I just walked back in the office from being at Lexi’s Kindergarten graduation party.  She had a blast and totally LOVED her first year of school. 

The people at McCall Primary School are awesome and we couldn’t have asked for better teachers with Mrs. Garrett and Mrs. Wood.  They were born to teach and I am grateful for the opportunity for Lexi to have been in their class.  Ya’ll are awesome and see ya Sunday

Mrs. Kevins is the Principal and she does a fantastic job as well.  The fact that we drove bikes around the inside of the school together still makes me laugh.  She loves kids and is also a great leader.  Thank you Mrs. Kevins for a great year!

Time management is a larger issue than we would like to admit.   If time is our most valuable resource - than it is worth guarding.  With that in mind, you can help me with a few things…

1. What technology out there saves you the most time?
2. What technology (be honest) do you find stealing the most of your time?
3. It changed my life when I stopped ________________.
4. It changed my life when I started _________________. 

Answer one of all of these for me.  It will probably help more than you think

In no particular order…

• It was WINDY.  Three weeks in a row our signs have endured constant torture.
• The Pro Wakeboard Tour came to Acworth yesterday and today… We have several people heavily involved in that event. 
• Attendance was off today.
• Among others, a guy that has been prayed for every day for a LONG time - accepted Christ.  His story is insane.
• FreedomKidz added an entire room of inflatable bouncy things.  Looked like fun.
• Lit sparklers during the message today.  Thank God we didn’t set off the sprinklers.
• Next Sunday is going to be a lot of fun. A lot.

There are some great things coming up over the next several weeks…

This Sunday is going to be a great day. If you have been trying to get people to Freedom - this is probably the Sunday you want to make that happen.  Don’t miss it! 

Newcomers Lunch is this week as well.  Newcomers is one of my favorite things that we do.  See you there!

Next Sunday we will have our first baptism experience.  It’s going to be a blast and a lot different than you expect…

We had an extremely productive day yesterday nailing down the next 9 months of message series’.  It is going to be a VERY fun year! 

We brought a couple church planters with us from Rome, GA and had a blast.  This guy wears Capri’s, but I still think he has some cool stuff ahead of him in the next few months. 

As I talk to leaders - one of the common threads that I pick up on is their willingness to transition. 

Let me try and explain… Where you are in life at this moment could be labeled as “here”.  Your goals/dream/vision for the future could be labeled as “there”.  Accomplishment happens as you transition from where you are right now to where you desire to go.  The tricky part is that you never seem to arrive “there” - because once you arrive - it becomes the new “here”. 

At that point a new “there” should be recognized and the cycle should start over again.  The best leaders appear to be those who continuously move from “here” to “there”. 

That was the strangest blog I have ever written.  It makes sense in my head - hopefully it does in yours as well. 

I tend to be a very eclectic reader.  Right now I am in the middle of Vintage Jesus and Leadership and Self Deception. On my bookshelf and the to-read list are The Leadership Pipeline, Blue Ocean Strategy, He-Motions, A Godward Life and biographies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Bright. 

It’s fun learning from a variety of sources.  What other books should be on my radar?  What are you reading?

Here’s a quick Run down…

• Happy Mothers Day!  Devin, Star (my mom), and Denise (Devin’s mom) are the BEST!
• Great energy today!  The band brought it and 9:30 get’s the prize for the day.
• It’s hard to grasp the horrific things going on in Myanmar.
• Today we gave every lady a bag from here.
• I can’t wait for the planning retreat on Wednesday.
• Be praying for next Sunday.  It is going to be a GREAT day in the lives of your friends and family!
• I haven’t been on vacation since January 07.  That’s ridiculous.
• Swimming after dinner seems like fun. Might try and make that happen. 
• For all the Freedom people…where are your Thank You cards going?

I could not be more excited about the next several weeks!  There are times in ministry when I feel like I am getting a small taste of what God wants to do - just a little before the buffet is officially rolled out. 

This is an exciting time to be alive! The opportunities are endless!

We were in a discussion about message development today and had a strange idea.  Some of the crew from Freedom will be heading out on Wednesday for a 24 hour planning event in order to nail down the next several months of series, messages, etc. 

With that in mind, I want to open this up to the 1st two church planters/creative types that can email us at pastor@freedomlive.net.  We will be staying about an hour from Atlanta and the entire thing will be wrapped up by 9 am on Thursday.  This will be a lot of fun!