Monday Morning Quarterback

During the NFL (that's the National Football League in case you were wondering) season, ESPN does a rundown of the weekend games on Monday's that they call "Monday Morning Quarterback". I guess this will be like a "Monday Morning Quarterback" update on how things went this weekend.

The weekend got off to a great start on Friday when Sherry and I had a date at our favorite Mexican restaurant, El Mariachi. Being married to your best friend is out of this world!

Saturday was very relaxing, especially compared to all that had happened last Saturday. I was able to get some work done on the bonus room we are finishing, cut the grass, play Battleship with Grace, and settle down in my chair (every man should have a chair like mine to watch football in) and watch the Gamecocks shut down the Georgia Bulldogs. I don't claim to be able to predict the future, but I did write in Friday's blog that I had a good feeling going into that game!

Sunday was exciting. We did baby/child dedication, so there were lots of visiting grand-parents in the house. The band did their usual outstanding job, and I continued teaching about the Best Question Ever. We focused on asking the best question ever in regards to our time. After the service a man came and told me how he had been jogging by the school that morning, had seen the crowd, and stopped to ask someone what was going on. He talked to one of our teenagers who invited him to come inside. When I started to talk in the message about investing small, consistent amounts of time over a long period of time, that was just thing he needed to hear. It was an encouragement to him to continue developing his relationship with his step-daughter. It was cool reminder to me that while we are working to prepare the service week after week, God is also at work! When we get tired and take a break, God is still at work!

Then last night we ended the weekend by spending time with our worship team at the O'Sullivan's house. Barrie prepared a great meal of burritos with all the fixings, and we talked some about the importance of worshipping together and what it means to lead others in worship. Then we just hung-out, talked, and laughed.

Remember to pray this week for the people God will send to us this Sunday, and ask Him to show you who you can invite to be there. He is at work drawing people to Himself and we need to be part of the process!

Random thoughts

I haven't blogged since Monday. That doesn't mean I have nothing to say, it just means it has been a busy week. Here are some thoughts going through my scattered brain today.

- I am really enjoying preparing this series of messages based on The Best Question Ever by Andy Stanley. I think he does the best job of anyone I've read or heard at taking spiritual truth and creating practical, do-able steps to help you implement that truth into your real life.

- I love my ipod. Having all of my music available in one small package is probably the coolest thing ever invented! (I know the light bulb is more important, but you can't dance to a light bulb) Well, my ipod just got even more awesome this week. I was able to download the new Bruce Springsteen song of off itunes for free. It is from the album that won't be released until October, and the only place you can get it is on itunes. Very cool.

- I can't wait for the Gamecocks to play Georgia this Saturday. I have been wrong before, but I have a good feeling going into this one. Of course the way I feel has no effect whatsoever on the game, so I hope the players are as excited and confident as I am!

- I went home to eat lunch today, and I was so thankful for Sherry home-schooling our girls. There's lots of great reasons but the one I liked best today was that I got to love on my girls in the middle of the day. If they weren't at home I would have missed out on that.

An up and down weekend

What a wild weekend! Yesterday we experienced an awesome worship experience, but it almost didn't happen. We have been having public worship at Freedom for about two and a half years. During that time there has been the occasional glitch, but nothing to hard too deal with. Well this weekend we got tested with having several things mess up at once. Without going into all of the details, we had serious keyboard and computer issues that never got completely fixed until Sunday morning. I was just a little bit stressed out by all of it, (o.k. maybe a lot stressed out), but the cool thing was how our team all pitched in to get things right. I am so thankful that God has given each of us different abilities and passions, and that everyone is eager to use them. Ted Roberts and Mark King saved me on Saturday night when I was ready to throw the laptop we use for worship out the window of my truck. Mark Wilson and Jake Ticknor were willing to start Sunday morning very early in order to remedy our keyboard problem. The entire band worked through abnormal circumstances to lead us in worship through music that was great.

Once everything was settled we kicked off a new series of messages based on, The Best Question Ever by Andy Stanley. Here's a quick review for those of you who were at the beach this weekend. The best question ever is: What is the wise thing to do? It's based on
Ephesians 5:15-17. Before making important decisions ask yourself these three questions:

-In light of my past experience, what is the wise thing to do?

-In light of my current circumstances, what is the wise thing to do?

-In light of my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing to do?

As I said yesterday, life is really a series of decisions and then living with the consequences of those decisions. I believe if you will truly ask yourself, what is the wise thing to do, your decision making will be revolutionized.

By the way, our weekend wasn't totally stressful. Sherry and I went with Tracy and Paige Burkhalter to Atlanta to see the Braves game on Friday night, and even though the Braves lost we had a ball. Then last night after supper I took the girls to Sonic for treats (I got a yummy peanut butter milkshake), and then came home and sat on the porch with my beautiful wife. We called it our "Mayberry" time, just relaxing, talking, and rocking as the sun goes down. You ought to try it sometime.

Ninja Warrior to play drums with our band this Sunday!

There's a cool show on cable network G4 called "Ninja Warrior". It's basically an impossible obstacle course in Japan that people try to complete. The guys on the show are all Japanese, and they are all in amazing shape. They have to climb things, jump long distances, swing on ropes and all kinds of other cool stuff. The funniest part is listening to the announcer (who gets really excited) and reading the subtitles to see what he is saying.

Ben Patat who is our bass / guitar player, is in a band called "Divide the Sea" and the drummer from his band will be playing drums with our praise team this Sunday. His name is Brett Simms and he is a great drummer, but he is also a ninja warrior. Well, he hopes to be one. Brett can do tons of cool tricks, and he has posted a video on the G4 website to try and get on the Ninja Warrior show. You've got to check it out. Here's the linc:

http://www.g4tv.com/ninjawarrior/contest_video.aspx?ninjawarriorentry_key=1

The Best Question Ever

This morning I finished the message for this coming Sunday and I'm excited about it! We're beginning a new series of messages this week based on a great book by Andy Stanley. The book is called, The Best Question Ever - A Revolutionary Approach to Decision Making. It is an easy read, (it's only 187 pages) and it is one of the most practical books I have ever read. You might be wondering, "what is the best question ever?" I'm not going to tell you now. That will be discussed during Sunday's message, but I will tell you this, if you practice this approach to making decisions it will have a massive effect on your life. There is a linc to amazon.com at the bottom of this post, so you can order your own copy to read this month to go along with the messages. By the way, thanks to my Dad, or Grandbob as my girls call him (who is a regular reader of this blog) for telling me about this book.

While you'll have to wait until Sunday to find out what the best question ever is, here is a list of questions that are definitely not the best question ever:

Do you want fries with that?

Does this look infected to you?

Would you like free tickets to the N-Sync reunion concert? (confession: I think I have an N-Sync song on my ipod.)

How much do you weigh? (asked by a man to a woman)

How much money did you make last year? (asked by anyone to a man)

Can I borrow your new Shelby Mustang GT convertible to take your daughter out?

Do you want a spanking? (has any child ever said, "Yes, I would love one"?)

Here's the linc for the book at amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Question-Ever-Andy-Stanley/dp/1590523903/ref=pd_bbs_2/105-1915573-7404429?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188320521&sr=8-2

By the way I'd love to hear some questions you thought of that are not the best ever.

Pray this prayer

Here is the prayer from the book "Go Big" I wrote about yesterday. This is a prayer that the author's of the book challenge all pastor's to pray for their churches. I think it is something we all should be praying for Freedom.

"God, I'm going to do this! I've been talking about it long enough; I'm going to do it because people need you. God, I will give you my all; I will step out in faith and believe you for bigger things. Please God, allow my church to grow by your pace and for your plans. And God, I refuse to believe that I can be stopped. I know with only you, I already have a majority. Give me boldness; may I achieve the dreams that you have. In your name I pray. Amen."

That's some cool stuff. I love the line, "I'm going to do it because people need you." That's the motivation, to glorify God by leading people to Him so their lives can be changed for eternity. We don't need to build a big church to impress other Christians. We need to do it because there are thousands of people in our community who need true freedom in Jesus. That's what should motivate us.

I also love the line, "I refuse to believe that I can be stopped." That reminds me of Romans 8:31 where Paul writes, "if God is for us who can be against us?". I think if we will pray that prayer and then live like we believe God can do it, there will be no limit to what will happen!

By the way, I'm still learning how to work all the controls on this blog, and I turned off the comments section the other day. I think I have turned it back on. If you feel like it, leave a comment so I can find out if it will be published or not. While I'm on the subject, please comment regularly (it lets me know you're really reading this), but don't include lincs to other websites in your comments if you don't mind. I just want to be sure that we don't accidentally send someone to a website that's not good. If you know what I mean.

New tools

I'm reading a great book right now called, "Go Big - Lead Your Church to Explosive Growth". It's written by Bill Easum and Bil Cornelius. That's not a misspelling, one guy is a one "L" Bil while the other is a two "L" Bill. There were two things from the chapter I read last night that I wanted to share with you. The first is this quote:

"One of the most frustrating things about being the pastor of a growing church is that the tools you have to learn to grow the church to one level won't work at the next level. As soon as you go to the next level, God asks you to turn in those tools and learn some new ones. You just got good using those tools and they don't work anymore. Now you have to pick up new tools that are uncomfortable to you."

When I read that I underlined it and put a big star beside it. I feel like that's where we are right now. I believe God will continue to bless Freedom with growth, but for that to happen we all (me most of all) will have to learn to use some new tools. We can't continue to do things the same way and expect new things to happen, and the structure and strategy that worked when we had 100 people coming to worship might not work now that we have 300 people coming to worship. So what are those changes? I'm not certain yet. I've got a pretty good idea, but I'm still praying through everything. When I know, you'll know, but here's the main thing, I'm completely committed to do whatever God asks us to do! It's cool to know that many of you are as well.

Tomorrow I will share with you the other thing from "Go Big" that I thought was great. It's a prayer that we should be praying about our church.