I am spending the bulk of this week in Orlando for the Exponential Church Planting conference with my pastor Jimmy Holbrook and our worship leader Justin Mann. We are having a lot of fun and I can say that we have broken many laws, but have not been arrested…YET.

I have learned many things on this trip

• We have too many chiefs in this car
• Jimmy eats 5-7 meals a day
• There is a reason that Jimmy has so many traffic tickets, really there are MANY reasons
• 5 Guys Burgers in incredible
• Orlando is an amazing place

I have learned a lesson about why you don’t eat with your elbows on the table. Jimmy eats so often that I have developed a blister on my right elbow from lifting my drink and food to my mouth. Ouch.

I had great time hanging out with many friends last night. We went to downtown OKC to eat at Rooster’s Chicken, go o see Date Night at Harkins in Bricktown and then we ended the evening with a stop at Cuppies and Joe for cupcakes.

It was good to spend some time with our friends Justin and Amy Lester and their baby girl Cash. Rooster’s Chicken was really great. The friend pickles were on the hook. I will definitely be going back soon.

Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell was funny. It stumble a bit just after the half way point, but our group laughed hard. I really enjoy going to the movies with this group.

Next couple of movies on my schedule to see are The Losers and Iron Man 2.

One of the great hindrances to leadership growth in your church or organization will be your failure to provide growing leaders with spaces to ply their skills and talents. If you don’t create spaces for young leaders to work then they ARE going to leave you. They can’t help it. They must lead or they become frustrated. These frustrations will either lead them to seek new opportunities, undermine your leadership, or stall as a leader.

At some point in your own personal leadership evaluation you must ask yourself which leaders your have put a lid over and are you that lid? If the answer is yes then you need to carve out a greater role for that leader and get out of the way.

How are you giving growing leaders an opportunity to spread their wings? What new directions are they taking you?

This year has been a whirlwind. I have:

• Become a father
• Moved
• Started a new job
• Sold a house
• Purchased a house (hopefully this Friday)
• Traded my Honda for a Buick
• Lived with my parents for a couple of months

The year has gone by really fast but as I end the year I want to list a few things that I am thankful for.

• An incredible small group community in Broken Arrow
• Serving with Mike, Rich, Sheila, and the AHBC crew
• A wonderful wife
• A new house and lower mortgage, buyah!!!
• Getting to work @HarrahChurch and the most fun office environment ever
• The volunteers @HarrahChurch who are working so hard
• My parents for letting us crash in their spare room
• This amazing MacBook Pro I am typing this post on
• My Rhythm in Twenty crew who helped me move from burned out  to overflowing
• God for letting me experience all of this and keeping me from going off the deep end
• and last and most certainly topping the list is Baby Margot who is more fun everyday

We are having a blast here @HarrahChurch and I hope to post a picture of the new house next week. Stay tuned.

Tonight in our Children’s ministry program we began using some new curriculum from the Rethink Group called 252 Basics. The lesson that we were using tonight had to do with Faith and came from Hebrews 11:1. We are splitting the kiddos into three different group and running them through three stations in an hour.

During my second group, 4-5th graders, we were exploring some things that can not be seen but evidence points us to the fact that there is something there. I can remember seeing Billy Graham on TV talking about the wind. You can’t see the wind, but you can see evidence that the wind is there. Gravity. You can’t see gravity but you can see gravity at work. It was at this moment that I asked the kids if they could think of any others. around the time I finished the sentence one of the two girls sitting near the front and wrestling over the Teach notes leaned into her friend and let out a pretty loud fart. Everyone in the room started laughing, including the girl who dealt it. At the end of the laughter one of the kids said, “You can’t see a fart, but there is evidence that one is there.” We all started chuckling again.

Kids say and do the darnedest things. We had a great lesson and it provided a moment that I will remember for many months to come. Can not wait until this weekend to see what else they will have to say.

You have to work really hard in America to starve to death.

We are far more concerned with our standard of living then we are about others living.

What constitutes any emergency? Is it only an emergency if it is affecting you?

(The Big Red Tractor and His Little Village Video)

The original church was An Unstoppable Force

Today’s church feels like if the pastor left or the music was crappy or the service times changed then the church would cease to exist.

Are you trying too hard “at church” to “be the church”?

How is your prayer life? Are you begging God for something supernatural to happen?

WE don’t create anything. The Holy Spirit does it all.

We don’t make waves to ride. God does.

Sometimes we just try to hard and get stressed out, then when it doesn’t happen for us we start trying harder, and harder, and harder instead of getting on our knees and praying for God to move.

God uses dependant people.

2 Peter 1

Do you feel honored to serve God?

Do you believe that your faith is of equal worth as Peter’s?

The righteousness of Christ puts us all on equal footing, because it is all about what Jesus did.

“May grace and peace be multiplied to you…”

God doesn’t want His kids to be stressed, He wants them to walk around in grace and peace.

People should be jealous of your relationship with God.

Grace and peace are multiplies to your through the knowledge of God.

What are you seeking when you go to church? Are you seeking God alone or are you chasing after large attendance, big budgets, rocking worship, etc.

We have a generous God. “No mind has conceived, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, …”

You can defeat any sin in your life through the knowledge of God.

This knowledge is about a DEEP relationship, not a system of beliefs.

When you know Him you will have everything that leads to life and godliness.

I’m afraid that the Good News will become Old News.

Are you making every effort towards a divine nature or are you just trying to fill a room?

Don’t try to fix the church if you aren’t trying to fix your character.

Worry about yourself before you worry about the church.

Stop trying to “make it happen” and simply teach the Word of God.

Obey God and pursue the character that He wants you to have.

What is it in your life that if everybody found out would embarrass you?

Are you lacking that peace in your life?

Growing the church is not about methods. It is about abiding in Him.

What is one of your fantasies?

What are you passions?

Why We Need Leaders to Step Up – Observations

1. The more selfish our society becomes, the more critical Godly leadership is.
   1. Leaders need to engage people with a compelling future
2. The more choices people have, without a biblical worldview as their foundation, the more confused our priorities become – and the more crucial godly vision and strategy are.
3. In times of rapid cultural change, the rules are different, the competition stiffer, the stakes higher, the opportunities greater – necessitating superior leadership to guide us forward.
4. Recent poor decisions and behavior by high-profile leaders have ushered in an era of criticism, skepticism, and mistrust, requiring a new generation of wise and godly leaders to restore public trust and confidence.
   1. Leadership has to be proven
5. In a culture that rejects absolute more and spiritual truth, and that esteems extreme choice, the results are confusion, stress, distraction, busyness, and chaos – the antidote to which is focused leaders who can make sense of reality, provide vision, and deliver direction to make the vision a reality.
6. Our culture has adopted a hyper-individualism that undermines community, nation and persona relationships, raising the need for an emphasis upon team-based leadership.
7. Churches have given lip service to leadership but suffer from a paucity of genuine leaders who are guiding people toward true Christ-like transformation.

What’s the difference between the ministry of teaching and the ministry of leadership?

Don’t confuse passion with vision.

Six Leadership Checkpoints:

1. Leaders can strategically change reality, but they cannot intentionally change people.
   
   1. Once a person reaches the age of 13 they change very little
   2. Children’s ministry is the most important
   3. Are you creating the leadership roles to meet your vision or God’s vision for your church?
   4. Are you molding leaders into what YOU need or who GOD has designed them to be?
   5. If you want to change lives then work with children
2. Nobody is the “complete leadership package” – so it’s important to work in a leadership team.
   
   1. A team always out performs the individual
   2. “None of us is as smart as all of us” –Ken Blanchard
   3. Great Teams
      1. Has to be small in number 4-6 leaders
      2. They have to spend lots of time together
      3. There is a captain of the team
      4. Built around shared vision, values, and passion
      5. Vulnerability and communication
      6. Strive to empower people to achieve the vision
3. One of the most under-value and least common skills among leaders is listening
   
   1. “I think God wants us to listen more than speak, otherwise he would have given us two mouths.” – KB
   2. “We should lead with our ears.” -KB
   3. You cannot listen effectively unless you are willing to have your mind changed.” –KB
   4. If we are going to change reality then we must listen to find out what the current reality is.
   5. “I never learned anything by talking” –Lou Holtz
   6. Bad listening leads to bad leadership.
4. Leaders must master conflict and confrontation
   
   1. Expect it, address it
   2. Seize the initiative
   3. Do your homework, know the facts, think very circumspectly about it
   4. Position yourself as a friend
   5. Ask clarifying questions and listen to what is said
   6. Seek a win-win outcome
   7. You may have to be the one to create conflict in order to change things
   8. Do people appreciate your leadership because it is safe or because you represent truth and justice and they will not tolerate anything less
5. Success is helping people achieve their potential
   
   1. What are you measuring?
   2. Make people the very best that they can be by getting them out of their comfort zone.
   3. People are going to have to change to reach their potential
      1. What got you here won’t get you there
   4. Do people understand what success in your organization is?
      1. Do they know how they are going to benefit when the organization reaches their goal?
6. Do not accept a leadership position unless you’re ready to pay a stiff price. The more significant the outcome you seek to achieve, the more substantial the price you can expect to pay.
   
   1. Pressure is having to make a decision that matters when you are not prepared to do so
   2. Pressure is valuable for a leader because it purifies you and prepares for a higher level of leadership
   3. Leadership is a full-contact sport
   4. Address internal pressure because it is probably based upon real concerns
   5. Foundations for Decision Making Under Pressure
      1. God
         1. Make sure God called you to this
         2. Is this your vision or God’s vision
      2. Convictions
         1. Know what you stand for
         2. Refuse to fold
      3. Family and close friends
         1. People you trust
         2. People who will give you the feedback you need because they love you

Mac Lake – Seacoast Church – http://maclakeonline.com – @maclake

7 ingredients to a healthy leadership development strategy:

1. Confidence in people
2. Connection with people
3. Content
4. Coaching
   1. You of little faith, why did you doubt
   2. Teach them to endure the entire experience
5. Challenge
   1. Principles + experience = transformation
6. Cluster Learning – 4 times a year
7. Conferences – twice a year

Questions for meeting with your small group leaders:

1. How are you doing personally?
2. What are your priorities?
3. What problems are you encountering?
4. What’s the plan?
5. How can I pray for you?

There has been a twisting of Scripture to create what we want.

Are we using the Bible to create the life that we want?

Are you starting with a desire for your life or are you starting with Scripture?

There is no middle road.

Follow the Leader

Follow Jesus – You don’t really have to, you really just do that in your heart (sarcasm)

Simon Says

If Jesus Says you just have to memorize it, quote it, say it in Greek, or just study what Jesus Says (sarcasm)

In California people tell you what they think, in Texas people say they believe, but live in another way.

It is not that the Word of God isn’t working it is that we aren’t really doing it.

Everyone is used to commenting and throwing in their two cents and wanting to be heard, but who is living out the Word of God in their lives and doing the will of God in their lives.

This is not supposed to be easy.

1 Peter 4:12 – “Beloved do not be surprised at the fiery trial…”

This is what makes UNITY and COMMUNITY so surprising.

Satan wants you to stop loving the church. “Resist him”

“And when you have suffered for a little while, the God of all GRACE”

Suck it up!

Expect the suffering, enjoy the suffering. Paul did.

We serve a God of Restoration. What do you need to be restored from?

Is there any part of you that longs for the sufferings the way that Paul did?

When you suffer with Christ you have fellowship with Christ.

Can you imagine being crucified alongside the Son of God? Can you imagine the bond that would be made? Are you suffering for Jesus’ sake?

The Koreans who got abducted in Afghanistan – Great story about the 23-24 person group that was abducted and held in A. They were brought together and before they would be separated the pastor spoke to them about what was ahead. He told them that as their pastor if anyone was going to be executed first it was to be him. Then another man in the group spoke up and said that he too was a pastor and older and therefore should be the first to. Then the first guy spoke up and said that he was ordained so he should go first. Check out more at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/130-41.0.html

“Don’t you wish we were still there? In those cells. I was so close to Jesus.”

Sometimes the problem with your vision is that you are looking too far into the future. Your people need a vision for today as much as they need a vision for tomorrow.

It is in the midst of uncomfortable and uncontrolled circumstance that you give the Holy Spirit a place to work. Have the courage to step out in faith to do something you can’t.

If you really want to experience Jesus and the Supernatural then you are going to have to do something “dangerous”.

We have set up a system that allows people to be comfortable.

Get back to Jesus, to wanting Him, and seeking Him, following Him, doing what He says.

It was great morning at HarrahChurch and Jimmy really brought a great message as we studied Our DNA and what makes HarrahChurch so special. The second service was packed. We will have to add more chairs to the room to keep up. It is not just about numbers though. God is doing incredible things in the lives of our people. I can’t wait to read the next book in the Know Greater Love Series. Incredible stories. We were all challenged to read through the Book of Acts together this month. If you go to HarrahChurch and blog through your reading leave your blog address in the comments below so I can check it out.

In reading Acts 1 tonight there were two phrases that stuck out to me. First, “why are you looking up to heaven.” We know that one day Jesus will come back just as he ascended into heaven, but we must realize that there is ministry to be done. We have been empowered to do ministry in fact. This for me is a reminder to help others discover their role in the ministry of the church. Do you spend all your time looking up or looking around. If you are looking around for something to do at HarrahChurch I can get you involved in ministry. There are many places right now that need volunteers on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly basis. We all must do our part. Everyone has a role to play.

The second phrase that stuck out for me was that this group devoted themselves in prayer in one accord. I am sure that we all could use more prayer in our life. As a ministry leader I have a lot of prayer needs and know many of yours as well. So I want to ask you this week to pray with me for three things.

1. Pray for volunteers for our children’s and student ministry programs.
2. Pray people would find hope and healing at HarrahChurch.
3. Pray for great things to happen during next weekend’s service.

Look forward to seeing you this Wednesday night.