Avery is killing me. He is turning into 100% boy. All he wants to do is wrestle, jump off of stuff, and throw things. He makes me laugh, but he is still a big time momma’s boy.
Today I walk in and he is in his superman outfit running through the house with his fist raised screaming “Superman Superman.” The dude can barely talk so I was laughing and then he turned around and he had a play-up pearl necklace on with his superman outfit!!!
I got some work to do with him….. 
For what ever reason I have never really been the type to operate with a lot fear. I believe it is our job to do crazy things for God and His job to make sure we don’t bomb. I became a Christ-Follower after my teen years and come from a very unchurched background and I am not smart enough to do anything but take God at His word.
As such DeAnna and I have never really had a problem stepping out and doing what we feel God is calling us.
I remember putting our house up for sale on a Saturday, it selling on Monday and us moving the next Friday to Iowa. We started a church that Sunday with 6 people showing up. I didn’t know better and I either had enough faith or was just crazy enough to believe God would see us through.
I remember when our church in Iowa bought land RIGHT across the street from Wal-Mart. People said we were crazy and could never afford it. Well we bought it and they are now in a beautiful building on that property.
I remember moving cross country to come home and go on staff at West Ridge for $1000 a month. We never gave it a second thought. We either had enough faith or were just crazy and God blessed.
I remember starting The Stone in the one school that was in a bad location and couldn’t be seen from the road. Everyone told us not to do it but that was the only place that opened up for us. I just knew it would work.
I remember at 1 year moving to a place that was three times the size of the school and were two other churches had already moved out. I had a pastor this week tell me he thought at the time we were the stupidest church around for doing that. We never gave it a second thought.
Now here we are and we are facing some interesting challenges. Make no mistake about it that they are AWESOME challenges but challenges nevertheless. I have spent this entire week looking at possibilities for our challenge and the bottom line is I DON’T CARE what the answer is because I either have enough faith or I am just crazy enough to believe it is God’s problem to make it work.
This past Sunday I announced that our church was not going to be content at 500 and that we would be the biggest church in this town, not because we cared about being the biggest but because we wanted to reach unchurched people in this area. I told some of our people if they couldn’t dig the vision then to leave and I reminded those on board that we would not settle for 500 because over 70% were unchurched here and that was unacceptable. It was a VERY blunt message but I had enough faith to believe our people would respond and those that didn’t, we didn’t need. There again, some would just say our staff is crazy.
I told our people there were four areas we had to make happen for the vision to go forward and they all cost money. Our people responded with excitement like I have never seen. I didn’t sugarcoat anything and I just manned up and told them what need to happen. They responded because the BUY into the vision and they have the faith to believe it can happen or they are just crazy enough like me and believe God will make things happen.
Since Sunday, God has rocked my world. We have had people stopping by the office like never before who CAN’T wait until the last Sunday in October to give and feel like they have to give now! It has been amazing.
God could be leading us in a direction that 99.9% of the people I ask advice from would think is CRAZY but it appears to be the open door. The thing is the PEOPLE of The Stone will be just like me and know if God is leading there then we should have enough faith to step out and do it…or they might just be crazy.
Either way I think God is pleased with what is going on here and I am pumped about reaching more people for the KING.
Ridge Stone, you guys rock and I can’t wait to see what God has next!!
We have not put a lot of emphasis on Home Teams since we started. We have instead decided to focus on Sunday and do that well. 2 years in we decided to tackle HT’s head on. We brought a Connection Pastor on staff by faith and just finished a series on the importance of relationships and getting connected in small groups.
The last three weeks since we started them we have been having over 30% of our adult attendars in small groups. Might not be that great to some churches, but for us this is huge. People are getting connected and relationships are forming that are going to make RSC stronger then ever.
Small Groups and Assimilation has been the thing that has allowed us to go to the next level. If I had it to do over again, I would have still waited for two years to start small groups but we would have had a better assimilation plan in place from day one.
Live and learn….
There are simply some awesome things happening at The Stone right now. Seriously, I can’t remember the last time there was such a sense of knowing something big was about to happen. Our people have ALWAYS owned the vision here but you can feel it is more unified then ever as we entered our first financial campaign this last Sunday.
There has never been a time in RSC history where there were so many unknowns such as future meeting location, rent increases, hurdles that have to be jumped in being portable, etc. but there is a buzz in our church. Our people always thrive on “us against the world” mindset and these obstacles have the people of RSC ready to charge hell with a water gun.
I don’t know what is about to happen but I can feel something big is on its way.
I can’t wait!!!
Man we are playing rough but teh rumor is Joe T will be back at QB this weekend and that makes me a lot better.
The way we are playing right now, I might be looking for a Clemson shirt to wear at the end of the year to pay off my debt to Perry…
On second thought, it doesn’t matter how many we lose because I feel confident that Clemson will lose more.
Here is an email I got from a dude on our church. It made me laugh so hard I had to post it:
1. Could you be a little less direct in your approach to difficult topics? I mean aren’t we supposed to be guilted into giving to the church and its needs for growth instead of you just laying it out there like a man?!
2. My kids enjoy church way too much and get excited when they go. Where are all the felt story boards and boring Sunday school songs?!
3. The music is just too good and rockin to have a message. Just cause I listen to rockin music all the time in the car, what makes you think I want to enjoy that same good style at church with a godly theme? One word…hymnals (and probably more coffee)
4. Your messages make too much sense and are too easy to understand with a every day life relative meaning. Could you use more big words and messages with points that all either rhyme or all start with the same letter or spell out something? My southern screamer dictionary/reference guide is gathering dust since you don’t use all the theological ramble….two words Jesse Jackson
5. Visitation. I mean come on!! Aren’t we supposed to fill out some little card with that little pencil in the pew in front of you so we know who to freak out come Wed ?! I mean to go to church cause you want to, not because your afraid three weird guys in suits will show up at your door Wed night asking where you have been where you’re going and hand out a little fear of God in a “track”?! Where’s the fear factor?
6. Real people. Can you be more insane than to have real people be themselves and come as they are with real problems doing real life? We need to start having the “how to fake it at church so no one can see the real you” ministry since most of our attenders aren’t churchified! Doesn’t “brother gary” and “sister christian” have a nice holy ring to it? (sorry had to pull out the Night Ranger reference for that one)
just some thoughts to consider…..pass them around for discussions……throw them out the window and keep on doin what ya doin!
The 85 bears were the first sport team (other then my Dawgs who are really stinking but still winning) that I really remember ever watching. I loved Jim McMahon. He was a loud mouth white boy and I remember thinking he was THE man.
Anyway, I am a Falcon fan hands down but Da Bears always have a soft spot in my heart. To me they are old school, smash mouth football. From Soldier Field to the Old School uniforms I love the bears and man they look good.
That D is amazing and Grossman the Gator is looking GREAT (got him on my fantasy team) and tonight it looks like they finally got the running game going.
They are going to be hard to beat.
Things are getting interesting here at The Stone. Today we launched our first financial campaign with about about 100 grand needed in the next two months to do some things we feel God leading us to do. That is a lot of bling for our crowd but I believe it will happen and no matter what happens, God knows about what we need and why we need it.
Our relationship with the theater is sputtering along. Last week corporate had their annual inspection and decided to REALLY raise our rent, took away ALL our storage space and said we couldn’t leave our banners hanging throughout the week. Bummer.
Yet it is amazing how God works. God knew we were launching this campaign, God knows what is next and God knew our people would rally. There are a lot of people watching to see how we respond to this bump in the road. Well if today was any indication, things are going to be fine.
I told our people today what we were facing, reminded them about our vision and that is all it took.
The buzz and excitement about what is next was off the hook!!!!
Now I can’t wait to find out exactly what IS next.