Thoughts Messing Me Up!

I have been around a lot of great thinkers and leaders over the last few weeks and there have been several things that have been messing me up. I want to elaborate on them further but here are some of the things that are keeping me up at night:

• There are only two reasons for people to come to church. Only two things they can get at church that they can’t get by sitting at home listening to preaching and worship. Relationships and Experience. Still digesting this one but when I heard it I felt like I had been kicked in the groin. Still processing this but I want to post some thing about it soon.
• I’m honestly concerned as the “contemporary” church starts producing it’s second generation, that we are producing young leaders that are more interested in what they think is “cool” and our “models” than we are reaching lost people. This bugs me greatly. I might post more on this but I’m not sure I can articulate the thoughts in my mind into words.
• People will chose relationships over vision. As a leader, I hate to accept this but it is true. More thoughts on this later.
• Why does everyone want to only go to white-collar suburbs or college towns to plant churches? We would rather plant where there are 20 others churches as opposed to going to urban and rural areas. Romans 10:14 haunts me here.
• It can’t be all about numbers. Trust me, I am a number freak but it has to be about community impact. A church of 500 in a town of 16,000 will have a stronger community impact than a church of 5,000 in a city of 250,000.
• No one is being successful with multi-site. Not sure I agree with this, but I heard someone make the point the other day that for the amount of money churches are spending to launch second and third campuses, the number of people they are reaching is not a great return. Never had this thought before but it has me thinking. It is one of the reasons we are hell-bent on launching our Holly Springs campus for the amount we have budgeted. I want the amount of people reached per dollar we spend to be HIGH.
• What does it mean to truly transform a city for Christ? I use this terminology all the time but someone asked me what I meant by it and I couldn’t give a simple answer. I want that changed.
• This is one of the most exciting times to be part of the church ever. The ability to reach people is greater than any other time in history. It excites me!
• What are other ways we can reach the North Central Georgia region? I”m sure there are ways I have never thought of and that excites me!