BTW, I downloaded the lastest CD from Justin Timberlake and I am digging it big time.  Does that mean I need to turn in my man card?

Today I have two meetings.

1.  I am meeting with Steven Furtick, pastor at Elevation Church.  Simply put, this dude is a freak!  They had their one year anniversary last weekend with 1300 people in attendance.  We have exchanged e-mails and I am looking forward to hearing their story and being stretched as I learn from him.  I have had about 5 people tell me they wish they could be a fly on the wall during our meeting. :)  Should be fun.
2. Tonight I am hanging out with my friend Jimmy Britt to chow down on some NC BBQ.  I love Jimmy and the dude makes me laugh.  On top of that he pastors a great church in the area called Rocky River Community Church.

Should be a awesome day!!!

The AJC had a great article about the growth in Canton and how the leadership of the city lead by Mayor Pruitt saw the growth coming and made the changes THEN that make Canton what it is today.  You can read it here.

This things in this article are one of the reasons we came to Canton.  When we were praying about a city to start The Stone it was obvious to us  that Canton had a plan to make Canton a great city.

Props to the city!

I am a full day into my little break and I am already feeling the benefits of it.  I got up yesterday morning and DeAnna and I went to breakfast.  It was nice to have a few minutes alone together.  I then went to the office for our creative meeting.  I love Tuesdays because of those meetings.  Honestly, I love working with a team that is so stinking creative and totally gets me and the vision for our church.  We put the finishing touches on our Easter marketing and that got me pumped up!!!!  Ridge Stone, get ready because we are going to shoot for 1,000 people on Easter this year.  Start inviting your friends NOW!!!!!

I left the office about 1:30 and it was pouring down!!!!  I literally couldn’t see the cars in front of me.  I got to South Carolina about 5 and went to Foothills Community Church and met with Greg Oraham. The thing I like about Greg is he is a student of church.  He knew a lot about a lot of churches and listening to his thoughts on those churches was very cool.  Listen, Perry Noble can say all day long who Anderson, S.C. is a small town but it ain’t got nothing on Seneca.  There literally was NOTHING in this town.  Foothills is in the middle of NOWHERE and they are running about 1400 a week.  That is amazing.  Greg’s story is pretty cool.  He really helped me walk through some things in our growth and really stretched me on thinking outside the box as our 10:30 service runs out of space.  As always I left there wanting their building.  What they are doing in the middle of nowhere is very cool.

I then headed to Charlotte.  Let me say this:  Charlotte is confusing!!!!  I got very lost.  I couldn’t really figure out I-485 in the dark with it pouring down rain.  I got to Matthews and could NOT find a place to stay.  I finally stayed in a hotel that was not the cleanest place I have ever stay in to say the least.  I survived the night and was glad to get somehwere else today.

This morning I woke up and headed up to meet with Tadd.  Tadd is our first church plant at RSC and I was pumped to get up to Burlington to see the town.  The area is awesome.  If you can’t build a church there, you can’t build a church anywhere.  The area is booming.  I enjoyed hanging out with Tadd and seeing the area.  It was odd.  Tadd is a big boy now. :)  He is the lead man and that was not a side I had seen.  I was proud of him and pumped we are partnering with him.  His vision is big and the area is prime.

On the way back to the hotel I got a ticket.  Not cool.  I was going 90 in a 65 so I am not happy to say the least.  I 100% blame it on Perry Noble. :)  I was listening to one of this sermons and laughing so hard I didn’t realize how fast I was going.  We are no longer friends.

The rest of the day I have read and worked on my breakout for the churchplanters.com conference.  I have so much to say but only a hour :)  I am pumped about what I get to talk about.

I miss my family big time but getting away was much needed.

I am sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina studying and reading and missing my family big time. I’ll be honest, we make VERY little to do about Valentine’s Day at our house, but for some reason not being home today is very weird to me.

I talk very little about my family on my blog and that is on purpose. I am dogmatic about protecting my family from what I have seen happen to so many pastor’s families. While I am very open with much of my life (maybe to a fault), I find myself very private with my family life. I am in the “Spotlight” whenever I am in Canton. DeAnna and I are very use to “life in the in the fishbowl” and for that reason we value our privacy when we can get it. It isn’t that we are anti-social, actually we are the opposite of that to be honest but for whatever reason I have always felt the need to not bring them up as much here for the whole world to read online.

Because of that you who read this blog don’t get to hear how awesome and wonderful DeAnna truly is.

I met DeAnna almost 12 years ago (man that is a long time) and I was hell on wheels. I was drinking and partying like it was going out of style and still dabbling with drugs pretty often. She was a very active Christian in a VERY strict church. We met and I asked her out and I was in love within a week. I knew there was something different about her. She should have never dated me because of my lifestyle but I am glad she did.

The night I was going to propose to DeAnna she was in a car wreck that almost killed her. She was basically in a coma or knocked out for about 3 days. She had to learn to walk again, talk right again, etc. For about a week they didn’t know if she would make it. While I was dating her, I had starting attending church with her and God was working on me but I HATED the people of that church. During her wreck I saw that church reach out and love on her family in a way that it changed my life.

After that I knew God wanted me to be in full-time ministry. I was clueless. I was as raw as they come but DeAnna never discouraged me and believed in me when probably to be honest my own family thought it was something that would pass. Our dream was to go on staff at our home church. We thought it was the greatest place in the world but God had different plans.

I can remember being 22 years old and going to DeAnna and telling her I thought God wanted us to move to Iowa and start a church. I honestly had never met anyone who had started a church. Never once did she talk me out of it. She encouraged me the whole way.

I can remember pastoring the church from hell in Iowa and HATING it with everything that was in me. Sadly, that got took out on her. I made her life a living hell for about 2 years. I can remember knowing in my heart she had finally had enough and was about to leave me. I knew with everything in me that I didn’t want to lose her. I remember us working through things all the while still pastoring the church from hell. I can remember out last year there being our worst every in ministry and yet our marriage being the best it had ever been.

I remember telling her that I felt God was calling us to Paulding County, Georgia to go learn from West Ridge Church how to plant ANOTHER church and that they were going to pay us a huge sum of $1,000 a month. She never ONCE asked me not to do it again and she never once gave the small salary a second thought. We moved to West Ridge and she encouraged me the whole time.

After one year, I moved her again. This time it was to Canton to plant Ridge Stone Church. In a 25 day period, we bought a house, she gave birth to Avery, and we launched Ridge Stone. I probably wasn’t around like I should have been but she supported me every step of the way.

In the early days she was a wife, a mom, 100% ran our preschool ministry, and lead a women’s bible study. She never got a dime. She never complained and today she loves Ridge Stone as much if not more then I do.

I am not a easy person to be married too. I am addicted to work, I talk church all the time, we started a church and are working our way out of the debt that involves, and yet she never complains and encourages me every step of the way.

Ridge Stone, you have NO idea how lucky you are to have DeAnna as a part of our church. She is your biggest supporter and biggest fan. More importantly, she loves me and allows me to do all I do. You should thank her Sunday for all she does to allow me to give you my all. 75% of you don’t even know what she looks like because she has no interest in being in the spotlight.

DeAnna, I love you with all my heart and I thank God every day for you and all you put up with . Happy Valentine’s Day!!!!!!

How many of you are coming in Sunday for the churchplanters.com conference?  We have had several guys email me and tell me they are going to be in our Sunday morning service to check us out.

If there are going to be a bunch of you in town we might cater in some BBQ here at the office on Sunday night and provide a time to simply hang out.  We are about 30 minutes from Mountain Lake Church where the conference is being held so let me know if you would like to do something like this.

I am not sure we can pull it off this quickly but maybe.

After lunch tomorrow I am heading up 85 towards Charlotte for a time just to simply get away.  I haven’t missed a day here at the office since August and I need the break.

I have a few goals with my trip:

• I have 6 meetings with pastors ahead of where we are at RSC.  4 of them are still pastoring portable churches.  I want to talk to them about everything we do as a church and what changes we need to make to hit the 1,000 mark.  I also want to talk to them about what to expect (good and bad) as we continue to grow.  I also want to learn how I as the leader need to transition in my leadership style and how I need to continue to grow.
•  Rest - I want to get away and clear my brain out.  I have so many thoughts going on right now that I literally am laying in bed at night just thinking about everything.  I haven’t slept more then 4 hours in a night for the last three weeks.
• Reading - I am consumed with reading right now.  I am reading right at two books a week for the last month and I am looking forward to reading two books I have been wanting to get to read.
• Get my breakout session for ChurchPlanters.com done - I am so pumped about this session.  Reaching the disconnected is my passion and I can’t wait to talk about it.  I think every church planter says they want to reach unchurched people but the proof is in the pudding.  I figure every other breakout is going to have great handouts and junk so I am just going to bring IT for a hour and share with everyone what we have learned in reaching unchurched people….especially unchurched men.

Everytime I plan on going away I think of a thousand reasons I shouldn’t do it.  I have so much to do here, I don’t want to spend the money, I don’t want to be away from my family, etc.  But I need to get away.  I am going be gone on Valentine’s Day and that seems weird to me but DeAnna is the one encouraging me to go.  We’ll go out and party Friday when I get home.

Pray for me during this week.  I really want God to show me where we are heading and I want God to show me the things that need to happen for us to rock this town with the message of Jesus in ways it has never seen.

I’ll keep you updated as I get time.

BTW, see you all Sunday!!!!!!  I am so pumped about my message that I can’t stand it.  We are wrapping up our SiMPLE series and I am going to be talking about Serving Others this week.  Trust me you will never look at volunteering and using what you have for God the same again.

If you know me you know I am a music junkie.  I love it all and I got pumped about the Grammy’s every year.  So of course I was watching last night and here are my random thoughts on it that no one will probably care about.

1. The Police were good and it was cool to see them but I was big time disappointed.  I thought they would do a mix of their songs so I was upset they only did Roxanne.
2. LOVED the Dixie Chicks.  I am not a fan of their politics but I respect the fact that they have stuck to their guns and not backed down one second.  The girls rock and that CD is great.
3. Beyonce is a pretty pretty girl.
4. Justin Timberlake is a awesome.  I hate that type of music but the boy has skills and has a great entertainer.  Great performer.
5. John Mayer can shred on a guitar plain and simple.
6. Shakira is a great dancer…nuff said
7. Is Gnarls Barkley REALLY crazy?  What was up with that pilot outfit?
8. Rascal Flatts doing the Eagles was very cool
9. Lionel Richie has the smoothest voice.
10. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Love them no matter what they do.

Today was a crazy day.  Malcolm Young, our Connections Pastor taught for the first time ever and did a bang up job.  He even had a fan club in church who spelled his name out with big cards as he went on stage.

During the first service we lost all sound during the last worship song.  That has never happened before but the funny thing was the band could still hear through their in ear monitors so they were rocking out even though we couldn’t hear anything.  Then Malcolm had to teach with no microphone.  I felt so bad for him especially since it was the first time he had taught but he did a bang up job.

Second service everything worked and he seemed like he had taught for years.  It is awesome to have guys on staff who can give me a breather every now and then and that are content when their opportunities come but don’t have desires to do it every week.  I needed the break as I had taught ever Sunday since the end of October.  My brain was fried.

It was so weird yesterday knowing I wasn’t teaching.  We are very strict with our Saturdays and mentally I kept thinking I was teaching but it was nice to have a “normal” Saturday.

While I enjoy the guys teaching, it is my passion and the break today ought to hold me over until the summer sometime.

Just sitting here jamming to Journey tonight. I don’t care what anyone says Steve Perry can sing. I know they are corporate rock and they need to bring Perry back but they got some great tunes.

Love the song Faithfully.

Trust me I know church planters are not rock stars but I think EVERY church planter with a great wife can relate to that song. Great CD.