Posted by Bryan | 2 Comments
Gratitude
It’s Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of the year. Today, we’re hanging out at Mom and Dad’s along with Don, Abs and their kids. We ate way too much turkey and desserts. We’ll nap, eat more turkey and then head to the movies to watch Bolt with a bunch of friends.
What I love about Thanksgiving is that it is a holday focused on gratitude. So, let me share with you just a few things that I am grateful to God for.
- My incredible wife, Jen. She loves me way more than I deserve.
- Gabriel, Noah and Adam. Three boys that honor and obey their parents.
- Both Jen and I have parents whose lives continue to be an example of how we should live.
- An amazing church family who actually loves each other and are committed to showing our city the love of God.
- I love the people that I work with. I am so excited about where we are headed. It is so amazing to serve with people who are all headed in the same direction.
- God’s love has never failed me. We have seen His hand at work in our lives more times than we can count.
- Jesus died so I could be forgiven. That should actually go at the top of this list.
- God has blessed us with a beautiful home that is one of the most peaceful places on earth.
- We have friends that are more like family.
- Jeff Kapusta and the whole Lifepoint crew. Tim Blevins and the Life Community crew. Mike Ashcraft (sure wish he would blog) and the PC3 staff. and a host of other amazing churches in our city. I love that we are not in competition. We are all working toward the same goal.
- I live 20 minutes from the ocean and it is currently 65° outside. Sorry Scotty. I guess God loves us more.
- Next Friday, our church is going to bless Carolina AIDS Resource Efforts with a charity concert called Our Finest Gifts We Bring. You should go check it out at therockchristmas.com. I am blessed to be a part of a church that gives away from itself.
Posted by Bryan | 3 Comments
Do you get it?
“I GET IT!”
Those words are like music to my ears. I love the moments when it clicks and I finally get what God is showing me. It is awesome seeing it in our staff. When our volunteer teams experience that “AHA!” moment about why we do what we do, excitement builds.
You can tell, preach or instruct until you are blue in the face about ______________ but if the “I GET IT!” moment never happens, forward motion will allude your organization. I believe where God is leading us requires a whole new level of organization, planning, strategy, volunteer empowerment, focus and leadership skills. We don’t know what it takes to lead our church when it is twice as large. So, I’ve been telling our staff to find their counterpart in ministries two or three steps ahead of us. I was encouraged when I read Dave Ferguson’s notes from Craig Groeschel’s talk “Busting Barriers with Mind Shift Changes” at Catalyst One Day this week. If we do not do this at every level, we will quickly reach our limit, overload, hold ROCK Church back and burnout. I don’t want any of these to happen. God’s plan for us is too big!
Recently, I have seen and experienced quite a few “I GET IT!” moments. Here are just a few:
- This last week, Mike Paschal from PC3 came out and showed Carolyn some new tricks for our lighting. But, we gained more than just tech tips. Mike shared some great leadership insights.
- Today, Michael Frusha (who runs sound for PC3 Overflow service) was in the booth and taught our sound guys a few things. Our tech teams are learning, growing and the changes are making a difference.
- Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to have lunch with Perry Noble and ask some difficult (for me) questions that I was grappling with. I learned so much from our time hanging out. He poured more into me than he could ever know.
- As we were moving towards our leadership transition, I had the opportunity to talk with Jason Boucher who was about a year ahead of me with the same leadership change. His insights and experiences were a huge help.
- This year, Dr. Myles Munroe sat down with our whole staff and shared invaluable leadership insights about team and vision. I believe our staff gets it more now than they ever have.
- Dad, Jen and I had the opportunity to attend a senior pastors roundtable at C3 Church with Matt Fry and Joe Champion. I am still applying what I learned in that meeting.
- Just a few weeks ago, Pastor Syvelle Phillips ministered at our church and simply shared a need for Evangel Bible Translators. We received an offering and ROCKERS gave over $11,000 to train pastors and leaders in India!
- This past Sunday, we received our first monthly offering to support the local and international ministries we partner with and, again, you gave over $3000!
ROCK Church, thank you for “getting it”! To our staff, thank you for being proactive to seek wisdom, grow as leaders, allowing yourself to be stretched more than you thought possible and making the dream come alive!
The music is growing louder. The lyrics are simple. So, sing them at the top of your lungs. “I GET IT!”
What is your most recent “I GET IT!” moment?
Read MoreCatalyst Take Aways
Thanks to Steven’s comment yesterday, I realized I had not posted any post Catalyst thoughts.
I think that shows how easy it is to return from an event and let life steal what was poured in to you. However, my lack of posting does not mean I did not apply much of what I got there.
Steven asked for my three best take aways from Catalyst. Wow, only three?
1 – Experience Matters - I heard for years that Catalyst was not just another conference, it was an experience. I admit that I was always intrigued but secretly thought I could get all the same information via books, podcast, CDs or by listening to others’ stories. WRONG!
The experience of Catalyst was unlike anything I have ever witnessed.And I believe church should be the same way. We worshiped in an electric atmosphere. I heard challenging messages that messed me up. I listened to people share personal stories of what they were doing to change the world and challenged us to join them. Technology was leveraged to remove unnecessary roadblocks to engagement.
The whole experience was so amazing and awe-inspiring that I thought many times of people I wanted to bring back with me next time. I want our weekend experiences to be so electric, engaging, relevant and provoking that people can’t wait to bring everyone they know back with them next week.
2 – Next generation ideas come from the next generation. This came from the last session with Andy Stanley. It wasn’t a new idea for me. But, it was very encouraging to hear him say it. It is not for the older generation to innovate. It is their responsibility to recognize the new ideas and help them succeed. I realize that I am quickly becoming a part of the last generation. Our kids are the next generation and if I don’t recognize that, the end is near.
I love to go and hang out with our teenagers. Our youth ministry absolutely must be the innovators at ROCK Church. They cannot and must not do youth ministry the same way I did 10 years ago. That has already made it’s way into our weekend services. Wanna know what’s going to happen next? Get around young people.
3 – Memories have the potential to be the enemy of dreams. I never want to forget our past. But, I refuse to let the past be remembers as our glory days. God’s vision is too great. Andy summed it up with this quote:
“When memories exceed dreams, the end is near.” – Michael Hammer quoted in The World is Flat
- – - – -
Yeah, that was hard. We came away with a lot more than just those three. But, I would say those are still messing with me the most. Tomorrow, I’ll work on the three hardest things about our leadership transition.
Sorry, Rebekah. I know you asked first. But, your question warrants a whole week to answer in multiple posts. I’m working on that as a series for next week.
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I’m still here
Writer’s block is frustrating. I feel like there is so much I want to share on here that I get paralyzed at times struggling to know what to hit next. Any other bloggers out there deal with that?
I am sure this monstrous sinus infection that I’ve had for several months doesn’t help me focus. I’m currently on round 5 of antibiotics and am still recovering from the near death Mucinex incident. I know. I know. That’s just another lame excuse. But, I’m sticking with it.
So, here is what we are going to do this week. You ask, I’ll answer. This can be dangerous and I like it. Fire away.
Boundaries? Let’s figure it out as we go along. Family, church, leadership transition, kids, hobbies, faith, relationships, health, quantum physics, philosophy… It’s a free-for-all… You ask and I’ll do my best to answer. (although those last couple topics might not get a very thorough or accurate answer)
I’ll answer as many as I can this week.
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The woMAN’S Conference
I think I speak for all of the other men out there when I say, “PASTOR DINO IS THE MAN!” If Healing Place church used this as the promo video for the 2009 Live The Dream Women’s Conference, every man would send his wife and pay any cost.
I guarantee it!
Read MoreMy World Online
My World in Photos
