With the family gone, I came up to the office to do some work. I forgot our students were having a weekend thingy going on, so I got up here and the place is packed out with kids. I went to my office and listened to their service and all they are doing and I got to be honest, I almost got a little teared up.  I think Salty discharge from my eyes has only happened twice in my life.  I am just a hard hearted person who doesn’t cry for some reason.
I have made NO bones about the fact that students has kicked our butts here. We have a ton of teenagers but we have zero luck getting them to a youth service.

Well, I think after this weekend that could be changing. Without a doubt this has been the best thing the students have ever done. It is organized, fun, they are bonding, and they are getting pumped about serving Jesus!

I am most happy for our volunteers. Joe, Chris, Taylor, and Julie have been there through EVERY thing we have tried with the students and never quit believing something awesome could happen.

We still have a long way to go but Adam is doing a great job and for the first time every I am very excited about our student area.

Great job guys!

Got an email today from a pastoral search committee from a First Baptist Church in a South Georgia town.  Sunday School, Wednesday night prayer meeting, AWANA program, VBS, choir, and a “zeal for evangelism.”

I’m totally honored that they contacted me, but I have to wonder what in the worle were they thinking?  It is so easy to find out about me.  I have a pretty well read blog, we podcast our messages, and you can find out a lot about our style in ministry from our website.  I am VERY curious what in world they saw in any of those things that made them think I would be a good fit.

The email said, “we figure it is a long shot, but you never know until you ask.”

Simply odd.

I emailed back and forth a couple of times today and they honestly seemed like great people, BUT do they really even want to consider me?  I don’t think so.

I thanked them, but quickly I declined.

Some things you don’t even have to pray about….

I have really been trying to take my prayer life a lot more seriously and make it a scheduled  thing every day.  I have started keeping prayer journals and while many things on there change daily, there are a few things that I think will be on there forever.

1. God would stay at the forefront of my life
2. God would continually grow me as a husband
3. God would help me to pour my life into my children
4. That RSC would always be a growing, healthy, community impacting church that is focused on the disconnected in this area
5. That I will always take risk over safety
6. That my children will grow up to be dangerous and wild for the cause of Christ!
7. I pray for Ashlyn and Avery’s future spouses
8. I pray that God will allow me to stay at RSC for the rest of my life
9. That I stay reminded that RSC is all about God and not me
10. That I stay morally above reproach
11. That I am a friend
12. That our people know how honored I am to pastor RSC
13. That we always make the comfortable very uncomfortable
14. That when believers walk into RSC for the first time, they are just a little uncomfortable after seeing the people we reach
15. That God uses me to impact the area

I can’t freaking wait until Sunday gets here!!!!  We are coming with one of my favorite stories in the Bible and a story that for some reason I haven’t taught from yet at The Stone.  It is going to be a blast, plus the band is busting out one of my favorite songs right now on my playlist.

I love Sundays!

My grandmother is getting older and she LOVES the beach so every year all the women and all the grandchildren load up and take her to Florida for a week.  For some reason the men don’t go and that is fine because hanging out with my whole family for a week seems like hell, not a vacation.

Anyway, I am normally pumped that they get to head to the beach and I am this year as well.  They will have a blast!  However, this year I am bummed out that they are leaving.  I love being married, love being a dad, and love being around my family, so them leaving for a week sucks.

Next week will be a week with a LOT of work and a LOT of frozen pizza.

Malcolm and I got to go to a private party at Dantanna’s Surf N Turf last night.  There were about 50 NFL players there that have been drafted in the last 2 years from the SEC.  Got to meet DJ Shockley, Leonard Pope, Ernie Sims, Ronnie Brown, etc.

The food was off the hook!!!  Chicken, Steak, Crab Legs, Shrimp, Crab Cakes, Roast, and on and on I could go.

I had a GREAT time but I learned I am so glad to be married with my two rugrats.  Seriously, I am so NOT designed for the bar scene.  I felt bad watching the guys and girls playing the “game” that is dating.  It made me feel real old to say the least.

I have a policy that I don’t receive emails, blog comments, letters, etc. from people who don’t have the guts to put their name to it.  To my surprise, I have gotten heat over that in the past.  Of course, I can’t stop you from sending a fake email or leaving a false name when you send me a message through my blog, but those all go to Taylor and if it isn’t a valid name, I never see it.

Anyway, I saw this quote from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Spurgeon today and thought he said it way better than me.

“Never write what you dare not sign. An anonymous letter-writer is a sort of assassin, who wears a mask, and stabs in the dark. Such a man is a fiend with a pen. If discovered, the wretch will be steeped in the blackest infamy.” Charles Spurgeon.

Yep, that is what I meant to say.

God has blessed me with some great friends since starting RSC.  From o2Graphics to Kent Morris, God has sent us some big time people who because of my friendship have been there for us and I appreciate and am thankful for that.

Another one of the people who God has sent in my life is my good friend Scott King.  I met Scott right before we launched The Stone.  He did all kinds of tech stuff for us early on and played in our band for over a year even though we were NOT the kind of church he would have chosen.  He believed in our vision and believed in me and wanted to do whatever was necessary to help out.

Well, that friendship is paying off again.  Starting next week, Scott has agreed to come back to The Stone for a month to a month and half to help us in our technical area.  Our regular sound guy (Cheri’s husband) is on the road a lot and while we have some GREAT guys doing the job, they need a little more training.  Scott is one of the BEST I have ever seen at training tech guys.  He is going to come in and train our sound people, lighting people and I couldn’t be more happy!  Scott will have the guys (and gals) up and trained and better then ever in no time.

The pieces are coming together….

We are in the zone this summer gearing up for the future growth we are asking and believing God to send this fall. I have learned so much planting The Stone the last couple of years and one of those things is you have to always be thinking of the next moves that are going to enable you to reach more people.

A few weeks ago we moved Malcolm Young (no, he didn’t play for AC/DC) from our Connection Pastor to our Executive Pastor. We are already seeing the results from that move.

However, that wasn’t the only move we knew we were making. This week we moved some other positions around to better utilize everyone’s time, skills, and passion.

Tim May has been with since our first day and has been our Creative Arts pastor since our 4th week. I think Tim is one of the greatest worship pastors in America and I think he is THE best worship pastor for me in America. Tim has been over EVERYTHING that happens in our worship center since day one. He has been over set-up/tear-down, tech team, sound, video, lights, purchasing, bands, singers, leading worship, etc. He has done a GREAT job doing what in our style of church could easily be a 3 man job. However the jobs simply have gotten to much for him to maintain the pace and do it effectively.

This week we moved Tim to Worship Pastor. This is his passion. He will focus 100% of his time on bands, worship leaders, writing music, and training musicians for our future growth and campuses. Tim will be over all musical worship aspects for all our campuses. Our worship is second to none NOW. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

We then moved Amy Young from programming to Creative Arts Director. Amy has been with us since day one and designs all stage sets and runs our Sunday morning services. She will now be over EVERY aspect of our Sunday morning service. She will be over set design, Sunday morning worship, lighting, sound, video, etc. There are very few people who remind me of myself more then Amy. We are so in tune sometimes that it is scary. Because we are so much alike there are also times we want to kill each other like few others. I am excited about her taking this role and she is going to rock it out!

We also have moved Cheri full-time under Malcolm. Cheri is Mrs. Ridge Stone. She has her hands in everything we do and in many aspects has kept us afloat Monday-Friday the last two years. I love having her in the office and have loved watching her grow into what I think is a very good leader. She will be assisting Malcolm in the business junk of the church.

And last but not least, we have tweaked Adam’s role. Adam is on our staff as the Youth Pastor and is doing a bang up job. At this time though that is not a full time job. He is now doing that part time and working with Preston during the week part time in our family ministries. He is helping Preston stay organized and lending a huge hand in that area.

I am so freaking pumped about the future of The Stone. Sunday morning has always been rocking, now I feel the rest of the church is getting caught up.

We ended up taking Ashlyn to the ER last night and they appear to have gotten most of the wood out of her leg.  They said the rest should works it’s way out.  She seems good today and all is good.

I appreciate the prayers!

It is amazing how freaked out you get when it involves your children.