that post

John 13:34-35 (The Message)

34-35“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”

I heard a story once of a speaker who got behind the pulpit on Sunday morning. He took a sip of water, gripped the pulpit with both hands, took a deep breath, and began his sermon.

“Love one another,” he said.

And he walked out from behind the pulpit, down the stairs, and sat on the front row. You could hear a pin drop in the sanctuary. Tension mounted. Minutes passed. No one moved.

He got up and resumed his post behind the pulpit. He scanned the crowd and said again, “Love one another.” Again, he walked off the stage, and sat on the front row. People started to rustle. No one said a word.

For the third time, he got up and stood on stage, and looked at his congregation. And in a soft, almost pleading voice, he said, “Love one another.” He watched. No one moved.

And then, one woman leaned over to a lady next to her and whispered, “How are you, really? Is there anything I can do for you? You’ve been on my heart.” Someone saw it, and turned around to the person behind them and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you? Isn’t your wife sick this week? How are the kids?”

The crowd began to catch on, and soon the room was buzzing with chatter. Relationships.

Love one another.

I’m not so sure the Church has this down yet. I’m not so sure Christians understand what love is. At all.
I haven’t campaigned at all this election. I haven’t said a word about it. ‘Cause to me, it’s just details.

I’m campaigning for a change of heart. A change of mind. A revolution in Christianity.

I can get behind that.

Love one another.

i made lists last night.

You know it’s getting stressful when it turns from my list to my list(s).

I really like lists.

In fact, this is my notebook I carry around. It is full of lists.

It is almost out of paper, which terrifies me, because I often refer back to previous lists to figure out what was going on. What will I do when I have to get a new notebook?!

Also, I have a ‘don’t forget’ list on my iCal.

Also, I have a word document to do list on my desktop, for things at home.

Also, during a meeting this morning, I wrote myself a reminder to make a “stop-doing list.”

Lucky for me, I have a ton of help with my lists. You guys, and you know who you are, you people that I have the joy of seeing each week, or e-mailing every day about stuff on your mind; you people who call me out when I get lazy and tell me things aren’t right; you people who call and encourage me when something goes wrong; you people who call me and tell me your hurts and let me pray with you; you people who recklessly love God and want to serve His church: thank you. I am humbled to serve with you.

now i can cross one more thing off: thank the people who make me, me.

help me re-think something…

In a meeting this week, I randomly walked up to the white board and wrote myself a note:

Re-think visitor bags.

We can do better. That is a whole other post for a whole other day actually. But I really am bothered by the visitor bags. I’m not even going to tell you what’s in them, because it doesn’t matter. Which is why we’re going to fix it. I want you to tell me what you’d put in them. Let me tell you about some of the stuff we had in our bags at Catalyst:

• a pack of travel sized tissues
• a pack of gum
• a tube of chapstick (they won my heart with that one)
• a pen
• some promotional materials that I did not read
• floam

eventually-though not in the bag- we also ended up with:

• a ping pong ball
• a rocket
• a pair of white gloves
• a white balloon

So get your creative juices flowing guys. If you could put anything, ANYTHING, in a bag for the visitors to your church, your company, your house, whatever, what would it be? Why would you put it in there, and what would each thing represent?

How does a Million Bucks sound?

That’s what my McDonald’s cup says.

Yes, folks, it’s that time of year again. Bust out your ever-declining dollar to buy some food that will kill you before you make it back out to your car for a chance to win Monopoly at McDonald’s.

I have never heard of anyone winning this. It bugs me, because someone probably won it, but McDonald’s didn’t do a good job of telling us.

Same thing at a conference I was at last weekend.

They told everyone that they had 2000 t-shirts to give away, and that for everyone that wore that t-shirt on the second day of the conference, they had a chance to win ipods, apple computers, etc. People RAN to get those t-shirts: mostly me and Gabe. In the wrong direction, all around the Gwinnett Center.

Anyway, we never heard of anyone winning the products. We never saw anyone win, and nothing was announced from the stage.

McDonalds failed to celebrate the win.
The conference failed to celebrate the win.

At RidgePoint, we try to celebrate a win every Sunday. Because if we don’t do a good job communicating them to you, how will you know about the successes? The little, every day choices people are making that make the angels in heaven stand up and do the wave and cheer!

And we want you to be able to stand up and cheer and do the wave too. Because we are seeing life change here. And here. And here, too.

So don’t forget to let us know when you win. Send us an e-mail, come by and let us know.

We can’t give you a million bucks*…

but we will cheer with you.

*but, if you do the wave at church this Sunday i might be able to swing a dollar or two.

Catalyst- Day 1

Hey all. Catalyst was off the chain. OFF THE FREAKIN’ CHAIN.

We got there and it was still dark outside, OK? It was EARLY. And RAINING. My hair was a MESS!

Like you care about my hair.

Anyhow.

We were walking from the parking lot toward the entrance and we saw this stretch hummer come by…and then it stopped. And invited us in. And that, my friends, is how our Catalyst experience began. We got dropped off by the front doors in a stretch hummer.

We were shown into a tent, where they were giving out gift bags (w/ tissues, gum, chapstick, etc.) and pancakes! FREE PANCAKES! There was also a sick jazz band playing. The atmosphere was incredible.

Once we got inside, they had 5 DJ’s spinning at 1 time. The theme is “together” this year, so almost everything was done as a team. The speakers were absolutely incredible.

I am going to give you a quick summary w/ big ideas from each speaker and a brief explanation.

Andy (Freakin’) Stanley: The confidence people have in me depends on the Alignment between creed and deed (what I say and do). He calls that your “moral authority.” In other words, discrepancy between what you say and do makes you lose influence.

Jim Collins: I can’t narrow this down to just one thing.

• Greatness is not a function of circumstance, it is a function of conscious choice
• An undisciplined push for more is hubris, it is over reaching, and it will derail your flywheel
• There isn’t a “what” strategy for things you can’t predict– but there is a “who” strategy
• Level 5 Leaders have the signature characteristic of humility
• Make a to do list and a “stop doing” list
• Don’t confuse values and practices: “Each generation needs to create its own practices to passionately exemplify the eternal values that pass through all generations.”
• Don’t spend 5 years getting 2 years experience
• Greatness is not a function of success, but of choices no one can see
• Good intentions are no excuse for incompetence

Steven Furtick: Between the prayer and the promise is the process. Just because you can’t see the promise being fulfilled, don’t give up! Between God revealing His will to you and the promise being fulfilled, there is always a process. STICK WITH IT. God will complete the good works he began. God is preparing you for what He’s preparing for you.

Brenda Salter McNeil: To get from here to there, God will shake things up (Acts 1:8, Acts 2)

Seth Godin: People want to know the answers to 2 questions: 1) Who else is going to be there?, and 2) Who’s going to lead us? We are all a part of a tribe. No one is seeking a safe leader.

Then, from a freaking COMMERCIAL, we get this big idea: Justice is what love looks like in public.

Craig Groeschel: Drastic is the answer. Little tweaks don’t work or you would’ve fixed it already! Pray 3 prayers: God stretch me, God heal me, God ruin me. Pray those three prayers to get the “it” factor back in your life.  THERE IS MORE IN YOU. Don’t give up. When you think you are done, there is more in you.

THAT IS ONE STINKING DAY OF AWESOMENESS RIGHT THERE BLOG PEOPLE.

My head hurts.

Goodnight.

I am so tired I did not spell check this, so don’t judge me.

‘Night.

Well, we made it.

It was kind of a tough trip. It took a little longer than expected.

We had a detour, because one of the cars broke down on I-285. We all piled into vehicles and sent one back to collect the people from the broke down car, and it turns out they didn’t need us anyway ’cause they figured it all out.

Then, we got to the hotel, only to find out we’ve been “moved 2 exits down to a sister hotel, we were over-booked, sorry!” Sheesh. 9 hours in a car, and that is not what you want to hear.

Then we all made it to the hotel, went to dinner, had a blast, and now we’re chilling.

We will get up at the butt crack of dawn to be at Catalyst on time. Meeting in the parking lot at 6:10. AM. AM! Yes. I can do it. I took a shower tonight so I will be ready.

Anyway, that’s day 1! Can’t wait for tomorrow…

Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I will:

• be up before 5:30 AM
• Get sick several times
• drink coffee, that will make me more sick
• sit in the car and warm up my voice, by myself
• get to RPC by 7:15 AM
• wait and wait and wait
• fix inevitable last minute stuff
• wait some more
• do a run through with the band around 8:00 AM
• get sick another time
• check my hair and say a prayer (hey, i’m a poet and i didn’t know it)
• lead worship
• worry about my workers, even though they don’t need me at all.
• get feedback at a post production meeting
• check my hair and say another prayer
• lead worship again (hopefully even better than the first time)
• sit with my husband and listen to week 1 of merge
• come home and pass out.

It’s just another manic Sunday.

Sunday REwind

This was an awesome weekend at RPC. Attendance was fantastic for the holiday weekend, and things were hot, hot, hot!

• I wasn’t in the booth this morning. My team handled everything, which makes me feel pretty good.
• I got to watch our worship leader worship. But he wasn’t on stage. Justin was able to sit in the audience, watch his band handle things, and he got to worship himself, with his wife. I was so happy for him. I know that feeling, and it is a good one.
• The females DOMINATED the service today. Emma led worship w/ Naomi backing her up, and they sounded awesome together. Emma brought it, enough said. She has an incredible voice, and she quoted from Psalm 57 before singing ‘Faithful’…she had a lot of cool stuff to say. Meanwhile, team Emily (Me and Emily Grice) were getting ready upstairs, ’cause I was baptizing her. I got to baptize my roommate from college today. This was my first baptism, and let me tell you something, besides marrying Mike, that is the best, most meaningful thing I’ve ever done in my life.
• Michael Mathews added the testosterone for the morning. He spoke and he did a really great job. He was funny, he used a prop (a toy, of course), and I can remember his big idea (If you want God’s best, you have to do it God’s way!), so WIN WIN WIN. He is so awesome.

That’s it I think. This week I’ve got a set change on my plate, so be on the look out for a Creative Chaos post somewhere this week.

Enjoy your holiday tomorrow!

Auburndale High School BBQ

If you’ve been at RPC in the past few weeks you’ve heard us mention this event:

The Bloodhound BBQ Kickoff Classic

Details:

Friday, September 12th
Noon-???
@Auburndale High School
It’s the first home game for Auburndale High
We’re cooking out for the teachers and their families (that’s around 500 people if you’re counting!)

What you can do:

• Bake a pan of brownies or some cookies and drop them off here at RidgePoint on Thursday, September 11th.
• Donate money for us to provide the food and side dishes.
• Sign up to work the event at the high school (e-mail Susan to do that).
• Pray for the teachers!

If you have questions about this event, you can call the church office at 863-293-9020.

You don’t get to decide what people reap.

Here’s my big lesson for this week: I don’t get to decide what people reap.

I know that’s weird…but you know the old saying, “You reap what you sow.” Yeah, that’s from the Bible or something.

Anyway, I think we as humans have a tendency to assume that we get to decide what people reap. If a co-worker is rude to you, you get to “conveniently forget” to give them an important message, so they miss making a sale. Or if your spouse sucks at hitting the alarm clock, you decide to not wake them up that morning. So what if they’re late? They deserve it right?

Wrong.

You do not get to decide what people reap.

Your responsibility is to invest in them and serve them. Period.

I hope this wrecks you like it did me.

HAVE A NICE WEEK