Posts

Showing posts from July, 2009

Planet Hulk Movie!

Ok! The geeky fanboy in me LOVES THIS!! Last year one of the best comics I read was Planet Hulk. It was probably one of the coolest Hulk stories I've ever read. So guess how excited I was when I found this new trailer for an animated movie of that comic?? You guessed it! Pretty excited indeed. Check it out! (If you're reading this on Facebook or the church blog check out this link !) More Planet Hulk Info

Ministry Focus

Image
On Sunday, I gave an update on some of the stuff that we've been working on as the leadership team at LifeSpring. If you missed out on this message, I would encourage you to check it out on our site. You can access it here . We want to ensure that we as a church are helping everyone become all that God created them to be. We want to ensure that our areas of ministry are laser focused on the vision that God has put before us. If we are to be "Bringing Jesus to People", then we don't want anything to get in the way of this... even if it's a good idea. We want to be sure that we're doing GOD's idea! I presented how we believe that God has us in a season of focus. We need to make some slight changes to our leadership structure in order to ensure that the church is not so dependant on the involvement of just a few people. We want a structure that will be able to sustain the ministry for years to come. (The image above shows how the ministries and our leadership

Big Truth in a Page

There are some big truths that I go back to regularly in my Bible reading and devotional time. Over the past year and a half I return at least every couple of weeks to a couple of very small and seemingly unrelated stories in the Gospel of Luke... The first is from Luke 8:22-25. This is when Jesus is sound asleep in a boat while the boat is being swamped by a huge storm. His disciples are freaking out because they know they're in a bad situation. They wake Jesus. He stops the storm. And then they look at each other "Who is this man?" The next is on just the next page... Luke 9:18-20. Here, Jesus is talking with his disciples about who the crowds claim Jesus is. They respond that some people think he's a prophet and others that he's John the Baptist or Elijah. Jesus wants to know who do the disciples think he is. Peter declares "You are the Messiah sent from God!" In just one page... one simple page... the disciples go from questioning who Jesu

A Lot of Wisdom in 140 Characters

I twitter. I like it. I learn from it. I like to think that others learn from me as well :) I love the fact that I can take a simple sentence of less then 140 character in length and unpack so much! This morning Rick Warren, senior pastor of Saddleback Church, tweeted a very simple little statement which is really rocking my devotional time this morning. It's distractions, not doing evil, that sideline most pastors. They lose focus. It's all about the Global Glory of God. Period That really gets me thinking this morning... what are my distractions? Am I faithful with doing the call that God has specifically for me or do I allow myself to be distraction by the million other good things I could spend time on? How do I prevent myself from allowing the distractions from sidelining the ministry that God wants to do at LifeSpring? How do I manage the expectations of people that I care about when they bring the distractions? I think the answer comes first from a lot of qualit

My Baby's Sixth Birthday!

Image
I can not believe that my little baby girl is already six years old today! She is such a great kid and I'm so incredibly proud of her. She is so gifted and talented in so many ways. She loves to draw and sing and play the piano and take pictures. And she's hilarious. Her jokes and her laughter just keeps the family in stiches. Happy Birthday Love!

Doing a Lot of Praying

I truly believe that pray is the most important thing that I can be doing as a leader in my church. Prayer is the most powerful way to ensure that I'm walking closely with God and that he is truly working in my life and in the life of the church where he placed me. It is very sad when the busyness of church ministry seems to squeeze out that quiet and personal time with God. Why does that happen? I talk with so many leaders who really struggle with making that time with God a priority in their lives. It happens easily in my life... too many late nights ready ministry books or going to meetings or meeting with people... and then suddenly I'm sleeping in and not starting the next day on my knees in the presence of the awesome God I serve. I'm more and more determined to make this time with God the priority. In fact, I'm going to be guarding that time even more! No early meetings. No breakfasts with people. I'm busy. I've got appointments booked with the c

Explosion!

Image
Did I mention that I LOVE the fact that I don't preach every single Sunday at our church? If I didn't... well... I do! :) By only preaching 50% of the our Sundays I find I'm able to spend so much more time working on the vision and mission of the church. I'm able to meet more regularly with our leaders. I'm able to make so many more connections in the community, like other churches and ministries and social service groups. I absolutely love this! And the fact that LifeSpring has some great relationship with other churches and ministries is a huge blessing when they come and participate in our Sunday Celebrations, either by teaching or leading worship. Since I'm not preaching for the next two weeks I'm going through a reading explosion! I've got multiple books on cell church ministry that I've been meaning to get through. So now is the time! Our goal as a leadership team is to ensure that our ministries are focused on the mission of LifeSpring and liv

Happy 8th Birthday Cameron!

Image
Today we're celebrating our son Cameron. The big guy turns 8 years old today. I remember him being born like it was yesterday. Hard to believe how fast the time goes! He is being such a great young man! I'm so incredibly proud of him and he brings so much joy and laughter into our family. Happy Birthday buddy!