Friends

We spent the day the Animal Kingdom and MGM here at Disney and now the kids are going to sleep and I am just chilling thanking of how blessed I am.

As I have reflected over the last week at the conference the biggest take home to me is the value of friends. This is an area I just feel blessed in. I love that I pastor a church where the people I pastor I consider friends. I work with a staff that I am best friends with. I have a Board of Directors here that I consider two (yeah it is a small team) great friends, and I live in a community where I have a ton of people who don’t attend church anywhere you consider me their friend and I consider them friends. It is awesome!

However, as much as I love and appreciate those people in my life, this week I am thankful that I have friends around me who pastors. Pastoring is a unique thing and at times it is lonely and you feel everyone is against you and it is awesome to have people around you that KNOW exactly what you are going through and know what it is like to be a pastor.

This week I had several instances where it was awesome to be reminded of the power of friends.

• I got to hang out with Tadd for most of the week. I have known Tadd for about 4 years now. I served with him at West Ridge and he helped start RSC. Tadd is now planting in North Carolina and it has been awesome to see our friendship develop. I probably talk to him every day.
• I spent a lot of time with Scott Whitaker this week. Again, Scott is one of those guys I talk to every week. He is doing a great job and I love that we are friends in this church planting gig.
• There are very few people I LOVE more then Tony McCollum. I honestly consider him my best friend in ministry. He would give me the shirt off his back (though I wouldn’t want to see him shirtless) and he is the real deal. He is one of the people I would literally fight for if I had too. Plus he is a funny freaking dude.
• He wouldn’t want you to know this but Chris Elrod sent my kids money this week for Disney World. He has never met my kids. He is doing a work so different then us but we are united in our love for rock music!
• Perry Noble called me today just to see how I was doing. Here is a guy who has a ton of things on his plate pastoring a church of 8,000+, but he took time just to call and chat. How cool is that? In the last two years, our relationship has went from one of a mentor to me to one I consider a great friend.
• Shawn Lovejoy let me hang with his crew all week and even fed me.
• I talked to Greg Rohlinger this week. I say he is one of the most underrated church planters in America. He called just to chat and see how my family was.

I could go on and on naming names and I am sure I forgot some people, but you get the point. I didn’t list those name to name drop, I listed those just as a reminder of how awesome it is to have friends in this thing called church planting and it is awesome to know that as we are fighting the forces of hell that we aren’t doing it alone.

Show me a church planter without friends and I will show you a church planter who won’t make it.