• Stayed up a few nights ago tossing and turning because I have a new blog idea in my head.  Really excited about launching it towards the end of the month/first of February.  If you’re a church planter/pastor/ or even a pastor’s wife (yes ma’am) or wife of someone in ministry, I think this new blog might be helpful.
• I’m nearing my 1000th post on this blog.  I can’t believe I actually had enough things to say to constitute 1000 posts.  Crazy.
• I should hit 1000 within two weeks at my current rate of posting, but could hit it by next week if I bust it.
• Not sure what I’ll do yet with my 1000th post.  Any suggestions?
• Conference season is upon us and I’m pretty jacked about the stuff I’ll be attending this year; Velocity Church planters conference at the end of this month, Unleash in March followed by the Real Marriage conference and hopefully (fingers crossed) a trip to Exponential in April.  Now to find someone that wants to fly me to Orlando
• Yeah I’m one of those conference junkies, but honestly love what I get to learn.  I go to learn…everything else is butter.
• Speaking of the extras, I get to attend Velocity with my wife and I’m really stoked about that!
• My wife and I have a pretty genius idea for a possible side business we are thinking of launching this spring/summer.  I can’t tell you what it is cause you’ll gank it and then I’ll be mad.  But it’s awesome.
• Once or twice a year I get to play with our church band.  This Sunday is it and I’m jazzed.  I’m sure our sound guy will just turn me down, but hey, I’ll get to say I’m with the band.
• I do miss playing guitar on a regular basis.  I think it’s true that worship leaders want to be pastors and pastors want to be worship leaders.  Just like actors want to be rock stars and vice versa.
• We have a crazy talented group of singers and musicians.  I’m way outta my league.
• I’m jazzed about starting a new gathering for some men in our church that are potential pastors/teachers/church planters.  I’m really excited to see what comes out of this.
• We just recently finished going through the book Doctrine with 4 other men in our church.  I think it certainly stretched us all but was so worth it.
• Found out our daughter has Pneumonia.  Yikes…pray for quick healing there please.
• We start a new series on marriage this week at Ridge Church and the buzz about this series is the highest I’ve ever seen in any series we’ve ever done!  People are hungry for better relationships/marriages/friendships.
• Speaking of…I gotta finish fore mentioned message, so I’m out!

• Sunday was awesome!  I seriously think at some point, every hand in the room went up when we asked people to respond to wanting God to do something IN them so He could prepare to do something THROUGH them.
• Remember, God must do something IN you before He does something THROUGH you.
• I’m jacked outta my mind about Real Marriage starting this Sunday. Seriously, who are you bringing with you?! Get the word out about this series! Here are the details…
• This Saturday we are hosting a prayer event to pray and prepare for what God wants to do in our marriages and relationships at the church.  Saturday 3pm to 6pm drop by the church any time to walk through several prayer elements and pray for God to move mightily in the lives of people through this coming series.  Stay and pray for as long as you like.
• We’ve got a HUGE announcement coming SOON about Easter services at Ridge Church this year!  Not only Easter, but EVERY Sunday after!
• I had several conversations and emails from VIPs (first time attenders) this week already and they’ve all said the same thing; how much they enjoyed their time on Sunday and that their kids had a great time in Ridge Kids.  That’s what I’m talking about !  Great job Ridge vols for making Sundays at Ridge Church a great experience!
• One of the things I love most about the Ridge is that it’s full of jacked up people, myself included.  Everyone is welcome because no one is perfect.  And that’s perfect.
• I’ve been calling you guys the Ridge Rowdies for years because every Sunday you BRING IT! This Sunday, you gotta bring it like never before!  We’re celebrating how God makes ALL THINGS NEW.  Even marriages!
• We seriously believe this series will have an impact on teenagers, singles, marrieds, the divorced and everyone in between.  No one is exempt.  So do WHATEVER IT TAKES to invite someone to join you on Sunday.  We’re EXPECTING God to move mightily!  So you should too!

• Evernote: I use the Evernote app for iPhone mostly, but also the app in Chrome and there is also a web version.  Best part, it’s FREE.  I use it to jot down ideas for messages, teaching series, Lead Team notes, or just generally any brainstorming session I find myself in when I’m on the go.  It’s probably my most used app on my phone.
• Google Docs:  At Ridge Church, we use Google Apps for our email.  Yes, that’s free too.  Using Google apps gives me access to things like a ridgechurchonline.com email account (that’s easy to manage), Google docs (where I write most of my final message manuscripts) a place to host our weekly devotionals on ridgechurchblog.com, the ability to chat with my staff online via video or old school chat, and a calendar that I can share with staff.  It does SO much more too…
• Buzzsprout: Buzzsprout is a super cheap tool we use to post our weekly messages.  Not only does it automatically post them to iTunes when you set it up, it gives you a tool to embed the message on a blog or Facebook page, as we often do our weekly messages.
• Google Reader : Part of the Google family of apps, this is great because I read A LOT of blogs.  But when I read them, I like to send those that resonate with my staff or people I know out.  Google Reader puts all the blogs I read into one place, and has nice share functions to send those out to those that need to see them.
• Twitter: If you’re not using Twitter, you’re missing out.  I have been able to connect with more church planters using Twitter than ever before.  It’s really proved to be an invaluable tool.
• ESV Study Bible: If you purchase a copy of th ESV Study Bible, you get free access to the online bible with all the same tools in the print edition.  I use it nearly everyday.
• Mail Chimp: Mailchimp.com is AMAZING.  With it’s free version, I can send an update to an email database of everyone at Ridge Church.  I use this to send an update on some news for the upcoming week, info on the start of a new series, or anything else we want to announce.  It’s pure gold.
• Youversion.com: We really just started to step up and really use Youversion for all it’s worth recently with it’s Live events.  This allows us to post the message notes, questions, polls, response and extra info on the web that can be viewed live while I’m preaching.  Lots of Ridge Church attenders use this during the service to take notes and follow along.
• Spotify:  Use Spotify to make playlists for series, background music to stream as people come in and leave church, or to share with your band as they prepare for the next week’s set.
• iPad:  Yes, I endorse the iPad.  As a communicator and guy who has to attend a LOT of meetings, this is great for keeping all my notes and tools in one place.
• GoodReader:  This is the PDF reader that I use on my iPad to preach from.  Great tool for $4.99.
• Giving Rocket:  We recently started using this service from Casey Graham and we LOVE it.  There are too many benefits to list so just head over to their site and get the run down.  You don’t have to be a broke church planter.

Yesterday I spent time in Atlanta learning about funding the church at a great FREE conference called the Giving Rocket Tour.  If you’re a church planter, I HIGHLY encourage you to get hooked up with Giving Rocket and if you have time, catch the tour either in person, or check out one of the live webcasts they are doing.  It’s absolutely worth it.

Here are just a FEW of my take aways from the tour talks….

• Help people fund their dreams, not yours (giving rule #2)
• There are NO silver bullets when it come to church funding, but there are GREAT systems
• We know how to spend money in the church but do we know how to fund the church?
• There are different seasons in the church when it comes to funding.  Use and work through these seasons
• When people give, they are making a spiritual decision, not a financial decision (LOVE this!)
• Work as a team on a financial funding plan
• Someone has to own it. If the lead pastor doesn’t go first, who will follow? (no one)
• Culture is going cash-less and no one really does checks anymore (except the church offering time = irrelevant)
• There are objections to online giving, but you can overcome these
• If you’re church does not have online giving, you’re missing out on helping someone spiritually give.  Culture is online and so the church should be too.
• The benefits far outweigh any objections
• Create a brand and work it
• The money your church needs to fund the vision IS ALREADY IN THE HOUSE
• People are giving somewhere, but is it to the church?
• 1 Chron 28 and 29 are EXCELLENT (preached this two weeks ago)
• The bottom line is disciples and not donors
• Don’t use people…help people

I could go on all day- but I won’t.  You just need to sign up for a Giving Rocket membership.  You can start a one month membership for just $1.  Seriously.  We use to think that we couldn’t afford it.  No…we can’t afford not to use it.  It’s that good.

• Put in more time to spend with your wife and children – Church planting will eat ALL your time if you let it. And it WILL take a lot of time.  So you may have to cut down on golfing or fishing
• Read more than normal – If you’re not a reader now, become one. Read lots of books about lots of things; church planting, theology, business, culture, marriage, etc.  Become a student again.
• Spend time in your plant area – Don’t work from an office. Work at Starbucks, Panera, or a local dive that has wi-fi. Meet people and become known by the people you cross.
• Pray – Duh…but you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve heard, ” I wish we would had prayed more about that”
• Let a mentor invest in you – Find a pastor that will pour into you that is a little further ahead of you and one that is way further ahead of you.  There are lots of coaching networks out there that can be great for this, but I bet there is pastor near you that wouldn’t mind investing in you.
• Read blogs – There are TONS of blogs devoted to things that will help you in church planting. When I started in church planting, there were not near as many.
• Remain Fluid – When things don’t work out the way you want, be fluid, adjust and devise a new plan around your old plan, but make sure it’s God’s plan.
• Stop spending crazy amounts of time looking for a location. Instead, invest more into your leaders. The location will happen I promise.
• Never forget you’re planting the Gospel, not just a church. You’re planting something for GOD’s Kingdom, not yours

• We’ve now been in our building for almost 5 months. I was only about 70% sure at best this was the right move for out church, but with each day, I’m more and more confident we did the right thing.
• We still have really not advertised yet, and so all the growth we’ve seen from the move has been from personal invites.
• Oak Ridge is one of the HARDEST places to advertise for anything. Only 2 billboards in town, can’t put up street signs because of a city ordinance, and the local media stinks.  It’s tough but we’ve got to figure it out.
• Who out there is doing the best job in a similar situation?  Hook a brother up!
• This past Sunday we saw our highest attendance on a non-holiday weekend!  Yeah…I can get up for that
• The current series, Losing My Religion has been a hot topic series.  It’s started the year off with a bang!
• The next series, Real Marriage based on Mark Driscoll’s book, should be another conversation starter
• To be fair and honest, I wasn’t entirely excited about planting a church in Oak Ridge. But the longer I’m here, the more I love this city for what God sees in it.
• I’m  really excited to see what God is doing in our Ridge Kids and Ridge Students so far this year. Ridge Students has already seen several students accept Christ and Ridge Kids is blowing up in size.  It’s gonna be a crazy year for kids at Ridge Church!
• Speaking of crazy, I told our Ridge Students if they hit a certain number, I’d come lead worship for them. Yikes!  I think they’ll do it
• I’m really looking forward to this year of ministry.  The momentum is swinging and I think we’re picking up steam.
• I’ve heard some great reports of random people in our city talking about what Ridge Church is doing in the community.  I’ll take that buzz all day!
• One simple phrase is helping us tighten up loose screws each week….THAT CAN’T HAPPEN. I strongly encourage you to inject it into your culture as well.  It’s totally transferable

If you live in the Knoxville area, you know that ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover was in town for a week doing a home build for a very deserving family (one we’ve actually been able to partner with in the past through Restoration House).  The media buzz has been amazing and in some ways, almost overwhelming.

Every tweet from local media seemed to be about every tiny detail of the build.  It was really amazing to see so many people volunteer to help and so many people simply just follow the story online or through the local news.  On the surface, Extreme Home Makeover is impacting the life of a family, which I think is awesome.  By the way people responded and followed the story, it’s obvious that people deeply care about impacting the lives of others positively.  Again…AWESOME!

My lovely wife posted this question on Facebook this week….(@Denira)

So I absolutely LOVE the whole extreme makeover thing and love the all the updates. But It has made me wonder what our cities would be like if this many people selflessly gave their time and resources to others on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis? What if the church was the catalyst for this type of project and not a tv show?

BOOM!  I love that!  The local church SHOULD be the catalyst for this type of project!  And, thank Jesus, many churches ARE doing this type of work on a daily basis, impacting the lives of people, every single day, because of the GOSPEL.

See, ultimately, ABC’s Extreme Home Makeover is about making that $$.  And that’s ok.  I get that.  It’s business and ratings.  But the church is about impacting others with the Gospel for the honor and glory of God (or should be).

To me, and maybe I’m biased, but that’s a story that deserves a little more coverage.  It’s sad to think that many churches, who do these types of thing on a daily basis, gets overshadowed completely by a multi-media corporation who comes into town for 7 days with lights, cameras and celebs.

The camera’s aren’t on….the lights aren’t very bright….and we have no celebrities….BUT we have JESUS.

I think that’s a story that should be BLASTED.

No matter how good of a communicator you are, you will lay a big 0le stinky egg on stage one Sunday.  It happened to me this past Sunday.

Or so I thought….

As a pastor/preacher/communicator, I am my own worst critic.  As soon as I step off the stage Sundays, I can usually give you an analysis of how I thought I did.  This past Sunday, even though I loved the topic  and I was really prepared, I felt as though I laid an egg with my message.

As someone who communicates the most important message in the world every week, sucking it up is not what you want to do.

But praise be to God, that it’s not up to you how your message comes across.  That’s the job of the Holy Spirit.

I’m thankful that God still used what I thought was an egg to speak to people.

I’m constantly reminded that JESUS said HE would build HIS Church.  Not me.

Then I’m reminded of this as well...For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. – Matthew 10:20

THANK YOU JESUS

Preach the Gospel to the best of your ability and then get out of the way.  Your egg may not stink as bad as you thought.

Just this week, I get to network with two of my mentors/coaches from Mission Church, a good friend who also happens to be a pastor, and I’ve connected with several guys on Twitter.

It doesn’t matter what area of ministry you are in; volunteer, ministry leader, or pastor, never underestimate the power and benefits of networking with other leaders in the church.

7 or 8 years ago, this was pretty difficult to do, and in a lot of ways, just wasn’t happening as often.  But today, I see a landscape that is more about advancing God’s Kingdom than our own kingdoms.

So if you’re in the ministry in any way, take some time today to reach out to someone else to connect and network with.  It’ll be well worth your time and effort to do so.

Today I noticed that a search to my blog was “pastor’s wives that don’t want to do it anymore.”

Don’t quit.  Don’t give up.  Hold on.

I don’t know if you found this blog because you want to quit and you want out of the ministry.  Can I just be honest and tell you that I feel you?  Can I be honest and tell you that my wife (@denira) has felt the same way at times?

I’m convinced that the very hardest job in the church is the job of the wife married to the lead pastor.  It’s not easy.

I believe there are things that churches, it’s members and pastors (me included) can do to make the job a little easier and more enjoyable…

• During pastor appreciation month, honor the wife and the pastor’s family.  They are the real warriors
• Send a note to let the pastor’s wife know you’re praying for her and her family.  Then actually DO IT
• Don’t get your underpants in a wad when the pastor’s wife doesn’t show up at your bible study, event or social gathering.  It’s quite possible her schedule is already overbooked
• If the pastor’s wife isn’t serving in the kids ministry, that’s OK. Her main ministry is to her family.  You can find a kids volunteer but the pastor can’t find another family.
• She didn’t talk to you on Sunday?  It’s OK.  She doesn’t hate you
• Pastor….do a better job of protecting her feelings, time, and boundaries (I’ve failed miserably at this one in the past and still struggle with it at times).

If you’re not or have never been the wife of a pastor, you have no idea.  As the husband of a pastor’s wife, I don’t fully have a clue in many ways.  But what we can all understand is the job is tough and we can all (myself especially) do whatever it takes, to make it any tougher.

Pastor wives, hang in there.  I encourage you to contact my wife on Twitter, @denira, and she would be glad to get you connected to a network of other pastor wives around the country that can pour into you.