So what is multisite again?

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Here is a really good video that Zondervan has put out to advertise for two great books that you need to read to understand what I do a little bit better.? I like the concept here that the New Testament Church was actually a multisite church.? Interesting.

We have found that we are averaging almost 1000 people each weekend in our multisite campuses after only two short years.? It is really cool to be a part of a church, Forest Park, that truly cares about reaching people for Christ!? Some churches talk a good game, but Forest Park is trying to put our talk into action by sacrificing some of what we like and want so that others outside of the church might find Christ!

Multi-Site ? Being One Church in Multiple Locations from Zondervan on Vimeo.

Refocus On Podcast

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My buddy next door, Gabe Lett, is a counselor and life coach.? He has a new life coaching business called Refocus, Inc. that coincides along with the Life Transformation Center that he runs his counseling business through.? He asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would be willing to have a conversation with him about “Revolutionary Christianity” on a podcast.? Basically, it is a discussion of the book Revolution, by George Barna.? I jumped at the chance to talk with him (I know many of you find that hard to believe that I love to talk!)? Here is a link to the podcast online.? You can also go on his website, refocus4life.com and subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.? Enjoy.

I really like Gabe and his heart for helping people and connecting them to the Church.? He has a lot of great ideas and is a great young leader in the Church.? He is also an author of Let’s Get Together: Building Community In The Church. You can get it here.? Trust me, he didn’t have me say that and I don’t get any kickbacks for this advertisement (I should though. . . just kidding!).

Tuesday is for Training

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Mark Dinwiddie has been sending us Multisite/Missions Nuggets of Truth each week for a couple of months now and I am starting a new category of them so you can talk about them and comment.

We have really been talking about that dirty word for perfectionists, DELEGATE.? Enjoy.

You have two choices in your work.? When something has been assigned to you, you can either do it yourself or get someone else to do it.? Your ability to get someone else to do it, to delegate it effectively??? —more than anything else— is going to determine your career track, your position and rate of promotion, your pay, your status, prestige, and success in management.? (The Delights of Delegation)
?I owe whatever success I have attained, by and large, to my ability to surround myself with people who are smarter than I am? Andrew Carnegie

I once had one of my dad’s best friends, “work himself out of a job.”? He had worked for this company back before he retired and hired on with another company doing consulting.? Basically, he delegated all of the work to be done by the company employees that he was no longer needed–and he could go back to traveling in his retirement!

Who do you know that is a good delegator?? What makes them good at it?? What prevents you from delegating the way you ought?

Wow, what a weekend!

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We have had a crazy busy and productive weekend so far!? Tucker and Jenny went to Springfield on Friday so Jenny could do an inservice training for the Elementary music teachers in Springfield Public Schools–she’s so stinking talented and smart it’s pretty amazing she hangs out with a schmuck like me!! While they were gone, I took the opportunity to fix the brakes on my car that were about 3 weeks overdue and the rotors showed!? Thanks to my friend Devin Bobbett for helping me change my first set of brakes probably about 7 years ago.? I have always tried to repair them since then after I found out how “easy” it is.? There is always something that goes wrong when I try to do anything it seems.? This time, I stripped out some screws and had to go get some screw extrators from the store to finally get the brakes repaired.? Of course, I had to put the old brakes back on, go to O’Reilly’s and then come back and finish them.? I finally got them fixed at about midnight last night. Henry (our new puggle) and I went to pick up Taylor after school and decided to go to the pet store to get some stuff for the dog.? The pet store has another puggle for sale and the girl was really pushing hard for us to get another to keep Henry company.? Funny thing happens–Henry poops right in the store–while Taylor is supposed to be watching him on the leash!? I told the girl, “see I’ve got one that poops all over the place, I don’t need another!” Jenny and Tucker got home and we went to eat at the Ranch House.? We walked in and saw our good friend Kent Doyle and the Ozark High School varsity girls softball team that was in a tournament here in Carthage.? It was awesome getting to hang out with him for a bit.? Sweet people!? Taylor got to talk to Kaleb on the phone and Morgan got to talk to Jenny.? Pretty cool deal for everyone. Had our first CONVERGE this morning.? It went pretty well.? The next CONVERGE will be in January.? I am really excited about what God is going to do this fall through Forest Park Carthage! Went to Crosswalk tonight to hear John’s message “Dirty Jerseys.”? We are starting a spiritual growth campaign tomorrow called Generations.? It was an awesome message and I am really excited to see the response from our people tomorrow morning.? We have the potential to really reach a TON of people for Christ in the next decade or so through this campaign. The key verse is, “Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the LORD.” Psalm 102:18.? Stratton, McBride and I went out on Thursday and shot some videos for our children’s ministry classes.? It was a lot of fun!? The best part is related to this verse. . . we have an opportunity in this campaign to reach people of the future generations by our faithfulness to get involved with God in this generation!? I am excited that we are helping Taylor and Tucker’s generation to have a great facility here in Carthage.? My hope and prayer is that they will in turn, because of our example, build His Church for their future generations!? I can’t wait to see what God is going to do through this campaign!? Fasten your seatbelts.

Monday is for Missions & Multisite

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Here are the pictures I said would be awesome if we had any!? I absolutely love what God is doing through this concept of multisite!? We had 366 people and the 2nd service was PACKED!!? That is the highest attendance we have had since the launch or Easter 2008–on a non holiday weekend!!

Enjoy from Stratton’s iPhone . . .

Buildings, Buildings, Buildings

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We are meeting with an architect on Thursday to talk about our needs and goals at Forest Park Carthage’s new building!!? We are heading to Lifechurch.tv Tulsa here in a bit to check out their facility and talk to their facilities manager about what to look for in a building.

We are starting a building campaign in October and will try to get things going soon.

I’ll post later some pictures, etc. of the visit.

Seriously, you’ve never been on the tour??

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As I mentioned earlier, we went to the Welcome and Information Center for Panama City Beach this morning to get. . . um, information . . . about what there is to do here in Panama City Beach. Of course there are those little brochure kiosks everywhere to try to get you into their place of business. But we wanted to hear an “insider’s view” of the attractions. Someone who has a “been there, done that, DIDN’T buy the T-shirt” (or vice versa) kind of informational experience. But it simply isn’t going to happen! Not today anyway!

Here’s a little tip for the city of Panama City Beach. See if you can’t spring for a couple of bucks to send the help to some of the excursions–ANY of the excursions. Basically, the lady(ies) who helped us had not been to ANY of the tours or whatnot in the town. “They were too busy working to have time to go on those things.” What!?! Isn’t that your job to know what tours are good and what tours stink?? Shouldn’t you be able to steer people clear of spare tours and tourist traps?? Seriously, you can be more help than “I think there are some brochures over there on that kind of stuff!”

For what it’s worth, I think that we in the church are a lot like that aren’t we? We are representing something that many of us aren’t really that enthused about, let alone even experienced!! To put it the way Rob Bell puts it, “we aren’t ‘smokin’ what we’re sellin’.” You can’t talk about an experience with Jesus until you have come face to face with Him and He comes in and changes your life. This isn’t simply something that you “do” . . . this Christianity thing! It is your “LIFE!” Every time someone comes into one of our environments (churches), people ought to get an “insider’s” view of the Gospel–EVERY TIME! They shouldn’t just hope they “get the good one [volunteer]” or not get the “guy having a bad day, ur, life.” Think about the consequences of not having an insider’s view of the Gospel at your church. Who is there because they had an insider’s, “I once was blind, but not I see” kind of person helping them to understand this crazy thing called the Gospel and the Church? Is someone there because you are “smokin’ what you’re sellin’?” Or are they turned away unsatisfied because you are no better than a bunch of brochures sitting all neatly in a row–lot’s of information, but no passion of an insider’s perspective.

Friday is for Friends

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Friday is for friends. This Friday is for church planter, Marc Backes. He is planting Eternity, a new church in his home town of Jefferson City, MO. Check out the website here. You can check out his blog here.

Here is a great video prospectus he put together. Reminds me of our video 6 years ago, eh Brad??

Crazy Weekend

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We had a crazy weekend this past weekend! Because of our “snow storm” on Thursday, we canceled our tech rehearsal for KidStuf. Boy, I don’t know if we will ever do that again! Needless to say, the “dress” rehearsal on Saturday was a bit crazy. As with Murphy’s Law, anything and everything seemed to go wrong–especially with the sound stuff. We just purchased some new microphones and they didn’t work exactly like we wanted. Isn’t technology wonderful??

Then, Taylor and I had to leave the tech rehearsal early for Upward Basketball team pictures. Then we had our 5th game of the season. I couldn’t be prouder of our little guys! They are really improving! Trust me, it has nothing to do with the coaching. Actually, I think they have a huge handicap in that area! It is going to be sad to have the season end in a few weeks because they are really beginning to play really well and play really well together as a team.

Right after the game, Grandma and Papa Jeffries took the boys so that Jenny and I could go to an area church planters meeting. It was a Groundhog Day party!! Any excuse to get together with church planters and eat. Jerry Fields, the state Church Planting Director for MO Baptist Convention spoke and had a good time of Q & A. I really respect Jerry for staying in there for us planters in the midst of some very trying days in MBC Church Planting. Needless to say, planting has really changed in the 6 years since we started the process. Honestly, I really feel like a wily veteran as many of the people we went through basic training with and started planting with aren’t doing it anymore. That has always been a passion of mine–that we need to create networks for planters so as to minimize burnout. Met some folks from Extend Global, a great missions organization based right here in Springfield.

Then, finally, I decided to take the boys to the MSU Bears basketball game to give Jenny a break and some peace and quiet.? They just couldn’t seem to get over the hump and close out the game.? They ended up loosing by one point after not being able to score on several attempts and putbacks in the final seconds.? They also missed several free throws down the stretch that would have put the game away.? We had a good time–Tucker loved to wave at Boomer and eating popcorn, Taylor of course loves basketball, and I just love hanging out with them.

Sunday was extremely busy as well with KidStuf and the Super Bowl.? KidStuf was awesome and the technical things went really smoothly.? The message was on kindness and our cast does such a great job–dancers, singers, actors, and hosts. . . all were awesome!!? How ’bout them G-men?? I always like to root for the underdog unless I have a dog in the fight, so it was great to see such an upset.

Just now getting around to posting such a crazy weekend!!? Maybe we need to slow down.? No, we definitely need to slow down.? Ever felt like you life is moving at the speed of light??? Why do we let it happen that way??? Crazy indeed!!

Why we do what we do!

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We had our 5th annual Harvest Blowout banner-07-web.jpgon Saturday.? It was really great . . . but not for the reasons most people would say it was great.? We didn’t have near the crowd of people there that we have had in years past.? We had WAY too much food left over.? We had less people come to church on Sunday than the week before.? All of those things can really bum you out–if you were strictly evaluating an event by just numbers and things you can measure.? But we HAVE to evaluate everything we do by numbers AND intangible ways as well.

One of our teenagers was so excited to help at Blowout.? You know why?? Because he came to our church for the first time last year at Harvest Blowout.? His mom works with one of our members and was invited with an invite card (like these for KidStuf.) invite-cards.jpg The mom has yet to attend any services that I know of, but this student and his older sister got plugged into our church.? He went to camp with us this summer, volunteers in the cafe most Sundays he is here, and is really growing!? It is awesome to get confirmation from the Lord that He is really doing something in people’s lives–something that we often don’t get to see, much less can we quantify it or put a statistic on it.

Just one more reason why we do what we do here at CFC–Life Change.? We want people to come to an event like Blowout and realize that church can actually be fun and come back for a regular service or for another fun event like our monthly KidStuf.? Then they start to get plugged into small groups and service and God begins to change their heart.? Then they begin the process over again and invest in people’s lives that they have influence with and invite them to CFC to experience the same amazing God that they experience!

Just thought I would share with you the GREAT THINGS going on in my life.? Especially after the last post.? With a post like that, sometimes people think they need to keep me away from sharp objects!!

God has done some AMAZING THINGS the past week and a half that I HAVE TO SHARE!? More on that next time!!