I like to dream big.  'What if…' is a very important phrase in church leadership.  You should use it – a lot.

We had a 'what if' moment yesterday.  I'm not going to say what it was, because it is a long shot.  But we're going to ask.  And that doesn't cost us anything.  But it does have us saying, 'wow, that would be so cool.'  We'll see.  Doesn't hurt to try.

Give your volunteers an identity.  It can be as simple as a name, a badge, or a specific group.  We encourage our Host Teams to embrace a little friendly competition – "Our Team is always here first!  Oh Yeah!, Well our team is the loudest!"  Of course, anything that digresses into impromptu mid-service UFC fights is not a good thing.  Ben (and I would link to his blog at this point if he had one), Ben got t-shirts made for all the Kidspoint workers.

One way I am trying to do this, is by getting T-shirts made for our trailer haulers.  They'll be getting these next month.  AND ONLY THOSE WHO PULL TRAILERS GET ONE!!!  Hint, hint.

Yes Lifepoint is a body of believers – and we're a family – and yes, yes, yes.  But to me, Lifepoint is a group of friends.  And here is a good example:

Saturday Jennifer had a scare.  Finally, around 6:00, thinking the whole pregnancy thing was probably over, we decided to page the Dr. to see what to do.  He told Jennifer to stay in bed and take it easy.  And to make her as comfortable as possible, I felt I needed to stay home Sunday.  Now mind you, we have already practiced for Sunday.  But thankfully our church believes Family first. 

I called a good friend of mine and fellow Lifepointer – Tom McCain.  And the conversation went something like this.  "Hey Tom, are you in town? Yeah, wasup? I need to lead worship tomorrow.  Will do."  He didn't even bat an eye.  Not only that, but Mia had to take the reigns of worship for the Downtown service Sunday night.  Both of them had to learn new music, not to mention there were several personell shuffles within the band to make things happen. 

At the risk of leaving somebody out, I think those total involved in the last minute fill in were: John, Matt, Mia, Tom, and Steven….plus the entire band had to re-key the songs for Sunday night…thank you Bill, Ronnie, and Dave.  And thank you to whoever I didn't mention.  Everybody stepped up and made it happen.  Good friends!

I learned a valuable lesson watching the Olympics.  I don't care how many talented, motivated, Type-A, Maxwell protege's you have on your team, you still need to call time-outs and coach.

Think about it.  The 'Redeem-Team', the men's Volleyball Team, the women's Volleyball Team – they all have the best of the best in their sport.  Koby knows how to play, how to pass, how to dunk (body doesn't he).  He's probably watched more film of Jordan than we can imgagine.  He knows his opponents.  He understands the philosophy of coach K.  He's played with these guys for 3 years getting ready for the Olympics.  Same with all of the other players in different sports – volleyball, softball, etc.

But alas!  Coach K has to call a time out!  What does this mean?  Well let's look at what it doesn't mean:

• It doesn't mean that Coach K must have screwed up somewhere in his leadership because the team is losing focus.
• It doesn't mean the players are inempt.
• It doesn't mean the team is in trouble, per se.
• It doesn't mean the wrong players were picked.
• It doesn't even mean that the players are 'on the wrong seat on the bus.'

What does it mean exactly?  It means that the coach is doing his job – and the players are doing theirs.  You see, the players get so into the match, the battle if you will, that they aren't able to see the forest for the trees.  But Coach K – he has removed himself from the battle field so that he can see the entire game.  He can make adjustments when needed.

What is the correlation?  Don't ever think you can hire the best of the best and then let them just go.  Even the best need coaching.  Even the best need re-direction.  Even the best laid plans need adjusting.  So call time-outs.  Refocus.  Never-ever think that a timeout, or the need for coaching is a refelction on the people you've hired or recruited, or even a reflection on yourself.  It simply means your doing what your supposed to be doing and they're doing what their supposed to be doing.

Sure Koby knows he's supposed to cut off the lane.  But the coach has a different perspect and is able to communicate that in a better way.  So coach don't coast.

Go here.  Too much fun!

"Beware of applying principals at arms length to a problem that is too deep for your arms reach." – Alistair Begg

Lovin' me some Begg.

Huge volunteer leader meeting tonight….I'm so siked. Close to 50 people coming!

I thought it would be a help to some of you church staff readers to hear about our visit with Portable Church Industries.  If you are on staff at a portable church, and you don’t know about PCI, please crawl out from under your rock and visit www.portablechurch.com

First of all I believe we do ‘portable’ with excellence.  We have actually had people leave our service, hang around, and not realize they were in a school until they saw us start to breakdown.  Now that is a compliment!  But we would not be able to do this without our volunteers.  They are amazing!

Yet when we moved to Chancellor High School we experienced some hard changes.  First we lost our on-sight storage.  The elementary school allowed us to use a closet in the gym we used, and allowed us to park a trailer behind the cafeteria for the Kidspoint area..  Nice and easy.  But now everything has to be toted in the front door.  When you have the on sight option, you quickly forget how much ‘stuff’ you are accumulating.  We quickly remembered – when we had to start carrying in baby toys and mic stands.  And we could see this was hard on the volunteers.  Not that they complained.  On the contrary!  Our team grew!  But we saw that their was an opportunity to maximize our volunteers efforts.

First let me back up, we needed some sort of transportation.  For a short term fix we leased a 24′ truck from Penske.  This did 2 things.  It allowed us to make an informed decision on whether to do a truck or trailer solution.  Second – it showed us we didn’t want a truck!  It sucked!  So we went with a company out of Eastman, GA called All Pro Trailers.  They were very affordable.  Our solution – two 20′ x 8′ trailers, one with reinforced axles for the heaver sound equipment.  Now they say hindsite is 20/20.  If we had to do it all over again we’d get 24’x7′.  Only because now that we are going with PCI, it would fit their equipment better.

Now back to the story.  They sent a consultant down to watch our Sunday service, ask lots of questions, allow us to ask him lots of questions, and then devise a plan to help us not waste so many trips back and forth to the trailer.  They call it an effeciency upgrade.  As long as everything stays on track, this will be a huge improvement for us.

With that being said let me give some perspective for the church planter:

• Quite whining.  Yes PCI is pricey.  But if you want to start a church or be relevant to your community be ready to spend money.  I don’t know of any church that can open their doors on day 1 without spending a significant amount of money – unless of course the items are donated.
• Think inside the box….or about the box.  If you are going spend $700 on a case for a sub, which you should to protect your equipment – which we did (very nice Anvil cases might I add) – STOP!  It will only hold 1 Sub!  PCI cases are on par with that price and they go up….meaning they are taller…meaning you can store your sub, or speaker, or drummer (leave some granola bars in their for the week and he’ll be fine), and also store stuff on top!  So when you think of PCI that way…they aren’t that pricey after all!
• When adding equipment – dont’ just think about the financial cost.  What is the time cost?  What is the volunteer cost?  Our mistake is that we added equipment without thinking about the latter two.  From now on, we’ll ask, how do we get it in the door?  What will the setup impact be?  Does PCI have a solution?  And if they don’t they’ll find one.
• Make 2 plans – a ‘we want the universe plan’ and ‘this is what we need to survive plan’.  Then meet somewhere in the lower middle and grow into it.
• Trailers are more effecient – more entry points, more loading and unloading at one time.
• PCI thinks of things on these terms:  if you have to carry it and not roll it, your doing something wrong.  Gotta love American ingenuity – or is it laziness?  Hmmm.  I think we just don’t like to sweat.
• You having a problem keeping volunteers on the Setup team?  Make it easier on them – do PCI!

I can speak for our entire staff….these past couple of weeks have been insane!

Personally, to use a term from Ben Arment, I've been in the perfect storm of stress.  Sick baby, week long hospital stay, IVF or not?, Moving our house, taking on the new Admin position, and moving a church!

So the only thing left is that last one – moving the church.  I'm so pumped about this Sunday I can't even describe.  It is going to be off the hook!  This whole move is going to launch Lifepoint into a new level.  Here are some things you can pray about:

• Thank God for his provision of Chancellor High School.
• Pray that some school space will be made available to us – sill iffy in one area.
• Pray for our services this Sunday and that a great harvest will take place!
• Pray for Chancellor H.S.  Pray that God will bless them beyond measure for their generosity.  They thought they were just getting a Sunday tenant….may it be much greater than that!
• Pray for the staff of LIfepoint.  Pray that we will have wisdom beyond our years, strength for the day, and a proper balance between work and home.
• Pray hard as a weapon against spiritual warfare.  Keep your guard up!

See you Sunday!!!!!!