Kirk Bowman's blog

We have had an absolute blast with our Christmas at The Movies series. We decided to put our effort into all the Sundays of the Christmas season rather than go for one big event.

Our creative team did an amazing job. Costumed characters handing out bulletins, stage set up, movie clips. It was all fun. We showed the movie each night with free popcorn. Great family time.

We have received a huge positive response from our church on this series.

We had tons of new guests and 26 people prayed to respond to Jesus.

We covered:
• Elf- Everybody wants to belong
• The Grinch – Hurt people hurt people
• It’s a Wonderful Life – The power of one life
• A Christmas Story – What you want is not always what’s best for you

Here’s a few pics:

This week, we are wrapping up our Christmas For Kids program for 2008. It’s been amazing, once again.

Each year, we learn a little more and we are able to pull it off a little better.

First, huge kudos to Kathy Hawkins. She led the charge this year and did an astounding job of coordinating all the different aspects of CFK. Hundreds of volunteers flocked to her engaging leadership. Kathy Hawkins rocks!!


It was so cool to have so many new people, as well as many of our “old” faithfuls, totally engaged in this effort. Shopping, wrapping, delivering and connecting with people. Such a great team.

Our church is so hugely generous. I know we are supposed to be in a recession but our church family hit it out of the park once again this year. We sponsored 369 kids at $75 a kid. When it’s all said and done, at least $30,000 invested into blessing kids and families this year.

What really makes CFK so special is the many wonderful stories of individuals touched by CFK. Both those who gave and those who received. It's not just about a huge number. It's about each person and their story.

We are trusting God to use this labor of love to draw people to Him.

Way to go Rock Church!!

This past Friday was a milestone day for our family. My baby daughter, Elizabeth, turned 18 years old.

So hard to believe how fast the time has flown by.

Elizabeth is an amazing person. She is so smart, tons of fun and very “together”. She wakes up singing and is always pretty darn happy. She has a great fashion sense and is completely organized – always has been. No question to me, she will go far in life.

It’s been such a joy to be her dad. Suzette and I are so proud of her.

Happy birthday, Elizabeth!

This Sunday we are asking our church to make a 6 month pledge to our C2 (C2 – The Next Chapter) capital campaign. The original campaign was for 3 years. We are now entering our last 6 months of that 3 years.

Many of our guys made huge commitments to C2 that have not materialized for them. These are people who really had a plan and worked hard. But it’s a different economy now.

So we decided to give everyone a “year of jubilee” and have them reconsider what kind of pledge they could make for the last 6 months.

We wanted to take any guilt off of them for not keeping a pledge. We also want them to think clearly and pray about what they could do for the next 6 months.

The pastoral side of me doesn’t want to put undue pressure on anyone if they are struggling. The apostolic side of me knows we have to keep advancing the kingdom and reaching people for Christ.

No matter what is going on in the world around us – it’s still vital that God’s people stay full of faith and maintain a willingness to advance the cause.

Looking forward to Sunday

For the past few years, our church has generously given Christmas presents to kids who would not otherwise have any presents. We work with several local schools and helping agencies in locating kids in need. We also make sure everyone in our church family is looked after.

I’m so thrilled to say our church family has sponsored 378 kids so far this year for Christmas For Kids. At $75 per child - that is totally amazing!

We are wrapping up (pun intended) our efforts this weekend. 90 plus volunteers will descend on our church this Saturday for a Big Serve day to shop, wrap, call and deliver presents. If you’d like to get involved, with either giving or serving, please contact our church office this week.

So cool to be part of this amazing effort.

What an amazing day we had in church yesterday.

We kicked off our “Christmas at the Movies” series and it went over incredibly well. We looked at “Elf” and talked about “Everybody wants to belong”.

So many great creative elements. Guys dressed up like Elf and elves and papa elf - handing out bulletins, and candy, talking to kids. Amazing creative video. Then we showed the movie at 6 pm and hundreds of people came out – with their kids – and we had such a fun evening. Popcorn and all.

Usually the Sunday right after Thanksgiving is like ghost town in church but we were packed!

Tons of new people! They keep pouring in.

Hats off to our whole team for doing such an amazing job at making Sunday morning the best 100 minutes of the week.

Christmas at the Movies - promo from Rock Church on Vimeo.


Had a great weekend going down to Atlanta to minister at Tim & Andrea Skinner’s church – Church In Motion. Tim & Andrea used to be part of our leadership team at The Rock and are still a part of our family. They have been going about 6 months and are doing a fantastic job starting up a brand new church. Great worship. Great team. And about to upgrade into a semi-permanent facility. It was a blast to see them and be in their church.

This weekend we are starting our new series “Christmas at The Movies” Our whole team is so excited about this series. Lots of work and creative has gone into this series.

Every Sunday we are pulling life lessons out of the Christmas classics. This Sunday – “Elf”! Lots of fun stuff added to every Sunday, as well. And .. we’re going to show the movie we cover on Sunday morning in it’s entirety on Sunday evening at 6:00. Complete with popcorn and refreshments.

This will be a great series to invite your friends and family to.

We’re not going to participate in any recession.

That’s what I keep telling my church every week.

We’re going to keep growing and giving and sowing and blessing others.

God’s word and God’s economy is still the same – not matter what season our US economy is in. No shrinking back with fear or hoarding our resources.

I realize we cannot stick our head in the sand concerning our economy but I still believe God’s word and promise and principles prevail over all. This too, shall pass but God’s word lives on forever.

Someone is growing and prospering and blessing others in this season. Might as well be us.

Every year for the past few years, our church has blessed kids and families that would not be able to have Christmas without our help. This year, we are at it again. I am so proud of our church. We are nearing 300 kids being sponsored in our “Christmas For Kids” program this year.

Let me encourage you to rise up and let faith and not fear make your decisions about life.

This past year I have attended a handful of conferences in an attempt to scan the landscape of what’s going on in the church. And in an attempt to explore new “God connects” for Suzette and me and our church.

Several conferences, several different tribes. Some have been tribes I totally identify with, some just tribes I was interested in observing.

I have walked away from all this with at least two major observations:

1. The church in the US is amazingly strong. I have personally met and can name off the top of my head dozens and dozens of leaders and churches that are totally getting it done. Strong, life giving, city shaking, God glorifying churches. Growing, reaching people, making a difference.

I know a lot of people like to point the finger at the flaws of the church but make no mistake there are a lot of really great churches. And that is just in the tribes I have seen.

2. There is no one way to do church right. There are so many different styles, approaches and flavors that God is blessing.

The variety of church style that is working is quite amazing.

It does confirm for me that you just have to be the unique you that God created and He will bless.

We can learn from others but no need to copy. God blesses our uniqueness.

Had the chance to see Coldplay - one of my favorites - this week. They were incredible! My second time to see them. They are definitely getting better in concert. Awesome fun.

A few pics:

It seems like the church in the book of Acts lived in a lifestyle of prayer. They especially responded to any challenges or difficulties with intense prayer meetings and prayer focus.

Suzette and I have been planning to do a Daniel Fast Nov. 1 – 21. It’s just a personal thing. We are hungry for God to move powerfully in our lives, in our church and in our world. We mentioned it to our staff and they jumped all over it. I mentioned it in church Sunday and a bunch of people acted very interested in diving in as well.

We are actually planning to do a “proper” church wide Daniel Fast to kick off 2009. That fast will have a lot more effort put into involvement and information. More info will come on that.

With all that is going on in our country and in the world, this is not a day to shrink back and find a corner to hide in. It is a day to rise up live powerfully with the help of the Holy Spirit. I want to encourage any of you who are feeling “backed down” to listen to my message from Sunday and jump in on this fast with us.

Here are a few links to gather some info on a Daniel Fast:

www.danielfast.elevationchurch.org
www.christ-web.com/missions/farho/daniel-fast
www.danielfast.wordpress.com/
www.hacres.com/recipes/recipes.asp

We’d love for you to join us.

This Sunday I will start a series called “Blessed”.

I believe, with all my heart, God is a God who desires to bless. It’s completely His heart toward us. It strikes me as so strange how many people struggle with that idea and want to have theological battles to paint Him in another way.

This is one of the reasons we want to prosper. To do things like this.

Awesome!!!

I voted today.

Then I burst into tears when I walked out of the polling place. I have never done anything like that before.

Politics is not my favorite thing. For a lot of reasons.
Not really into it. But I do vote. I think it’s important. I also wish it was Nov. 5.

After I voted today I started thinking about how awesome America is. We live in the greatest country on the planet.

I’ve had the opportunity to minister in 18 different nations. No question, all of those nations have their unique and beautiful characteristics. But no other nation gives the freedom and opportunity we have in America.

My friend, Chims Phiri, lives in Zimbabwe. Their president was recently voted out of office. He didn’t like being voted out, so he unleashed a torrent of persecution and violence on people he thought opposed him. Chim’s wife has just recently spent 3 months in a hospital as a result of a politically motivated attack. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate is totally out of control. Something like 1,000 per cent.

America is not perfect by any means but I feel incredibly blessed to live here. Our economy may be taking a hit right now but we still live in an incredibly amazing place. Plus, we all get to vote, in freedom, for whoever we think will do the best job. (Or at least vote for the lessser of evils.)

This may sound hokey but – God Bless America, land that I love!!

I gave my life to Jesus in 1974. That’s a long time ago. 34 years ago. By the grace of God, I have been a passionate follower of Jesus (and a lover of His church) the whole time. No breaks, no holidays, no backsliding. And I have loved every minute of it. I love God more today than I ever have. He is amazing to me.

My family never went to church. They still don’t. Out of 5 boys and my 2 parents, I’m the only one in my family that has followed Christ and been a part of church. As far as I know, I’m the only person in my entire family, looking back and through in all directions, who has ever given their life to Christ.

For the record – I love my family and don’t intend those observations to be any kind of condemnation. It’s just my story.

I mention all of that for this reason: I had no point of reference for church or Christianity to try and uphold.

To the best of my ability – my views of God and church have been formed out of trying to read my Bible and obey it the best I can.

My first encounters with God were in a “power of God” environment. I was miraculously healed of a life long struggle with stomach ulcers when I met Christ and started going to church. It’s kind of hard to convince me that God doesn’t still heal people when He healed me.

I have almost always been in Charismatic, spirit filled “tribes”. It’s how I started in church life 34 years ago. I still feel at home in some of those tribes.

Over the last 10 or 15 years I have struggled some (maybe more than some) with a lot of Charismatic church culture. There are extremes of style and “manifestation” that trouble me. I keep finding myself distancing from a lot of it.

I love the Holy Spirit. I believe in the power of God. Still think the gifts of the Spirit are valid and in operation today. I see it in the Bible. And my life experience

Starting this Sunday we are beginning a new series called “Spirit”. We want to explore the mystery and power of the person of the Holy Spirit. We want to develop a relationship with the person of the Holy Spirit.

For the next few weeks we’re going to explore the Bible and take a look at having a relationship with the Holy Spirit – with fresh eyes.

Is it possible to be spirit filled and weird free?

Come join us.

We are pretty excited about a fresh initiative we are launching in our church. The Generosity Experiment.

This idea is birthed out of our Larger Than Life series where we urged everyone to live larger than self maintenance and go to generosity in life.

God says “test me now in this …”. God urges us to bring our tithe and offering and test him to see if He will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing we cannot contain.

We are encouraging our whole church to be generous to God, His house and others from now until the end the year. Take God at His word and see what He will do. Test this out.

So here’s the plan:
1. Honor God with your tithe - the tithe comes first – giving God our first and best
2. Christmas for Kids 2008 will be our big chance to give to (and serve) others
3. C2 is our way to give toward building the house of God

Then see what God will do.

You can log on to thegenerosityexperiment.com and tell your story or read about others experience.

No question, we are living in a day of economic upheaval. All the more reason we want to plug into God’s economy!

This past weekend was an absolute blast!

Suzette and I went to Kansas City to celebrate with our great friends Phillip and Susan O’Reilly as they held their opening service in their brand new building. What a treat.

Their church began 5 years ago and now they have led their church into a great new facility. The place was packed. The energy was great. So happy for them.

The future is bright for the O’Reilly’s and their amazing church - The Rock of KC.

A special bonus to the weekend – Got to see Jim Gaffigan live. So funny. An hour and 20 minutes of non-stop hilarious comedy. Completely clean. Then he stood out in the foyer and greeted everyone who wanted to see him. Stayed until the last one left. For 2 shows!

Hot pockets…..

When I was a teenager, Johnny Carson was the star of The Tonight Show. In one of his monologues he made a joke about a coming toilet paper shortage.

At the same time, I was working my way through high school and the beginning of college at a grocery store. Sure enough, the day after his monologue we sold out of toilet paper. We then went weeks unable to keep toilet paper on the shelves. Just because of his monologue – not because their was actually any tp shortage at all.

Fear creates shortage.

A fearful reaction to anything never creates a good result.

When I drive by gas stations and see lines of people and the reaction of some as they worry about gas shortage issues, I am reminded of Johnny and toilet paper.

This too shall pass. Toilet paper shelves will be full again.

Love building a culture of generosity in our church. Living big enough to make a difference for God and others.

We have built the whole idea around the revelation that there is a river that flows from God's throne. You have to get a revelation of abundance to really go to generous in life.

If we think resources are limited we will be hesitant to be a giver.

Here's the video we showed this past weekend. Enjoy!

Larger Than Life - week 3 Rocks from Rock Church on Vimeo.

Really love the idea behind our “Larger Than Life” series. It’s all about buying into living way bigger than self maintenance.

This past week we showed this video to help illustrate the value of letting great things flow through you – or the downside of getting stagnant.


Larger Than Life - week 2 Pond from Rock Church on Vimeo.

Some people hate meetings. I love them. Not all of them for sure but some of them are indispensable.

This past weekend we had several meetings in the life of our church. Guest service leadership meeting. Children’s ministry leadership meeting. Church on Sunday morning meeting.

I think meetings are essential to doing life together. You get out of the loop of communication when you don’t meet. You don’t get to hear from other voices when you don’t meet. You don’t get to be face to face and feel the other person when you don’t meet.

Some meetings are terrible because no investment goes into making them a great meeting. So make sure you have worthwhile meetings.

Make sure you keep meeting with the people you’re doing life with. It does matter.

Got to go. Got a meeting to enjoy.

Just in case you haven't experienced the full glory of this. Enjoy!

We have a new Vision of The Rock class starting this Sunday. Pretty excited about the fact that we have 72 (and growing) people registered to attend.




On our journey of trying to simplify church we developed a 4 step process of how to get connected at The Rock:
1. Attend Sunday service on a regular basis
2. Join a Connect Group
3. Register for Vision Class
4. Volunteer to serve

We’ve always had a Vision (membership) class since way back in the day. But our new thinking really made us realize the vital importance of the Vision class in the process of connecting people.

So we went to work totally upgrading the experience.

We re-shot the video for the class with a great new set. Looks really cool. Employing hosts to connect and love on people. Completely redid the room the class is held in, in order to warm it up. Reworking a lot of little details that are all about helping people get connected.

After the class is over, we can debrief on what can be improved for next time.

If you're a part of our church and haven't gone through Vision class come on and get registered

Looking forward to a whole new group of people joining the family.

So, we’re in our series on “Larger Than Life” now. It’s about expanding our view of things to live and give bigger.

Here is a video we put together that we showed in church this past Sunday to help illustrate the idea:


Larger Than Life - week 1 Waterfall from Rock Church on Vimeo.

Hats off to our amazing video/creative team!

Today we shot video for our upcoming new series “Larger Than Life”.

We’re going to look at the idea of expanding our vision of God, ourselves, our capabilities and our resources so we can live a life larger than self maintenance.

Standing in front of a waterfall one day a thought hit me. Somebody was standing in this exact same spot 50 years ago and water was flowing over the edge of this waterfall. In 50 years from now someone will be standing in this same spot and see more water flowing. There is no shortage with God! He is a God of abundance and he has built abundance into the way all things operate. The blessings and resources of God have flowed from His throne for centuries and will continue to flow for centuries.

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate our 19th anniversary than to recommit ourselves to be big people who let a big God flow through us in a big way!

This Sunday we will be celebrating our 19th anniversary as a church. At times, it seems like yesterday we were rolling into Asheville with a dream and little else to start our church.

Over 19 years we have had the privilege to touch literally thousands of lives. It’s been an amazing journey.

19 years is a long time. A lot has happened in 19 years. Lots of people, lots of great ideas, a few really bad ideas, lots of amazing God moments, lots of heartache and lots of love have come and gone.

The dream, the passion, the fire, the strong desire for a beautiful, life-giving, God honoring, people lifting church still lives so strong in Suzette and my heart. We really are so excited about the future God has for us and our church.

When I was first saved there was a popular Christian music artist named Evie Tornquist. A phrase from one of her songs has stuck in my head for a long, long time.

“Friends and faces come and go like ashes in the wind,
Attitudes arise that I don’t fully understand,
Praise the Lord, He never changes”

Amen!

Had another amazing day in church yesterday. I was thinking we would be a ghost town because of the holiday and how many people I knew were going to be out of town. To my amazement (oh great man of faith that I am!) we had a great crowd. And a great service.

I’ve been watching the process of transition take place at The Rock Church in Wilmington. Ron and Norma McGee started and have pastored that church for the past 20 years. Ron and Norma are friends of ours. They gave us $1,000 to help start our church in a day when a thousand felt like a million. We sent help to them when their church building burned down and they began to rebuild.

This past Sunday they handed the senior pastor role to their son, Bryan.

I have communicated with the McGee’s through this process, read Bryan’s blog, run into them at different conferences and watched this transition emerge.

All I have to say is I feel like I’m watching a beautiful thing transpire. Bryan’s honor of his Dad. Ron and Norma’s courage to let go and pass the baton. The spirit of this whole thing has been such a joy to behold.

I know Bryan is bringing their church into a new day while building on and honoring the legacy of the past.

I just don’t know how a transition could happen any better.

Thanks guys for modeling something we are all so proud of.

We had another great weekend at The Rock Church.

Team Church Night on Friday was a blast. Worship, praying, vision casting, racing through the tunnel, ice cream, honoring our awesome volunteers. It was all so good!


Sunday was another amazing day. Really enjoying this Parables series. Only 1 more to go! 24 people raised their hands to commit or recommit to Christ!

Then we had Volunteer Fair after church on Sunday. Always great to meet new people and see them get plugged in to the life of the house. Almost 50 new people signed up to fill 86 areas of involvement. How cool is that?!

Wow! Church feels so good right now.

Tonight is our Team Church Night.

Once a quarter we get all our volunteers together for a great night of big picture, vision casting, worship, praying, playing and honoring.

This is one of my favorite events in the life of our church. I love the atmosphere that happens when you get all the people who “make it happen” together.

It’s good to come together and see big picture. Sometimes when your Connect Group only has 5 people show up or you are caring for ten 2 year olds in a class you can lose sight of the forest for the trees.

Suzette and I are so excited about where God is taking our church. The vibe is so good. From Sundays, to our staff, to all the salvations, to the response from our church on the 99 Days of Serving to all the great things on our fall calendar - Everything is lining up for an amazing season ahead of us.

It takes a team to fulfill a dream!

For all of you who are part of our church - Don't miss this.

Saturday night Suzette and I were captivated by Rick Warren’s Civil Forum with John McCain and Barack Obama. I Tivo’d it, thinking I would watch it later but I was completely captured by the dialogue that took place and watched the whole thing.

I have always avoided the political process. I do vote, but the name calling, the demonizing of anyone with a different viewpoint, the pandering to interest groups to get elected (or re-elected) just doesn’t appeal to me. In any area of life.

Hats off to Rick Warren for introducing a civil conversation approach. I felt like I got to hear from each candidate on where they really stood on issues.

In the past, the church has taken too much of an adversarial role in politics. Believe just like or else! We will boycott you or something.

I do have my own beliefs and I hold to them strongly. What I love about America is our freedom to hold to different beliefs and still support each other’s humanity. Room to breathe is a beautiful thing.

Go Rick Warren for leading the way in a new way for Christians to engage in the political process.

I am so blessed by our church’s response to our 99 Days of Serving campaign. It has been so cool to watch so many people step up, get involved and make a difference. This is only the beginning of our church rising up to make Asheville a better place.


This past Saturday was an amazing day as we descended on our church facilities to clean, paint, mulch, fix stuff and otherwise make our facilities shine. We had about a hundred sign up and over 140 show up. We had a blast working together, laughing together and getting to know each other better.


There is something special about doing things together.


What a great summer – helping so many people in so many ways. Fixing rooms at ABCCM, building houses with Habitat, helping and contributing food at Manna Food Bank, cleaning rivers and the list goes on.


BTW – great day in church yesterday. Packed house. Prayed for our kids going back to school – can you believe how many kids we had up front? 18 people responding to Christ at the end of the meeting. Café was buzzing with energy with tons of new people.

So, every year on the first day of school we make our girls march out on our front porch and let us take their picture. It’s a family tradition. We’ve done it every year of their school life.

Today was the last picture I will get to take of the first day of school for my girls (Outside of college). Tori has graduated and now my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, is marching into her senior year in high school.

Elizabeth is an amazing person. She is smart, fun and almost always in a good mood. I know God has great things in store for her. How can my baby girl be in her last year of high school? Sigh.

The day after our conference in Tacoma a group of us went out to play a round of golf on Chambers Bay. Chambers Bay is an amazing new golf course that has been selected to host the US Open in 2015. We had a blast!

I got to play with one of my great new friends, Troy Maxwell. Troy and his wife Penny are building a great church in Charlotte - Freedom House Church. I like Troy. He's a good guy and good golfer. We both shot 80 that day. And mildly trashed talked each other. My kind of friend!

As most of you know, Seattle is the birthplace of Starbucks coffee. When Suzette and I read Howard Schultz’s book on Starbucks “One Cup at a Time”, I literally almost cried a few times as I felt a parallel in his passion to “plant” Starbucks coffee shops and our passion for the church.

Starbucks does a lot of things right that we could learn from in the church. Great atmosphere, friendly people, excellence, a totally cool vibe, being a “third place” and so on.

Plus, I love Starbucks coffee!

Here are a few pics of us at the very first Starbucks in front of Pikes Market in Seattle. A very unassuming place to begin a worldwide movement.

Last week I took some of our staff to the Team Church 08 conference in Tacoma, Washington. We had a blast together. Great speakers, unbelievable worship, fantastic connections, reuniting with some old friends. Altogether a great time was had by all.

One of the highlights for me had to be the night of worship with the Hillsong London worship team. I am always blown away by the worship and music and serving culture that comes out of Hillsong Church. There is an amazing amount of willingness to work with and cooperate with their leadership by exceedingly talented and gifted musicians.

A whole night of music, worship and unbeatable atmosphere. I absolutely loved it. Wish you all could have been with me.

I have taken Fridays off for almost 25 years. It’s true that sometimes my day “off” can get taken up with some kind of church activity. But over the long haul, Friday has been my day to unstring the bow. My Sabbath, if you will.

Saturdays don’t really count for a full day off for me because my brain and heart are all taken up with being ready for Sunday. From Saturday afternoon on, no matter what else I am involved in, I’m thinking, praying, gearing up for the biggest day of my week. If you haven’t had the pressure of having to deliver the goods every Sunday you wouldn’t understand. Every pastor knows what I’m talking about, though.

Some pastors take Mondays off. I’ve taken Fridays because it occasionally gives me the feel like I have something like an actual two day weekend. Plus, I probably would’ve quit on many Mondays if I had too much time on my hands so it’s better to get my brain engaged.

I love the feel of my Friday mornings. No pressure to get up at any time; easy, slow moving in the morning; reading my Bible with no place to have to go; just relaxed. A cup of coffee on my front porch. Ahhh, the chance to move slow.

My personality makes me want to start working on Friday mornings – but, at least today, on this Friday – I’m choosing to be “off”.

I think it makes my “on” better

I just got a 2009 calendar. We use those year long fold out calendars in staff meetings so we can see big picture on our planning.

Right now – my 2009 calendar is blank. But soon it will start filling up with events and projects.

While looking at my fresh new blank calendar I was hit hard with the idea – 2009 is a blank page right now. What will I plan for? What do I want my life to look like in 2009? What do I want to do? Where do I want to go?

For me – definitely time with my family, going to the nations, great events in the life of our church that help people, series of messages that will hopefully touch and lift people, fun stuff with friends and family – and room to breath.

I know all of life can’t be planned. But some of it can.

2009 – it’s blank page. What will you write in it?

I’m teaching on the parables of Jesus this summer and really enjoying it. Yesterday we looked at the parable of the talents.

This idea really sticks with me. The guy who blew it messed up because he was afraid and buried his talent. He even lost his one talent he worked so hard to hold on to.

Fear will shrink your world.

It will make you afraid to work, to try (again), to love, to reach out for something fresh and new. You will get guarded about everything.

The enemy will want to steal your confidence and hope. He wants to shrink your world.

If there ever was a day we as believers need to stand up in confidence in God, in His cause, In His goodness and even in our calling – today is that day.

As His church, let’s stand up strong for faith, hope and love. The world needs us to do this more than ever.

What a great week!

Got to spend all of last week with all my girls. Went scalloping and fishing in Florida. Out to eat. Hanging with family. One round of golf. It was a short but sweet week away. Creating great memories. Loved it.

Mega Worship on Saturday has to be one of my favorite events in the life of our church. An hour and a half of worship and prayer. 150 people all totally focused on God. The time flies. I really love it. One really cool part of this one - tons of under 30 year olds.

Great day at church today. Loving the energy right now. Meeting lots of new people. Numbers are down a little. Summer time. Last few weeks before school kicks back in. But it's all good.

Our high schoolers and young adults are headed to Panama City for Next Gen conference this week. Pray for them. I know it will be great.

Something really, really cool is happening in our church right now and I am lovin it!

Yesterday was another amazing God experience. 9 people responding to Christ. Worship off the chain. Again. Great spirit in the house. Met tons of new people in our café in guest reception. More than one of them broke into tears telling us how they felt God move in their life in service.

Loved teaching on the parable of the eye is a lamp. The value of the right (God’s) perspective. This is my last week to go so long. Still kind of bottled up from One Prayer. Next week back to 35 minutes (or so).

Also, our amazing church turned out en masse again for our Big Serve Saturday. We had so many people show up to serve in our Habitat for Humanity serve day that we got to send a big team to Habitat and then about 50 people back to ABCCM to do some more work over there.

I love great quotes and collect them. Here is one I read the other day that I thought was profound.

“When the purpose of the room is lost, clutter inevitably follows”
Peter Walsh

Isn’t that so true? Rooms without a purpose become the junk room in our house. As a constantly recovering pack rat, I have to continually make conscious moves to remove the clutter.

This also happens in church life. When we have a sense of purpose we have to continually evaluate - Is this ministry, or project or new thing (or old thing!) really helping us fulfill our vision? Just adding ministries to add ministries saps the life out of our church and our best people.

This is probably true for our own lives and schedule and budget as well. Where is the clutter in those rooms? It probably collects easier when our sense of purpose is lost or becomes weak.

We had a great day in church yesterday. I know I keep saying this but worship is off the chain right now.

It felt really good to preach again. It’s been quite a few weeks because of One Prayer. I think I actually went a bit long. A little bottled up.

Our church is responding to our 99 Days of Serving in a humongous way. Teams are going all over Asheville doing good. It’s so cool. Our next Big Serve Day is coming up this Saturday, July 19. We’re going to help Habitat for Humanity.

BTW, if you are part of our church please go to this website and log in some of your experiences in serving this summer.

Summer and travel does something to my blog-o-rhythm. For those of you who do read this regularly, sorry for no past last week.

Here’s a bit of a catch up:

Had a great time ministering at Philip and Susan O’Reilly’s church last weekend – The Rock of KC. They are some of our dearest friends. Always great to be with them. Excited for their new building which should be ready by late September. Their church is doing so well.

We just finished of our One Prayer series yesterday. Ed Young laid the smack down! The whole thing was amazing. Lots of fun. Great response from everyone. Salvations every week. But I can’t wait to get back to teaching myself.

Worship is off the chain every week at church right now!

I am totally loving the new Coldplay CD – Viva La Vida. And I’m completely enthralled with Leeland right now.

My big thought from the word this past week – God’s normal is blessed

Suzette and I spent last week in Scottsdale, Arizona with a group of leaders called Integrity Leadership Ministries (ILM). This get-away happens once a year and is filled with some really great high capacity people.

There’s amazing worship, golf, shopping, eating together, hanging out, superb teaching sessions. But it’s mainly built around relational connecting.

I don’t think I heard one person say how big their church was. Even though a lot of these guys pastor very large churches, there is none of that spirit to this group.

We have grown to love going to this gathering. Every year we get to reconnect with friends and make new ones. It’s a tribe we really enjoy.

“Tribes” are an interesting concept. You can’t legislate them. It’s a mysterious, organic kind of thing. I have respect for all the tribes in The Church but I know I don’t fit in all of them. Some I just learn from, some I belong to, and some I just know there is not a fit. But we all have a need for a tribal sense of belonging.