DeAnna told me the other day to quit saying things would slow down because I was only fooling myself. For whatever reason I have been so stinking busy lately and I have been having to travel a lot.

Today I will work on my sermon, we will have creative meeting as we are behind on our Christmas Eve service, tonight I get to take Supergirl and Superman out to get some candy, then I leave here about 6 in the morning for a meeting and then off to the airport about 11:30 to fly to Dallas to hang out at Fellowship Church for a couple of days. I come home Friday morning and head straight to the office to finish up the week and then Saturday I will take Ashlyn and Avery off to allow DeAnna some time to herself, then Sunday we will do all we can to fight Big Day Hangover and come out strong with our new series called ANGER.

Busy week and I wouldn’t trade it for anything!

I love what I do and my biggest fear is someone will find out I actually get paid to do this gig.

I started blogging about two years ago and flew under the radar for a long time. Then it happened. I posted a post last year and it got sent all over the internet and I ended up with about 137 comments that lead to me turning off the comment section.

Since tomorrow marks the big day I thought I would repost it hear for you full joy. You can also click here to see it. This was the first time (not the last) that I got threats from my blog. I thought it was funny and sad at the same time.
Here is the post:

I haven’t wanted to post this…

I have avoided it all day…

I’m not proud of it but we all make it mistakes…

I have tried hard to not do this…

I gave into peer pressure that is all I can say…

I am very ashamed…

I could start by giving you excuses:

1. There are no streetlights in my neighborhood
2. I was lazy and didn’t feel like walking
3. I thought what I was doing was better

But they would be just excuses and would not justify what I did.

I have always prided myself on the fact that I don’t do a lot of churchy stuff and yet I did this. I actually feel dirty from this.

So what is it that I did? I am so ashamed I can barely type it…..

I WENT TO A CHURCH FALL FESTIVAL!

There I said it. I know you probably think less of me but what can I say? I fell off the wagon. I gave in. I’m a loser.

I will say this: It was awful.

I knew it was wrong. I was so ashamed I actually went to the next town over from me where no one would see me. That is sad.

Like most things I go to that involve church, I will say this: The church again proved why they aren’t reaching people. This thing was awful. I was embararssed to be a christian and to think they thought they were reaching people without a church home.

If you would have asked this church they would have told you this was their big thing for the community. No, it was their big thing for Christians.

Why can’t the church get “it.”

Here were some things I noticed that were just flat out sad.

1.) Candy - To kids this is the most important part of Halloween. It is for me as well. When you showed up you registered and they gave you a little sandwich bag with candy in it. That was it. We rushed home where Ashlyn could go door to door and she got more candy on our street then she did there. That is very important for a 4 year old. After it was done she told me how fun it was and next year let’s skip the festival. I want my kids growing up digging church not thinking it is lame.

2.) Christianize - Man the christianize language was in full affect. Why do people get saved and then they decide to talk weird? If I met another Bro. so and so I was going scream. If someone called it Harvest day instead of Halloween one more time I was going to punch them. Unchurched people think we are weird because we are.

3.) Excellence - It was sad. This is a large church but I could have honestly done a better job. The inflatables were sad, the games were lame, and the candy…well I already shared that. This church truly had the opportunity to show the community a great time and that church could rock but instead they showed them that the church is always lags behind the world in terms of excellence.

4.) Costumes - No scary ones. I understand they are a church BUT if you are reaching unchurched (that was their goal) then let them come and accept them and maybe let them see you aren’t LAME! There was a dude carrying a snake around and security was escorting them away. Now, I don’t want a snake around either but the snake seemed under control.

5.) Pastor - He was very sissyish. More and more pastors are very sissy men. They are so prim and proper and can’t relate to people. I think people now expect their pastor to be that way and that is one of the reasons men don’t attend church. I have A LOT of thoughts on this but I will post that on another day. I truly felt if I punched him he would break. I listened to him talk and again who talks like that? His wife had big hair too. Not cool.

I could go on and on but you would think I was being a jerk. I am not trying to be but I can’t believe I relapsed like this.

My point is simply I am ashamed that I went to this thing instead of hanging out in my neighborhood and doing what I do best which is chilling with those who don’t go to church.

I am worried about the church. Overall she just doesn’t get it.

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Here is a picture of what the stage looked like during the INKED series. Our creative team is THE best team I have ever seen. What they do with NO money is amazing.

To me the coolest thing about yesterday was watching the kids come in and give the money they had been saving to participate in what God is doing here.

Here is a picture someone sent me that shows how cool it was.

Sorry for waiting so long to post. I have been exhausted, I took our staff out to eat for pastor appreciation month, and to be honest I really haven’t had the words to describe what God did today.

5 weeks ago we launched a series called INKED: Leaving Your Mark. To sum up the series, I cast vision to our people abot what it was going to take for us to take the next steps as a church to reach this community. God has blessed The Stone beyond measure but I felt we were at a dangerous place running 500. I think 500 is a dangerous place because it is the place where churches get comfortable and content. I shared this with our people and then I talked about 4 areas I felt we needed to improve in to position ourselves to reach this community better.

The areas I identified are going to cost us right at $100,000. To many churches that probably seems like chump change but to a church that was over 70% unchurched before attending here, that is a huge goal. We decided that we would ask for 2 month commitments from our people to give above and beyond their regular giving. Almost everyone I talked to said that we were trying to raise to much in to short amount of time. We were told since we were not raising money for tangible things like land or a building, it was even harder to do.

However, I along with our team felt God was telling us to do it. We basically broke every rule of fundraising. The “formula” simply didn’t fit our DNA at RSC. I stood up and laid it to our people and pulled no punches about what we need to do.

I had no idea what to expect.
I had no prior event to judge it by.

Today was commitment Sunday and we didn’t raise $100,000, we raised about $105,000 with more commitments coming in this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have never been more proud of our people. The money has nothing to do with it. I would have been proud of them if we raised $50,000. I am proud of our people because today they allowed God to stretch them like never before. I watched people who don’t have a dime, step out and trust God. I watched people who were unchurched prior to coming here, step out and give.

Watching our crowd step out today and take the Lord’s Supper and place their commitments in the basket is a day I will remember for the rest of my life.

Ridge Stone, I love being your pastor and watching your faith rocks my world!

I thought we were going to make a comeback.

I was wrong.

I have a theory. The Dawgs always won until John moved here. I love having John on staff but I am totally blaming him for the loss.

Tomorrow we have an AWESOME day planned. For the last month we have been our INKED campaign. During the series I laid out 4 areas that we must address for us to continue to take the steps necessary for us to further the vision of The Stone.

Set-up/Tear-down - We will be going to multiple services come January and we have a huge need to get the TRUE portable equipment that will allow us to set-up and tear-down quicker.

Staffing - WE have full time staff working for part time salary. It is time to take the steps necessary to take care of their needs.

Students - We are going to build out the back warehouse at our offices into a youth room and meeting room for the church.

Future Site - It is time to start preparing for whatever is next in regards to our next location. We might not move for a few years but we need to be ready when the time comes.

I told our people that in order to take these steps we are going to need about 100 grand. So this Sunday we will come forward as a church family and make 2 month commitments to give above and beyond our regular giving to further the vision.

God has already done some great things and we haven’t even taken up the offering. I am excited about tomorrow and can’t wait to see what God does.

I truly believe tomorrow will be one of the days we look back on in the future as a historic day in our church.

It is going to rock!

GO DAWGS!!!!!!!

To me this is THE game of the year for us. If I could win one game a year it would this one.

No, I’m not talking about Sundays at The Stone. Tomorrow my Dawgs meet Florida for what has been a annual butt kicking for us. The Gators have our number EVERY year. This year doesn’t look to change but I’ll be on the couch tomorrow rooting for my Dawgs and believing to the last second that they can pull the upset.

Go Dawgs!

The owners of the new Jocks N Jills attend The Stone and they have invited the entire staff and their spouses to the VIP opening tonight. I have never been a VIP at anything so I am excited.

RSC, you guys have the best staff in the world and I get the honor of hanging out with them tonight. Should be fun.