• It jacks up your sleep. I have spent multiple nights tossing and turning because I was thinking about all of the things that I have to do.
• I’m really excited about this! Even though I’ve worked long hours, lost sleep, and am in over my head, I’m really excited.
• Apparently you need insurance to meet as a church. It’s not cheap.
• I spent a lot of time meeting with people and learning about things I didn’t have a fat clue about. Did you know that you have to fill out paper work to become a legal church? I filed to become Incorporated, and I got an Employee Identification Number. I knew nothing about this before planting.
• Lots of people are willing to help me! That’s been really exciting.
• I was planning on starting in a house. I didn’t think I would get as good of a response to this as I got. I had to quickly find a location to meet in because no house could contain the amount of people that are interested in this.
• I think that some of the people coming on Sunday night just want to see the freak show. In other words, they just want to check things out. I’m cool with that. I know that not everyone who comes will commit to plant this church with me, but I’m excited about the response I got.
• People keep asking me who I want to reach. Apparently I am supposed to narrow it down to a race, an age group, and a specific type of person. I just want to reach people for Jesus. I want all races, age groups, and all types of people. I’ve been told that won’t work. I know that certain types of people will be drawn to my preaching, but I’m not willing to narrow down who we are trying to reach.
• The name of the church is Next Level.  Apparently there are a lot of churches with this name. It wasn’t easy finding a website domain name. Oh and I bought a domain name. Website will be coming soon.
• I had to buy a new phone. For the last seven years, I’ve been blessed with a work phone. Not any more. Thankfully I have the same number.
• On my first day of the job I got in a car accident. It wasn’t my fault. I braked, and the car behind me didn’t. My entire office is in my car so my entire office went flying at my face. The hit was really loud. I thought that my trunk would be smashed open and that I’d have a trail of my office leaking all over Jefferson Avenue. When I pulled over, the only damage was that his license plate left a small dent and the numbers from his plate imprinted on my bumper.
• If you are interested in learning about Next Level Church email me and I’ll send you the information about tomorrow’s meeting. You can email me at robshep.com@gmail.com.

We recently went to Picture People for our twins’ 10 month pictures. It’s always a workout to get great pictures. We dance, we sing, we make a fool of ourselves while we are at the front of the store for the entire mall to see. It’s quite the spectacle.

For this go around a new twist was added to the madness. Hayden can crawl. Keeping him still is no easy task. To help us for this adventure our good friends Stacy, Dean, and Heather joined us. This posse helped create some cute pictures if I do say so myself. Enjoy…

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Hades on earth and 10 being Heaven on earth, how would you rate the mall?

Without Jesus I’m a mess.

I’m lost.

I’m spiritually dead.

I’m without hope.

But Jesus changes everything.

He makes me a new creation.

He takes my mess and makes it beautiful.

I’m still not perfect.

I screw up daily.

Thanks you Jesus for your grace and forgiveness.

I’m a beautiful disaster.

2 Corinthians 5:17

I get that people want their picture taken when they are maternal. It’s an exciting time. What I don’t get is pictures that should be private but are shared with the entire world. The following are some maternity pictures that I just can’t support…

• How are child services not taking this kid away the moment he is born. I’m scared and therefore I can’t support this.
• I think I get what she was going for but this just looks like pigs feeding. I can’t support this.
• This is a really special moment that should never be shared with anyone. Clothes off = I just can’t support that.
• I get that Swamp People is a popular show but since there is no gator in this pic I just can’t support that.
• Wait…what? There is nothing about this picture that I can support.
• I would love to know the thinking behind this picture. Does their dad play pro hockey? I’m all for costumes for family photos but this is awkward and therefore I just can’t support it.
• Um…I guess if the world is about to end I’m going to go find some pregnant women. There are so many maternity pictures with future moms and guns. Until the world ends I just can’t support future moms and guns.
• I don’t think this picture needs a comment. I can’t support this!

How do you feel about maternity photos?

I feel like God is leading me to plant a church. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s why I love it. If it made sense I would doubt that it was from God.  I have no financial support, no building, no worship leader, and I’m out of my mind excited. Maybe I am stupid after all? I just believe that if it’s from God He will provide. I don’t think that means that it will be easy. I don’t think that means that I will have a mega-church on day one. I may never have a HUGE church, but I’m obeying God and I’m okay with that.

Here’s the deal. I believe that the stories from the Bible are not just stories. I believe they happened to real people in real time. I love stories like Moses who told God he couldn’t obey him because he stuttered. I love the story of Gideon who had an army of 22,000 widdled down to 300 so that no man could take credit for what God was going to do. I love the story of Noah who built an ark even though he’d never seen it rain before. That’s faith. Maybe even stupid faith. But that’s what I want.

Now that brings a lot of questions.

• Why now? I couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve felt like God was leading me to do this for a while now. I was so scared to leave what was comfortable that I didn’t make a move. I finally got to the point where my conviction out weighed my fear.
• What is going to be different about this church? I believe that it takes all different types of churches to reach all different types of people.  The mission of this church is to love Jesus, love people, and make a difference. I want to help imperfect people fall in love with a perfect Savior. I don’t have everything figured out yet, but what I do know is that we will be actively looking to make a practical difference in the world we live in Jesus’ name.
• When is it starting? Now. Well, it’s kind of starting now. I’m holding an interest meeting this coming Sunday at 7:00 PM. The interest meeting is to cast vision and to find out who is going with us on this journey. There will be preaching, worship, and some details of things to come. If you feel like God might be leading you to join us on this journey email me at robshep.com@gmail.com and I will give you the location.
• When will you become a real church? We will be holding vision meetings weekly. Once the vision meetings reach 50 committed people we will launch.
• How will you make your living? Well, I’m starting with nothing. I am believing that God is leading me to do this and that He will provide. At this point I don’t know where money is going to come from, but I’m trusting God. I don’t want money to be the thing that causes this to fail. We have put our house on the market and are actively trying to sell it. We have zero debt besides our house. Once our house sells the plan is to move in with my parents until we get established.  I am hopeful that God will lead other people to help fund the mission. I will be doing things like selling ad space on my blog, looking for contract work for other churches, and booking speaking engagements to help fund the start.
• Why are you starting in the 757? I prayed long and hard about this. I begged God for a direction on where to start and I never felt led to go anywhere. I sought advice from multiple people. One of the people that I talked to was Clayton King. He mentioned that if God isn’t giving you an answer then maybe it’s because he’s trusting you. I also talked to multiple church planters who all said that church planting is incredibly hard. They said that if you can start at home then you should. So that’s what I’m doing.
• Will it be different than Waters Edge? Yes. Is Burger King different that McDonald’s? Yes. They both sell burgers, but they are different. This church will be different, but that doesn’t mean that other churches are bad or that this church is the best. I’m simply trying to do what God is leading me to do.
• Am I scared? I was. I’m not any more. I’m not afraid to fail. I’m not afraid to trust God and see what happens.
• What can you do? Pray. When I say pray, I mean I really need prayer. Pray for the right people to join. Pray for God to stir people to give financially. Pray that my house would sell. Pray that we would get a sponsor church. If I can find a church to sponsor us then I have the ability to get some funding from a church planting organization. I can’t get support until I get a sponsor. Pray that God would show up and change people’s lives.
• Do your nipples hurt right now? Okay, that’s a weird question. And the answer is yes. I went jogging with the wrong type of shirt on and I got a bad case of jogger’s nipples.

Have you ever felt like God was leading you to do something? If you are interested in joining us this Sunday, don’t forget to send me an email at robshep.com@gmail.com.

Oh…one last thought. I haven’t invited anyone to come along on this journey. I hope your feelings aren’t hurt if I haven’t asked you to go.  I am praying for God to lead the right people along with us. There are lots of people that I want to ask to go with us, but I’m trying to step out of the way.