I start every membership class with our history and vision. But before I do that I have ever couple stand up and introduce themselve and tell how they discovered RSC. This is hands down my favorite part of the class. I love hearing how God brought people into the church.

Tonight we had a new guy stand up who is a single dad and tell how he found out about the church was great. He said, “Heck, I just wanted to bring my son to see Charloette’s Web and you guys were having church. I’ve been here ever since.” Our people thought that was great and went nuts clapping. I love meeting in the market place!!!!!

I also thought it was cool that we had three couples who came because of our Christmas Eve rap video. :)  I knew I had skillz

Chris Garcia is this week’s freak of the week. For those of you who don’t know Chris, he runs our middle school and high school ministries. If he keeps it up he will probably be on staff by the end of the year so I had to name him the freak of the week while he was still volunteering.

Chris has caused me more headaches and more frustration then just about anyone BUT he has taken his lumps and butt chewings and EVERY time he learns and grows. He is doing a GREAT job with the youth. He has the two Sunday night youth services rocking and rolling and the kids love him. Chris works 40 plus hours a week on third shift then comes into the office several times a week. He is the man!!!!

Right now, Chris in in WV with about 40 teenagers on our youth ski trip. He is doing all the teaching and I hear he is doing a great job. On top of all that he also runs the media and sound in our children’s area on Sunday mornings. We work him to death.

Besides that he is getting married to my assistant. How he pulled that off none of us know!!!

Chris is doing a GREAT job and if you see him Sunday make sure you let him know.

One more thing…. Chris MIGHT be the most hairy person I have ever met. Seriously since he arrived in WV there have been news reports of abominable snowmen sightings. What they don’t know is it isn’t the abominable snowman, it is simply Chris Garcia.

I am sitting here looking over my sermon for this week and I am freaking pumped.  I love the new series and it is going to be a blast talking about our stories and how we communicate those to others.

We are going to have several church planters in the service this week so everyone try and be on best behavior this Sunday.

Tonight we have our first membership class of the year.  I am pumped up.  It has been a crazy week and I am looking forward to hanging out with people who make up RSC.  This class filled up in one Sunday and we had to shut it down at around 55 people.

The best part of the night is we cater in some of the best BBQ around so you know I am happy about tonight!!!

Malcolm teaches the class and we have knocked that joker down from 4 hours to 1 1/2 hour so that is awesome.  I always come and tell the history and vision of the church because it is my passion then Malcolm runs the rest of the deal.

If you are coming tonight, I look forward to hanging out!

If you aren’t coming and you haven come yet, sign up for the next one in March.  It is a good time.

Another reason I am pumped up about the churchplanters.com conference is to hear Dave Ferguson talk.  Dave has one of my favorite blogs and is a champion in multi-site church.

He recently came out with his first book called The Big Idea.  I read it in a couple of days and thought it was great.  The big idea of the book is that we are overloaded with information and they have designed their church around one big idea a week.  Everyone learns the idea from children to the main service.

I love this idea and we actually do this on a limited scale.

ALL of our Home Teams discuss the sermon topic and that is great.  We hope to move to where we are doing in our children’s area as well in the future.  This will unite families around a topic of the week and enable them to discuss together what God is teaching them.

I thought the book was very well  and very detailed.  He left no stone unturned.  I especailly loved the focus on multi-site church and believer when we launch our campuses in Jasper and Elijay this will be a huge benefit to us.

I 100% recommend this book and if you bring to the conference or buy it at the conference you could probably get him to sign it.

Seems like we are going to have several church planters in the service this weekend as they get to town for the churchplanters.com conference.  Very cool.  I would love to meet all of you that are going to be in our services and I would love to have Taylor give you all tours behind the scenes if you want.

If you are going to be in our services, you can email Taylor at taylor@ridgestonechurch.com or you can go to the top of this blog and click on contact and send a message and that goes to Taylor and she will work it out for us to hook up.

Look forward to meeting you!!!

I forgot to mention this from my trip I took last week.  While meeting with Perry he was talking about how shocked he was so many people had signed up for the unleash conference.  I mentioned that I wasn’t and figured they would have between 300-400 people there.

His response was (and Jason Moorhead was there to prove it) that if 300 people showed up he would “crap his pants” and if 400 people showed up he would eat his underwear.  Well, I am assuming since he said he would crap his pants he was meaning those were the pants he would eat.  SO that has me motivated to make sure 400 people are there.

They are at a little over 200 now.  We are taking between 30-40 people so we need some other churches to step up.  I personally would find it funny to see Perry eat his crap filled pants.

BTW, I am only slightly joking

This Sunday we launch a new series we are calling Storybook and I am very pumped about it.  We are covering a topic that I am freakishly passionate about and that is telling others about Jesus Christ.  Believe it or not we have never done a series where we talked about sharing your story with others.

It is a short series that will only be two weeks long but it going to be awesome.

This week we will share how to share your story of what Christ has done in your life.

Then next week we are sharing the GREATEST story ever.  This is the day you want to have your friends and family that don’t know Christ in the service.  You do your part and get them there and we’ll do our part and make sure they hear the message of Jesus Christ in a relevant and creative way.

I got to talk to Todd Wilson, who runs the National New Church Conference on the phone today.  I got to admit I was very impressed.  He seemed like a VERY down to earth guy and I loved that.  I actually enjoyed talking to him.  The guy has a HUGE heart for church planting.

He is going to be at the churchplanters.com conference next week and we are going to hook up and if we can work out, I will be doing a podcast with him for their podcast they do leading up the conference.  I will also be talking to him about getting involved in the conference, possibly blogging or something from there.  I just got off the website and either way, I think I am going to try to work it out where I can go hang out.

One of the things we have done at RSC that I am most proud of is our Starting Over Addiction Ministry that meets on Wednesday nights at The Warehouse.  We don’t do a lot of different things at The Stone but I have a heart for addicts and I love this thing.

Tomorrow night is going to be cool as they are having their first speakers meeting.  Ray, who leads the ministry will be giving his story and it should be awesome!!  I can’t wait to hear it.

If you want to come hear it, show up at the warehouse at 7:30 p.m.