After starting the fantasy football season 0-4, I then won 9 straight to make the playoffs. I rolled in the first round and made it to the championship game.

Yesterday my team CHOKED and I had the worst games out of the year by Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, and Jeremy Shockey. Combined they had 10 points. Tim beat the crude out of me and I lost.

Second year in a row I have lost in the championship game.

Last year I was up by 32 points going into Monday and all he had was Gates from SD. Gates then went out and scored 35 and I lost.

My team chokes every stinking year.

Today is DeAnna’s birthday! I truly think I have the greatest wife in the world and I mean that with everything that I am.

She is sold out for God - Her walk with God is real and she is open to His leading. She is also a strong prayer warrior.

She is a great wife - She has stood by my side through everything. She has never not bee not supportive. When we didn’t know how we were going to pay the bills, she never complained. When we moved several times in the early days, she was supportive. She loves what we do as much as I do.

She is a great mother - All she has ever wanted to do was be a mom and she is the best. Raising my crazy kids is not easy and she thrives at it.

She is a great pastor’s wife - She is not the typical pastor’s wife and to be honest most of the church doesn’t even know who she is. But she allows me to pour my life into the church and never feels slighted by it in the least. RSC is lucky to have her.

She is hot - 10 years later and she still is smoking hot to me. That is a good thing.

Happy Birthday!

BTW, for her birthday we all got pink eye and she is playing nurse.

Christmas has knocked everyone in the Lamb house out and therefore I am the only one up. We had a great Christmas this year. I LOVED doing Christmas Eve in the morning and having the rest of the night off!!! I’m still pumped up about what happened yesterday and I can’t wait to see what God has planned in 07. It is going to be an awesome year and we are going to turn the heat of telling the story of Jesus up like never before.

We have an entire week off and I am looking forward to chilling out. We are going to have a very laid back service this weekend. We are going to be talking about 07, doing a little praying, and sharing the Lord’s Supper together. It is going to be a fun Sunday.

This week I intend to really focus on how I am going to grow as a pastor, teacher, and a leader. It is so easy when you are so focused on what is happening in your church that you forget that you need to continue to grow. I live by the conviction that The Stone will never grow beyond my own personal growth and the growth of our staff. This week I am going put the steps necessary to insure I am growing.

It is going to be a relaxing week and I am looking forward to some time with the family and some personal self-reflection.

George Marankie sent this to me today and it is a GREAT quote. The Marankie clan is another family that has been with us since basically the start and another couple who gets IT.

When you’re small, they’ll dismiss you; when you’re growing, they’ll criticize you; and when you’re large, they’ll resent you. So ignore ‘them’ and get on with whatever God has told you to do!

- Rick Warren

AWESOME QUOTE!

Yeah, I have posted to much over the last two days but it is my blog so I guess I have that right.
I simply can’t get over how proud I am of our people today. It simply was an awesome day!!!

The thing that was the coolest though was not the set design, the rocking music, the great sermon (if I do say so myself :), the tons of visitors from our mailer, or the buzz that was going on. Hands down the coolest thing to me was watching all of our people who brought friends with them.

To me a sign of whether or not your people truly get IT is whether or not they are willing to invite their friends. For whatever reason inviting your friends to church is a very hard thing for people to do, yet today (actually always) our people worked and it paid off. It was awesome as person after person introduced me to their friends.

It is that type of stuff that will keep you going another week!

One of the first families who joined with us in planting The Stone was Malcolm and Amy Young. From day one they have worked as hard as anyone in the church. Malcolm was on our advisory team from day one and has played bass in the band from the start. Amy leads up all of our creative elements and is over everything you visually see at church. She is da bomb!

Besides what they do at the church, Malcolm is also one of my best friends in the world. I love the dude and as much as he drives me crazy, I trust him with my life.

September 1st, we brought Malcolm on staff full-time as our connections pastor. He oversees our Home Teams, Volunteers, and Assimilation. He is doing a great job.

Starting January 1st, Amy comes on staff part-time and she is going to take everything to the next level in the production and creative areas.

I am blessed to have these guys on our team and you are RSC are blessed to have people who are so sold out to the vision of the church.

Anyway, I said all that to say this: Malcolm is now blogging! Check out his thoughts here.

I don’t have words to describe today. I am wore out and in awe of how awesome God is. I am as proud of our people as I have ever been and I am humbled by how awesome they are to make The Stone happen every week. I honestly get way to much credit for what God is doing here. Our people make it happen and I think they are the greatest in the world.

I don’t have total numbers but we had over 800 in our services today and several people accept Christ.

The atmosphere was awesome, our worship was off the hook, and it was a rush to tell the story of the greatest gift ever.

Our people will see these tomorrow so I feel free to pass them on to you now. We are hitting the marketing trail hard this year. I am still convinced the large majority of people don’t know we exist. Mailers are not the end all but they get the name out there and make it easier for your people to invite people.

In January we are doing a marriage series addressing the leading causes of divorce. The stage set-up is going to be off the hook, the lobby is going to be awesome and I think the mailer is freaky…in a good way. We are going to be looking at how something so beautiful such as marriage can turn so ugly so quickly. As with everything we send out, we have one goal and that is to get the mailer turned over. I think the chopped off finger does that.
Shout out to o2graphicdesign for creating the mailer. I have said it a thousand times but they are the best I have ever worked with. Their prices rock, their work is awesome, and their professionalism can’t be matched. Give em a look.

In what has become a three time a year competition (Easter, Anniversary, Christmas) I think I am going to win this time.

What am I talking about?

The best dressed for the big day of course.
Things have been known to get out of hand and today was no exception. Tim, Preston and I were all out fighting crowds for the perfect threads. Malcolm felt no need since had already gotten his stuff earlier. Plenty of phone calls and plenty of smack talking has been going on all day.

I’m pulling a “first” tomorrow and I feel pretty confident that I will be crowned the winner.
Oh, the traditions we develop. For those wonder, John hasn’t yet entered into the madness that is the dress contest but I feel we will have him in the Easter one…..of course he is an admin guy so he could care less about dressing well. He only cares about finding a good deal.

1. I can’t wait for the morning to get here!!! Christmas Eve in Canton is going to be awesome!
2. I picked up our marriage mailer from Fed-Ex today. Man, it is sweet and freaky all at the same time.
3. This blog, along with the Backstage blog were named #10 in the top 20 Church communication blogs by Outreach Magazine. That is cool.
4. Crude, I got to get some posts up in the Backstage blog.
5. Love Tony Morgan but not as wild about the top 25 most innovative church list. Innovation is an odd thing and means different things to different people, but not enough portable church plants on there. There are two that I saw and I have been to both of them. Also no New Spring? I think the large majority of the people on the panel might have been to big time to know anything but the mainline churches that everyone knows about. I would love to see how innovative some of those churches would be if they were portable and had to do everything with duct tape and chicken wire. I’m not bitter, I promise…..
6. I am digging The Killers like crazy lately.
7. The kids area looked like a Griswald Christmas last week and Preston said it is going to be crazier this week. He rocks!!!
8. My staff wants me to do the worm on stage during the Christmas Eve service. I don’t think so…
9. My mom is coming to church tomorrow. She hasn’t been to the movie theater yet, so I am excited.
10. The wife is baking and it smells good.
11. I am about to venture out to the stores. I need some shoes and probably a shirt for tomorrow wouldn’t hurt either.
12. This is Avery’s first year understanding that Santa is coming. He is pretty pumped and I am already sick of Lighting McQueen stuff.
13. Yesterday there was a possibility of me doing 4 services. 2 for us and 2 at night for a friend. He is feeling better and I am pumped for his services as I am ours.
14. Hey Michael, is Alabama ever going to hire a coach?
15. The Popp’s will be at church tomorrow with their new baby. I’m pumped to see the little man.
16. I’m excited about the worship tomorrow.
17. I’m excited about the stage design.
18. The office is closed next week. Our guys deserve the break and next week the service is scaled back so it was a good week to take a break.
19. Why isn’t it colder?
20. 10 years of marriage and the wife is still hot. That is a good thing.
21. I need to pray for all the dudes doing Saturday night services this weekend. Go get em boys!
22. Tim and I were out late putting out new street signs. It reminded me of the old days.
23. We have new internal signs going up tomorrow. These dudes designed them and ordered them. Great to work with and price was GREAT.
24. Is it a sin to be this happy with your life?
25. I can’t wait to teach tomorrow!!!!!! I feel like a caged lion.
26. The kids are napping and that is kewl.
27. Merry Christmas to all of you!!!!