Experts Expertise

Another chapter in the book I've been reading. "Don't hire a dog and then bark yourself". Delegation is about trusting the experts expertise. Part of delegation means the person doing the job must be doing the job. They must fulfill their end of the bargain. You get what you inspect not what you expect.

I hope this helps. It's been good for me.

Wiped Out but Encouraged

I'm about to crash. It's been a long day. I didn't sleep last night. Gastritis. I am wiped out.

I was encouraged a ton today. There are some folks that just lift you up a notch after talking with them a bit. I've been fortunate to have had several of these type conversations in the last 24 hours.

Yesterday evening, Eddie from Marathon stopped by and we had some great conversations. There are some things that only another pastor can understand. He offered up some good encouragement.

Then today Art from over at Connection Fellowship stopped by and we had some good conversation. Then as Art was leaving, Mike from over at Oak Pointe church came up for a meeting we had scheduled. We talked a ton about church and I was really encouraged by what all we talked and prayed about.

I like being around people like this and it was really cool to see other pastors coming together and praying for each other. Especially considering our churches are all within 15 minutes of each other. A lot of times churches get territorial and rather than encouraging and praying for each other's success they will pray for their failure so that they can enlarge their personal kingdom rather than enlarging God's kingdom.

Tonight I hung around while our Student Ministry was going on. I was encouraged by the energy and effort our guys were putting forth. (Putting forth sounds so Olde Englishe but it was the only words I could think of) The students were jacked up like they had all drank energy drinks. They finished up their series Fear Factor. All of their Bible studies have been based on fears we have. They have been doing some games with it too. Tonight one of the students puked in the main auditorium floor right at the front of the stage. My conclusion was that it must have been an awesome game.

After church I headed to Best Buy at about 8:30 p.m. to pick up Melissa's computer from the Geek Squad. They were formatting it or something.

Prayers

Been praying through a ton of stuff. I appreciate your prayers. Got some meetings this week and ton rolling through this tiny brain of mine so prayers are always appreciated.

Great Book

I have been reading a book I have read before but each time I read it I learn more from it. The book is by Jeffrey J. Fox. It reminds me of reading Proverbs because it has a ton of hands on sayings and ideas. Each chapter has only a couple of pages so it is easy to pick and read a couple of quick pages when you get a chance. I read this chapter this morning entitled "The eagle does not go into the hole for the rat". The chapter talks about how eagles soar and sweep down to get a rat but would never go into a rat hole. On the other hand, snakes, ferrets and weasels would go there in a heartbeat. The point of his chapter is this, whenever someone attacks you personally, gossips about you behind your back, or says nasty stuff about you in an email etc. etc. Always remember to soar and you'll come out on top. You can go into the rat hole any time but you wouldn't be an eagle then would you. Maybe this helps someone.

PS I'm starting a new way I do some of my posts, I'm going to try and post little things like this every couple of days.

Not Sure If You Saw It

I'm not sure if you saw it or not last night but Extreme Home Makeover may have been the best show I have watched in years. Mainly because it brought floods of emotion and memories of all Isaac went through. Watching the 10 year old boy, Job on the show was a reminder of how thankful we are to still have Isaac around because for years the outlook wasn't that good. Things are going great now and we're thankful for that. Melissa and I sat and talked about it for about thirty minutes tonight after Isaac had went to bed. If you never have experienced any thing like this then there is no way to explain how much the kids or the parents go through. Last night as I watched that show for the first time I knew there was someone else who understands.

It is easy to be critical and question others but until you have walked in someone else's shoes then you have no clue what they are facing. Next time you start to be questioning or critical, stop and pray for that person because you may not even have a clue. I have been taking this to heart more lately. I have a friend who I was critical of but yet I had never actually stopped and asked, I wonder what they are facing right now. Once I was able to see what they were up against then a lot of what was happening made perfect sense. Just a random thought. Maybe it helps someone.

Today I swapped my normal day off for today in order to get the house ready to sell. Today I disassembled the train layout and Melissa and I cleaned out the train room. That room is huge once the train layout was removed. I believe this will expedite the sale of the house just with this added space. We have moved a ton of boxes of stuff we have packed up out to the garage.

I have already began selling stuff out of the garage on ebay so that we don't have to move it. Next on my list of sale items is going to be the go karts. I have seven go karts that I am selling. 5 are racing karts and 2 are yard karts. If you know anyone looking tp get into racing I will sell the racing karts for $3500 for all and will throw in tons of extra parts. Just one kart is worth almost $3000.

I Am Inspired

I haven't watched the show yet but I am inspired just by the previews for tonight. What show am I talking about? Extreme Home Makeover tonight features a child who hasn't been home in 6 years because of medical conditions. We were gone a year and a half but I can't imagine 6 years. Kids like this inspire me because of their will to live.

Have you got skills?

Have you got skills? We're going to be holding audtions for our music areas coming up soon. Evan and his team will be audtioning folks for different areas in our worship. We're looking for drummers, guitarist, keyboarders, cowbell, female vocals, and more. Let me know what you've got. I will post the date and time for audtions coming up soon. We are looking for engaging people to help in worship in the main service, youth service and our children's services as well.

Three Things I'm Praying For

1. Our son- Isaac is doing exceptionally well. My biggest prayer is that he will soon be healthy enough to have his central line removed. For those of you who don't know, he has a double line coming out of his chest for his meds. For his sake, I just want him to feel like he can play like a normal child. He has some limitations with this line and I know it has to weigh on him. He handles it far better than I could but I want him to experience total freedom.

2. Church- Praying for us to impact the area for Christ. Seeing a lot of new faces but still praying that more disconnected people get connected.

3. Our House to Sale.- It's been less than a week on the market and we have two people that have the house on their short list. It would be awesome if one would make an offfer in the next few days that way we could move forward with everything. We've found a house in foreclosure and I'm all about saving money on house payments each month.

Waiting

Waiting isn't fun sometimes. We are currently waiting to hear back from a couple of different people that looked at the house in the last few days. There has been a lot of interest and it has shown three times in just 4 days. We are supposed to hear something today if any of the couples are going to make an offer. That would be awesome but we'll have to wait and see.

Cute Little Fat Baby

Tonight we went to IHOP for some waffles. While we're sitting there the waitress walks another family to the booth behind us. She looks at the people's baby and says " that's a cute little fat baby you have". The dad says "did she just say our baby was fat". She sure did. I thought we were going to see some Jerry Springer fight action going on. The episode could be labeled "Cute fat little babies and the IHOP waitress who scars them for life". Oh well, you can't fix stupid.

Cautiously Optimistic

The painting is finished at the house after a couple of fast paced evenings of getting the house ready to show. Everything is in good shape. The house officially went on the market yesterday and tomorrow we have a showing. We are cautiously optimistic because our house is in the price range and location of this prospective buyer. We are praying that the house will sell quickly considering the economy we are in right now. I'll update you tomorrow night.

Our Student Ministry went well tonight with another record number of students. Each week students are bringing their friends which is awesome to see. Robbie, Chris and Ryan are doing a great job working with the students. This Sunday should be fun as we are talking about debt. Big props to Drewby, Tyler, Mona, and Cole(lending the Corvette) for a video on Sunday. Sunday will be real practical and really challenging as well.

What's in Your Hand?

How are you doing with what you've got? The three week challenge at StoneBridge is on. How is it coming along? How are you doing with what God has placed in your life?

To one he gave 5 talents, to one he gave 2 talents, to one he gave one talent. You are responsible for what he has given you. How are you doing with it?

One quick prayer request. My gastritis is back. My chest is hurting me something bad.

Isaac at Jeff Gordon Foundation and Hendrick Marrow Program Dinner

Is this for real?

A friend sent me this. Enjoy! Did the guy really say that God will zap you? The group's name is Sonseed.

Happy Birthday Times Duex

Today was a special day. My wife celebrated her 35th birthday today. Isaac and I surprised her with her birthday present yesterday. We didn't build her a cake or anything but we did hook her up with her very own Macbook. She deserved it. The past three years she didn't really get to celebrate her birthday because of Isaac being in the hospital and all. She was suprised and we made her some movies from Isaac and I wishing her happy birthday.

The birthday part deux was that of StoneBridge Church. One year ago this week we launched the church and today we celebrated one year. Today's service was awesome. The place was packed. Our kids area had our highest attendance ever and as a church we had our third highest attendance ever. Today we had our most first timers since our launch day last year. Lots of new faces and several new people getting plugged into our home groups.

Tyler and the guys did a great job with the music. We did pull one audible. We were going to launch t-shirts into the audience and then decided that with the audtiorium dark that we would probably end up hitting someone in the eye. So we passed on that one.

This week is exciting and crazy busy as well. Meetings most of the day tomorrow. Message Prep Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday we'll be in Charlotte for a banquet with Jeff Gordon and the folks at the Hendrick Marrow Foundation.

That's all I've got for now.

A Tornado

A tornado would best describe my week. Not all bad, but in many ways fast and furious. I haven't felt this much pressure in quite sometime. The good part is usually when the pressure is turned up like this that God is about to do something amazing.

I'm excited about Sunday. I've already heard of several people who are coming to StoneBridge for the first time Sunday on the one year anniversary of our church. I'm jacked up about that.

I can't wait until Wednesday either. Wednesday we are heading up to Charlotte where Isaac is going to meet Jeff Gordon and we are going to be a part of the Jeff Gordon Foundation and Hendrick Marrow Foundation dinner to raise money for the National Marrow Foundation.

Then the next Sunday we are going to do something pretty challenging and very exciting during the service. You must be there to find out.

Keep praying and inviting. Tomorrow is normally my day off but not much of a chance of that happening this week. I am going to sleep late but I still have a couple of more things to get done before Sunday.

Productive Day

Today was the most productive I've had in a few days. I got a lot accomplished and was able to think through a ton of stuff.

Remember to keep inviting people to StoneBridge for our one year anniversary. I have personally spoken with 10 people who will be attending StoneBridge for the first time this Sunday. There are people who will come if we are committed to invite. Sure some will say no but there are tons of people who would if they were simply asked.

I sat in on youth tonight and tonight was messy game night. The games were messy. The kids had a blast. We had parents gagging when their kids were getting in their cars.(If we can make parents gag because of how bad the kids stunk then we know we have done a good thing). Again, tonight we had several more new faces. It's been really cool seeing our kids inviting their friends. Beleieve it or not, our largest group of students is starting to be from Berea area. Who'd of thunk it? The cool thing is we're loking to launch a campus in TR and we are slowly adding kids from the Berea area which is only a couple of miles from TR.

Thanks for your prayers this past week. It has been greatly appreciated.