3 Questions and a Reminder

If you've ever or are currently plowing through a difficult time, Job chapter 1 is well worth a few minutes of your attention.

In fact, it's good stuff any time.

Read the chapter, ask yourself these 3 questions and then chew on the reminder:

1. Could God brag about you to Satan? (v.8)
2. Would Satan be right about you? (v.9-11)
3. Is your relationship with God strong enough to endure difficulty? (v.20-22)

A little perspective and a reminder:

Things are seldom what they seem. (v.12)

What are you currently going through that (if you had a little rest, took a deep breath and a hard look at it) is really not what it seems? What's the true answer to the three questions if they are asked about you?



Wait. Did you not read Job chapter 1, first? In too big of a hurry? Could that explain a few things? Go back up there and click it... :)

"You Can't Do That."

Whenever someone says this to you:

"You can't do that!" (or some variation like, "That won't work.")

It usually means they're only saying:

"You can't do that the way I'm thinking you'll have to do that in order to do that."

The problem is just that they haven't seen that done in that way before.

And of course, they could be right. So learn from but don't be limited by the experience of those who've gone before.

Because maybe you really can do that, even if no one else has ever done it that way before.

It's Great!

Ok, this isn't the post I was referring to in the last post, but I wanted to give a quick update on this past weekend. Sunday was Great! The worship area worked great, the things we rigged to work worked great, we had a great number of visitors and we're off to a great start at the Rec Center! All in all I'd say it was ...great!

And did I mention the fact that we have storage space at the Rec Center? We literally are able to store 95% of our stuff on site. That means no trailer necessary. Which is great because we don't have one. Did I mention that it was great?

And speaking of great, our team was off the hook, this weekend. Taking a cue from the Gary Lamb church planter's playbook, Saturday night we began setting up after 8 p.m. and it was midnight before we were heading home. Great people. Great attitudes. Great fun.

It was especially fun when the automatic timer killed the lights on us in the middle of our setup. Fortunately, we had brought a few lights of our own and so we kept working!

When we finally did leave, however, I couldn't get the doors to lock. I was exhausted and the thought of having to call the director of the Rec Center after midnight or having to spend the night at the Rec Center made me feel not so great. We just couldn't get the thing to lock. I tried, Ricky tried and Dan tried, but to no avail. Then my lovely wife, Leona tried and it was done! Then I was back to great! Yes, I have a great wife!

It felt right being at the Rec Center on Sunday. It was just right. I've known for over a year that this is where God has been leading us. It's where Compass Church's adventure in developing more, stronger and closer followers of Jesus Christ really begins.

Now I can't wait until next Sunday. And man, does that ever feel great.

...Oh great. Now I want a bowl of frosted flakes.

The Post Ahead & The Milestone We're On

The Post Ahead

I have a post in the works that I'm really looking forward to sharing. Look for it on the other side of this weekend. Curious? Well, let me just put it this way -

I think I need to write a book called:
"Little Rascals Church: How You Can Start One With Little or No Money Down!"

Or maybe:
"Church Planting With A Few Friends And Everyday Objects Around Your Home."

Or better yet:
"Bootstrap Church Planting: Pulling Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps When You Don't Have Boots And The Shoes You Have Are Strapless."

And to add to the suspense, I'll also let you know that a little research went into this post, including a few insights from the AVClub man himself, Ken Wilson.

But don't get too excited. There's no way any post could live up to that buildup.

The Milestone

The milestone we're on right now is all about momentum and passion on the part of the Compass Team getting ready for Sunday. This is a very, very good thing.

Here's a great example. A Couple in our church, Dan & Cassandra Robison, hit their 900 (or so) home neighborhood with door hangers today. They got about 3/4 of the way through the neighborhood with the help of some neighbor kids they enlisted. They'll finish it up in the morning, but wrapped up today's portion by taking those kids out for pizza as a reward. And when they called to tell me about it, they sounded like they all had a blast.

And for example number two, Cassandra's email signature now includes the line: "My Church Rocks!" followed by a link to our website. I love it. That's just greatness.

You pour yourself into what you buy into. It energizes you more than it drains you.

When the work becomes exciting and fun again, you know you've hit an important milestone!

And speaking of milestones, and on a totally unrelated note, today is Kim's birthday!

I Have The Keys...

Well, I'm typing this today on a sleek little laptop my brother, Kenny, rigged up for me. And I'm sitting in the parking lot of the Roanoke Recreation Center, which is a wi-fi hotspot. I thought I'd post from here. Very cool.

Basic news:
* I have the keys. We're official!
* We have storage space at the Rec Center.
* The preschool/Nursery area has pretty much everything we'll need except for diapers and wipes and things like that. (Setup will be a breeze for this area!)
* We have permission to set up this week on Saturday night after the Rec Center closes!
* God is at work all around us...

Continue to pray for us as we head into the weekend. Weird things like sickness, work issues, and more are also happening with our team. Just goofy stuff out of the blue. Hmm...I wonder why....? :)

Relationship Series

We're kicking off at the Rec Center with a 5 week series called, "Love Revisited." Here's the promo piece. Tried to keep the "Valentine's day" hearts and pink out of it as much as possible...

Poor Pastor's Pod Blip #2

Because we're still #1 on Google for "Pod Blip."

(And to lighten up a little because the countdown to our first service at the Roanoke Rec Center is blazing by at a crazy pace...)

Congrats to Ken for his "fob keycards" ranking....

An Amazing Day

Today was an amazing day!

First, it rained for the first time in months. We've been in a serious drought around here, so today was a refreshing turn in the weather. It also felt a little symbolic to me since our church turned a corner of our own, today.

We said goodbye to some long time team members this morning who will not be joining us on the next phase of our journey as a church. We will miss them greatly, but we know that they need to move on to what God is leading them to do. Bittersweet...

Fortunately, this transition was followed by an incredible display by our team of passion and commitment to the vision of Compass Church. I watched our team step up to the plate in an amazing way as preparations for next week kicked into gear. We worked together, laughed, ran errands, made sandwiches, sorted stuff, created things and prayed in preparation for the week ahead. It was awesome.

I appreciate your prayers this week because I know that the spiritual warfare intensity always goes up several notches before important events. I'm praying for God's favor, provision, logistical smoothness, great attitudes, rest and a wealth of life change as a result of our new services at the Rec Center.

Cool stuff ahead. I'm looking forward to the challenges and victories that are in the works this week!

Fun On The Redneck Trampoline

When I lived in East Texas, there was a house in the neighborhood that had its Halloween decorations still up even through Christmas and they would still be there even into January. It always drove me crazy.

Now it seems that I have done basically the same thing on my blog, here. "Merry Christmas" post still here, weeks into January? Sorry about that. I'm thinking, of the comedian who said, "If you've ever been accused of lying through your tooth... you might be a..." Dang. The next thing you know, I might be leaving blog posts up on blocks in my driveway for weeks at a time!

Realizing this made me think of what happened the other day when we were preparing for a Compass Church inventory by clearing out my garage. We pulled some old mattresses and box springs out and my kids decided to blow off some steam by jumping on them. I couldn't help but join in and I almost killed myself in the process!

While this was going on, my neighbor drove up, rolled down her car window and shouted, "What's this? A Redneck Trampoline?"

Enjoy the video while I take down these decorations.... All kinds of bloggy goodness is on its way...

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