7/10/07
I’ve got some good news, I shared it on the podcast already. Our church will be making a move Sept. 1st. We’ll be moving to a new building in North Warrior, very close to our future property. The building has been recently renovated and looks & feels brand new. It feels like a smaller space than what we’ve had at the armory, but mainly because the way it’s divided up and the main auditorium will seat a few less people, but the rest of the building will function wonderfully. I think it will be a much needed breath of fresh air for our congregation to experience a brand new facility after being in the armory for so long. I look forward to seeing the building full of people and I really feel like it’s going to be very functional. We’ll need as much help as we can get in the coming weeks and months preparing for the move. stay tuned…
7/5/07
Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th. Last night me and a few other guys visited Church of the Highlands and got to see their new facility in person. I think it’s definitely the most practical church facility in the Birmingham area. Probably one of the most useable church buildings I’ve ever been in. The guys at Garrison Barrett did a fantastic design, and props to the staff at Highlands for knowing what they wanted. Having said that, I will say that there is a great response when you talk to the people there; they are not really concerned with the new facility. In their minds it takes an appropriate back seat to whats happening in peoples lives. It really got me pumped to see a group that realizes the importance of having a place of ministry like that, but realizes the greater importance (it’s not about the building at all)! Another thing I would like to commend them on is the fact that they continue to be a giving church. After the service everyone retreated to the front lawn for a fireworks show, during that time the church had a plethora of food and snacks available all free (hotdogs, popcorn, cotton candy, shaved ice, soft drinks). As you can tell these things hold a place in my heart. Anyway, one thing I believe our church has learned through watching their ministry and also practicing it ourself is GIVING. We have personally seen the fruit of the relationships you create when giving material things away as opposed to selling them. I don’t want to be harsh, but I went to another church on the fourth that was selling everything there. At a high price at that. I feel like when unchurched people show up at church events and the churches are selling food, shirts, etc… This can subcontiously re-affirm their thoughts and feelings about what “the church” is. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that some churches are in a situation where they can’t give stuff away, well my advice would be to always give something away and don’t try to make money off anything you do happen to be selling. Thats the best thing I have to say about that, so i digress. Anyway, if you actually made it through this congratulations, or should I say I’m sorry…
p.s. Check out the podcast
7/3/07
I put my ipod on shuffle on the way into work this morning, I sometimes like the surprise of not knowing whats next up. I got that old song by Michael Jackson from the movie “Free Willy”. There you have it, I admit it, I like the ocassional old school Michael Jackson song. Anyway, the first line of that song is: “Hold me like the river Jordan, and I will then say to thee, That you are my friend” How cool is that line? Honestly, I’m not real sure what that has to do with killer whales if anything, but it’s still a cool line. There’s probably not anything to learn from that, just wanted to share…
7/3/07
Craig Groeschel had an interesting post today about church buildings on his blog, so I commented on it. Here’s what I said:
“The biggest mistake I think we tend to make is designing a building room by room and not for the total experience. Know what people experience from the time they pull on the grounds till the time they leave. We have different staff walk through whole experience regularly, probably not often enough though. One more thing, although the building will require most of your focus, don’t neglect the rest of the property. I’ve experienced having the building “like we like it” but have unfinished parking, half dirt and/or rocks, poor landscaping etc… We tend to spend our time thinking about the building and making a good first impression and forget that many other things influence that.”
I love blogs…
6/26/07
Well, back from Atlanta and into my normal groove. Kass and I had a great trip. We got to visit Buckhead Church on Sunday night and it was fantastic. Great job guys and “wow” the new facility is amazing. Also, got to take a trip to sixflags on Monday, and the Superman almost killed me. I got some crazy whiplash. The new coaster the Goliath was really good, and overall it was a great sixflags trip. I wanted to let anyone who may be interested know that I’m planning on updating our podcast more frequently now. You can check it out by going here if you’d like (must have itunes to listen). Guess that’s it for now. later…
6/22/07
Church of the Highlands is having it’s first ever service in their new facility this Sunday. The staff their has done a wonderful job over the past 6 or 7 years, and it’s exciting to see them get a building so they can continue to move forward. I have a few friends that attend their and have also met a couple of the staff members at various times. Congratulations to those guys, It should be scary the quality that you guys will be able to put out now that you have the extra time to pour into your creative process. I’m sure some people will miss the road cases and trailers early in the morning every week, but those people are mentally unstable and have never had their fingers crushed by one. Just kidding, but seriously, congratulations guys, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. I think it’s truely going to be amazing. until then…
6/19/07
I desperately need to start making more post. I apologize; if someone was actually reading then I think I’d be more likely to do so…sof. For those of you who don’t know what (sof) is it means “smile on face” It was originated by Jason Durant (there’s your shout out Jason) and it’s now the new (lol) “laugh out loud”. The whole idea is that when people say “lol” they are usually not laughing out loud, and we don’t want people to think they are funnier than they actually are now do we? Anyway, now that’s out of the way, Kass and I are taking a trip to Atlanta this weekend and I’m stoked. Is that still an accepted term “stoked”? Nonetheless, we will be visiting Buckhead Church on Sunday night and then headed to Sixflags on Monday. Kass is excited about sixflags and i’m excited about Buckhead. I’ll try to post again tomorrow. That’s all i got for now…
6/4/07
I forgot to put this on the earlier post, but a friend of mine was asking me about what blogs I read, so I thought it might be good to just post them here. I couldn’t think of all them off the top of my head, at least the url’s ; I needed to look at my bookmarks. Anyway, here are just a few of them along with a short explanation.
Road to Tower Place (Jeff Henderson and staff’s blog about the moving into new facility etc…)
Perry Noble (pastor at newspring church)
Tony Morgan (newspring guy, formally of Granger, communications guru/strategic thinker)
Swerve (Craig Groeschel pastor of lifechurch.tv & Bobby Gruenewald his right hand guy)
Terry Storch (Lifechurch.tv communication and all around technology guy, formally of Fellowship Church)ok thats just a few, this should give you a good start. Most of them have links to other guys they like on their blogs. Unfortunately none have seen fit to add me to their list of favorites yet. It will happen, I’m sure of it, they’re just not aware of how big a deal I am in North Jefferson County. 
later…
6/4/07
Well, the blockparty was this weekend; it went pretty well, we didn’t have the numbers I hoped for but still it seemed to go over really well. I’m pumped about our rafting trip coming up in July (for my own selfish reasons). There’s just something supernatural about the whole thing, lol. Anyway, just one thing I’d like to share before I go. People are serious about their email. Today our email system went down and a lot of church staff were without their email for a couple hours, and you talk about some irrate people. I never knew so many people recieved such highly important “time sensative” information through email. Well I guess you learn something new everyday…
5/29/07
It’s Tuesday and I’m back at work. I really enjoyed the extra day off this week, I wish I had it every week. This saturday is our block party, so if you read this please come, details: www.elevateblockparty.com Anyway, not really anything to talk about today, but here are just a few thoughts from my Memorial day weekend.
1) Four day work weeks should be standard
2) Tater-tot caserole is absolute poetry
3) Are fish smarter these days, cause I can’t seem to get a bite? I use to be like Bill Dance.
5/21/07
This is just a quick post to tell you guys about something really cool. You’ll thank me later I promise. Google has a new 411 service for accessing telephone numbers. It’s really cool for a few reasons 1) It is a collective database of all the info from google maps, 2) It’s totally voice activated, connects you automatically and is very fast. 3) Last but certainly not least in typical google fashion it is totally free! Check it out at google 411. Please try not to pee your pants the first time you try it, and any thank you cards will be appreciated…
5/18/07
I was talking with a few guys last night and I told them something that has really been on my heart about our church, and just churches period. I think there are some key strategic decisions church leadership must make early on in the life of a church, that will forever guide the direction of that church and its ministry. There should be certain principles laid out that will both inspire and guide every decision that leadership makes. Having said that, I think if I could have just one principle to put in place that would have the greatest impact towards not becoming just another church it would be this: In hard situations and decisions that the church must make, when push comes to shove, we will always go the way of “reaching people” verses “keeping people”. I think this is one thing that greatly impacts our churches today. It seems to me that once a church reaches a certain point, and the sizes vary drastically, that church begins to focus on pleasing and keeping the people it has instead of reaching people. For some churches that happens when they reach 50-100 people, for others it’s 200, some 1,000 or even 5,000. No matter the size it seems to hold true. I think that maybe we even go as far to disguise or programs and events as evangelism type things when in truth they are just stuff to make everyone that’s already there happy. Ok I’m through with that. Sunday night the 27th; I think a few of us from Skyline are going to take a trip over to Buckhead Church to check out the new facility. They are doing some awesome things and I think it’s good for people to take trips like that together, it’s just healthy. One more thing. If your ever reading this and have a comment or anything, feel free to submit it on the contact page. I can then post it for everyone to see. Ok thats it…
5/10/07
This is not going to be a very long entry, because I don’t have much time but anyway, we are 3 weeks into the change of bringing in the 7th & 8th graders for Wednesday nights and things are going really good. Oddly enough our attendance for 9th-12th has picked up a little on top of that. It seems like our group doubled or even tripled over night. I do have some other stuff that I would like to share with everyone or should I say anyone who reads this, but it will have to wait until a later date…
5/7/07
I hear that Buckhead Church got to move into their new facility this past Sunday. Congratulations to all those guys and their hard work. Not like any of them read this, but still I think it’s amazing what they’ve done as a video venue. I was telling my brother that I don’t think anyone else is having that type success with video (at least not at one campus). I think there is a certain amount of interest that comes with the message always being delivered in that manor, however with Buckhead I don’t think it’s the fact that they use video, but the way they use it is phenominal. I had a chance to go to a service there a year or so ago, and after about 5 minutes it felt like Andy was there in person. Anyway enough about that, I would like to say that I’ve really enjoyed the past few months getting to speak and/or lead worship at a college service over at SmokeRise Baptist. That age ministry is really life giving to me. Not that others aren’t, but I feel so at home and alive during those experiences. I think we should all pursue those things that really give us life. Sometimes it’s hard to let the things go that your currently doing, but we should constantly remind ourselves that someone is setting in the waiting that will get life from the things we’re doing the same we get life from the things that we want to do. That’s all I have to say about that. later…
4/26/07
I felt like I needed to write something since we’ve got a lot going on. Our student group at church has an event coming up June 2nd. We’ve got a website up with more details it’s www.elevateblockparty.com ; please check it out if you get a chance. Also we just made a major transition with our group, bringing in the 7th & 8th grade age group. It was a lot different, but I think it will be good for us over all as a group and also for the 7th & 8ths graders, so they can spend more time around the older teens (11th & 12th grade). We were kinda packed in the room though, so we’re gonna have to change things around a bit, I hate to lose the coffee shop feel, but we gotta create some space and I really think it will suit us better in the long run. until next time…
4/23/07
It’s Monday now and I’m back to my regular schedule of events. Let me run something by you guys while I’ve got a minute. This may be the most orginal and creative thought I’ve ever had, and this is it: That there are very few orignal or creative thoughts. I think we (humans) put to much value in whether something is original or not. It seems to me that everything that you know is something you learned from somebody either through their verbal instruction or their writings. Isn’t this true? I guess one might say that God reveals things, but he’s somebody isn’t he? It is true; he reveals much through his words. However, no matter how original and creative something might sound, it’s still just a regurgitation of the colective knowledge that a person has accumulated. We could talk about this for hours on end and I think eventually we would come back to “all things were created by him and for him”. Interesting huh? I’ll stop this for now before I take the plunge. The baby is doing good, he kept us up for a while last night. I’m not sure Kyla has fully accepted things changing so much. She hasn’t settled into it yet (neither have we), but she seems to really love her new little brother. She’s gonna be a great big sis. later…
4/18/07
Weighing in at a whopping 7lbs 4oz Nathan Brey Wingo has now entered the world. We’re about to head home from the hospital. He’s doing great and so is Kass. I’ll post more later…
4/12/07
This is my very first Blog entry. I’m not sure if I’ll update it often or not. I really don’t like typing that much. We’ll see, maybe one day I’ll feel like spilling. Until then…
