• I cheated the youth for my family tonight! It was a good call.
• I am enjoying the 24 series as much as any series we have done. It is stretching me and that is a good thing.
• I loved GIVING our people Hell No shirts today. They give so much to the church that is was nice to give back to them.
• I’m digging that Heroes is using Nickelback’s song in their commercials.  I’m pumped about it coming back on air.
• This video by my friend Tony McCollum is one of the funniest videos I have seen. Tony freaking kills me.
• I made it into the Decatur Daily paper in Alabama! Blogging is crazy.
• We leave for staff retreat Tuesday afternoon and won’t be back until Friday. We got a ton of stuff to cover.
• I’m pumped up about the National New Church Conference. make sure you check out the bloggers roundtable on Wednesday during lunch. It should be awesome!
• It is April and I have a fire going! That isn’t right.
• Adam did a rocking job with The Project United tonight. I was very impressed.
• This is why our volunteers are so awesome!
• My favorite thing to do on Sunday is stand right at the end of the aisle before people turn into the seating area and can see everything. I love to stand there and watch first time guests as they see the set-up for the first time. The looks on their faces says it all.
• This was a long week but that is what I signed up for this thing for.
• I think this is going to be a huge summer for us! Yes, I said a huge SUMMER! Most churches try to survive during the summer, we are going to grow!
• I can’t wait to share what God has in store during our Hell No series about the future.
• I’m going to bed!

We had a very good service today.  I taught on picking your family over your work and probably more then any message, I was speaking to myself.  It was thick in there and that was a good thing.

The crowd was good and we announced we are going to have to go back to one service in May, June, and July.  We don’t know where we will sit everyone but the way our people respond to those type of things amazes me.  They literally could care less.  I have never been around a group of people who buy into what we are doing so much that NONE of the inconveniences of being portable and being a new church faze them.  Our people are amazing!

We also gave out 500 Hell No T-shirts!  That was a blast!

One of the realities of church is that people leave. As a pastor I always take it personal even if I had nothing to do with their decision to leave. Even hard hearted pastors like me have a pastors heart and it sucks when people leave. That being said there are times when people NEED to leave and there are times when people are ASKED to leave. It is part of being a leader. I always find it funny that as pastors it is ALWAYS Gods will when people join our church but it is NEVER Gods will when people leave our church.

As people leave I often noticed that there are only a few ways people leave. I was thinking about this today and thought I would share it with you.

1. The David Copperfield - These are people that are there one day and gone the next. They simply disappear. No email, no phone call, no dear John letter, they simply just leave. I have never understood these people. I don’t understand how you can pour your life into a church by serving, giving, and supporting then simply disappear but this is a pretty common thing sadly.
2. The Phone Caller - This person has been around for YEARS! This is the person who can’t simply leave. They have to call everyone they know in the church and tell them WHY they are leaving even before they talk to you. They feel their ministry is the phone ministry and they simply “wanted to let people know I was leaving.” Hey, if all your problems with the church happen to get brought up that is just life and truth be told, it is exactly what they wanted.
3. The Fighter - This person ain’t leaving without a fight. They have invested in the church and really believe they should stay and you should leave even though you started the church and are the pastor.
4. “People have been coming to me” person -You know this person! They are the one that set up a meeting with you and tell you, “Pastor, people have been coming to me…” When you ask who, they don’t want to “betray the trust of that person.” These people don’t leave normally so when they use that line and won’t tell you who, just ask them to leave. Truth is no one is coming to them, they just don’t have the guts to tell you what they are feeling.
5. “Things have changed” person - This is the person that basically is saying that everything is ALL about them. When the church was 100 people you got to eat with them, shake their hand in the lobby every week, and take their personal phone calls EVERY time they call. Now that you are a bigger you have more people and things HAVE changed but they have changed because you are reaching more people and that is a good thing. It isn’t a good thing to these people because they don’t care about reaching people, they just care that they get your attention all the time.
6. The deeper lifer - “Pastor, we want to get deeper.” “Pastor, we aren’t getting fed.” This is the person who wants to break down scripture all day long, yet they can’t get simple things like their marriage, investing in the lives of unchurched people, serving, and giving right. They want to go deeper but they can’t do the basics of the Christian faith. They don’t want to go deeper they just don’t want anything practical because they are afraid it might convict them and they might have to do something.
7. The right way - Sadly I don’t see this way very often. People leave churches. God calls people to churches and he moves people from churches. That is okay. This person comes into your office and explains why they are leaving, how they will continue to pray for you, and still consider you a brother in Christ. I had some oen do this last Monday.  They left the right way and it was refreshing.  I hated to lose them but that is part of being a pastor.  This is the right way to leave a church but few do it. That is sad.

This video was filmed behind our office.  That might not seem like a big deal until you consider the fact that we are in an office complex!!!!  Idiots.

BTW, the video isn’t that great BUT you should see the welts on Adam from getting blasted.  That was pretty funny.

We are a staff bitten with the blogging bug and have been for some time.  We just feel it is a great way to communicate what is happening our lives.  So I thought I would post the links to the different blogs our guys have going:

Preston Porter - He also does this one where he talks about the Kids Area.

Malcolm Young is our Connections Pastor which means he is over Home Teams, Assimilation, Volunteering, and Pastoral Care.

Chris O’Neal is in a short term role for us as our Tech Director.  As of today they are going to Calhoun to plant.  We’ll see what kind of vision casters we are in regards to if we can keep them or not.

Adam Ellis does our Students.

Not sure why I am even listing this one but it literally is the WORST blog in America and hasn’t been updated since July of 06, but I know he’ll whine if I don’t list it so here is Tim’s blog.

None of our ladies blog……..yet.

I just watched my first game from start to finish.  I don’t understand it.  It was boring.  I don’t understand the rules.  I hated it.

And Atlanta lost so I hated that even more.

I love the team (yes we are a team) that I get to work with.  I think they are some of the most talented people around.  Even better is they ALL come from within our church.  Not ONE person on our staff at this time was hired without being a part of our church first.  They get the vision, the DNA, the teamwork, etc. of what it takes to make The Stone function.

Preston is our Family Pastor and though he has given me an ulcer since he has been on staff, he is the BEST around.  He knows portable children’s ministry as good as ANY ONE I have seen.

He has started a blog highlighting our children’s area that you can check out here.

Is there anything greater then waking up to a quiet house and just chilling?  I think not.

I have a meeting this morning at the office.  Our entire tech team is meeting up there and I am going to take about 10 minutes and cast some vision into them about the future of RSC.  I am pretty excited about it.  I am very guarded with my Saturdays but the opportunity to pour into some of our leaders is worth my time.

I just remembered that we got something special for everyone this week at RSC!  I am excited that we get to give these to you because there has never been anything that has been asked for more then this item!

You are going to love them!

Be there THIS week because when they are gone they are gone!

I have had one of the craziest and longest weeks of my life this week.  It was rough but that is life sometimes.  Anyway, all of that changed for the better today when I had a meeting at the office with some pastors.  I’ll be honest and say after events of this week I wasn’t looking forward to the meeting.

However I met two men today that begin to share a possible situation  with us.  At first I just smiled then after the meeting we talked in depth for a while and it was amazing to watch God do His thing.  I have a vision that I will be sharing the first week in May with our church that is going to stretch us like never before.  A part of that vision involved something I figured would happen in 3 years and was the last part of the vision.  After todays meeting that part might become the first part of the vision and might happen QUICK!

It was a total God thing as these guys knew nothing of what we have planned and the minute they heard about it they asked us to consider moving this part up and offered their help.

After the week I had, I needed that!!!!!