Category: Church Leadership

  • Teaching Acts

    book of actsRight now I am teaching the book of Acts for a class at Romeo Bible Institute. It is both fun and challenging. It’s fun because Acts is one of the most action packed, exciting narratives in the world as a band of eleven takes hold of a challenge from the Risen Jesus and (under the power of the Holy Spirit) takes the Great Commission literally. Within one lifetime Christianity went from 11 to over 100,000.

    It’s challenging because I am trying to cram 28 chapters into 6 weeks. Pray for my students.

  • Easter Egg Hunt Video

    This is pretty raw. But it shows what we were up to and how much fun it was. Again, thanks to all that helped pull this one off. I think there were about 25 volunteers… awesome!

  • Easter Egg Hunt | Slam Dunk

    Gosh, I just got home and I’m having a hard time controlling my excitement. Today was a blast!

    The teams were all awesome. Set-up/Tear-down team… excellent. Band team… excellent. Hospitality team… excellent. We had never been a part of an event quite like this one.  Joyce from Park & Rec and her team seemed very pleased with how we complimented the event. She told one of our team, “I wasn’t sure what to expect with the band… they were great.”

    As parents and kids filtered in, the weather was perfect for what we had planned. (Sunny and mid-30s) Our hospitality tent was ready [big thanks to the folks at Caribou for all their help!] and people were thirsty for great coffee, hot cider, and hot chocolate. Oh my… we went through a lot of hot chocolate. (150 cups!) We had just enough as the last cups were poured with only 2 packets left in the box.  Autumn and Bob (our senior pastor) had a hard time keeping up with demand. Bravo to them for keeping their cool! They had a constant line the entire time… amazing job.

    What was today all about? It was all about changing minds. Forever we’ve been the “old baptist church” in town. Those who have lived in Romeo a long time think they know who we are, what we’re about… in marketing language the typical person in our community thinks they know our story and they’ve made up their mind. This was about us partnering with the community and showing them that we aren’t who people think we are. We aren’t fuddy-duddy. We aren’t old-fashioned. We don’t wear skirts and ties or are stuffy. We aren’t “against the world” and judgmental. Basically… we want to tell people the truth… we’re just like you. We’re parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends you know from school. We like the music you like, we have the same dreams you have, and we like to give back to the community as much as everyone else.

    I loved the way we came alongside of the Parks & Rec department and worked with them. I hope we made them look good!

    I loved the songs that the band selected. They did music right off the radio. Switchfoot, Rascal Flatts, John Mellencamp, Daughtry, etc. I kept hearing people ask, “Is that the band from the church?” Yup. Jimmy and his gang are really, really good. I loved seeing people smile as they sang along to the music.
    Over at Romeo, we’re entering into this new phase we’re calling “God of this City.” It’s not about us and serving ourselves. It’s about bringing God to the city.  And we’re doing that in fun, unexpected ways. Today was one of them. Awesome job to all who helped. Thanks!

    I’m working on a video. It should be up later today.

    For now… rest.

  • God of This City, update 1

  • You Matter to Your Schools

    You Matter to Your SchoolsThis was just posted over at Youth Ministry Exchange. Here’s an excerpt:

    Here’s a thought that will blow your mind. The God of the Universe chose you to help him build the church in your town. Here’s another thought to give you some perspective. The God of the Universe has an enemy, Satan, whose deepest desire is to distract, discourage, debilitate, and destroy you. It’s as if Satan has a special department in the community you live in just for that. Just like there is a Street Department and Water Department, Satan runs the Ministry Destruction Department in your town and people like you are his number one project.  Read the rest

    (more…)

  • Our Vision for Our Community

    I’ve had this video ready for a couple of weeks. Below is a description video for our churches vision.

    Since I already had a couple of people ask me how I made the video, here are the details.
    – Obviously, the animation is from Google Earth. I set up the points as a tour and clicked through when it came time to record. (Just timed it out in my head)
    – I recorded the Google Earth presentation using IShowU. This is a simple video screen capture tool available for OSX.
    – I used the Google Earth video as the background in Adobe Premier.
    – I did the voice over at the sound board at church. I recorded it using Garage Band, using some effects to make my voice more “voice over” quality.
    – The rest is just done in Premier. Titles, video layers, etc.

    It was a lot of steps. But I was pleased with the results. The fun part was doing some parts of the project in Premier (PC) and some with Garage Band and IShowU. (Mac) Before I started I actually took the time to make a project list… which helped me keep all of the parts in the right place.

    Where did the idea come from? I saw a video similar to this on Granger Community Church’s website. I based the outline of the script on that video as well as the idea of using Google Earth as the animation tool. Anything beyond the concept I came up with. It was a fun project!

    Since I’m sharing videos, here is the bumper video we made for the service too.

    Someone asked me today how long these videos take. Here’s a ballpark.
    Our Vision for Our Community: 20ish hours. (Conception through completion)
    Lean In Bumper Video: about 1 hour (Conception through completion)

  • Illumination: Who does that?

    Hmmm“I’ve read that passage 10 times in my life, heard several messages in church, but never understood what God was trying to teach me until your message. Thank you.”

    This is something that most Bible teachers and pastors hear from time to time. It’s meant as a compliment to the preacher… and it is. It is a compliment to preparation, creativity, and delivery. When I receive that compliment it always helps validate the hours of work that go into everything from simple lessons to the most complex sermon to a weekly youth group talk. But the primary compliment goes to God. When I hear that comment I know that the Holy Spirit has done something in that person’s life.

    Here is the definition of illumination I learned in college:

    The Illumination of the Bible (also relates to pneumatology) That supernatural help of the Holy Spirit which enables man to understand and comprehend the meaning of God’s revelation.

    Illumination has two aspects as it relates to us. First for unbelievers, illumination is the Holy Spirit helping the person to understand God’s truths for the purposes of salvation. Practically, this is what makes the difference between someone who has heard the gospel message 20x’s and not responded and responding to the 21st time. Second for believers, illumination is the action of the Holy Spirit when you understand God’s revelation to you. (99% of the time that revelation is the Bible)

    Practically, what does illumination look like or feel like? (more…)

  • God of This City

    Here’s the video I sent out with our weekly email update. Seriously, if you aren’t a part of a local church and you are looking to connect somewhere… this Sunday is a great place to jump on board.

  • The new signs are here!

    church signI can’t even say how long we’ve worked on this. We started talking about new signs for the church about a year ago. And I think we went through 40-50 revisions. So, here is what one side looks like.

    Best part, within 2 hours of them being installed I already received a phone call asking about our kids ministry. The signs work!

  • The Heart of Worship

    On Sunday I mentioned that I got chills during our rehearsal as Jimmy began practicing with a new vocalist. I thought I’d back that up with this clip from our worship service. This new person is going to add so much to what we’re doing! I’m totally excited… here’s a sample of why.