I love to teach, preach, speak, whatever you want to call it, I love it!

I especially love to teach about things I am passionate about and this week I am preaching to our men!  I love speaking on men being men and I just wrapped this weeks sermon and it is going to be a freaking blast bringing IT!

If you are a Stoner then get every dude you know to church this week!

We have some of the MOST uncomfortable conference rooms chairs in the world. They have literally a 90 degree angle, they have no side arms, and the wheels are way to small. No one sits in them they are so bad.

So yesterday we decided to have a staff competition while we worked.  The deal was everyone had to sit in one of these chairs at 9 on the dot and you had to work the entire day without getting up.  You had to roll around the office, roll to the bathroom, roll to meetings, etc.  If you got up, you lost.

We all had a buy-in fee and the last one sitting won all the money.

I lost.

Preston won.

Just saw yesterday’s numbers and wow, they were not good. 

I believing that that meant that everyone decided to take vacation the same week and we will be back up this week.   Of course, I could just blame Malcolm since he taught yesterday.

Funny thing was I just looked at the communication cards and we had several pastors in the service yesterday that I have talked to through blogs and some I have known for a while.  Hated that I missed them.

This Sunday we are continuing our series called Ridge Stone Rocks!  This week we will be looking at the Foo Fighter’s song, “Best of you.”  This is a great song that talks in depth about not letting go of someone who hurt you, dealing with bitterness, and dealing with unforgiveness.

ALL of us have been hurt at one time or another.  Being hurt is out of our control many times, but how we handle it is totally up to us.

Should be a great Sunday and it is my prayer that after hearing what God’s word says about this subject that some of our people will apply the principles to their lives and get some closure on issues that have been affecting them for a while.

I am so freaking happy this week I can’t stand it.  Even though Malcolm has done very little this week in regard to the business side of the church (hey, it’s his first week), I can already see the benefit of him doing this.  Taylor has done a great job this week as well.

My mind is clear, I actually feel nice :), I have spent a lot of time with my family, and I literally can’t write down the ideas that are coming to me quick enough.

I love this place!

If you are on the set-up and tear down team for the lobby, cafe, or children’s area, I can’t wait to see your reaction Sunday when you see the new equipment we have that is going to cut your job by 30-40 minutes this Sunday.

We spent the ENTIRE day at the theater today and unpacked every piece of equipment we have and repacked it in portable cases.  All you have to do is role your case off and get it to the right locations and simply unpack it.  No more carrying 10-12 different totes to your area.  Every preschool room has it’s own case.  Planet Shakers has it’s own case.  The lobby has it’s own case.  The creative team has it’s own case, and the cafe has it’s own cafe.  This week set-up will take about 30 minutes and in a few weeks tear down should take about the same (I’ll figure it will take a few weeks to learn how to pack the cases back up).

Not only are the cases new but we literally replaced almost every piece of preschool equipment we have today with newer stuff.  We also packed cases with preschool stuff for our Jasper location that will launch in January.

It was a good day!

Got a letter in the mail today from a family that I assume visited our church recently.  They moved to the area and were visiting churches.  After visiting other churches they decided RSC was NOT the church for them.

That sucked

The cool thing was they sent us a letter telling us how much they appreciated what we do and why we do it.  They shared their testimony in the letter and wanted us to know they will continue to pray for RSC and the work we are doing in the community.  They told us how much this area needed a church like The Stone.

I just thought that was cool.

RSC isn’t the church for everyone and it is cool when others realize that and still know we are on the same team and that they are praying for us.

If you didn’t listen to our podcast from this last week, I shared some internal changes that are taking place at The Stone.  I had gotten to the point where I was fried a few weeks ago.  I was still doing everything I was doing when we launched the church and it had caught up with me.  Especially the administrative stuff was literally taking all my time!

I couldn’t lead our church because I was to busy keeping it running.

For a second I allowed the pressure to get to me, but God showed me some awesome things on how to handle pressure from Moses!  Mo had it going on and his Father in law did a great job teaching him how to handle all the pressure that was going on in his life.

One of the things Moses did was make some changes!  So after MUCH prayer, much advice from pastors and some men in our church, I have made the necessary changes that will allow me to focus on three things:  Teaching, Leading, and Vision Casting.  That is it.  Nothing less, Nothing more.

Some of the changes we made:

• We moved Malcolm Young from our Connections Pastor to our Executive Pastor.  For us this is huge!  God works in twos.  Behind every great pastor is an equally great Executive Pastor who is an armor bearer for the Lead Pastor.  Malcolm is this person for me.  In many ways, he already was doing this job but now he will be handling the business and staffing end of our church.  He will do a GREAT job and this is going to help make me a healthier pastor.
• Taylor is basically coming on full-time.  She is going to take a much larger role in making my life easier.  ALL of my email will be going to her now with the exception of one private email that I will protect religiously.  Taylor will filter what needs to come to me and what doesn’t.  If you need me, she will make sure you get to me.
• I am changing my cell phone number.  When we had 6 families everyone had it.  Now the problem is EVERY ONE has it. :)  That joker rings off the hook!
• I’m taking a 3 month break from meeting with church planters.  This is a hard thing for me because I love them and enjoy talking shop BUT right now I simply don’t have time and my family and The Stone must come first.  If you are a planter I already communicate with on a regular basis, you will be getting an email with my new email address sometime next week.  Feel free to use it.  If we haven’t hooked up yet, know that I am for you and praying for you but right now I need to take a break.
• I am going to start leading.  I have led since the day we started but the fact is there are times I worry to much about being the “dude” around the church instead of being the Man of God that I was created to be.  You didn’t need another “dude” in your life but if you attend RSC you need a pastor who is walking with God and leading the church.  I will not feel guilty about this.
• I am learning to say “no.”  I want to say YES to everything.  Every person, speaking opportunity, meeting, etc. I want to do it.  I am now learning to say NO.  I will have a filter system of Malcolm, Taylor, and my wife DeAnna on what I say YES too in the future.  I can’t say YES to everything and every body.
• I am not handling critics.  I always would check Taylor’s email at night and read what people said.  No more.  I had her change the password.  If you don’t attend RSC, serve at RSC, and support RSC, then I am not concerned about your opinion.  I am tired of getting worked up over people who have never been to The Stone and know nothing about it.  That is stupid on my part.

I think these changes are literally going to change RSC and the ARE the changes that are going to take us to the next level.  I am excited and ready for what God has in store.

We have been portable since the day we launched the church, however we have never really been a portable church. Our equipment has been anything but portable. A few months ago we finally got the cases to take our worship center portable and got staging that was actually portable. It has been NICE!!!

Then in the last two weeks we have gotten 14 of the huge portable cases from Portable Church Industries for a price that would literally make you cry! God has blessed us in a big time way. It will be HUGE job but it has to be done and it is going to make our set-up so much easier.

We have some incredible volunteers when it comes to set-up and tear down and I can honestly say they NEVER complain. I think people do NOT have a problem being portable but I want our people to know we are doing everything in our power to make their job easier and more efficient. We really couldn’t afford the stuff we bought and actually have some more pressing needs but it was a deal that would be gone if we didn’t jump on it.
On top of the cases we got a good deal on a TON of preschool stuff and are going to upgrade some things and actually get things ready for Jasper as we now have enough preschool stuff for both campuses!!!!

Tomorrow our entire staff and some of our awesome volunteers are going to the theater and literally unloading EVERY piece of equipment we have, cleaning it, reorganizing it, getting it cases, and throwing away stuff we don’t need.  It will be a ton of work but our people are going to flip out when they show up on Sunday and see how nice everything looks and how much easier it is to unload.

God has been showing and preparing us for some huge things lately and I am thankful we have been able to make our stuff more portable.  Our people deserve the money that was spent on them today and deserve us doing all we can, when we can to make their lives easier.

After 2 1/2 years, we are finally starting to be portable!!!!!

Today was a great day.  I feel back in the game after getting a load off of my chest yesterday morning!  I didn’t want to preach that message yesterday and I sure didn’t want to come across as whining but I have been hit up all day by email from pastors telling me how much they can realte to how I was feeling and thanking me for saying what need to be said.

The sad thing to me is not that a lot of pastors go through times like that but that they don’t feel they can share it with their people for fear of what they will think.  99% of the people who left The Stone yesterday left there more excited about the vision of the church then when they came in.  99% of our people saw how much healthier our church is going to be.  I know every pastor says this but I pastor what I consider the greatest people in the world.  Seriously, I don’t have to be someone I am not to our people.  They accept everyone including me no matter what.  What a great feeling!

Today was a GREAT day at the office.  We went and picked up a bunch of cases and signs that a church gave us, had a great lead team meeting, and had fun talking about the future.

Then tonight I turned into Mr. Surbanite. :)  I got home and grilled some chicken and veggies, fixed the lawnmower (okay I actually just duct taped the handle back together), cut the grass, and now I am about to go sit in a rocking chair on the front porch and listen to some tunes and read a book.

Life is good.