• Up Early hanging out with Paul in the New Testament
• All staff meeting.  I love Tuesday because all of our staff, part-time and full-time are in the office.
• Graveside funeral service today at the Georgia National Cemetary.  The cemetary is new and is the largest military cemetary in the southeast and it is amazing!!!!  It is up on the mountain and you can see forever.  Very fitting place for those who served our country.
• Heard this chick sing at the funeral who was AWESOME!!!  Good Lord, she could wail.  Awesome.
• Had meeting concerning BOTH of our moves.  Lots of work to be done!
• Went riding with Tim and literally thought I was going to die.  Only went 9 miles but I had nothing in me.  Thought I was going to blow chunks.
• Salad for dinner.
• Had a mom in Jesup, Georgia email me today to tell me her 16 year old son came across our webpage and now he listens every week to our podcast.  The whole family listens now.  They are coming to attend a service in December.  How freaking cool is that?  Said they already have found an empty building for when we decide to launch a location there.  Yeah baby!!!!  Now, where in the world is Jesup???
• Excited about the buzz over all that God is doing today!!!

I went and had a physical on Friday.  Nothing cool about that.  Physically I guess I am fine.  I haven’t gotten my blood work back yet, but he said I looked fine…..except for the fact that I need to lose 42 pounds.  Wow!  That will put me at a weight I haven’t seen since High School.

I have done a very good job of riding my bike the last month since I got it, but I haven’t done a good job watching what I eat.  So, tonight I had my last meal.  DeAnna made Fried Chicken, fried okra, corn, and other goodies.  Tomorrow, I am going to get serious about watching what I eat.

You can’t lead a revolution being overweight and about to die.

For all you who signed up to put together Thanksgiving Boxes, you can find instructions over at RevolutionaryLove.tv.

• Today was simply an awesome day!!!
• Tim lead worship with just him and a guitar and I forgot how awesome that is.
• I thought we had 2 huge announcements but somehow we ended up with 4 huge announcements
• Announcement #1 - We have already begun our Christmas Teaching series even though the series doesn’t start until the first Sunday in December. This series will change the DNA of our church and the hearts of our people. We are calling it RevolutionaryLove.tv (the site is about 75% up).
• Announcement #2 - We have signed a lease for a building in Jasper!!!! It is a build out situation and will give us a 250 seat worship center and great kids space. First service is January 6th.
• Announcement #3 - We are moving out of the movie theater!!!! We have been praying for God to provide us with a new place for over a year and he provided in a HUGE WAY!!! We are moving to the brand new Cherokee County Boys and Girls Club. I will post more on this later, but this is huge!!! Oh yeah, we are moving to this location on January 6th too.
• Announcement #4 - Next Step Offering!!! Moving two locations on the same Sunday isn’t cheap. We figure it is going to cost us around $150,000 to build out the Jasper location and buy the items we need for our Canton location. Right off the bat we are going to need around $50,000-$60,000. On December 23rd we are asking our people to step out on faith and make the biggest gift they have ever made in their lives. We are not doing a campaign, just a one time offering! I can’t wait to see God stretch our people!!
• I am blown away by the people who are stepping out on faith and testing God with their tithe for the first time ever!!! It is awesome!
• I have no idea how many people we baptized today. It had to be between 25-30 people. That puts us around 140 for the year!!!!
• The story behind God providing the boys and girls club is a GOD story in a BIG way!!!
• We had a goal of feeding 50 families for Thanksgiving this year. It looks like we will feed around 125. Rock on!!!
• We are having our first informatioinal meeting about our Jasper campus on November 30th in Jasper. This is a meeting to simply find out information about what God has planned and how you can help get our Jasper campus up and running. Email Mitchell Harris, our campus pastor to sign-up for the meeting. You can email him at mitchell@therevolution.tv
• How bout them dawgs!!!!!!!!
• I want a black Georgia jersey!!!!!!
• Avery is sick and I am afraid I am getting sick too.
• Our new truck has 414,000 miles on it!!!!!! It is a beast and looks like one but it will pull a house down and that is all that matters.
• I told our people I would beat the crap out of Johnny Hunt and take over their building. I was totally joking. I have nothing but respect for Johnny and FBC Woodstock. I was joking, but I don’t think our people were when they started cheering.
• I was also joking when I talked about beating the pastor up at Liberty Hill and taking over Cherokee High School. I think Liberty Hill is a GREAT church that is doing great things. Again, I don’t think our people were joking when they started cheering.
• I love our people!!!!
• Did I mention that I want a black Georgia Jersey??
• We had a GREAT crowd today and there were a ton of people not there that should have been there. I am going to ex-communicate them.
• Got DeAnna tickets to the Bon Jovi concert in April. I could care less about Bon Jovi, but my wife is in love with Jon. We are going to go spend a couple of days in Atlanta for our anniversary when he comes so that will be fun.
• I love the fall!!! The leaves changing colors in North Georgia is awesome!
• I have to go to Buffalo for Thanksgiving. It means a lot to DeAnna and I am happy for her, but I hate traveling.
• I think we are getting a dog. We are looking at some Boxers. Boxer is cool, but I am not too excited about a dog. However, I am excited how much the kids will love it.
• Going to the Georgia game this Saturday. Hopefully, Tennessee will lose and we will clinch the SEC East title with a win.
• The writer strike is about to start messing with my shows. They need to get that resolved.
• Can you believe it is almost Christmas?
• 45-20. Too bad Auburn.

If you are one of my readers who is in ministry, chances are very good you have read Jim Collin’s book Good To Great.  If you haven’t read it, stop reading this post and order it now.  Even though my boy Chris hates it, I think it is a great book with great principles.

There are a ton of great principles in the book BUT none of them have stayed with me like the princple that Good is the enemy of Great.  I think this is one of the most important things a leader can learn.  Every day I am face with good opportunities, but those things will take up all my time and keep me from the great opportunities.

I have learned that a lot of times “good” is easy.  I have also learned that “good” will produce quick results.  That is why we are so drawn to “good” opportunities.  Many churches have setttled for “good” and that is what they will be.  Nothing wrong with being good unless God planned for you to be great.

As I sit here and think about the two huge announcements I am about to make tomorrow, I think they are both another step towards us being the great church God intends for us to be.  However, I also think of how many good opportunities I have had to say “no” to over the last year.  On paper they were great things and no one would have questioned us jumping on them, but if we would have acted on them, we wouldn’t have been in the position we are now.

Saying “no” to good things isn’t always popular and isn’t easy.  Just in the last two weeks, I had a pastor approach us about “partnering” together.  Basically we would have taken their ministry over and turned it into a campus of Revolution.  I like the pastor and like the people that I have met that attend this church.  However, the reality was it didn’t help us accomplish what God intended for us to accomplish and would have not worked with what we are announcing tomorrow.  It was a good thing, but it would have kept us from being great.  The easy thing would have been to do it.  It would have provided some building space, some nice equipment, “bragging” rights because we would have had another campus, but in the grand scheme of things it was simply good, not great.

I admired this pastor (still do) because he was willing to do whatever to reach his community, but I also had to make the best decision for Revolution to be the church God has called us to be.  Honestly, I didn’t even have to pray about it.  I knew the answer because I have learned the difference between good and great.

I could go on and on with examples of things being good stopping us from being great.  We could have moved into a good building a year ago, but it would have kept us from the great thing God has planned.  We could have stayed with the good thing of being Revolution Church in Canton, but it would have kept us from the great thing of reaching another community with the message of Jesus Christ.   We’ve said no to starting a ton of ministries so we can stay focused on the great thing of loving God, loving others, and serving others.

Everyone knows the principle of good being the enemy of great, but those who truly change the world implement the principle.

I don’t even have to say anything.  We have so many Auburn fans at Revolution that I can’t wait until church tomorrow morning.

The scary thing is our quarterback is a sophomore, our running back is a freshman, and all of our offensive linemen our freshmen or sophomores.

We will contend for the National Championship next year.  Hopefully the Volunteers will choke next week and we will win the SEC East by beating Kentucky and I will be there to see it!

We are having only one service tomorrow instead of our two normal service times.  We want everyone to worship together, hear news about Revolution’s future, and worship God together as we celebrate baptisms.

Service time is 10:30 a.m.

Black Jerseys….THAT just happened!

Georgia/Auburn is today!!!! The seniors are calling for a “black out” meaning they want everyone to wear black to the game today to “black out” the stadium. I dig it. Richt swears the players aren’t wearing black jerseys but that would be awesome if they came out in them. I’m not counting on it, but I do think it would be sweet.

Georgia wins by 14 today.

I was at my favorite eating joint in Jasper today and the lady taking our order looked at me like she knew me and then asked me if I was the pastor of Revolution Church.  We were in Jasper and I didn’t really recognize her, but she had told me she had visited and really enjoyed the church.  I thought that was cool.

So I invited her back and she said, “I really loved it but I grew up baptist and the preacher at that church would kill me if he found out I attended your church.”

I couldn’t do anything but laugh.  We’ve done some crazy things over the years, but at least we’ve never said we would kill someone…okay, that might not be true. :)  But, I promise we wouldn’t have followed through with it.