• Great message from Perry Noble!
• Let me say it again, video teaching is NOT an issue!
• Perry had our people hooked the moment his personal greeting started.
• I’m not really sure our people want to go back to my preaching. I have heard a lot of comments about how awesome church has been without me. Not cool.
• Loved One Prayer but I am glad it is over. I am so freaking ready to preach that I could bust.
• DeAnna and the kids are in Florida with my family this week. I’m home alone all week and that sucks.
• Taylor who is my assistant is also on vacation.
• That means the two women who run my life are gone for the entire week. I will be a mess by the end of the week.
• Great thought by Nelson Searcy here. I am glad to say before even finishing the article, I could say no amount would make me leave.
• Dinner with Hal Mayer on his way back home today. Love that dude but love his wife more! She is a saint.
• Tadd and Becki had their baby. Tadd was on out staff when he first started and Revolution helped him start Pine Ridge Church in N.C. Check out the baby here.
• Next week we are doing something that I would venture to say you have never seen in church before. Trust me, you will remember the sermon.
• I am so ready to preach I was actually preaching to myself in the empty house last night. My dog got saved!
• Heading to Chattanooga EARLY to talk about reaching unchurched people at the Oak Leaf Church staff retreat. Taking our guys to hang out for the day after I’m done so that should be fun.
• I hope the OLC staff is ready because Micheal has asked me to speak on the thing I am the most passionate about.
• The new guy leading worship today was Phillip May. Yes, I know he looks like Ronnie Van Zant.
• Bayne is leading worship next week and I can’t wait to meet him. Heard a lot of great things.
• We hired a new student pastor this week. He starts July 15th. You already know him and he is going to be awesome. He built a GREAT student ministry in Paulding County. Who is it? You’ll see…
• Thad is moving to lead our worship area full-time. With Tim moving to Executive Pastor a few months ago, we refuse to allow worship to slip. Thad will do great in this role!
• We got our permits and are ready to roll with the build out at our Holly Springs campus!!!
• I am so freaking pumped about Holly Springs!
• Had one of the biggest Florida Gator fans in the world buy me a Georgia T-shirt from the college world series.  If that isn’t love for your pastor NOTHING is!
• Also got two Cuban cigars from a family in the church today! They smuggled them in the country. :)  People breaking the law for their pastor is love too.
• One of my great friends, Roger Blackmore showed our One Prayer video this morning in church and I love his comments about it! Check them out here.
• Thought it was funny that the Cherokee Tribune wrote an entire article up about World Harvest being for sale based solely on rumors. Loved also how we got included in those rumors. I appreciated them calling and letting us clear that up.
• Loved more the comment section of the article where the Revolution people got a little redneck because someone called me out. Loved also how they let Bishop Lance and his family know we are praying for them. You can check out the article and comments here.
• I love church planters BUT I can’t help but laugh when I get their emails and letters telling me how much money they MUST raise to start their church. It doesn’t take big money to start a church, it just takes God showing up.
• The band got in the studio this past week to start recording our first worship CD. Yeah…come on!
• I miss my family.
• DeAnna’s van broke down this past week. The starter went out and it is broke down at my moms. UGH! Chris Garcia is going to help me fix it on Tuesday so that rocks!
• Have I mentioned I am ready to preach?
• Not only am I keeping my dumb dog, I am somehow keeping Tim’s two dogs as well. Sucks.
• God of this City is my song right now! Love it!
• I refuse to let outside worship leaders do it at Revolution because you have to have a heart for our city to sing that song and mean it!
• I’m hungry
• It is storming like crazy!
• Going to watch Sopranos season 2.

Today has been a good day for reading blogs. Lot’s of good stuff out there and I thought you might want to check them out.

• Ben Arment fired me up with these two posts. I love Ben and I have loved the conversation that has taken off in the comment section. The two posts are here and here.
• Vince Antonucci’s creative arts dude has a GREAT post here on the questions they ask in creative planning. The jpeg with the questions is GREAT! Must read post. You can check it out here.
• This one is just shameless self-promotion but I appreciated Greg’s thoughts on his weekend with us. You can check them out here.

Before starting Revolution Church, I was DESPERATE for anyone who had planted a growing church to learn from. At that time, blogs were not the rage and finding out about churches that were starting churches to reach unchurched people was not that easy.  ANYTIME I would hear anything about a church that was new and doing cool things, I would instantly go to their webpage and devour anything I could trying to learn all I could from their success.

I would bookmark their church webpage in a folder called “Churches To Learn From” which I still have at the top of my internet browser.  It has about 150 churches in it now. One of the first churches I put in there was a church called The Church At The Springs led by Ron Sylvia. At that time, anytime Rick Warren talked about church planting he talked about Ron’s story. I bookmarked his page and they have been a regular church I have watched. When he started putting out CD’s sharing church planting insights, I started ordering them.  At that time, he was one of the few people I had heard about that had planted a church with basically nothing but a vision from God and that connected with me BIG TIME.

Fast Forward: Ron has now started an organization called NEXT that is focused in helping church planters launch churches and deal with the NEXT steps as they seek to impact their communities.  Again, I bookmarked their page a while ago and have followed from a distance.

Over the last month or so, I have become good friends with Hal Mayer who is involved with NEXT and somehow he has tricked Ron into allowing me to share the Revolution story at one of their upcoming Church Launch conferences. I am blown away and excited about the opportunity to share the story of what God is doing at Revolution with a room full of church planters.  I have yet to meet Ron so I don’t take lightly the trust he has put in me by allowing me to be on his stage.  He would probably never admit it but he has to be a little nervous.

I said ALL of that to say this: Their next church planting conference is September 16-17 here in Georgia!!!!  Harvest Church in Warner Robbins is hosting the conference and I am pretty freaking stoked about it.  Harvest is lead by Jim Cowart who was a co-coach in the first coaching network I ever got to be part of.  We still use ideas we learned from him. He was also one of only two churches I have ever visited that meet in a movie theater and we learned a TON from that visit.

If you are a church planter who has just started, a guy who is thinking of starting a church, wants to explore church planting, wants to relaunch your church or just wants to check out what church planting MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR THIS CONFERENCE.

THE BEST PART OF THE CONFERENCE IS IT IS FREE!!!!!!!!!

I’m looking forward to finally meeting Ron, connecting with some church planters, sharing our story, and seeing some guys called to the extreme sport of ministry!

After I meet Ron, I am going to sweet talk him into coming to the real part of Georgia (the north part) and letting Revolution host one of his conferences.

You can register for the conference here.

This week at Revolution we wrap up our teaching series, One Prayer.  This week is exciting because we get to hear from the person who has had the single greatest impact in my life in regards to how I lead Revolution Church.  Perry Noble is bringing the message this week and I am pumped up!  I consider him one of my great friends, my mentor, my sounding board when I am ready to quit, and a person who genuinely cares about me and Revolution Church.  He has a vested interest in Revolution church through giving his time to pour into my life, New Spring has a financial investment in our church, and he serves on our Board of Overseers.

This is a Sunday you don’t want to miss!

Also remember that we are partnering with Give A Kid A Chance by providing backpacks with school supplies and by serving on July 19th at the actual event by serving food to the kids and volunteers. To sign-up to help look for the table in the lobby this week or contact Preston at preston@therevolution.tv.

See ya Sunday!

I have spent A LOT of time listening to preaching over the last month. I love listening to preachers and I think podcasts are the greatest invention ever! As I have been listening to different preachers, I have noticed an interesting thing about great preachers. They ALL have one message.  What I mean is almost every preacher who I have listened to has ONE theme that runs through their preaching no matter what the subject they are teaching on. It is the one thing that over everything else gets their fire going.

For example:

• It doesn’t matter what Ed Young Jr. is teaching, he is going to get it back to creativity
• Perry Noble’s message throughout his messages is Christians need to be  dangerous and not settle for Christianity as it is
• TD Jakes always has a message of encouragement. No matter what he is teaching, the underlying theme is “you can make it.”
• When I listen to Steven Furtick I always hear that God is BIG and wants to do BIG things.
• Mark Driscoll could be preaching on ANYTHING and it goes back to the gospel and the bible

I don’t think this is an intentional thing, I just think it is an outflow of their passion and their message God has put them on the earth to convey.  Listen to your favorite preacher and you will begin to see over and over  that their message, their passion will come out in one form or another. I believe it is born in them from a life experience.

I think for me, my message is GOD HAS A PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE.  It doesn’t matter what I preach about, I am going to get it around to the fact that God has a purpose and plan for your life.  Almost every message I preach I talk about the fact that God can use anybody. I love to talk about the fact that God doesn’t care about your past, He doesn’t care about education, He just cares about you being willing to be used and discover your purpose.

I never thought about the fact that this was my message until everyone started pointing it to me. If you go back and listen to my old messages, I talk about the fact that God can use you non-stop. But if you knew my past, it makes sense. I am a perfect example of God can use anyone.  I have never been the smartest, the most athletic, or best looking (well, maybe that one isn’t true. ).  I was the LAST person you thought would ever be a preacher, a leader, much less a pastor of a great church, but I am proof that God can use anyone. God is in the business of taking that which seems unusable and doing great things through it.

Revolution Church is a church that is full of people who no one will mistake as superstars. Yet, God has used the people of Revolution to do great things.  Why? Because God can use anyone.  I think that is awesome.

I have had critics talk about the fact that I am a broken record in my preaching. It use to bug me, but I just realize that it is my message, it is my passion, and I think I’ll keep the repeat button turned to the “on” position.

Look back over your teaching, what is your message?  We all have one whether we realize it or not.

We are coming up on the last week of One Prayer. It has been a great series and while we didn’t join the series for me to have a month off from teaching, I have enjoyed the break. I needed the break. Some times you don’t realize how fried you are until you finally stop.

Over the last month, I have been able to have so much one on one time with God that it has been awesome. I have read more, studied my bible more, prayed more, sought God about our future more, and focused on what God is doing at Revolution more than I have in a very long time.

God has got my creative juices flowing, shown me areas I need to grow in, allowed me to connect with other pastors, and shown me some tweaking we have to do at Revolution to go the next area. Another thing God has shown me is the awesomeness of how BIG the Kingdom of God is. I have spent more time in prayer for area churches this month than I have in the 3 years since we started. It has been cool.

Revolution, God has some huge things planned for our church. I think over the last few months we have grown up a little and I’m excited about what that means.  If people thought we were over the top in the past as we tried to reach lost people, they ain’t seen nothing yet.

I am chomping at the bit to preach on July 6th!!!!!

I just came across this blog post from a church planter who visited our church two Sundays ago and it rocked my world to read what he had to say about Revolution!  Here’s the deal: EVERYTHING  he says is because those of you who make Revolution happen every week!  If you are part of serving and giving at Revolution, go check out this post and just remember what a great job you are doing!

Check out the blog post by clicking here.

Tunes I’m jamming to on my iPod:

It’s The Only One You’ve God - 3 Doors Down

In The Ghetto - Elvis (keeps me focused on our Give Kids A Chance event)

Viva La Vida - Coldplay

Together As One - Stryper (it was in my wedding and I just downloaded it)

Life As Beautiful - Sixx: AM

Love Revolution - Lenny Kravitz (Swift busted it out at New Spring Church today so I got to listen to it)

Into The Night - Santana

Dimension - Wolfmother

• 2nd week in a row I didn’t preach. I’m ready.
• Greg Rohlinger taught for us this morning, and taught, and taught, and taught. 2nd service he went 63 minutes. Yes, you read that right I said 63 minutes.
• It was a good message though. Lord, make us believe. If we truly believed, it would change the way we live life. We had a ton of good feedback and gave away a ton of CD’s.
• We were way down in attendance. I know it is June and people are away on vacation but I’ll blame it on Greg anyway.
• We had 30 minutes to tear down today and our people made it happen. You guys are awesome!
• Finally got to meet Hal Mayer face to face. Really love that dude. We just hit it off. He is an old man playing a young man’s game by planting a church and he is knocking it out of the park!
• Last night at dinner, this lady started choking and Hal’s MUCH better half sprung into action and performed the Heimlich on the lady. It was intense!
• The crazy thing was the lady was choking and causing a pretty big scene and yet everyone around us kept eating. NO ONE acted like it was even a big deal. Weird.
• Swift sung at New Spring today. I loved that dude and what God is doing through him and Tory. I’m proud of him, especially if he remembered the words.
• Did everyone see Jenna’s new tattoo? How many churches have a children’s director on staff with her whole arm basically sleeved? It looked awesome!
• Awesome seeing Tim leading worship today. Those guys were rocking!!!!!!!! I love our band and I loved our rowdy our crowd gets when they are rocking!
• Excited about tomorrow because Greg is going to come in and talk to our staff about going to the next level and what that takes.
• Has anyone heard the new Journey CD? Everyone is raving about it!
• Found out this week that Michael Sweet from Stryper is the new lead singer of Boston. Love Stryper so I got to check that out.
• Seeing the promo video today for our next series Uncomfortable got me pumped up!!!! Great video!
• I am ready to preach. Look out July 6th because I might break Greg’s record of 63 minutes.
• Preston is on vacation this week. Summer is weird because we never have our entire staff there due to vacations.
• Did you see all the motorcycle riders today? Good Lord, they were every where!
• Found out today we have a cigar smokers interest group. I love a good cigar so that was cool.
• You don’t inhale cigars so they aren’t bad for you
• Perry Noble is preaching for us next week to end One Prayer. Very pumped about that
• I love Revolution Church. It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I think it even scares some people but I love it!
• Tons of emails, phone calls, and tweets from people telling me how much they loved Greg’s message. Very cool. Now, don’t just love it, but live it!
• I hate the new CD from Coldplay. Yes, I said hate. There about two songs I like.
• Watching the HBO mini-series John Adams on DVD and it is really good.
• Ready to see Thad. He’s been on vacation and there hasn’t been anyone at the office to make fun of.
• I am going to be hooking up with Next Church Conference in September to share the Revolution story. Honored and humbled by the opportunity. VERY excited about meeting Ron Sylvia, who runs the thing.
• God of the city is playing on my iPod right now. Love it!
• Starting a HARDCORE diet and work out routine in the morning! Encourage me because I have to lose this weight before we go multi-site.
• Taylor’s birthday was Friday. Email her at taylor@therevolution.tv and tell her how much you appreciate all she does at Revolution. She is a godsend.
• Hanging out with Greg and Lori tomorrow night Maggiano’s. Yeah…come on!
• King David just died in my daily Bible reading and Solomon just took the throne. Loving reading about him right now.
• Have I mentioned I want to preach?
• I got ET coming on NetFlix and I can’t wait for my kids to see this movie!
• UFC is coming to Atlanta in September. If anyone wants to get me tickets, I will gladly take them.
• Georgia kicks their season off against Arizona State. Might have to go hang with Greg for that game!
• Got some big news and some big steps of faith coming up in our student area!
• We SHOULD get permits to start construction at Holly Springs this week. KEEP praying!
• I love life!

This Sunday we continue our summer teaching series called One Prayer. This has been one of the funniest series we have ever done at Revolution. It is so awesome to know we get to be part of something so much bigger than what is just happening here in Canton, Ga.

This week one of my best friends in the world, Greg Rohlinger will be with us teaching. Greg is the pastor of Palm Valley Church in Phoenix, Arizona. When I was pastoring in a cornfield in Iowa and ready to walk away from the ministry, Greg was my friend. I saw what God was doing through Palm Valley and knew He could do the same thing in Canton, Ga.

I truly believe Greg is one of the great leaders in the church today. They are running close to 3,000 people WITHOUT a building!!! I am so looking forward to having Greg and Lori in town this weekend and trust me, you don’t want to miss Sunday as we continue One Prayer.