Revolution Happenings

• I’m pumped about being back teaching this Sunday! I felt like I haven’t taught in a year and I can’t wait to share with you what God has been laying on my heart about the life we are called to live.
• We are 100% going to Holly Springs. We have building permit in hand and we are are starting construction on Monday.  If you signed up to help out, we will be in touch very soon.
• You’ve been asking for it forever and I am excited to say we are now working on our first worship CD. It will be all original worship music and hopefully we will have it ready by the end of the year!
• We’ve hired a new student pastor!  Michael Creighton starts full-time on July 14th! Michael has been at Revolution for around a year while working at Goshen Valley Boys Ranch and has built a couple of different successful student ministries.  We’ve been talking for around a year and the timing was finally right. See, there is a benefit to reading my blog because you get to hear it first.
• The funniest thing to me about Michael is he is the oldest guy on our staff, yet he is doing students!
• TONS of you keep asking whether we are opening the office for fireworks this year like we have done in the past.  In the past you could see the Canton fireworks perfect from the office but this year they have built a 3 story building that blocks that view so we decided there was no point in doing it.

Posted in Revolution Church | No Comments »

DeAnna is gone and I am feeling emotional :)

I’m sure most of you pastors have already seen this, so I am posting this more for the people of Revolution.  This post from Wade Joye, the worship pastor at Elevation Church got me pretty choked up today, which doesn’t happen very often.  Go check it out here and pray for the Joye family.  AWESOME faith!

Also this song by Hillsong is rocking my world right now!  Check out the song here and the story behind the song right here. The backstory is POWERFUL.

Posted in General | No Comments »

Got to give a shout out!

Most of you who attend Revolution know Brad Jr. who plays guitar in our band. He is 17 years old and honestly I put the kid up against any guitar I know.  The kid is great.  He’s been playing with us since he was 15.  He is actually working at Revolution this summer at our worship intern and has been awesome.

What most of you don’t know is Brad is in a band called Emery Drive that is really picking up steam and last night they beat out TONS of bands to get the opportunity to play coming up on the Vans Warped Tour in Atlanta!  What a great honor for these kids who are sold out for Christ!  Let him know how awesome you think it is on Sunday when you see him.

You can also listen to some of their music online right here.

Posted in Revolution Church | No Comments »

Doing Life With Those You Enjoy

I had the honor of talking to the staff at Oak Leaf Church yesterday at their staff retreat in Chattanooga. Had a fun time and was impressed with those guys. I have said this a million times but it always strikes me when I leave Michael how different we are. We couldn’t be any more different, yet I think our respect and friendship for each other has really grown over the last couple of years. I consider him a friend, peer AND a mentor in many areas. Michael is a sharp guy and I have only been around Anthony, his executive pastor a couple of times but I am impressed with him as well. OLC is going to do great things in Cartersville.

One thing that strikes me when I am around other church staffs is how close knit our staff is. It wasn’t that the OLC staff wasn’t close, but today I was reminded that I do life with my best friends.  I am learning there is a vast difference between having a staff and a team.  Here at Revolution we have a team of people who are passionate about Jesus, our city, reaching lost people and are passionate about each other.

We actually love being around each other, we love hanging out, we love that we get to do this thing called Revolution together. I consider the guys and gals on our team to be my best friends.

I have had a lot of people tell me that we will eventually stall out in our growth if we don’t change the frat house culture at our office and the closeness of our staff.  I see their points and I understand what they are saying, but the day I have to stop being close with the people I lead is the day I will stop leading this place.

Trust me, I can put the boss hat when necessary.  Being so close with our staff does create moments where things are awkward and difficult but I would take those moments anytime in order to keep the closeness of our team.

I think my friend Perry Noble and the staff at New Spring keeps this balance as well as any staff.  When others tell us we need to change, I just point to New Spring.  I love coming into an office where I am happy to see everyone, I love that I can go hang out in others offices, and I love that I actually enjoy being around our staff.

Posted in General, Revolution Church | No Comments »

Sunday Night Mind Dump

• 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.

Posted in General, Mind Dump | No Comments »

Some Great Links

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.

Posted in Church Planting, General, Leadership | No Comments »

Next Launch Conference

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.

Posted in Church Planting, Leadership | No Comments »

Last Week Of One Prayer

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!

Posted in Revolution Church | No Comments »

What’s Your Message?

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.

Posted in Church Planting, Leadership | 3 Comments »

Much Needed Break

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!!!!!

Posted in Revolution Church | No Comments »