Obstacles

I drove to Cumming, GA yesterday afternoon to meet with Shawn @ MLC. The meeting was unbelievable...he is awesome! I left there so pumped up! More on that later though.

Cumming is about 40 to 45 min from Woodstock, GA. I left my office at FBCW so excited about the meeting that I was in another world...ever been there? My mind was racing with so many thoughts that when I came back into touch with reality I realized that I was driving the wrong way. I had to quickly revise my route and get back on course. When I did that I ended up behind a gigantic cement truck....always lovely. Now I left in plenty of time to get to the meeting but when I am in a car going somewhere I am always in a hurry...I just am. When I am driving I mean business...if you are in my way you will know because I will get so close to the back of your car that I can reach in and change the radio station...so there I am behind this stinking cement truck going 35 mph...needless to say I was about to pull my hair out. I finally got around the cement truck...I won't say how because my mom reads this sometimes and she would just die...I am okay mom... so I overcame the obstacle of going the wrong way and getting beyond the cement truck and I am moving along on my way jamming to some Hillsong...when all of the sudden an 18-wheeler pulls out from a side road and gets stuck...in the middle of the road... blocking both lanes of traffic. The operator of this truck proceeds to get out of his truck (which is in the middle of the road remember) and starts trying to figure out a way he can get out of his predicament. Talk about frustrating...I could feel my face getting hot! He finally managed to maneuver his truck out and of course I followed him all the way to my destination at a speed of about 40 mph. Just lovely...

Obstacles are frustrating...very frustrating...especially when you know where you are going and you are determined to get there. Life is filled with obstacles. Often times they place themselves smack dab in the middle of the pathway of your dreams. How you respond to those obstacles will determine whether or not you will ever see your dreams become reality. You can give up and in so doing miss the opportunities that lie ahead. You can try to find an alternate route that will make your pursuit easier, but risks the chance of getting lost and so losing the original dream and settling for the safe. Or you can press on, staying the course and overcoming the obstacles when giving the chance, or pressing through them when its all you can do, knowing that on the other side of these obstacles are your destiny...your opportunity....your dream!! Stay determined...stay the course...never give up...pursue the dream! On the other side of the obstacles is your dream. When you get there... you will never regret it!

Awesome Meeting Today!!

I am so excited because today I am going to have a meeting with this guy who pastors this church. He is really cool, and I have been trying to hook up with him for a while now. Look forward to getting to hang out with him and ask him some questions about church planting and stuff. It has been a good week...this just makes it all the more exciting!!

The Coolest Person on the Planet!!

Noah Mark Ayers is the coolest person on the planet....next to my smoking hot wife Heather ofcourse!! Noah is my 4 month old son. As I am sitting here he is knocked out in his stroller at Malia's Mug a cool coffee house in old town Canton. We are just chillin out together. He is now starting to really react to me. He laughs at me and smiles at me....He is so awesome. I love my son!! He brings great joy to my life and my marriage! I enjoy every moment I get to hang with him and his mommy...except when he screams bloody murder...not so enjoyable...but just a reminder that he is around. I love Noah. I love my wife....life is bueno!!

GARY Had A Little LAMB...

...Not really but that is his name and he does have a fricking dynamic church, and had a rocking round table for church planters today at his offices...complete with some good ole' bbq, fat people like me dig anything with good food...Gary Lamb is doing an incredible job of reaching the unchurched...and has an impossible vision for reaching people in and around the Canton area...I admire people with an impossible vision for reaching the world with the truth of the gospel because God is the God of impossibilities!

I learned so much today from his staff at Ridgestone Church, and they are such servants. They were so generous to bring all of us crazy church planting dreamers together and pour into us what they have learned and to connect us with each other....and feed us! I left there pumped to do the mission of God!! Even though Gary thought I sold hair care products....

I Love My Pastor

My Pastor, Dr. Johnny M. Hunt, is the greatest pastor on the planet. His preaching...without question powerful and anointed. His life...marked with absolute character and integrity. His passion....after 20+ years in ministry unparalleled. He continues to have a deep passion for reaching the lost for Jesus. He desires more than anyone I know to see people get to the cross. His love for people is incredible. His love for his staff is unbelievable. His leadership is brilliant. His time management is matchless. His desire to wear out his earthly body for the Kingdom of God is challenging. He desires more than anyone I know to live his life with purpose and passion, and to not just merely exist. I love my pastor. I love him. And he loves me.

Hacksaw Jim Duggin and Theological Overdosing

When I was a boy I enjoyed watching wrestling...not the real kind, but the fun kind. One guy a remember was Hacksaw Jim Duggin. He was an American flag waving redneck who carried around a 2x4. When given the opportunity he would whack some guys in the face with his 2x4. It was awesome!

Last night I was reading a blog of a guy who seems to take pride in criticizing the theological positions of some of my heroes. He enjoys the arrogance of strutting his theological intellectualism by attacking openly those who oppose him. He recently wrote a blog discussing what he feels is the importance of taking a dogmatic stance on whether or not you are a Calvinist or an Arminian, a Cessationist or a Non-Cessationist, an adherent to Covenant theology or Dispensational theology, premillennialist, Amillennialist, or Post-millennialist and blah blah blah. He said the importance of doing this is worship. When we truly "know" God we can then truly "worship" Him, was his position. I wonder how he would apply his reasoning to the young 9 year old girl in our church who lost her mother to suicide just a few months ago, and her father in a car accident just a few days ago. Would he tell her that if she just knew where she stood on these doctrines then she could worship God and move forward? What about the countless men and women who are struggling with various addictions? How about the unchurched peering in trying to connect with God? He has so overdosed on theology that he has lost touch with reality. Furthermore, and more importantly, he has lost perspective on the biblical mandate to preach the gospel. This is the condition of so many. These guys need their stomach pumped with a fresh dose of reality, but most often they just die of an overdose and never see the hand of God work on their ministries because they have so packaged God into their theological box of "knowing Him" that they do not even know Him at all. They forget that He is bigger than their theological constructs and have managed to construct their own god with their own hands.

His ways are emphatically above our ways, we can only know of Him what He has revealed, and if we just stop for a moment and realize that our finite minds can only comprehend but a tiny fraction of who He is. To make claims that they have figured God out is to try and bridle God like they would bridle a horse. Then throwing a saddle on Him and riding upon their theological high horse trying to control Him....soon enough He will spit out their bridal and buck them off....

My first thought, though openly not very spiritual, is I would just like to be there the day He bucks them off so that when they get back up I could whack them in the face with a 2x4, Hacksaw Jim Duggin style.

March Madness as a Bulldog Fan

Unfortunately as a Georgia Bulldog fan (God's Team) March Madness is meaningless. I hope one day that will change, but I refuse to be one of those people who have a college football team they cheer for and a separate college basketball team they cheer for. I think Jesus described these people in Revelation 3:15-16. These people want the best of both worlds. Their team is good at one sport and not the other so instead of being a faithful supporter of their team regardless of their win/loss record they find another team that is good at the other sport and so satisfy their longing to be a happy fan year round. I question their true loyalty to either team. These people are really delusional if you think about it. Who do they really pull for? What school do they really support? They are neither hot or cold. These people are usually the people that get mad at those who "cheer for their conference" when it comes down to the National title. How do they have the right to get mad at those who cheer for their conference (I am not one of those by the way) if they can not even cheer for the same team in both sports? I think these people need to get the plank out of their own eye before they start trying to remove the splinters in other peoples eyes.

Let it be said that I am a Georgia Bulldog fan, period. I do not cheer for my conference, the SEC (though it is hands down the most difficult conference). Regardless of how bad they might be at one sport and how good they are at another I will always be a fan that stands with true pride and boldly proclaims.....GO DAWGS....SICK'EM!!

More on the O'Charley's Girl

Our goal in reaching people with the good news ought not to be about trying to tell people to stop doing certain things, but strictly getting them to Jesus. Their problem is not the things they are or are not doing, it is the person they do not know. They are living out of who they are…lost sinners…they will not look like us, act like us, talk like us, believe like us…until they know the one who made us this way. We spend too much time dealing with the symptoms, and forget we need to deal with the problem. It is not a particular sin that condemns them, it is because they are already condemned that they do those particular sins. But Jesus said He came not to condemn the world….that is bring judgement….but to save it! IN HIM there is no more condemnation! We need to spend more time getting people IN HIM, instead of trying to deal with the symptoms of their condemnation, and thus condemning them…this is contrary to Jesus’ mission!

O'Charley's Girl

I was at O’Charley’s the other night with some friends. The waitress was a young girl who was very friendly. It was one of the guys birthday so we asked if they would sing and bring a dessert…just for the fun of it… but she said that they did not do that anymore. She then proceeded to ask how old he was, and he told her 21. Her immediate question was, “don’t you want a drink?” He told her no and that he never has had one, and never will. She was curious as to why and immediately inquired. Another guy with us, the b-day boy’s brother, told her that none of us drank because of Jesus. She began to ask why being a Christian meant you could no longer drink. She said that the Bible talks about people drinking, but only says it is wrong to drink if you get drunk. She then asked about tattoos because one of the guys with us had a tattoo. She began to tell us how her parents are always telling her to stay away from her friends because they drink and she does not need to drink, and how tattoos are wrong and she can not get one. It turns out that she and her parents were members of our church, and not only that, she had been a member of our church since she was 2 years old. After conversing with her and trying to answer her questions honestly, I discovered that at the heart of what this girl was getting at is that she really wanted to connect with God, but her perception of what that meant was that she had to adhere to all kinds of rules that she felt would bring great demise to her life. To her connecting with God meant following rules, not following Jesus.

Mountain Lake Church....WOW!

I had the opportunity this past Saturday to go over and visit Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, GA where Shawn Lovejoy is pastor. It was incredible. They have 5 services on the weekend and two of them are on Saturday. We went to the earliest one on Saturday at 4:30pm. He did a baptism service that was off the hook. Just in our service they baptized 30 people. I think the total number of baptisms was 203...you can read Shawn's blog and find out the total. Shawn rocks!! And so does Mountain Lake...they are knocking it out for Jesus!! Jesus is so awesome!!

You're A What.....?

I was at a Men's Conference with my Pastor this weekend. As I was selling his books and CD's a man came to the table. He was inquiring about a message series that Pastor had taught on Theology. He asked me what messages were included. I opened it up and was going through the different messages and when I came to the one on the topic of Calvinism I thought the man was going to blow a gasket. He said, "Calvinism...he far it or he agin'it?" Well, I responded by explaining to him that he did not ascribe to the doctrine of Calvinism, but he gives a fair and balanced look at both sides of the issue in the message. The guy responded back to me in a way that I can only describe as just plain weird. He began rattling off all the things that he was...something about being a "freewill, foursquare, evangelical, protestant, independent....blah...blah...blah....that goes to a Baptist church." He rattled off several things, but I did not really pay that much attention to most of it....it really made me want to vomit....I detest such labeling...I spew that out of my mouth!!! I did not respond to the man...I just let him go on his way...in a kind way. I am sure that lost and unchurched people are so attracted to this type of labeling. I am sure they are just dying to become a freewill, foursquare....whatever...Why do we have such labels? Did Jesus label himself in such a manner? Here is all I know....I WAS a sinner...then I met Jesus. He changed me. Now I follow Him. I am a NEW CREATION....thanks be to Jesus!

More Thoughts on UNLEASH Conference

This will be last post on the conference...I wanted to give some of the thoughts that Perry Noble gave that impacted me from the second session on principles to be intentional about growing churches...

• Leadership is as easy as listening to God
• You must OWN the vision; Do not ever compromise the Vision
• God will test every senior pastor or church planter with someone who tries to use their money as power...you will either be a prostitute or a prophet
• The pastor is not supposed to do everything
• Surround yourself with godly people who are capable of carrying the vision
• One of the biggest mistakes of senior pastors and church planters is they want their vision to be safe
• Stop asking others to support your vision
• If you look at the vision and say "we can do that" its NOT a vision
  

My Thoughts on UNLEASH Conference

This was an incredible conference. I am so glad I did not miss this. Perry Noble was unbelievable. If you want to see what he had to say you can read the notes here. These are some of the things he said that really impacted me from his first session on what the church needs to do to make Jesus famous....

• We give God half baked lethargic environments and expect God to move
• You don't have to be original, you just have to be good enough to steal it and make it better
• The time when people need embraced the most we say "to hell with you"
• People say they want to go deep and be fed...if I am still feeding my child when she is 15 something is wrong...bring a spoon!
• People are concerned about numbers when it is their bank account, but not when it comes to church
• When you start doing something for God you are going to piss some people off
• We need to quit focusing on the issues and behaviors and help people get to Jesus
• If your focus is not on Jesus you need to change your focus or shut your doors
• What the church is going to do matters for all eternity

UNLEASH.....UNBELIEVABLE!

Few things have I been to have ever impacted me the way this conference has. This was one of the most unbelievable things I have ever been to. You know how sometimes when you have experiences that seem to mark you in a way that you will never forget? So much in fact it becomes some what of a defining moment...perhaps even better said a Divine moment? Well, this was one of those experiences for me. Perry Noble absolutely, hands down, without question blew it out of the water with this! He rocked my world! So much of what I have seen and heard I am going to have to just process and chew on for a day or so. I am going to post some of the highlights of the conference, from my perspective, in following blogs....but for now I must just simply say that UNLEASH....was truly UNBELIEVABLE.....simply....UNBELIEVABLE...

Stevie Flockhart...He Talks A Good Talk...But...

My friend Stevie and his brother Andrew came over last night and we played some Madden on the XBOX. Now Stevie insisted that Andrew and I play first since he was going to destroy whoever played him anyway. He said I should have no problem taking Andrew...he isn't that good. Well, Andrew beat me. Instead of letting the winner, Andrew, advance to play his brother I declared I would take on Stevie...you can change the rules in your own house. Well Stevie talked himself up, saying things such as, "the score will be 58 to 7 me," and, "I am going to destroy you." So I played Stevie. He was the Falcons, and I was the Colts. The entire gave he ran his mouth about how good he was, and how I was going to lose. I was down by 3 touch downs in the 3rd quarter. It looked like Stevie was right. He had destroyed me....oh, but then came the 4th quarter. I managed to tie the game up throwing Stevie off with a combination of some running plays and some play action passes. Needless to say, he was getting a little nervous. Andrew was cheering me on. He was on the edge of his seat hoping for the demise of his own flesh and blood...that's my boy Andrew...that's my boy. With under a minute to play I stepped up my defense and forced Stevie to punt for his life. I had the ball with just 34 secs remaining and only one time out...I must admit the defense was strong and I quickly burned my timeout and had to go no huddle. With one second left Stevie made one final mistake...he jumped offsides. This gave me the opportunity to pick one last play and make one last heave to the in zone. The ball was hiked, then the ball was thrown, then the ball was caught, and then the touchdown was scored. Andrew and I jumped with excitement as Stevie sat astonished by the huge upset....it was utterly priceless. I had to capture the score, just to make sure no untruths could be spread...oh yeah, did I mention this was my first time ever playing Madden 07.

Ready to be UNLEASHED

I am pumped about Perry Noble's conference UNLEASH hosted by New Spring Church tomorrow. I am headed up to South Carolina today to hang out with my friend Josh, and then we are going to the conference on Thursday. I can't wait! I have been looking forward to this, and I am very excited about the things I am going to learn! Woo...Hoo...!!

Sitting in a Rental Car

While John Mayer was "Waiting on the World to Change" about 400 times on the radio yesterday I was "Sitting in a Rental Car" bored out of my mind for about 7 hours. We were in Wake Forrest at Southereastern Baptist Theological Seminary yesterday and we opted not to fly back to Atlanta to save some money. My partner in the mentor program drove the entire way. Why? I am not completely sure, regardless it left me in the passenger seat staring out the window for several hours trying to find good songs on the radio. Anyway, I am glad that experience is over and I got home to my wife and baby boy Noah (who was asleep) safely. Hopefully next time I can fly or at least drive some...probably would have slept some if I would have had less Starbucks, but then again how can you pass up Starbucks.

"I WON..."

Well, no, not really...but someone did. The lottery that is. I heard this morning on the radio that in New York they were selling a million tickets an hour...now if education is to be benefiting from lottery sells...those folks in New York ought to have the best stinking schools in the country after yesterday. I heard that someone in Dalton, GA...that is not far from me...bought the winning ticket. There might be 3 winners from what I understand of the 370 million dollars that was up for grabs, and for sure 2 winners...one in Dalton, Ga and the other in New Jersey. 370 million dollars!!! Can you imagine going to bed last night with modest gain, then waking up the next morning only to find that you are a millionaire. What a change in lifestyles that would be. As I was driving down the road I was thinking what I might do in those initial moments of finding out that I had won. Having lots of money seems to give you some power that you lack when you don't have it. There are certain decisions that you could clearly make if money was a non-issue. Why is that? Why do we let money become our decision maker? Why does money decide for us what we are going to do with our lives? Why does money decide where we go, what we do, and how well we do it? I was reading this morning of a man who had a demon possessed son. He went to Jesus and said, "IF you can do anything...help us." Jesus responded to the man saying, "'If you can?' Everything is possible to the one who believes." Why do we not believe Jesus? Why don't we trust Him, that if He wants us to go somewhere or do something money really is already a non-issue, whether you possess it in abundance or not. Sometimes I find myself relating to the man in the story...as I had, "had I won...this is what I would do..." thoughts this morning I began thinking of the risks I would take...which really would not be risks I guess if I had the money...I thought about the things I would try and accomplish, the adventures I might take, the things I would do for the kingdom, for others, etc...only if I had the power of money. IF...well for me there is no IF...I have a power greater than money...Jesus. Why do I not believe if God wants me to accomplish it He not only can, but He will? I guess I really have won...if only I would believe.

Rainy Night in Georgia... and Alabama

Drove down to the panhandle of FL this weekend for a Men's Conference that Pastor was doing. A small town called Chippley. We stayed in Graceville, FL near the Baptist College of Florida in one of the College's guest homes. On the way down we drove through nothing but rain until we got out of Alabama. This was not just sprinkling rain...it was extra heavy rain...there were times when I was just hoping that I was still on the road. There were heavy winds and thunder and lightening...this was the same day the bad tornado had gone through Enterprise, AL. At one point on our trip as we were changing highways we saw a lot of police cars riding around with their lights flashing...at that point the rain was extremely heavy and wind was really blowing. We wondered why the police were everywhere...and we think we figured it out on the way back. When we came back through that area on the way home there were trees down everywhere, and we saw a hotel missing part of its top floor. We saw houses with no roofs and apartment buildings with severe damage. It was crazy. There must have been a twister that came through there, and our guess is that we missed it by about 30 minutes or so. We felt very fortunate because by the look of the damage we saw it had to have crossed the highway right were we entered on...praise the Lord we missed it. Just for the record driving in the rain pretty much stinks.

We Have Come to the End of the Road

Many Years ago a band known as Boys II Men had a song, that back in the day, I really loved...it was called..."We've Come to the End of the Road"....it was a great song...and who didn't love Boys II Men...East Coast baby represent...Anyway, on a recent trip I had the opportunity to flesh out the title of this song...you see while we were driving we suddenly discovered that we had come to the end of the road. We were driving around trying to find a hotel for the night at about 3:30 in the morning...there was not a soul in sight as Garth Brooks might say (Thunder Rolls)...and all the hotels were sold out. We ended up on this road that all of the sudden just ended...had we proceeded any farther we would have ended up in the inter coastal water way. When we approached the end we were instructed by this sign you see in the picture above that we had come, as Boys II Men would say, to the end of the road. We really needed that sign because had it not been there we would have most assuredly kept right on going leaping the curb, driving through the cement wall directly in front of us, and right into the water. Praise the Lord for that sign...who knows what would have become of us.