Let me say this – it was mighty quite at WOF today. I was talking about sex, and there were some people looking at me like a dear looking into headlights. The amount of people who came up to me to let me know they were blessed and changed by the word, was well worth it…

We did a skit today, I think it really connected with the people – One of our teens wrote it…
There was a lot going on in our building today (crazy elevator)
Our team is finding their flow more and more
Had a great executive meeting after church – love the team I serve with
People are getting on fire to see Jesus
Talking about sex is always intense
Have some big meeting this Monday and Tuesday – Need massive prayer
Big decisions coming up
My little girl turned 8 Saturday – I want to cry

Ok, I think that is all I want to say tonight… Take care!

For our nation and for the entire world for that matter there has been a lot going on, and it is easy during hard times to allow what you see to cause you to go into a tailspin of despair. Our church is on the verge of some really big decisions. These are decisions that will affect the course and direction of our ministry from now on. Some may call it disruption, you could call it change, some will call it an overhaul, and I call it good!

I have read post after post from pastors talking about the difficulty in change, the hardship of change, the issues of change, and all of those things are true…But what I like most is the necessity of change. It is impossible for true growth to take place without change! Something has got to give in order for something to be different. It is true that all change is not good, but it is also true that stagnation is never a good thing.

Many times hardship and change look like problems, but to me, it looks like possibility! Our church is now pregnant with possibility. The possibility of reaching many more people for Christ, the possibility of impacting the marketplace like never before, the possibility of making the name of Jesus even more famous. To say that I am excited is an understatement, to say that this is going to be easy would also be an understatement…but pregnancy is not something that is easy, but it is something that is rewarding…

For all of you who are facing some difficulty, do not look at it as a problem, look at it like it is potential… And Word of Faith, prepare yourself for labor…Man I am excited… This thing is getting better and better everyday…. I just love what I get to do….

It was a great day at WOF as we started our new series…

Today I got to speak about unbelief – everything felt good

Creative team did a great job on the set

We had a dance today that depicted strongholds – it was powerful

Can’t wait to teach this Sunday – I am dealing with SEX – yep, it is true!

Our team is getting on fire

I have been up way to long

This time change is driving me crazy

I need to go to sleep

There is a lot going on this week – keep WOF in your prayers

I just got finished watching a video where they went around and asked people why they do not come to church. The responses of the people were very interesting, and I thought that I would put a post up on the blog to allow people to sound off about why they think people do not come to church. I have said it before and I will say it again: I think we have the best message, but we also seem to struggle in many respects to get that message to take hold. What barriers do you see, what do you think needs to be fixed? Be honest so that change can really take place in the body of Christ…

This Sunday at Word of Faith we will be starting a new series entitled “Prison Break” During this series we will be dealing with the strongholds / issues / problems that hold people back from becoming fully devoted followers of Christ and walking in our destiny. I am excited to be teaching this series for the next 5 weeks, and I know that God is going to do his thing…

For the first time at Word of Faith, we had the congregation write down the things that they thought were holding them back and we are going to be dealing with the top five from that list (one of our teachers in the congregation told me this was called an emergent curriculum – so now I know).

This is not a series you want to miss! Invite your friends and family and let people know about what is going on so they to can start operating in their potential and connect to the one thing that never fails – Jesus!

This Sunday we are dealing with “disbelief”. Many times we just do not believe that things are going to work out – it just does not look like “all is well”. We are going to tackle this issue and work to move towards a posture of faith… Can’t wait to teach – Invite like Crazy – See you Sunday!

I have been paying a lot of attention to what makes a great organization work and what is necessary to carry an organization through turbulence. It is so interesting that the church has the best message but it seems as if we do not know it. When we look at other organizations that are knocking it out the park and dig into them, you quickly figure out that the power is in the team. Those organizations have nothing on our message, they have no offer that is better than the Gospel, but the entire team is sold out. It is true that everyone expects the senior pastor to be “all out” for the vision, but that is just not enough. There must be an “all hands on deck” in order for things to work the way they should. Though the leader is the one that has to cast vision and move the organization forward, if the team is not on board things just will not work. Some people say this issue is a cultural thing – I am not sure if this is true or not (more on that in another post), some people say that  it is an environment thing (this only seems to be true in the short term). To me, there has to be a deeper common thread that makes a good team good and a bad team bad! While it is easy to blame the leader, I know plenty of good leaders with bad teams, but when that is the case the team gets repositioned or fired.

For those of you out there who work with teams in ministry or even in your job, what do you think makes a good team good, or a bad team bad – Sound off…

Several times a day people ask me how I am doing. Most often I respond in the same fashion, “I am doing great, staying out the way”. This statement, while often overlooked, is something that I really work at. I am not saying that I do not want to do what I need to do, this is not a call to be lazy, it is just a full understanding, that sometimes while trying to do the will of God, I can get in the way. I never want to tie God’s hands, but trying to do things that he is trying to do.

How many of us are so busy being “in the way”, that the hands of God are tied. God needs us to be proactive and to work, but he also needs us to trust him and let him do what he does best (lead).

My challenge is that more of us will get “out the way”, and let God work in our lives…

We are in session 2 right now (I will get to session 1 later, it was a bunch), but I had to take a moment to log this point that Gary just said, and I will summarize the rest later. Gary, is speaking about leadership that matters, and he made this quote,

"WE are God’s plan to make His goodness believable to the world"

All I am going to say is wow, and then I will ask you the question,

"are you making the goodness of God believable to the world"?

Stay tuned…

Just as last year, I am sitting in the leadership summit at a satellite campus in Dayton, OH. I will be doing all that I can to summarize the sessions on my blog, so that those of you who are not able to be here will get a glimpse of what is going on, so stay tuned and enjoy…

I just wanted to let you know that the new podcast is doing great things… I have to give all honor to God for what he is doing with this great tool. In the 3 short weeks that we have had our podcast up, we have over 200 subscribers. Let me just say that all but 6 of these came in the last 2 weeks. We have people from the Netherlands, Singapore and Indonesia as well as the US of course. God never ceases to amaze me. Keep praying that we are able to make an impact for the kingdom and make the name of Jesus famous.