Painting is a lot like church planting.

If I was to just walk into our house and slap some paint on, over time the paint would begin to peel off and look real nasty.  So we must sand, and wipe down, and patch holes, sand some more, tape, lay down tarp, prime, maybe prime again, and finally paint…and maybe even paint again.

The point is, it took us forever before we were even able to paint.  And that sucked.  We wanted to just paint.

But I think many church planters get in the same boat.  They just want to open the doors.  They forget that there is a lot of prep work that goes into it.  And most of it isn't fun.

A few years ago I met a guy named Devin Hudson who was starting Grace Point Church in Vegas.  The dude had been there a year and hadn't even held a service.  He raised money, did servant evangelism projects, got the legal side of the church set up, got the business side setup, cast vision, cast vision, cast vision, and cast vision.  Just in the few days I spent with him I realized how extremely difficult and time consuming church planting is.

So if your thinking about it, take a gut check.  Make sure your called; make sure you have a work ethic; and make sure you do the prep work first!

Painting is a lot like church planting.

If I was to just walk into our house and slap some paint on, over time the paint would begin to peel off and look real nasty.  So we must sand, and wipe down, and patch holes, sand some more, tape, lay down tarp, prime, maybe prime again, and finally paint…and maybe even paint again.

The point is, it took us forever before we were even able to paint.  And that sucked.  We wanted to just paint.

But I think many church planters get in the same boat.  They just want to open the doors.  They forget that there is a lot of prep work that goes into it.  And most of it isn't fun.

A few years ago I met a guy named Devin Hudson who was starting Grace Point Church in Vegas.  The dude had been there a year and hadn't even held a service.  He raised money, did servant evangelism projects, got the legal side of the church set up, got the business side setup, cast vision, cast vision, cast vision, and cast vision.  Just in the few days I spent with him I realized how extremely difficult and time consuming church planting is.

So if your thinking about it, take a gut check.  Make sure your called; make sure you have a work ethic; and make sure you do the prep work first!

Painting is a lot like church planting.

If I was to just walk into our house and slap some paint on, over time the paint would begin to peel off and look real nasty.  So we must sand, and wipe down, and patch holes, sand some more, tape, lay down tarp, prime, maybe prime again, and finally paint…and maybe even paint again.

The point is, it took us forever before we were even able to paint.  And that sucked.  We wanted to just paint.

But I think many church planters get in the same boat.  They just want to open the doors.  They forget that there is a lot of prep work that goes into it.  And most of it isn't fun.

A few years ago I met a guy named Devin Hudson who was starting Grace Point Church in Vegas.  The dude had been there a year and hadn't even held a service.  He raised money, did servant evangelism projects, got the legal side of the church set up, got the business side setup, cast vision, cast vision, cast vision, and cast vision.  Just in the few days I spent with him I realized how extremely difficult and time consuming church planting is.

So if your thinking about it, take a gut check.  Make sure your called; make sure you have a work ethic; and make sure you do the prep work first!

Painting is a lot like church planting.

If I was to just walk into our house and slap some paint on, over time the paint would begin to peel off and look real nasty.  So we must sand, and wipe down, and patch holes, sand some more, tape, lay down tarp, prime, maybe prime again, and finally paint…and maybe even paint again.

The point is, it took us forever before we were even able to paint.  And that sucked.  We wanted to just paint.

But I think many church planters get in the same boat.  They just want to open the doors.  They forget that there is a lot of prep work that goes into it.  And most of it isn't fun.

A few years ago I met a guy named Devin Hudson who was starting Grace Point Church in Vegas.  The dude had been there a year and hadn't even held a service.  He raised money, did servant evangelism projects, got the legal side of the church set up, got the business side setup, cast vision, cast vision, cast vision, and cast vision.  Just in the few days I spent with him I realized how extremely difficult and time consuming church planting is.

So if your thinking about it, take a gut check.  Make sure your called; make sure you have a work ethic; and make sure you do the prep work first!

We pull into Greensboro, NC to get some Zaxby’s.  Ok food, wasn’t that impressed. 

But that’s not the point.  The point is Matt ’bout rear-ended the person in front of us after standing on the brakes.  Yup – they were gone.

So we sat in the parking lot after eating trying to find a solution.  Rent a couple of vans?  Find a repair shop?  The solution – add brake fluid.  Easy.

Instead of getting upset at the situation, we made lemonade.  Tools required:

• Cooler Lid.
• Tennis Shoe
• Remote Control Truck
• Free Time
• A bunch of delirious road weary travelers waiting to take their energies out on a poor toy.

We pull into Greensboro, NC to get some Zaxby’s.  Ok food, wasn’t that impressed. 

But that’s not the point.  The point is Matt ’bout rear-ended the person in front of us after standing on the brakes.  Yup – they were gone.

So we sat in the parking lot after eating trying to find a solution.  Rent a couple of vans?  Find a repair shop?  The solution – add brake fluid.  Easy.

Instead of getting upset at the situation, we made lemonade.  Tools required:

• Cooler Lid.
• Tennis Shoe
• Remote Control Truck
• Free Time
• A bunch of delirious road weary travelers waiting to take their energies out on a poor toy.

"Eat the fish, spit out the bones" is a good motto in learning from others.  You may not agree with everything, but you certainly can find something to take-away.

I was impressed by the willingness of this person to stomach the music to get to the teaching.  The style may not have been his personal taste, but he wasn’t going to let that skew his judgment so much so that he missed the meat.

Rock on mister orange-ear-plug-go-everywhere-in-a-suit-man.  Rock on!

If you’d like to help us paint, we’re starting tomorrow!

Let me know if your available.  We’ll start around noonish.

Drive ’08 is over.  My hangover has subsided, and now I finally can process everything that was thrown at me.

First – incredible conference.  If you’re thinking about next year, do it!

Andy, of course, is the bomb.  I enjoyed the main sessions more than anything.  Todd Fields rocked it out of the park.  I took lots of notes:

And my biggest question is, how big is that screen?

Too pooped to type.  Will be tomorrow night as well.  Hold your horses till Thursday.

By the way – got the High School.  Booyeah.  Praise God!