I have learned that all of us pastors all read the same blogs, but I have a few I read that are off of the radar.   You might have missed these but they have been nailing it lately with good stuff. Thought I would pass them on to you.

• John Laeger has a great post here on Decision making in leadership.
• Vince Antonucci has a great post on Shark Fishing. Every person who thinks they want to reach people far from God should read this post.
• Eddie Johnson has some awesome pictures on an old, closed down church they have redeemed for God’s use. Makes me want a building!!!! The pictures are amazing.
• One of my best friends, Tony McCollum has a great post on playing the comparing game. Call me guilty.
• I recently posted the 10 things I wish I would have known before planting.  After reading it, Jimmy Britt posted his 10 things.  Good stuff.
• Mac Richard (been watching this dude for a while) has a great post on Football and Jesus.
• 6 year thoughs from Clark Mitchell (another guy I want to meet) here, here, and here.  GREAT STUFF!

I go through stages with blogs where different ones are speaking to me at different times. I don’t know if it is a stage of life, what I am going through right now, or what it is, but I’ve noticed being really drawn to about 5 blogs right now. I’ve already posted a few of these as new blogs to check out but I want to point them out to you again.

Video Church Blog - Eddie Johnson is the pastor of Cumberland Church in Nashville. Eddie is on his second North Point church plant and is giving some GREAT insight into the life of a video church. Maybe it is because we are about to launch a second location, but I am soaking up everything he is writing right now. What makes Eddie’s blog so great is he believes in video church. He buys into it 100% and as such he is giving some great thoughts. If you are thinking of going multi-site and aren’t reading this blog, read it and learn.

Buddy Cremeans - This cat has it going on. I love his style of writing and I am loving what he has to say. I love GREAT churches that you have never heard of. It is like finding a hidden treasure. I have been watching them for a while but Buddy has stepped it up in blogging lately. His new Monday feature called Creamen’s Couch is great. He is taking different leades and doing video interviews with them. Good stuff.

Perry Noble - 3 years and still no one pushes me like this dude. What they have experienced in the month of August has been insane!!!! I do a lot of my morning devotions to the posts Perry puts out. They are full of scripture and challenges. Love this dude.

Life Church Dudes - GREAT blog. I love how Craig posts in series and he posts short! GREAT information and I learn a ton every time I read him. This blog is one of the great things about blogging. You are getting daily insights from a pastor of one of the largest churches in America. You couldn’t pay for that kind of learning.

Mark Batterson - I go through phases where Mark is really speaking to me and times where I don’t pay much attention to his blog. He posts so much that at times I just simply get behind on what he is writing and don’t catch up. Right now, I am digging him big time. He is a great writer and the stuff he is saying is really kicking with me right now.

This list could change next week, but for the last two weeks those are the blogs that are really doing a work in me. If you aren’t reading any of them, put them on your radar.

Let me introduce you guys to Eddie Johnson.  Eddie started a church here in Canton at the same time we started Revolution.  I’ll be honest and say we allowed competitive natures to take over BIG TIME!  Not cool.

However about a 18 months of us both into our plants we realized we were on the same team and God brought us together as friends.  I remember when he called me and told me God had moved him to Nashville to plant another church as a North Point partner.  I remember feeling like I had lost a person I had went to war with.  It felt weird seeing him leave.

We’ve kept in touch and he emailed me today to tell me he has started a blog called Video Church Blog.  I think Eddie is going to give a no-holds barred look at what it takes to pull off “video church” every week.  It will be good.  Go check it out here.

I have been a Vince Antonucci fan since we started Revolution.  He is the pastor of Forefront and is probably one of the BEST churches in the country at actually reaching unchurched people.  I have learned from them from a distance and he is one of the guys I have wanted to hook up with for a while, but haven’t yet.

I found out today he started blogging so this is a site you WILL want to bookmark quick!  Check it out here.

• Buddy Cremeans -NorthwayChurch.tv - Found this guy about 2 months ago and just digging him.  I think (not sure) that I talked to him by phone one day but I can’t remember.  The dude is getting IT done in New York.  Lots of good stuff.
• David Foster - The Gathering - He wrote one of my favorite books.  I didn’t know he had a blog until Tony Morgan posted about him.  I have been soaking up the stuff on his blog ever since.  I dig this dude.
• Dean Herman - Hooked up with this guy through New Spring and I just dig him.  Plus he is about 7 ft tall and about 300 lbs so I think he could kick my butt.

Tony Morgan just put out a list of his 25 blogs he can’t live without and I made the list.  When I took the strength finders test, I rated at #3 in Significance so I am vain and liked making his list. I’ve had the honor of knowing Tony for a few years and I have called on him for advice many times and he was always helped.

When we decided to change our name to Revolution, Tony contacted me and gave me many things to think about. This time I didn’t have to ask his advice, he simply took it upon himself to contact me BECAUSE he cares about our church and us impacting our community. To me that is very cool and true friendship.

Thanks Tony for the shout out!

I have gotten several e-mails from people asking me about the websites I can’t live without so let me give those to you real quick. Before I do that, let me make it VERY clear that I am NOT computer savvy. I do VERY little online though I would like to do a lot more. So my sites are very basic.

• Google - Can’t live without it, period.
• BibleGateway - I own very few “study helps.” I sold them all because of this site. I do 90% of my studying here.
• Bloglines - I never go to someone’s blog. This site allows me to keep up with multiple blogs and their updates on one site. LOVE it. Tried Google Reader and just didn’t like it.
• Pandora - First site I log into every morning.  Pick the band you feel like jamming to for the day and it plays that style of music from different bands all day.  LOVE this site.
• AJC - Atlanta paper.  Got to keep up with my mission field.
• Cherokee Tribune - Got to keep up with my county.
• Facebook - Still not sold out on it but I am starting to see a little more what the big deal is.

Nothing to add.  Click here to read.

I get a lot of emails about my blog and many are the same thing so I thought I would address them here though none are very serious.

1. I am VERY aware that my blog is FULL of misspellings, improper punctuation, and even improper sentence structure. I don’t care. I don’t have time to proof everything and I just write what pops in my mind.
2. I don’t care if you don’t want to hear about my family, music I listen too, etc. I mainly do this blog for my own benefit. I want to look back and see what God was doing in my life at certain times. I’m glad you read but I will continue to write about what I want to write about. After all it is my blog.
3. I don’t care that you don’t like that I don’t allow comments - Even though I post very regular, I actually spend little time worrying about this thing. I sure don’t want to debate with people who have issues with what we are doing and all they want to do is argue.
4. You want to see pictures of my wife and kids - I get this one a lot for some reason. Not sure why you want pictures and I do post them from time to time, BUT I am very protective of my family. Believe it or not, I get a lot of negative things from this blog including threats. I pastor in a small town and I am in the “spotlight” a lot. It is VERY rare for us to go out and not run into someone we know and even run into people who are quick to let me know they have issues with me. I choose not to put my family in that position. My church knows who they are, but I’m not big on plastering their faces all over the place. Call me weird, but I have strong opinions on this one.
5. People think I brag on The Stone to much - Get over it. Besides God and my family, The Stone is the love of my life. DeAnna and I invested everything we had in planting her and she is my baby. I love the people who make up The Stone and I love EVERYTHING it stands for.
6. You don’t like the fact that the “contact” link goes to Taylor - That is fine but again, I have better things than answering every email. The ones I need to see, I see.
7. You want to be linked - GREAT! However I haven’t messed with the link section in forever and I’m to lazy to change it. I figure we all read the same blogs anyway so me listing someone else is useless because you already know about them.
8. You want to me to acknowledge the blogs that continually bash what God is doing here and in churches like ours - Uh, no. I have better stuff to do then even look at those things or think about those things. I obsessed over those things for a long time and now I don’t even look at them. Sorry.

Anyway, I have been saving those answers for a while so maybe that will save you from asking a dumb question or making a dumb comment in the future.

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.