You Can Know God

Church Planters Practicum

I just signed up our team for the Church Planters Best-Practices Practicum that will happen at Mountain Lake Church October 22-23.  I've had the opportunity to learn a lot of good stuff from Shawn and David, and we learn a lot of things from Mountain Lake's example.  It looks like developing leaders, clarifying the vision, money, teamwork and discipleship are on the agenda.

If you're a church planter, you should check it out.  I bet it would help you.  Me and two other guys from our team will be there.

Ridgestone Church & Gary Lamb

Gary Lamb is announcing a cool thing at church tomorrow.   Gary and Ridgestone Church have been a great help to us as we got started, and we share a lot of the same things:

• Westridge Church helped us both get started.  I think that makes our churches sisters.


• We both meet in Carmike movie theaters.


• Our churches are most contemporary things in our respective towns.


• We both have a passion to do what it takes to reach unchurched people.


• Gary and I both own a lot of website domains.

Ridgestone is three years old, and we're just coming up on our first birthday, so it's been great to learn from them.  We would not be where we are without the leadership and advice from those who have gone before us.

Volunteers @ Oak Leaf

This past week, I taught about volunteering, using a little verse from Acts that says David served the purposes of God in his generation. That's what serving is all about - using your gifts, talents, likes, passions, etc. to serve the purposes of God.

The cool thing about Oak Leaf is that we don't have any huge holes that have to be filled. We don't have to prod someone to take over middle school boys because there's going to be a disaster otherwise. There's no pressing need because so many people are stepping up. We aren't going to have to shut anything down, so there's no guilt needed.

Rhetta, our Director of Volunteers, just told me that she got 25 new people to serve, and about 17 of them will be in place somwhere during the next two weeks. That is so cool! These people are serving the purposes of God, not just filling slots. They are making a kingdom difference. I think that people want to make a difference with their lives - they just don't want to serve on a sinking ship. When things are clicking, when stuff is working, when people's lives are bring changed, people want to join up with that. I'm so proud of all our volunteers - from the guy that picks up trash in the parking lot, to the lady that offered to bring breakfast to the setup crew, to the college students that helped lay down foam tiles. The volunteers at Oak Leaf Church are amazing!

Click here to see a recap video of the little Hoe Down that we threw for all these amazing volunteers.