1. When desperation rises - standards fall. Recruit and empower before you think it is necessary! Start now!

2. Vito’s Cafe is a cool place to hang out, eat, enjoy FREE internet, coffee, gelato (Italian Ice Cream) and get things done. Good job Kellys’!

3. We ran into Kurt and Lori Salierno last night. They are awesome! They volunteered to come up and pray for us at the end of our staff meetings every week. Lori is one of the best communicators I have ever heard and Kurt is a “pastor to the homeless”, started Church on the Street, and actually lives on the streets of Atlanta when his wife is out of town. Pretty incredible.

Last night we had another good launch team experience.

We have a growing number of people getting involved and joining in on what God is up to in Acworth! We have some cool things on the agenda for the next several weeks and we have a lot of work to do!

Our guys (and Dawn) are doing a great job!

Couldn’t imagine doing this without Todd, Blake, Mark, Justin, and Dawn. They are all high capacity people that challenge me every day…

One of the points on this post made me laugh uncontrollably for at least 5 minutes.

I am planning on going back to Revolution in a few weeks and I am praying now that “Todd” will be there!

Normally right now I would be on my way to the launch team meeting; however, since the staff told me to stay away until about 5:40 PM, I am going to blog so I don’t drive myself insane…

My Canes got beat yesterday by a mediocre UNC team. I will say, their kicker is amazing. We should have come back to win that thing, but 4 interceptions will keep you from doing that every time. Tadd - enjoy this year’s victory! Maybe we should get tickets to next year’s rematch…it will be ugly for you my friend
On a different note, I am looking forward to the Sunday night and Monday morning blog posts. I love hearing the stories from Sunday!

Couple more Catalyst thoughts…

1. I am not posting the notes because you can get them here.
2. Craig Groeschel was incredible. Can’t wait to get the new book.
3. The caveman was back but tragically….someone stole his video camera.
4. I saw a camel today walking really close to the stage. Yes it was real and no it wasn’t Sally.
5. The camel was the oldest (only?) camel I have ever seen. It didn’t have humps, just scoliosis.
6. Finally caught up with Jay. He’s a great guy and Columbia will be better because of His influence.
7. I am waiting on a little “snippet” of something from Pete and Hollie.
8. Great day today!

Thoughts from Day 1 of Catalyst…

1. Good day today at Catalyst.
2. Three really good messages and the worship was unbelievable!
3. I saw a caveman walking around with a video camera.
4. Running on 2 hours sleep and I am tired!
5. I heard a very strange thing today…I think I am dumber for having heard it.
6. I ate more mints today than I have in my entire life combined…I think they are “Testamints” from Lifeway. That’s funny.
7. I am not going to be able to be friends with anyone affiliated with getting people out of the parking lot tonight. Wow!

Had a blast hanging out last night and laughing until around 3AM. Seriously, we just told stories, laughed, tried to fall asleep, and laughed again. After a couple hours sleep…

Getting ready to leave the hotel and head over to Catalyst. Really looking forward to getting together with several people and learning as much as possible in the process.

More to come later.

Something that has been vital to us as we continue the church planting journey is allowing people to speak into our lives.

Today that “person” was my staff. Here was the scenario.

I get everywhere extremely early. As a result, I was getting to our meeting location 15-20 minutes earlier than everyone else was supposed to be there. As a result, trying to be “a servant”, I handled some of the set-up in our room, etc. Is that a problem? Well actually, yes.

I was taking up an opportunity for someone else to serve and partner with us to reach this community. After two weeks we had more volunteers than we knew what to do with. Part of that was my fault. So after two weeks they have had enough and suggested that I not get there until much later and concentrate on doing what only I can do.

So what am I going to do? I am going to listen to them and to the guys at Elevation who have been telling me this for the past several months. Lesson learned!

Just like the rest of the world, we will be headed to Catalyst later tonight.

Can’t wait! It’s going to be a great couple days hanging out with people, learning, and catching up with friends I haven’t seen in forever. In true church planting fashion I think there are going to be about 9 people in our hotel room. It will be a blast!

If you are going to be there - let’s get together at some point. Probably have to make at least one 1 AM waffle house run. If you don’t understand that - you are missing out on life.

I am pumped about Evolve - the Churchplanters.com conference February 18-19th.

Shawn and the guys at Mountain Lake are doing an incredible job and have put together a great lineup of people to lead this year’s event.

If you are a person capable of reading this blog - do not miss this thing!