• GREAT way to wrap up All In. GREAT response today
• At least a dozen accepted Christ as their Saviour today!!!! The responses after the service were AWESOME!
• EXCITED about our series on finances next week!!!
• We WILL decide on a location for our Jasper site this week!
• It is amazing what people are doing with old school buses. Huh? You will find out later what that means.
• Finding out that if you are going to plant in small towns like we feel called to do that it is HARD to find meeting space especially if the schools are closed to having churches in them.
• Good to have Tim back leading worship this week!
• My fantasy team is doing pretty well today.
• Something is wrong with my jeep. It is making a weird noise, but I just turn up the radio and can’t hear it.
• I need a haircut.
• Video shoot tomorrow. Not one of my favorite things to do.
• My friend Scott King has his first CD on iTunes. That is cool. It is a good CD. Give it a listen. I’ll try and post a review soon.
• Had someone who attends our church confront me about some rumors they have heard. HOW REFRESHING!!!!!!!! Finally, someone who actually is man enough to at least hear the other side to a story before jumping to conclusions.
• How about Auburn beating the Gators? I hate them.
• I really need a win today in Fantasy football.
• I am going to resign from the church because working on Sunday mornings is affecting my fantasy team. I started Calvin Johnson and he didn’t play. Because I pastor I got the information to late so I have no choice but to quit pastoring.
• Did I mention that people gave their lives to Christ today!!!!!!
• It was so nice to see everyone back from fall break. We were up by well over 100 people from last week.
• Clemson lost. I think that it is funny and I know it makes Perry mad.
• Ever since I preached at New Spring there is hardly a Sunday that goes by we don’t have someone in our services that has some type of New Spring connection.
• I love that we do a ministry for addicts. Their stories of life change are amazing.
• Heard of two news churches starting in town this last week. Welcome to the community! I hope she is as good to you as she has been to us.
• I’m teaching at ChurchPlanters.com this year in a breakout session. I think it is the best conference around. I’ll post more soon.
• Excited about dropping a check off with the Cherokee Child Advocacy Council tomorrow!  6 grand!!!!
• Wow, the Falcons actually look good today.
• Excited about our worship service for the youth next Sunday morning!!!!!
• We’ve got some new faces who are making things happen lately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• I love this weather!!!!!!!!!!!
• Grilling up some burgers tonight.  I like grilling but don’t do it enough.

• Dawgs looked good come the 3 and 4 quarters.  Nice win.
• GREAT job by Colorado.  I have always liked those guys since 1990 when they made Ga. Tech share the National Championship with them.
• I root for Clemson once a year and that is against Tech.  Looks like in typical Clemson fashion, they are going to let me down.  Just another reason to hate them.
• Why does ABC insist on showing Southern Cal EVERY freaking week?????  We don’t care about them here in the south so show us a better game!
• I think the Gators will probably kill Auburn tonight.  Which means I get to laugh at one group of people tomorrow and I will have to listen to another group talk smack.
• Notre Dame.  Nuff said.
• Kentucky ain’t no joke
• Neither is South Florida
• I love doing nothing on Saturday but watching football and grilling out!!!!

I really feel obligated to warn everyone about what you could possibly see next week in town.

For the last two years I have wanted to get into cycling.  I just really need to lose some weight and I hate working out, I hate running, but I thought cycling would be good.  It would give me some time to myself and I could listen to sermons and music on the iPod while doing it.

Anyway, it is an expensive thing to get into so I have not done it.  I am nearing on getting a bike but before I dropped the cash I thought I should try it for a week.  So this week I borrowed someone’s bike and will be going at it for the next week.

The warning comes in the fact that I am not responsible for what happens to you or the sickness you will feel should you see me riding around town on a bike in spandex shorts.

Consider yourself warned….

I was reading on someone’s blog recently (can’t remember who it was) and they had a quote that to paraphrase said: “You can tell what God is about to build by the machinery he is bringing in.  If he is bringing in heavy duty equipment, he is about to build something big.”  That is a BAD misquote of the original but you get the point.

Anyway, I don’t know what God has in store with our students but He is bringing in some HEAVY DUTY equipment.  We currently have (to my knowledge, there could be more) 5 people who have been in full-time Student ministry.  Several of them have overseen VERY large youth ministries.  Along with those people coming in, Adam is hitting his stride on Sunday nights and they are having some really good at The Warehouse.  It seems like God is up to something big in that area.

There is a HUGE need for someone doing something with the youth of our city and it appears God might be putting us in position to finally have a youth ministry that matches what we are doing in the rest of the church.

Starting next week we will be holding a once a month youth service during the 10:30 a.m. service in one of the theaters we currently don’t use.  We will still have The Project on Sunday nights at the warehouse but it will be more of a hang out and small group time. Along with all of that, we are taking a group of students to Sidekick Students Winter Retreat.  This will be the week after Christmas during winter break and I can promise it will be a blast.  I’m teaching at this one so that should be interesting. :)  Sign-up for this in the lobby on Sunday!!!!!!!

I’m excited that God is moving in the area of our Students!!!

If you have a student that is in middle school or high school then I want to encourage you get them involved in what is happening in this area!  They need to be around kids their age and learning that serving God can be an awesome thing!!!

Okay, you guys are always emailing us telling that only one or two sentances from my blog show up in your feedreader so you have to click to the webpage to finish reading. I hate blogs that do that as well. BUT, I have no idea how to change it.

So if you do, let me know and we will get it fixed.

EDIT:  I just subscribed through bloglines and google and I get the entire feed.  Talked to several others who get the whole feed.  So it must be something in your settings if you only get a few lines of a post.

This Sunday we are wrapping up our All In series.  It has been an awesome series and we have had a great time teaching God’s word.  This week is a week you want to get your friends who don’t know Jesus Christ to attend.  We will be presenting the story of what Jesus Christ has done for us and we will answer the question, “Are we bluffing our way through life?”

I can promise this will be a Sunday to remember especially for those who consider themselves Christians.  We are going to look at a verse in the Bible that I promise will make you consider your relationship with Christ in a way you never have.

If you know me then you know I have a little Rockstar complex. :)  I personally don’t see it, but our people are quick to point it out. :)  Honestly, I am a wanna be Rockstar.  I would love to be a musician, but you have to know how play an instrument for that.  I have it so bad that I actually drink Rockstar Energy drinks by the gallon.  Yes, I have issues.

Anyway, I found out today that my wife is the REAL rockstar.  She took the kids to one of those indoor inflatable game places today.  She showed up at a certain time when the website said they would be open and as she pulled in the lady was closing.  She had changed the business hours but didn’t change the website.  So instead of leaving, my wife informs her that our kids were expecting to play SO the lady opened the place back up for her where they could play!!!  That is a TRUE rockstar!  I love that woman!

Today I talked on the phone with two different church planters and had breakfast with a pastor.  I loved it.  I love talking shop.  I think we are in one of the most exciting, innovative, creative, and outside the box times in the church.

Literally, the only thing stopping us in ways of doing church is our imagination.  In the topic of my conversations I talked about the following CRAZY things:

• Taking over a church MILLIONS of dollars in debt and the struggles that go with that
• Dealing with staffing issues
• Knowing when it is time to build
• Churches in movie theaters
• Poker Tournaments
• Churches meeting in bars.  Yes, you read that right.
• Churches using mobile kids space (RV’s, Buses, Trailers)

We are one of the craziest times in the history of our church and yet it is one of the most exciting.   I mean we are a church in a movie theater that is talking about launching a SECOND location in a closed down bar that has a VERY seedy reputation, that has NO kids space, and the half the land is zoned in the city and the other half is zoned in the county!!!!  I LOVE IT!!!!!!  If we get the bar, we will have our first building project.

On top of that, we are about to spend the LARGEST amount of money we have EVER spent to enable us to video sermons to show in other locations.  Who would have thought that was a way to do church 10 years ago?

Man, I love church planting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Last night was a huge success!!! Looks like we raised 6 grand for the Cherokee Child Advocacy Council!!!!  You guys rock!!!
• Around 100 people signed up to play!
• I know NOTHING about poker but it seemed organized and people seemed to have a GREAT time.
• Jocks and Jills rocks!!  Seriously everyone starting a church needs to find the owner of the most rocking restaurant in town and get them in your church.  The Holiday family is one of our biggest fans and they go above and beyond in helping out.
• People are crazy.  Seriously, poker people are nuts.  I don’t understand the purpose in wearing sunglasses why you play.  It is a game!
• People shouldn’t drink. :)  Seriously when you drink to much you make a full of yourself.  Not good.
• Michael is not only a great church planter, he is also knows poker.  He finished third!  I hate that guy
• This is the FIRST event EVER in our church where I had NOTHING to do with it.  Preston and Tim did a GREAT, GREAT, GREAT job covering every aspect of it.  I was very proud.
• TONS of our new people were out to play.  People are starving for connection and relationships.  We are going to do something about this.
• I love having a cop in our church.  Brian insured the police didn’t show up and shut us down and made sure no one attacked me.
• Poker is boring.
• 6 grand!!!!!!  Not bad for the first thing like this we have ever done.
• Lot of fun!

BUT, I just got to say this about tonights TV.

• Prison Break was GREAT!  Not as intense as last week but set up some good storylines.
• Heroes was WEIRD!!!!  Still it was awesome.  Some of the most creative writing on TV.
• Journeyman - I actually liked it.  Not sure it will make it but it was good.  Weird too.
• Drew Brees is killing me.  Reggie Bush is on my bench and he has two TD’s already.  I can’t win for losing.