this subject.

I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today has been a good day. We celebrate Sunday holiday’s a day early because of this thing I have to do every Sunday.

So today I have it has been my day and it has been a good day. The kids are now going to sleep and I am sitting down to review my message and I’m listening to a jamming CD by The Little Willies. This cats are a bunch of pretty known musicans who have basically just got together and recorded some jam sessions. Oh yeah, one of the cats is Norah Jones. Norah is my girl, she can sing like no one else.

The music is sort of a jazzy, bluegrass, country sound. It is very good.

If you want something fun and different, then get this CD.

My boy Matt Evans posted about my structure post on his blog. He has another point of view and it worth the read.

Check it out here.

This blog is turning more into my pains being an iPod owner then it is being a church planter.
As most know, I got a iPod for my birthday about 3 months ago. I love it!!!!!!! I can’t believe how bad it gets scratched but I love it nevertheless. Anyway, since say one, it has locked up non-stop. It cuts off and won’t cut back on and it just been a pain in the butt. Well last night it just quit working and I still can’t get it back on.

Now, I can mail it in but, do I want to do that or do I want to go to the Apple store to have them look at it (which I hate)?

which one would be the best option?

I have always been pretty open here about things I feel we have done right, we would have done wrong, or things we would have done different at RSC. I have made NO bones about the fact that we are in the process of putting together systems for assimilation and small groups. I have also made no bones about the fact that we are pretty free-spirited when it comes to structure internally and we are even making small changes in that area.

Probably the #1 question I get from planters is if I had it to do over again, would I have put more structure to The Stone before starting? I also get a lot of heat from a few pastors I know in the area that swear that the bottom is about to fall out because of our weaknesses in this area.

Today I was asked the question again in an e-mail and the church planter (who has yet to even start or do anything) said while he appreciated my blog, he planned on avoiding the mistakes we have made and in doing so be double what we are in attendance by our time. I laughed. I am sorry, but I couldn’t help it.

The e-mail did get me thinking about the question though. IF I had it to do over again, would I have I had more structure in these areas?

My answer may surprise you BUT my answer would be NO. I would not have had more structure. I understand the need for it and we are NOW in the process of putting it together BUT I think God has blessed and grown our church because by having so little structure we have been able to be very flexible and roll with the punches in the speed in which is required in a church plant.

To be honest, most guys that I see that plant with a lot of structure build small, slow growing churches. I think early on your structure slows you down. You are glued to the system whether you have the leaders, people, and money to put it together or not. The structure many times becomes more important then reality.

I also think it is hard to have so much structure until you figure out your personality as a church. Let me be honest: In many ways, RSC looks nothing like I thought it would when we launched. Our first 18 months we evolved into discovering exactly who we were. I was on staff at a large church plant and to be honest, I thought we would look just like them, but we don’t.

Our personality and DNA have molded our structure. We couldn’t have done that in the early days or we would not have looked like we do now.

When a church launches I am a firm believer that you need to be full speed ahead and just simply going after to build momentum. This is the most important thing. Start a fire, and let people come watch it burn. Many time your structure sucks the MO out of your church.

Many will say if we already had structure, we wouldn’t be worrying about it now and we could just keep rolling. While I guess that is true, I believe if we would have had structure we would still be running about 75 people and having the structure wouldn’t have mattered.

Because we were flexible and simply flew by the seat of our pants, we have grown and being flexible allowed forf that. Now because of our growth we have a person (still can’t mention who) coming on staff in the next couple of months who is gifted in getting us running on an administrative end and I can keep doing what I have been doing and that is investing in people’s lives and being used to build a church.

Structure and systems take time and early on the only time you have should be dumped into Sunday and People and NOTHING else.

Of course that was just my opinion, but many of you asked.

I know a lot of you are picture buffs when it comes to seeing other churches. Well, I was snooping around momma’s webpage today and noticed they had posted pictures of their new building. West Ridge built a GREAT building and now you can see it.

To see the pictures click here.

My wife and the wife of our Pastor of Connections have a huge heart for parents who want to adopt. They had been working with an adoption company for a while and simply felt God calling them to step out on faith and start their own consultation company. This was a huge step of faith but, my wife has followed my crazy leaps of faith our entire marriage and I really felt God was telling me to do the same for her.

So on June 1st, they started Christian Adoption Consultants. It has been awesome to see how God has stretched my wife and to see both of their hearts for this awesome thing called adoption. The doors God has opened has been huge already. Through the company they have already been able to help a online pastor friend of mine and the Big Mo has been going strong for it to be just two weeks. There have been a ton of calls and a ton of questions from people wanting to know more about what they do.

While those things were/are nice, they simply don’t pay the bills. God had blessed me with a good salary here at The Stone but starting a church put us in a lot of debt and we have always used DeAnna’s money to pay that off. That stopped when starting this company.

Well, my sugar mama just told me they got their first paying client!!!!

I knew it would take off and I knew that God would bless, but I am very proud of my wife right now. Not because of the money, that means nothing to me. I am proud of her for stepping out on faith and doing what she felt God has called her to do.

If you know somone looking to adopt, I can honestly say I know no one who will have more knowledge, heart, and get you placed quicker then them.

You can check them out here.

I have been of the opinion for a while that a network outside of denoms needs to be started for churches who have a more modern and creative approach to ministry. I know there are tons of GREAT networks out there, but as we have looked to be part of them, none of really felt like the right fit for our vision and style of church. In my opinion ARC and Acts 29 are doing it like no one else but neither is the right fit for us for various reasons.

I discussed this topic with Perry Noble last week at lunch and it was cool to hear how God was laying the same thing on his heart and he shared with me a little bit about what he felt God was calling him to do. It got me excited. Today on his blog, he opened an invite for a meeting to discuss this very thing to the first 20 pastors who responded. Check out the post here.

If you are interested, you better sign-up quick as I’m sure 20 will be hit by the end of the day.

For the first time ever, I have called an audible for this Sunday. We are totally changing the message this week. I know pastors who do this every week and as a result their people who work for them are stressed and hate their job. I actually was involved in a church like this once.

I have never done it and I appreciated the awesome attitude of our staff in helping us pull it off.

I’m preaching on Biblical Manhood this weekend. I am very passionate about this topic as I think most Christian men are anything but the warriors God called us to be.

Can’t wait until Sunday……

Just got back to the office after being gone since Sunday with our pastoral team for a staff retreat. I am freaking tired! We had a awesome time, got a lot of stuff accomplished, ate a lot of good food, and just had a good time.

I’m ready to see DeAnna and my kids. I had so many e-mails that it is crazy! As soon as a check those out, I’m heading home.

I’ll share with you some things we discussed later.