Revolution Church, here are some things you might not know about your pastor:

1. Pastor Zak is a HUGE Romantic (he writes me a love note each week and places it in a different place…O’So special to me!) He still dates me like he did in high school. He plans every date and takes me out at least every other week. He wants to model what it means to be a great husband to our son Couper.
2. Pastor Zak has a dance party everyday! I am not kidding, last year he danced for at least one minute per day all 365 days of the year. It keeps him joyful. And it freaks Couper out a little.
3. He is his own worst critic.
4. I like to call him “hound dog” because he smells literally everything and can smell things from a mile away.
5. When Pastor Zak is passionate about something he is completely SOLD OUT…there is NO half hearted commitment! Its all or nothing, go big or go home with him in everything.
6. His Pet-Peeve is when people say they are going to do something and they don’t follow through.
7. He has to hit the clear button on the microwave when it is finished or flashing…it drives him “cray cray” for it to not have the time on it.
8. He loves God and loves people. He follows God with every bone in his body and has this ability to call things out in people and challenge them.

Here is what I want to encourage you to do each day as we get closer to our new series. Open up the Bible and read through Philippians 2:1-11. Read it every day and then pray these two specific things:

Jesus, let me see the areas I fall short in serving my spouse.

Jesus, let me see my spouse through your eyes.

See you Sunday for Man VS. Wife at 9:30am, 11:00am or 1:00pm!!!

Thanks to Kevin Foster and Stephanie Megosh for great pics as usual!

Some things you need to know:

1. This Wednesday night we will have a Night of Worship and communion. Full kids ministry will be happening for your kiddos. See you there at 6:30pm. I’ll be sharing some BIG stuff that God has put on my heart.
2. Superbowl Sunday…that is this coming Sunday, Feb. 5th, come to church completely DECKED OUT in your favorite football fan gear. Put on a jersey and paint your face. Any kids team, high school team, college team or pro team is allowed…just no Texas Tech stuff (kidding…sort of!)
3. Starting February 12th, we will be changing to new service times. The new times will be 9:30am, 11:00am and 1:00pm.
4. I mean number two that you just read. Seriously. See the guys below? Come to church dressed like them (with a shirt on!) We will be giving a Revolution Church superbowl party pack away to the best dressed fan in each service.

One thing we like to do at Revolution Church is celebrate. God has been way too good to us not to stop and give Him glory for all that we have seen Him do. So this Sunday we are throwing a party!

I hope you will join us for worship at 8:30, 10:00 or 11:30am…then, you need to join us for our two year birthday and baptism tailgate party at 12:30 – 2:00pm. We will be at the Revolution Church campus eating, playing games, partying and celebrating life change!

Here are just a few highlights that we have seen over the last two years:

• We have seen 495 people make decisions to follow Jesus!
• 74 people have been baptized – and many more will be baptized this Sunday.
• We opened our first location.
• We helped plant our first two churches in other parts of Texas.
• We saw radical generosity as the people of this church stepped up and gave in crazy ways to our Illuminate initiative.

The list goes on and on…see what I mean? GOD is GREAT!

Celebrating what God has done gives us the faith to dream in an even more revolutionary way about what He wants to do in the future. Pausing to reflect propels us forward with greater vision and greater intensity.

Revolution Church, let’s move ahead into year three knowing that the best is yet to come!

Much like Revolution Church, I believe that this is just the beginning of all that God is going to do at Timber Ridge Church!

From Pastor Nic:
Here’s some highlights:

• Held our first ever Christmas Eve service with almost 200 people in attendance. Four people made decisions to follow Christ that evening!!!
• Had our first “Timber Ridge Serves” Sunday on Dec. 4th. Basically, instead of meeting for the service for that Sunday, we met for a brief worship rally, then went out and served our community in various ways. Had over 60% of our people show up for it so I think it was a big win. We served at our local Crisis Pregnancy Center, hosted a party for about 120 adults with mental retardation that live in homes here in Stephenville, and served several families by doing work around their homes.
• Since the first of the year, we’ve had our 2 of our top four best attendance days and are averaging right at 200 people each week.
• God continues to move as we are seeing people make commitments to Jesus each and every week.
• We have been doing a series on what the Bible says about money all month and have seen God do some incredible things in people’s hearts.
• We have 20 families signed up for our first financial class. We’re doing Joe Sangl’s I Was Broke, Now I’m Not.

Again, THANK YOU!!! And please pass on OUR DEEP GRATITUDE to the people of Revolution! They’re helping start a spiritual revolution in Stephenville, TX with their generosity!!!

It is a BIG part of my job – to constantly challenge the process as well as examine what we do and why we do it. Culture is progressing faster than ever. We need to be progressing too.

I don’t ever want to be stuck with sacred cows in our ministry at Revolution. Instead, I want to challenge things and push forward.

At the heart of all of this I have a passionate conviction that every human is created in the image and likeness of God. I believe that we are all broken images and that it is our job to call out of every person the greatness that lies within. It’s time to “mess peoples’ lives up” by calling out the greatness that God has placed inside of them.

And this week, God messed me up big time. Get ready Revolution Church…I’m about to MESS some stuff up!

Don’t miss this Sunday as we continue Triple Dog Dare.

Here is a summary:

We live life in high definition all the time. We surround ourselves with 1080P, LCD, Plasma, and other such devices. We focus in on the things we place around ourselves so we can feel we are right in the midst of the action coming from the screen. What if we were to see Christ that way? Meet Bluray Jesus!

Bluray Jesus is a modern approach to bringing the Gospel into real life, especially in our modern culture. We are surrounded by media & technology all the time and we spend a lot of cash on devices that help us “upgrade” to the newest and best thing out there. This cultural phenomena is what spurred the creation of Bluray Jesus. We have already embraced technology, so let’s allow technology to teach us a thing or two about Christ.

Excerpt: “I believe there is a higher definition Jesus out there. It is not the perfect picture of Him, but it is so much closer than anything we have ever encountered before. I do not believe that Jesus is summed up in just a few short books concerning Him in the New Testament, but that there is an ongoing high definition, clear picture, depth of color Jesus that needs to be discovered and played out in our lives–Bluray Jesus. If you caught a glimpse of Bluray Jesus you would be captivated. You would not be able to move from your position in the aisle of life because you would be fixed on the highly tuned definition of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness that shines from His unimaginably bright screen.”

No matter where you are in your faith this book can help you hone in your experience of Christ in a personal way. Whether you have been thinking about your relationship with Christ or if you don’t have one yet, Bluray Jesus discusses things that every modern person should wrestle with.

Take a look at the website by visiting www.tinyurl.com/meetblurayjesus or snag it here on amazon. It is currently available for download for Kindle only. If you don’t have a Kindle that is no problem. All you need is an amazon account and to download Kindle for Computers (PC or Mac) which is free. The book will be automatically transferred to your device or computer. It also works great on the iPhone or other smartphones.

I began this process in 6th grade. The picture shown is of the first goal list I ever wrote out in 6th grade. Its grown a lot and developed a lot, but essentially, its the same thing. Each new year brings a sense of a fresh start.

Here are my 2012 goals. These are the ones I feel comfortable sharing about. I seem to have a lot of more “private” goals this year than ever before:

1. Beat my best half marathon time ever
2. Bike 150 miles in a race
3. Spend less money on junk food (starbucks, lunches, etc) and bring healthy lunches to the office. This will also help me accomplish more in each work day because lunch won’t take so long.
4. Complete a 30 day Daniel Fast. Yikes.
5. Read 15 books. I have a partial list. Any suggestions?
6. Lead Revolution Church to love God and love people like never before. Make Revolution the place that LOVES GOD, LOVES PEOPLE and PROVES IT!
7. Keep God’s bigness in my heart and expand our reach. Check out this message.
8. Add a kiddo to our family and not die from the loss of sleep (baby white is due in July!)
9. Pay cash for said baby.
10. Date my wife and love her like Ephesians 5 commands husbands to do.
11. Speak LIFE into every relationship and every interaction.
12. Serve people like never before.
13. Work HARD and rest HARD.
14. Push. The. Envelope.
15. Look further than 2012. Set goals for 10 years, 20 years and beyond.