Too Busy to Blog

Man has the week been crazy. Like Cliff said on his blog, this holiday off has thrown me off on my days. I've been running in high gear all week as I am trying to get ahead because we are going on vacation at the end of next week. I am excited about getting away for a week. We are heading down to Ft Myers Beach in Florida. Why Ft Myers? We've never been and we like going new places each year. We are going to tour the Everglades and probably drive down to Key West while we're there.

No worries about church as my friend Jason Patterson will be speaking for me on June 8th. Jason spoke back a couple of months ago and he brought it. Jason is going to be coming on board as a teaching pastor in the Fall, after the start up of our Travler's Rest Campus.

Sunday is baptism. We will have our normal schedule at both locations with baptism immediately following the service.

I've been hard at work with our calendar, there are tons of new things on the calendar at
StoneBridge , be sure to check it out and get plugged in.

Raise Your Hand

You remember when you were in school and if you had a question, the teacher told you to raise your hand. She would then come over to your desk and help you out. Today, I had to make a run to Best Buy for some stuff for church. I walked down about 15 ailses trying to find what I was looking for. Couldn't find it. Then, I went down aisle after aisle looking for an employee to help me out. I couldn't find one. they had the largest amount of stuff to offer anyone but no friendly faces to help me find what I was looking for. Desperate, I pulled a raise my hand. I literally was walking around Best Buy with my arm held high with a look of hey, I need some help. Still no one.

That made me think about the church, we can all the programs, bells and whistles but if we don't have anyone to help people find what it is their looking for then we have missed the mark. There may be people walking in our churches this weekend with their arm raised with questions. The questione becomes will we get outside ourselves and meet them where they are. Be on the lookout, someone searching may pass your way this week.

Memorial Day

I hope everyone took time to remember our veterens and those who have died for our freedom. I have watched about 6-7 hours of the History Channel International during the day as they had a ton of war history on today. I was a little disappointed that the regular history channel didn't have much military coverage. Right now I am watching "The Longest Day" on AMC.

Isaac had school today and Melissa and I joined him at school for ice cream sundaes they were having during lunch.

After Isaac got out of school at noon, Isaac and I went with Scott over to Pickens.

Isaac and I got home at about 3:00 p.m. and we played out in the yard for a couple of hours. I hung out with Melissa and Isaac for the rest of the evening because I've got different stuff to be at the rest of the week and I won't be home again at night until Friday night. Playing out in the yard with Isaac and Melissa is just plain fun.

I'm going to be in a picture on a gas station wall

Here's a Sunday recap...........

• Up at 5:45 a.m. to go over message once more before services today.
• 7:15 a.m. Roll out of the house to pick up our media guy for the trip to Anderson
• 8:00 a.m. at Anderson location. Discover that our Anderson Campus Pastor Dan has wrenched his back. What a pansy. (Just kiddin Dan but your daughter did say you were walking around acting like an old man. That was priceless. And she does a lot better job at at the Hospitality Table than you.)
• Service in Anderson went good. Had several first timers which is always good on a holiday weekend. Music was great.
  
• Rolled out of Anderson at 10:30 a.m. Pulled into Powdersville at 10:52 a.m. three minutes ahead of start time.
• Powdersville service good as well. Phillip filling in on the drums did great while Clay was out with knee surgery. Band did a great job.
  
• We gave away a 42 inch Plasma Tv to our very first high school graduate from Stone Bridge. Our trustees proceeded to drop it carrying out to the stage. It was broke before we gave it away but you can imagine everyones surprise when they thought that a new plasma just had been dropped. It was priceless.
• The response to the message was great and it challenged me.
  
• After church it was lunch with the Metcalfs at Los Amigos.
  
• After lunch, Tripp Metcalf took Scott Watson and myself to a private 17 acre pond in Antreville for some fishing.
• The most fish I have ever caught in one day had been three. I don't have fishing skills. As a matter of fact Scott and Tripp laughed when they saw me roll up with my deep sea fishing rod to go bass fishing.
• Scott let me borrow a rod or three.
• 5 Minutes into our fishing expedition, I had caught 3 largemouth bass already.
• Needless to say I shattered my previous record with 26 Large mouth bass and 1 ginormous Brim that was as large as my hand.
• All told we caught 100 fish with 71 keepers.
• It was one of those moments that you see on the wall of a gas station. You know the picture of the guys with a stringer full of fish. That was me tonight.
• A big thanks to Tripp for taking us along.
• To close out the night as we were leaving Abbeville we had a black bear run out into the road in front of us.
• Tomorrow, I'm sleeping late. The church office is closed.
  

Isaac

Isaac is on the front page of the Nascar Foundation's website. Check it out here Isaac

Quick 5

1. Off today, fixed my mower this morning. Picked Isaac up at School at 11:30 a.m.

2. Isaac and I went to the Pickens Flea Market Shopping. He spent $3 on Nascar race cars. We stopped by Norris Ford so he could get some popcorn and said hey to Ryan and David. Which reminds me, I think David has sent another "You Asked" question. I'll answer it in a few days.

3. Stopped by Lowes and picked up two free Kobalt Knives that I got coupons for at the race on Saturday. Free knives are always cool. Especially free name brand knives.

4. Came home , cut grass, organized the garage, took my shirt off and just sat shirtless in the back yard for a while and watched Isaac play in the mud hole he is creating in the back yard. Back yards are so much fun. Front yards are so formal but back yards are for sitting shirtless watching your kid play in the mud. Say that ten times fast. Nevermind don't because I don't want to be responsible for you saying a bad word.

5. Worked on a go kart, bypassing the governor on it and I have created a monster. It is scary fast. I normally am a full speed guy on the back yard track but this one has some serious power on the back yard track. It may be going 40 MPH in my back yard which is insanely fast for my back yard considering it is about the size of our auditorium at church. Up to this point the other carts go about 30-35, which is fast. This one is bad fast. I've got a grader coming to look at the possibility of banking the track for me. He's going to come see if it's feesible this Monday.

6. Tonight was a meeting with our Student Ministry volunteers. We got all the organization set up and everything went well with that. Tomorrow, I'm locked away in my office with message prep trying to get ahead because I'm going to be on vacation in Ft Myers Beach in a couple of weeks. Lunch with Mark and then rest of the day writing messages.

My Day

1. Got to the office at 7:45 a.m.
2. Jumped into Sunday evaluation at about 8:15 a.m.
3. 8:30-9:15 a.m. Phone calls to different people about upcoming church plans and evaluation of Sunday
4. 9:15 a.m. met with Silver
5. 9:30-10:30 a.m. Met with Silver and Derrick about upcoming stuff.
6. 10:45- 12:30 a.m. off to Greenville to pick up stuff for membership and lunch with Evan and Wil
7. 1:00 p.m.- Creativity and Message Prep with Evan and Derrick
8. 3:00 p.m.-Message Prep
9. 4:00 p.m. - Meeting with Jeff about media stuff
10. 5:00 p.m.-off to Anderson Best Buy for some computer stuff for church.
11. 6:45 p.m.- Membership Class in Anderson- Several new Stoners made it official. They learned the secret handshake and memorized the secret passwords. They all received their secret decoder ring after the membership class was over.
12. 9:00 p.m.- Met with my idol DeWayne Brown in the parking lot of Golf USA about some Stone Bridge community stuff that we will be doing. Golf USA is great for all of your golfing needs.(He didn't pay me to put this in here, but he does head up taking up the offering in Anderson so I decided to be nice to him)
13. 10:30 p.m. Walked in the door and wrote this stupid blog so that all of you would feel sorry for me about how long of a day it's been. I can feel the enormous amounts of sympathy that are emanating all across the blog world as I type. Oh well I'm tired.

Rock Star

Isaac was a Rock Star today. He was interviewed for Speed TV, Nascar.com, and was live on Sirius Satellite Radio. Isaac appeared with Casey Mears on behalf of the Hendrick Marrow Foundation. He did an awesome job. We saw several drivers who also were being interviewed while Isaac was in there, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, and Clint Bowyer. A special thanks to Courtney, Pam, Trish from the Jeff Gordon Foundation, the guys at Hendrick Aviation, and Casey Mears. After the interviews we went back over to the Race Shop where Isaac met up with Caleb Hurd(Jeff Gordon's crewmen) and Trish took Isaac in the back and hooked him up with a couple of bags of Gordon Memorabilia. After that it was lunch with Courtney and Pam from the Hendrick Marrow Program. We got back and then it was off to Hendrick Aviation for a ride in Rick Hendrick's Helicopter. The pilots had just dropped Dale Earnhardt Jr. off at the track and then they came back and we went for a ride. They took us for a few laps above the track and it was awesome. Isaac was nervous at first but quickly decided that Helicopters are now his new favorite form of transportation. We will be back up there for the race tomorrow after Melissa and I meet for a 4 hour interview with the church multiplication group.

Isaac and Casey Mears posing for publicity photos for the Nascar Foundation.


Isaac being interviewed for Speed Television with Casey Mears and Rikki Rachmann.


Isaac being interviewed on Sirius Satellite with Chocolate Meyers, Steve Post, and Casey Mears


Isaac and Casey Mears


Isaac with his buddies Courtney and Caleb Hurd. Caleb won the gas man competition last night and picked up a smooth 10 grand for a record breaking stop of 18 gallons of fuel in 10 seconds.

Isaac with our pilots of Mr. Hendrick's Helicopter.

Isaac seated and ready for takeoff.

The view from the helicopter above Lowe's Motor Speedway.

Isaac

Isaac should be on Nascar.com, Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 128 and Speed Channel. His appearance with Casey Mears is from 11:45 a.m.- 12:15 p.m. We have no idea if it will be live or taped. He is pretty excited. They are going to be asking him a few questions about school, his Christmas Toy Drive, and bone marrow transplant.

Stop What You're Doing

When you read this today, stop what you're doing for just a moment and pray that lives would be changed Sunday. Seriously, stop right this second and pray. Then pray that God would show you who you need to invite this week. Then get off the internet and invite them. I am excited about this coming weekend and the lives we will see changed. Who will you bring that you know needs their life changed? Get them here whatever it takes. See you Sunday.

What does a pastor do on his day off?

Some people have asked before, what does a pastor do on his day off. Some pastors meet with other pastors. That's no fun because most pastors are boring. Some play golf. No fun either chasing a white ball in a battery powered golf cart. Some read on their day off. Way not fun.

So what do I do? Sometimes I ride go karts. Sometimes Isaac and I just ride around. Today though, I took up a new hobby. That new hobby is called metal art. It's making art out of junk laying around my garage using my welder. I enjoy creating and making things. Today I took apart a lawn mower that my father in law had given me and made it into an air guitar superstar.

I'm currently in the process of trying to name it. I was thinking I could name him after one of our worship pastors. Names like Metal Sexton, Welden Silver, Justin............ never mind, who am I kidding, Justin plays acoustic and my guitar man art statue is playing a gas powered custom Les Paul Briggs and Strattoncaster. No need for a Kapo on this bad boy Evan. Everyone is invited to the gallery showing at my office.

Here are some pics of 6 hours worth of fun in the garage. The last picture is guitar man standing next to his younger sister. She still runs so no art for her yet.

My Singing Debut

Here is what happens when people actually think I would sing in church. Sorry the audio is not the best. The Canon XL2 was in the shop for repairs so Jeff shot this on his camcorder for us.

Isaac Goes Hollywood

This Friday, Isaac has been asked to appear with Casey Mears (the driver of the number 5 Kellogg's Nascar) at the Nascar Foundation's Nascar day in Charlotte,NC. Casey and Isaac will be there representing the Hendrick Marrow Foundation to promote bone marrow research and awareness. Nascar day is a way that the racing community gives back to many charities. Hendrick Marrow Program is one of those charities.

Isaac and Casey will be interviewed by Nascar.com (a site which is read by millions of racing fans daily), then interviewed on Sirius Satellite Channel 128 on a show hosted by Steve Post and Chocolate Meyers(former crew member of Dale Earnhardt) and finally they will be interviewed by the Speed Channel for television. Isaac is jacked up about meeting Casey Mears and a little bit nervous about all of the interview stuff. We're not sure if it will be live or tape delayed or when it will be on the internet, radio, and tv. According to the itinerary, we will be there at 11:45 a.m..

On Saturday, the Hendrick Marrow Foundation has hooked Isaac, Melissa, and I up with tickets to the All Star race.

I'll post more and I'll post some pcis next week.

Monday and Some Big News

Today was full speed. It started with my first official staff meeting with more than just me present. Evan, Derrick and I broke down the service and the ministries within the church. This was an awesome meeting and was good to have gotten to this point to be able to evaluate and plan. It's interesting being the only staff member at the start of a church because when you first start a staff meeting consists of you meeting with yourself. It was good having someone else to talk to other than myself. I talk to myself way too much as it is already.

I left that meeting and then met some more with Mark over a Sun. Mark does an awesome job leading worship at Stone Bridge. If you are living in Anderson, Mark is the goofy looking guy you will stage on Sunday mornings, or it could be Randy or Josh, or Will or Dano or it could be me. Never mind, we're all goofy looking. Anyway, I left that meeting and heading back to Powdersville and met up with Justin and Derrick for lunch.

At 2:00 p.m., we had creativity meeting with Derrick, Evan, and Justin. In about two hours we put together the framework for an upcoming message and looked ahead to some other upcoming message stuff as well. This really helps to bounce ideas off of others.

4:00 p.m. finished up a sweet looking new bulletin with the input of Evan and then headed off to Alpha Printing to drop it off.

4:30 p.m. met up with Erin Brown our children's ministry coordinator and put together a game plan for upcoming volunteer stuff. Our children's minsitry peoples are awesome. Keep up the good work.

5:45 p.m. finished up that meeting and then headed to Greenville with the Watsons to check out the Hard Hat Party that Jason Patterson and Real Life ministries were having in Downtown Greenville. Stone Bridge is partnering with Real Life to impact college and young adults in Greenville. These guys are going to do some awesome things.

After we finished up there we headed to the Mellow Mushroom for Pizza.

I just walked in the door at 9:30 p.m. I have some huge news that I will announce tomorrow regarding Isaac. It is awesome and you'll have to wait until tomorrow because I'm slap tired.

Mother's Day Update

Yesterday was a struggle so I knew today was going to be awesome. It seems like everytime something big is going to happen in the life of the church, the day before always is tough.

Services today were great. We had our second highest attendance ever. Music was great. Mark had a new player on lead guitar in Anderson and he did an awesome job. Evan Silver led worship in Powdersvile and did an awesome job. Justin was our roving musician for the day as he traveled with me and played at both campuses. Today really highlighted our diversity and team work in the music area. Both bands did great.

There was a rumor that I may make my singing debut at church today and I did. Justin and I wrote a song especially for Mother's Day and we performed it live for both locations. I am not a music afficianado but I do believe that the song went over very well. People were shocked that I would actually sing. I fought hard to dispell the notion that I am a one trick pony. I have added song writing and singing to my repretoire. I hope to have the song up on youtube in the next couple of weeks.

I'm tired, it has been a long day but an awesome day. Remember to invite your friends next week as we continue in the Series Speed of Life and we look at Crash.

Prayers Appreciated

If you get a chance please remember the church in your prayers today. I ask for prayer for myself as well. I am anticpating an exciting day at Stone Bridge tomorrow and when that happens, satan isn't a happy camper. Today has been crazy so I know some awesome things are going to take place tomorrow. Specifically, pray that I could focus on the message this afternoon(which I am struggling with doing as of right now) and that there will be an awesome spirit in the life of the church tomorrow. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow and maybe we'll squash that me singing rumor once and for all. Oh yeah, bring your mom.

How do rumors get started?

Well, it's happened again. Rumors are floating around and quite frankly I don't know where crap like this get's started. The latest rumor is that I will be singing in church on Sunday Morning. Is it rumor or is it truth? I guess you'll have to be at church Sunday morning to find out. Oh yeah, and bring your mom.

Sold Out and a Miserable Existence

Sold out! I usually am off work on Thursday but this week is too busy on Thursday so I took today off. This morning, Silver(that's his stage name kind of like Black Jack Mulligan was a stage name for a old school wrestler back at Greenville Memorial Auditorium. Evan is not a Wrestler though but a musician. Although his dad Ford Silver could be a wrestler because he looks just like Goldberg. I don't mess with Ford because he is ripped and would kick my butt if I called him names or something like Chevy Gold.).

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Evan and I left for the Picken's Flea Market at 6:00 a.m. We arrived at 6:30 a.m. and it was packed. We couldn't find a open table so we found a nice grassy knoll and proceeded to drop all of my junk on the grass. Evan had some nice merchandise like a PSP and DVDs to sell. The customers started coming quick and often. I had set a goal to pocket $200 off my Jeep full of junk. By 8:15 a.m. I had made $80. A guy walked up that looked interested in what I was selling. I told him I would sell it all for $200. He thought for a minute and said I'll give you $150 and that mister bought himself a Jeep full of junk. By 8:30 I was completely sold out and had came in at $30 above my goal. So guess what Melissa got for Mother's Day? A $200 shopping spree. I kept $30 for me to eat bolied peanuts and lunch and stuff on. Evan hauled in the big bucks. He made $12. Not quite enough to get him the goat he was wanting to take home.

The earliest I had ever sold out before was 10:30 a.m. at the White Horse Road flea market. The key to selling out is not selling individual items. I sell a box of crap at a time. You salt the box. Put one or two nice things in a box full of junk and it makes people feel better about wasting their money on your junk. If you can make people feel good about paying you good money for your junk then you have done a great service to humanity.

This afternoon I was sitting in the back yard with Melissa and Isaac and all of the sudden we heard a noise like a machine gun echoing near our house. I looked up and a wood pecker had confused our gutter on the garage for a tree. I thought for a minute, you know a woodpecker has a miserable existence. All day long smashing his head against a tree. I wonder if that hurts? I'm glad I'm not a woodpecker. I guess after you have been beating your face against a tree it would be easy to confuse a gutter for a tree.

Tomorrow, meeting with pastors in the morning in Greenville. Tomorrow afternoon working in the office.

Quick Update

1. I am taking tomorrow off. Wednesday has been my day off as of late. Silver and I are going to the flea market in the morning at 6:00 a.m. to sell our wares.(errr get rid of some junk and hopefully turn it into wads of cash). I'm sure there will be stories to tell. This is Evan's first trip to the Picken's Flea Market. I'm just amazed that a Rock Star would get up at 6:00 a.m..

2. Today was busy and good. Started out with message prep. Mid morning met with newspaper people for interview about our multiple campus concept. Met with Derrick D about plugging in. Spent the afternoon working on message stuff.

3. Speaking of message stuff, Sunday is Mother's Day and of course ours will probably be unconventional. there is a rumor that someone has found a video of me singing at our wedding. Could be a rumor, it could be true. You'll have to be there to find out and bring your mom.

4. Isaac likes playing in the mud. He can mud up the whole back yard for all I care. It makes me smile seeing him have fun in the mud. Mud is a kid's best friend and it's free.

5. It's good to be friends with the ice cream man. He delivered me a case of Lemon Chills to the office the other day. These are the kind you can't find in grocery stores. I have the ice cream hook up and my belly smiles because of it.

6. I'm going now because one of my Lemon Chills is getting Lemon Lukearm..................

Return to the Land of Blog and Sunday Recap

I did an experiment this week. A week without blogging and reading blogs. I tried this experiment after I noticed that 90% of the blog hits out of the couple of hundred each day were happening in the hours of 9-5. Which meant most people were reading the blog during work time. Then I did some inward examination and determined that I was one of those people that read some blogs during work hours. It is amazing the difference that 15-20 minutes each day makes in the productivity of that day. So I made a work free blog free commitment. I may check or write blogs in the evening but not during the day.

Having said that, I make my return to the Land of Blog. Please, if you have blog reading addiction, please leave this blog now. Like the bar tender cutting the obviuosly drunk guy off at 12 beers, I am cutting you off. Stop reading. For those of you who blog read in moderation, please continue on.

Today was an exciting day at Stone Bridge. As a matter of fact, today may have been our best all around services at both locations ever. There was as much excitement as the first day we launched the church. Truly amazing. I was really encouraged by all that took place today. God was at work today and that is always awesome to see.

The bands(both Anderson and Powdersville) really stepped up their game to another level today. I had issued a challenge to Justin and Mark and challenged them each to take each band to the next level and man did they respond. The bands were full of energy and fully engaged in leading the congregation in worship.

Evan did a great job with our set redesign in Powdersvile. He made use of exisiting stuff that we already had and it created a great environment. We are going to be doing some set design stuff in Anderson in the next couple of months but our first priority there has been getting a flow of set up and making sure we get the basics down pat first and then moving forward.

We had around 25 people show up for meeting for our youth ministry. These are all people who are wanting to be a part and get plugged in to volunteering and taking our student ministry to the next level.

Other highlights from the day....
Both bands rocked out Life is a Highway.

During my message, I made fun of people who Twitter.. Seriously, you are not that important. No one cares that 3 minutes ago you were eating BBQ chips while talking to Angelo on the phone.

In Powdersville, I did something today that I haven't done in 15 years of ministry. I fell off the stage. I caught myself and didn't hit the ground. I finished out the service at ground level so as not to repeat the fall. Right about the time I fell, I thought to myself, man I'm glad we weren't still in the Wren auditorium because that would have been like a four foot fall or something.

Finally, I spent the evening with Melissa and Isaac at the skating rink for a birthday party. This was monumental because this was Isaac's first public birthday party he has been able to attend since he was 4. He didn't skate, I didn't blame him because there were too many people hitting the floor. It looked painful. Being there with them was fun just watching him have fun.