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!

“Sticks and stones may break my bones - but words will never hurt me.”  I am convinced that whoever came up with that was a little dishonest.  Words have tremendous power! 

I am not talking about gossip and slander - almost everyone knows that those things are detrimental.  I am talking about the fact that you and I have the opportunity in every comment and/or conversation to speak life into the dreams of others (Eph. 4:29).  The opposite can be true as well.   Just as one word can lift up - one word can just as easily tear down…

Think about the pattern of your conversation (or writing) - how are you doing?

I am pumped about Mothers Day at Freedom!  I know a lot of people don’t really like Mothers Day at churches - but we are switching things up. 

Typically, great women of the Bible like Hannah, Ruth, Naomi, and the “Prov. 31 woman” tend to be the normal topic of conversation on days like this.  For us, we are going to talk about a demon possessed naked guy.  It is going to be a blast!

Ladies, we will hook you up (no, you don’t have to be a mom) and no - not with a flower!

These verses have had me thinking quite a bit over the past week…

Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. (Judges 2:8-10)

Rather than being an indictment on the public speaking (or lack thereof) of God’s works in the life of a nation - I have thought about them in the context of my own family.  I wonder how often I neglect the opportunity to speak life, truth, and the goodness of God into the lives of my own girls?  Of all the opportunities I have had in the past and/or will have in the future - this is one that I definitely can’t afford to miss.