Turning over a new leaf

I admit it, I am a pathetic excuse for a blogger! There, I said it.
For some reason my consistency of posting has been pretty poor. But in 2007 I vow to do better.
I was inspired by Josh to quit slacking, so I am turning over a new leaf.
I am going to post on a regular basis (whether I have anything important to say or not).

kidzblitz

One of the smartest things we have ever done, was deciding that children would be a top priority at Foothills. Unfortunately I have seen many churches dismiss the importance of a great children's ministry. I have been in some churches where the children's rooms were boring, outdated and old-fashioned and the teachers were even more boring. We owe it to our kids to put adequate attention and resources into kid's ministry. This past Friday evening we hosted a Kidzblitz Live performance. This was one of the best events we have ever done. We had about 450 people come to it---and it was extremely high energy!
The Kidzblitz team does a great job of keeping the kids entertained with fun games, competition and a lot of audience involvement, while teaching Biblical truths. I would recommend Kidzblitz to any church looking for a great way to connect with their community.

Smile more

I often hear horror stories of Pastor's who lead congregations that really don't appreciate the sacrifice he makes for them. I can honestly say that I have always felt loved and appreciated by my Church family.
This month is Pastor Appreciation Month. I have received many kind words, cards and nice notes, but one of the coolest things occured this week. A wonderful family in our church dropped by with a homemade cheesecake, and they brought their young daughter with them. She had a school paper to do about people who help others. Some of the students picked policemen, doctors, nurses, etc. She chose me. She brought me that paper. On the front she had colored a picture of a guy (I'm assuming it's me). There are a few other things in the picture. I think one is my table that I use to set my Bible, another appears to be a pair of glasses (one of the curses of being over 40), and a couple of other things (I'm not sure what they are). But the one thing that I love about her picture, is that I have a smile on my face! From her young perspective, she sees that her Pastor is happy. I have always tried never to preach angry.
I see many Pastors who seem angry. They preach with a scowl instead of a smile. They look like they don't really enjoy what they do, or the people who they do it with. The Bible is Good News!
Pastors, we have been called to spread the greatest message that has ever been told. Imagine that----we even get paid to do that!
If someone drew a picture of you, what expression would be on your face?
By the way. On the back of her picture she writes this. (I am writing it just as she did.) "Preachers tell pepol about Jesus and God in terch and Gods holeword and that is how preachers help pepol." (Here is the translation: Preachers tell people about Jesus and God in Church and God's Holy Word. And that is how Preachers help people") Don't you just love it!

Church Planting

One of the things that we feel very strongly about at Foothills, is the need to help other Churches. Every person on my staff is committed to this value. We frequently host staff from other churches, and have built relationships with many Pastors and staff.
One thing that we are presently considering is providing an internship program to a prospective church planter. Our thought at this point is to bring someone on staff at Foothills. We would pay a portion of their salary, and they would raise the rest. In return they would get an inside look at what goes here at Foothills. They would serve in virtually every area of ministry during their internship. We are thinking that the program would last around 6-12 months. At that point our hopes are to place that person in a launch location, and offer some on-going support as well.
There are some other churches doing similar things. If you know of anyone that may be interested in applying for this position, have them contact me.

Classic Service

I am very excited about what God is doing here at Foothills Community Church. 3 weeks ago we added a 4th Sunday service at 6:00pm---it's been incredible. But one of the things we are going to be working on is changing our 8:30 am service to be more of a "Classic" style. We have always called the 8:30 service "classic", but it really hasn't been too different than the other services. So we are going to make a radical departure and try to make it different.
Let me describe what our definition of "classic" is. In that service we will change the pre-service music to something with less of an edge. The music set will probably be 2 hymns (modern arrangememt), 1 curerent upbeat song, and 1 oldie goldie (ie. Shout To The Lord).
The volume level will be backed off a few decibels, and the band will alot more acoustic. It will still be a Foothills "feel" , but we are hoping to connect with the people who say, "I love this church, but the music is a little over the top for me". We'll see how it works.

Fall is in the air

I have mixed emotions about Fall. One side of me loves it. There is a freshness about the cooler mornings. Deer hunting season is cranking up, football season is going strong. People in general, seem to be ready for jumping back into things after a couple of months in the summer mindset. It has always been one of our premier growth times as a church.
On the other hand, Fall tells me that Winter is not far behind. I have a confession to make. When it comes to dealing with cold weather I am a Sissy! I spent nearly all of my life living in South Florida. My blood is thin. When it gets below 60 degrees I don't like it. I don't care what anyone says, South Carolina gets pretty doggone cold. I admire people from Minnesota or Iowa or Maine. They are my heroes. How they can function in below freezing temperatures for months on end, I can't figure out. They have to be tough.
When God called me to ministry, I said "God, I'll follow you anywhere---but please keep me south of the Mason-Dixon line!"

I'm Back

I haven't blogged in over a month. It's not that I don't have anything to say. It's really just been pretty hectic around here.
On Saturday we hosted a 1st Impressions Conference with special guest Mark Waltz from Granger Community Church. Mark did a super job of challenging us with taking our guest services to new levels. It was a lot of fun especially because we had several other churches from SC, NC and GA in attendance.
This past Sunday we began our new 4 service format. It was incredible! The service times are now 8:30am, 9:45am, 11:15am, and 6:00pm. We weren't sure what to expect at the 6:00pm service, but it was great. There was a fantastic energy in the room, and there were a whole lot of new faces. I think that service has a good chance of being as popular as the 9:45 or 11:00 services.

Tough Topics

Yesterday I finished a short 2 week mini-series called "The Untouchables". It was a series about topics that most churches don't really like to talk about---Sex, and Divorce. Well yesterday was the Divorce message. I don't remember a message ever being so difficult to talk about. It's not that I haven't talked about it before, I have. It's just this time I took it from a different angle. It was tough! After the first service was over, I felt like speaking about something else---anything else, for service number 2, and 3!
One thing I realize is that sometimes God's Word stings a little bit. It's not always fun and sometimes it's downright difficult to talk about, but you just can't ignore it.
Divorce is everywhere, and to not talk about it just because it's uncomfortable is like ignoring the elephant in the room.
If you are charged with the responsibility of communicating the truths of Scripture -- then communicate the whole counsel of God's Word. Leave the results to God. Don't apologize for God's Word. Preach it with passion, preach it with conviction, preach it with grace, preach it with love, preach it as if your lost son/daughter was in the audience, and this might be their last chance to respond to Christ, preach it in terms that people understand, preach it without sounding like you're mad at everyone----but whatever you do, "Preach the Word"

Summer Mo

It's hard to believe that summer is about done (well, actually summer vacation for students is almost done) Anyway, we are already beginning to see the signs that people are getting back into the normal swing of things. This past Sunday we were almost back up to our attendance numbers before summer. not only that, but this past Sunday we had the most 1st time children checked in for the entire year including Easter Sunday. We can feel big Mo kicking into high gear. I can hardly wait until school gets back in.

Refreshed

Vacations are great! I highly recommend them. There's nothing like getting away for a little while to recharge the old batteries.
I will be preaching this weekend again after three Sundays off. It feels kind of wierd, but I can't wait! I will begin a 2 week mini-series called "The Untouchables"-- we'll be discussing sex and divorce. Speaking of divorce, why is it that if an axe- murderer gives his life to Christ we bring him on stage to share his story, but a divorced person walks into a church and they are shunned?
We have always made an effort to open our doors and arms to EVERYONE at Foothills. Our motto is "bring your baggage--we'll help you unpack it"

Book Review---Multi-Site Church Revolution

For anyone thinking about starting an additional site or venue this book is a must read. I was very interested in reading this book because we plan to be offering an additional venue (possibly 2) in our new building that we hope to be occupying in late 2007.
This book is low on "theory" and high on "practicality", which to me, is a good thing. There are plenty of case studies from various size and style churches, and a lot of nuts and bolts facts.
It is an easy read, and for me it only bogged down in a couple of places.
Overall I would give this book 4 stars.
Do yourself a favor, if you are even remotely considering an additional venue or site (or if you just want to get an insight into the future) read this book.

New Spring

Had a great day today spending time with some other Pastors over at New Spring Church. Perry Noble and all of his people have a heart to help other churches. They are great hosts. They even provided lunch from Mama Penns. I had heard of them, but that was the first time I've eaten their food---very good!
I got a chance to meet some new people, which is always nice and catch up with some old friends.
New Spring is creating a network of churches to help provide resources, encouragement and support for each other. With all of the bad press churches get for fighting amongst each other, it's refreshing to hook-up with guys who realize we're all on the same team.
I know that Perry and New Spring catch a lot of flack from people that don't know them or understand what they are trying to do. I have to tell you, I think it's very unfair. They are reaching people, and the last time I checked, that's what we were commanded to do. If you find fault with that--get a life!

major kids event

We kicked off our Summer Sports Spectacular for kids, and it was fantastic! Hats off to my wife Liz who coordinated the entire thing. She has been putting in 16 hour days for weeks preparing for this event. I am so amazed by our people. We had probably 100 adult/teen volunteers there to help make it happen. We had music, drama, faith stories from Clemson University athletes and of course all kinds of sports. On day one we had around 250 kids. On Wednesday evening we will have a BMX group called Chaos on Wheels coming to perform. I can't wait to see them.
We have not had any sort of VBS type thing for the last 2 summers. I know that some parents couldn't figure that out. In the Bible Belt it's just expected that churches do VBS. If you lived here, your kids could probably go to VBS somewhere twice a day for the entire summer. We decided that if we were going to invest resources in something it needed to be something different from everywhere else. I've never been a big fan of doing something "just because everyone else does it"
If day one is any indication as to how the rest of the week is going to turn out---I'm pumped!

It doesn't get any better than this

As I reflected on this past Sunday, the thought that crossed my mind was, "it doesn't get any better than this". Sunday was incredible. The entire team knocked it out of the park in all 3 services Sunday. I spoke about the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Jeremy came up after and sang that Chris Rice song, "Come to Jesus". We showed some video footage in the background of last year's baptisms. I cannot remember a time where I have seen more people in tears. It was powerful.
Then Sunday afternoon we had our first Baptism Party of the summer. We estimate that probably 500-600 people came. We went all out. We had bounce houses and games for the kids and food and to top it all off we baptized 42 people (see picture above) in Lake Keowee. I left exhausted from a long day, but totally amazed once again with God's power. What a day!

staff hiring part 2

Another decision that is absolutely critical when it comes to staffing is WHO you hire. You're probably thinking, "no duh!" But it is amazing how many times we let our desire to fill a vacancy cause us to rush a decision and then end up with the wrong person in place.
There has been tons of information about what to look for in a new staff, but I think Bill Hybels summed it up pretty well by hiring based on the 3 C's. Character, Competency and Chemistry.
Hiring people from within is always best. No doubt by hiring people who are doing a great job volunteering you will probably not have many surprises. You will know all about the 3 C's.
Two things you may want to consider though. Sometimes you simply just don't have a person capable or willing to come on staff that is currently at your church. The next best thing is network with some other Pastors---maybe they have someone that they know. Of course there are agencies like Church Staffing that also have success stories.
The other consideration is that once you hire someone who is already a part of your church, it is almost impossible to terminate them (even for legitimate reasons).
Without a doubt, hiring decisions are among the most important decisions you will make. I am very thankful for the tremendous staff that we have at Foothills. They are tireless workers who take our mission very seriously.

Granger crew

Yesterday we had the privilege of spending a couple hours hosting some of the guys from Granger Community Church (Tony Morgan,Tim Stevens and Mark Waltz). It was really cool to hear and learn from them. One thing that was obvious was that these guys are sharp. They know their stuff and they represent both Granger and God's kingdom well. What I liked was that they were just real, down to earth people. They also were learners. They didn't come with a "hey, look at us---we know everything" attitude. They genuinely listened and who knows, maybe they learned a little from us as well.
One other thing that was cool, was that these guys are a real team. They really seem to like to hang out together. That's what a staff should be ---a team. I'm so thankful for the team God has given me to serve alongside with.

staff hiring

One of the biggest decisions a church will make is in the selection of staff.
The first important decision will be what is the proper order of staff hires? Do I add a youth Pastor, or a small groups Pastor?, etc. I have found that there is no hard and fast rule. They are all important, but since funding is always limited you need to determine which staff position is MOST strategic for the big picture of your church's vision. For us, It was me and a part-time worship guy until we reached about 200 in attendance. Everyone else was a volunteer. Even the secretarial duties at that point were all volunteers. We then added a very part-time children's person, and then we hired a full time Associate Pastor position (which basically was someone who did everything that I couldn't or didn't want to do. We hired a part-time position for a couple of other things after that. When we reached about 400 hundred we began to be more intentional about hiring because we began to grow extremely fast. Right now we average about 1200 people on Sundays and we have a pretty lean staff. We are going to add 2-3 more staff positions by the end of the year. I will try to talk more about hiring tomorrow.

taking a break

Today I got a little break from delivering the message. Our Pastor of Connections, Brian Marshall filled in for me. It's nice to have zero responsiblities on a Sunday every now and then.
Last week I actually got a chance to get a little bit ahead. I began working on a message in our new series, "RED" that starts next Sunday. It's a message series about Jesus parables.
For those of you who have the responsibility to prepare and deliver a message every single week, you know how tough it can be. There is probably nothing that drains you more. When that process begins to become a grind---it's time to take a break. In the early days of a church plant it feels like you can't take a break. For some reason most of us think that if we aren't up on stage, the world will stop spinning. Which of course only adds to the pressure. I am blessed to have other capable communicators on staff who can pinch hit for me so I can take a breather.
My goal is to speak 40 -42 Sundays a year. If you don't get a break once in a while your creativity will dry up. You will begin to feel like a sermon machine that pops out a sermon every 7 days, and let me tell you, that will take its toll on you. So do yourself (and your congregation) a favor---take a Sunday off!

Simple Man

Well we finished up our series, "WOW, Can You Play That At Church". Our final message in the series was the song Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. (the importance of simplifying our lives). It was awesome, Scott nailed the song!
We had a pretty diverse selection of songs in the series, but we figured we would wrap it up with some good old Southern rock. Our band and singers are so talented.
If you're interested in hearing the messages from that series you can click here
We had about 1200 in attendance today, but we were slammed in the 11:15 service. I saw some people standing. I can hardly wait til we start construction on that new building.

Wow!

I just found out that so far in 2006 we have had 100 salvations! Think about that for just a minute. 100 people have for the first time in their lives crossed over the line of faith and are now Christ-followers! That's an average of about 4 people per week.
That does not include children who have made a commitment in our Children's ministry (there have been many there) These are just people who have indicated on their response cards that they have invited Christ into their lives.
Now the hard work really begins---helping them grow in their faith. We offer a class to get them started that we call XCEL. It is designed to lay a spiritual foundation. From there we try to involve them in one of our LIFE group Bible studies, and integrate them into the life of the church. Many times our system doesn't seem to work, but many times it does. I think our responsibility as a church is to have tools available for people to plug into. The responsibility ultimately rests on them. I would love to hear what other churches are doing to successfully disciple new believers.

Mother's Day Musings

Without a doubt preparing for Mother's Day sermons are among the toughest. After all, what can you say that you haven't already said? I do know this, mother's are pretty sentimental and they expect to get their props on Mother's Day (and they certainly deserve it)
Mother's Day is always one of our higher attendance days of the year. One of the big reasons is because we do our Parent/ Child Dedications on Mother's Day, so all of the grandparents, aunts and uncles usually come. Today we had so many parents and kids that we had to stand in front of the stage because we couldn't get everyone on stage at the same time. As I looked at all of those little children I couldn't help but think that right before me were lives with unlimited potential. There is no telling what impact those little ones will have in this world. Thank God for parents who are committed to raising their kids in Christian homes.
It's no wonder that Jesus had a special place in his heart for children.
By the way, we had 1,254 people today! That's a 42% increase from Mother's Day last year.

Search for significance

David Blaine is a freak. If you have never heard of him, let me tell you a little about him. He is a street magician and a guy who does really crazy stunts. Once he was buried alive for a week. Then he was frozen in a block of ice for 3 days, and last week he lived underwater for 7 days in a big fishbowl in the middle of New York City. After breaking that record he tried to break the record for holding your breath underwater. His goal was 9 minutes. He didnt break it, but he held his breath for over 7 minutes while being handcuffed underwater.
Keep in mind that he CHOSE to do all of those things! This guy is nuts. What would possess someone to try these life threatening stunts. I'm not sure, but my guess would be Fame.
It's amazing what lengths people will go to for significance. The need to be known is a pretty basic human need. The reality for David Blaine or any of us is that only in Christ can we have that need for significance met. Ephesians 2:10 says, "For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for long ago.
By the way, I can't wait to see what David's next stunt will be!

America, what were you thinking?

There has been a huge travesty of justice. Chris got voted off of Idol last night. You must be kidding. Katherine desrved to go home. You could tell by watching her, that she expected to be the one who would be packing up and catching the next flight out of Idol Land.
Oh well, I have no one to blame but myself. I didn't call in to vote for Chris.
He will no doubt land a big fat record deal, so it's hard to feel too sorry for him.
I guess now my money is on Taylor.

idol

My guess is that Katherine goes home tonight. She was pretty weak last night. The truth is that she probably has the best voice in the competiton but she didn't bring her "A" game --so long Kat!
Surprisingly Elliot stepped up. I think his performance will probably keep him around 1 more week.
Taylor missed a huge opportunity last night with the Elvis thing. That should have been his world. He was just so-so.
Chris was just ok last night, but I still think he will be the last man standing. Besides that, he has cool sideburns.

Adding another service

We are in the planning stages of adding a 4th service. We will make the big move on September 17, 2006. Everytime we have added a service, we have had a significant jump in attendance.
Even though all of the services will pretty much be identical, this one will be a little trickier because it will be on Sunday evening (probably 6:00pm).
It will be kind of wierd to go home after speaking at 3 services in the morning, just starting to decompress, and then have to go back and do it again. Actually I am a little more concerned about what it will mean to our volunteer base. I know that many churches can swing it, but intuitively as a leader it still concerns me. Our volunteers are the most incredible people in the world, and I would put them heads-up against any church-- but it still concerns me.
The good thing is, that if we are able to begin construction this summer as planned, it will mean that it will be a short term (1 year) assignment.
As they say, "it's a good problem to have".

Another one in the books

Sundays are so much fun at Foothills! Yesterday we had a great crowd even with the overcast sky and cool drizzle. What was really cool was how many kids we have involved in our Children's ministry (Critter Crossing--pre-school, and Planet Kidz--k5-5th grade) . Yesterday we had over 275 kids!
Our volunteers did an amazing job making sure everyone stayed dry walking through the parking lot. We have an umbrella team that make dozens of trips back and forth from the parking lot to the building. It's really great to hear people's comments the first time they experience this. They can't believe that people would serve them that way.
Sometimes it's the little things that say the most to a guest.

American Idol

Well last night wasn't a big surprise. Everyone I talked to figured Paris and Elliot were going to be in the bottom 2 , and Paris was my guess for going home last night.
I felt bad for her, because at this stage, everyone of them is pretty good.
Chris is my pick for #1, followed by Taylor.
This is the first year I have watched American Idol. I could never figure out why people were so into it. Now I know. It's kind of addictive.

Leaders are Learners (part 2)

Another method of learning that has helped me become a better leader is meeting with other leaders in person. I have found most Pastors/churches to be very helpful in making themselves available to mentor other churches. You may be surprised at how far buying a lunch for a Pastor will go.
Our church has benefitted greatly from meeting with churches like New Spring Church, Northstar Church, Marathon Church, Brookwood Church and Crossroads Community Church. They have rolled out the red carpet and it is incredible how much impact it has had.

If I read or hear about a church that may have already been where we are going, I don't hesitate to pick up a phone or email somone and ask if I can correspond with them or even schedule a staff road trip to hang out with their staff. I think I have only been turned down once or twice. My theory is, Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Since we began as a church, it has always been our heartbeat to be a resource for other churches, so we have tried to make ourselves available for churches too.
There really is no conference or seminar that can come even remotely close to the things you will learn meeting face-to-face.

Leaders are Learners

Leaders are Learners!
I don't know if Rick Warren actually coined that phrase, but it's one that has stuck with me. I really think one of the key attributes of a great learner is not only their capacity to learn, but their willingness to learn.
I thought what I would do for the next couple of blogs, is to mention some of the ways I learn.
There are alot of ways to learn, but one of the ways that has helped me the most has been to visit other churches and see first hand what they are doing. Seeing would include:

1. Seeing an actual service--- I try to schedule times each year where I take a Sunday or two off and intentionally go to other church services. I have the advantage of being within a couple of hours of some great churches.
When I visit, I try to observe every aspect. From the moment I pull into the driveway until I leave, I am taking mental notes. I always try to maximize my time. I will usually plan to visit two churches every time. For instance a couple of months ago I took a Sunday and visited Mountain Lake Church's early service, and then I drove to Chestnut Mountain Church for their second service. Another time I drove to Northpoint Church for their early service and on the way back I hit Crossroads Church for their second service.
Generally, my goal is to visit churches that are larger than ours. (Don't underestimate what you can learn from any church---even if they are smaller!)
While many of the things these churches are doing may not work in your context, there are transferable principles that will work anywhere.
If I am on vacation, I always make it a point to visit a church in the area that I am traveling to. I will usually go online to Willowcreek's Willownet and use their "Find a church" function to look them up.
A couple of weeks ago I got a chance to go to Palm Beach Gardens Christ Fellowship
I grew up in Palm Beach Gardens, so I am down that way a couple of times a year. This church is making a huge impact in a very unchurched area. I think they run about 10,000 in attendance, and they have recently gone multi-site. The Pastor, Tom Mullins was a football coach at my High School. He is a dynamic leader. John Maxwell is also a teaching Pastor there.
Whatever you do, you owe it to yourself (and your church) to see firsthand what others are doing.
In my next blog I will share the 2nd way that I learn.

Running out of room!

When we moved out of Seneca High School in November of 2003 and into our very own building we figured that we would be able to meet in this facility for about 5 years before needing to start on Phase 2-----WRONG!
We have been here for about 2 and a half years and space has become an issue.
I have always heard that there are three potential space obstacles--- 1) not enough children's space 2) not enough parking 3) not enough seats in the auditorium

One of the things we planned well for when we built this building was for children's space. This has not been too much of a problem for us.
The parking deal WAS a problem for us up until 2 weeks ago. But after changing our service times and allowing 30 minutes between our second and third services instead of 15 minutes---this doesn't seem to be too much of a problem.
Our problem (or should I say "Opportunity") is auditorium space. We just simply don't have enough space in the 2 prime times (9:45am, and 11:15 am)
We have just finished a very successful building campaign called "Only One Life" which will allow us to begin construction of our Phase 2 this summer (hopefully) This building should eliminate the space obstacles--at least for a couple of years!
If you are interested in seeing the video of what the building will look like you can view it here:

Easter Follow-up

The weekend after Easter can be a challenging one. Everyone is pumped up about Easter Sunday, but the next weekend is back to normal. I've always said that the real success of Easter Sunday is really the weeks following. During the weeks that follow you get a sense of how many people you actually retained after the "big weekend".
Well, yesterday was a great confirmation because we set a record attendance for a non-holiday weekend. Not too shabby!
Our team really stepped up. Josh is doing a great job leading worship, and Scott knocked it out of the park, singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams. I am so impressed with the commitment level of all of our volunteers. It truly humbles me. It sounds like a cliche', but we really couldn't do it without them.

sometimes bribery works well

As I mentioned a couple of days ago our Easter services were incredible. We had a record attendance of 1,670. Easter was only the second time we had 4 services (Christmas eve/ Christmas day was the other). The big difference was that all 4 services were on Sunday morning. The service times were: 7:15, 8:30, 9:45, 11:15am.
We were curious to see if anyone would actually attend our 7:15am sunrise service. We figured the best way to insure that people would show up that early was to bribe them. So in addition to our normal healthy, low calorie snacks (Donuts!), we decided to add another health conscious food----sausage biscuits! If you've never been in the south, let me explain something to you; sausage biscuits are a rednecks surf and turf. It is fine cuisine.
It seems to have worked. Here are the breakdowns for the times:
7:15 -- 212 in attendance
8:30 -- 297 in attendance
9:45 -- 604 in attendance
11:15 -- 557 in attendance

Someone asked me if speaking at 4 services was difficult. To tell you the truth, it was really no different than doing 3 (our normal). The only thing that is kind of wierd is when you can't remember if you said something in a service or not. They all sort of blend together in your mind.

world famous

While driving back from my trip down to Florida, I couldn't help but notice all of the billboards along the highway advertising almost anything you could imagine. There were a couple in particular that really made me think. 2 different restaurants used a similar phrase. They said something like, "Come and dine at the World Famous _______ restaurant." The only problem was, that I had never heard of either of those restaurants. It's highly unlikely that anyone had heard of either of the restaurants. So the question is, what does it mean to be world famous?
My guess would be that to be world famous, the entire world would know of you. (hence, World Famous)
As Christ-followers our job is to make God, world famous. To spread God's fame everwhere we go.
Essentially we need to be living, breathing, walking billboards advertising the good news of Christ.

Easter Reflections

Not only was Sunday Easter, but it was also Foothills Community Church's 8th birthday.
Our first service 8 years ago we had 70 people in attendance. Yesterday we had 1670 people!
God is truly amazing. I don't know what the next 8 years hold, but if they are anything like the first 8, it will be VERY interesting, to say the least.

You can't always get what you want

The Rolling Stones said it well; "You can't always get what you want"
Before I left for my vacation I had plans, big plans. I was going to catch up on all of the fishing I haven't been doing. Unfortunately the weather never cooperated. Windy conditions made it impossible to fish. Here I was in South Florida, the fishing capital of the U.S.A., and I can't fish--Bummer!
I had a decision to make, was I going to let that ruin my vacation or have a great time in spite of it? I chose to make the best of it and just relax. I must say, I didn't realize just how badly I needed to relax--just kick back and do nothing. It was great.
It's surprising how many hidden blessings are available to us when our best laid plans don't pan out the way we thought they should.
How do you respond when your plans change because of things out of your control?
The Bible is full of stories of men and women that were greatly used of God when they were able to yield their plans, dreams, goals and aspirations to God.

Thank God for my wife!

This past Friday evening thru Saturday afternoon my wife and I attended our church's annual Marriage Retreat in the mountains of N.C. along with about 30 other couples.
We had a great time of reflecting about what's really important in life.
I love my job. I get the privilege of being the lead Pastor in a great church, and get to do all sorts of cool things in ministry, but when it all boils down, my first alliegance is to my Lord, and then my wife and then my kids, and somewhere a little farther down the line, my ministry.
Even though I know that, sometimes it's good to be reminded of that.
How are you doing with your priorities?

Vacations are hard work

Vacations can be difficult. Actually preparing for them is the tough part. We are leaving for a quick trip down to visit family and do alot of fishing back in our old stomping ground of South Florida. The preparation is killing me. I am a structured person when it comes to my preparation for my messages. I have a routine (I'll explain what it is at a later date). I have built-in deadlines in my schedule. So right now my goal is to complete my entire message for Easter Sunday BEFORE I leave. I know myself well enough to know that if I don't get it done I will be thinking about it the whole time I'm on my vacation (I know....it's an illness!).
It's hard to concentrate on fishing when all you can think about is work!

Preparing for Easter

No doubt about it, Easter is a huge day. For a Pastor, Easter is like the Superbowl, World Series, and the Stanley Cup all rolled into one.
This Easter we will begin a new message series called "WOW", Can we play that at church?
It's kind of a Foothills at the Grammys type thing. Each week we will introduce a theme using a popular song. On Easter we will kick it off with the song "The Reason" by Hoobastank.
We will also add a 4th service for Easter. The Easter service times will be Sunday at 7:15am, 8:30am, 9:45am, and 11:15am. To try to entice some people to come to the 7:15am service we will serve a small breakfast. The other services will have the usual donuts.
We are expecting 1500-1800 people for Easter so it should be great!
Don't forget to invite all of your friends. It's been proven that they will come (especially on Easter) if you invite them.

Here we go

Well, I suppose there is a first time for everything.
A first step, a first word, a first time riding a bike, a first date, a first job, a first paycheck, a first... well you get the picture.
Today is my first blog attempt! A pretty big step considering I am not a writer.
I will attempt to post often (whatever that means).
Anyway, here goes nothing.
First, a little about me. I am the husband of the most incredible, beautiful, godly woman on the planet. I am the father of the 3 greatest kids in the universe. And I am the Pastor of the most amazing church in the world (Foothills Community Church-- www.foothillscc.org)
I am a transplant to the great state of South Carolina by way of Florida.
My wife and I planted Foothills Community Church 8 years ago, and have a passion to reach more and more people with the wonderful message of Jesus Christ.
One of the things I will attempt to do through this blog will be to chronicle the journey of our church.