Thankful For God's Second Chances….

• Another GREAT Sunday at Action Church!
• Our series HOSTAGE has been a game changer!
• I taught on the subject of Recovery Relapses today. I had never taught on this subject or heard anyone teach on it so it was a little bit of a struggle for me. Not sure how well it came off but some people seem to really enjoy it.
• You can listen to the sermon here.
• I have loved this series but it has absolutely wore me out mentally. Some series are exhausting and preaching the subject week after week has wore me out.
• This week we are wrapping up the series and if you have unchurched friends then get them to the service as we’ll be presenting the Gospel in a very clear way.
• Last night we had some friends take us to Sal Grasso Brazilian Steakhouse. Might be my new favorite place!
• My bride has been working on her testimony to share at our Celebrate Recovery. I”m so proud of her. It has stretched her in big ways and I love seeing God working in her life.
• Elena and I both have MESSY testimonies and I think they are beautiful pictures of God’s grace.
• I’m so blessed by our staff at Action Church. I love doing life with them.
• I can honestly say our staff is family.  There is mutual respect, honor, accountability and love given in all directions.
• I also love that they love me enough to get in my face when necessary.
• I am also so proud of our band.  Today I would have put them up against any band in the country.
• When we started Action Church, I said I wanted our band to look and sound like something you would hear when you go the bar to hear great rocking music.  We have nailed that!
• Phil May is doing an incredible job of making the band point people to Jesus and rock out while doing it. Love what God is doing in that dude’s life!
• Thank you for all the prayers about our meeting with the city last week.  Our meeting went well.  We have about $3500 worth of work we have to do but they were more than fair with us.
• I’m very thankful for the giving of our people recently.  We are still far away from where we need to be but our people are stepping up to make the vision happen!
• The buzz around Action every week is insane!!!!!!!
• I can’t believe how many new faces we have every week and as I say every week, it amazes me more because don’t even have a sign out front!
• Dang, I love my life!
• I am so thankful for God’s second chances!
• I am so thankful God uses messed up people to carry out His mission!
• Calling it a night.

• Awesome Sunday today!
• The place was packed out with new faces! So proud of our people for spreading the word!
• I still can’t believe all the growth we’ve seen, new faces, and word spreading about Action Church. I mean we still don’t even have a sign outside that tells people where we meet and the GPS takes you the wrong location.
• There are no words to describe the band today.  Phil and the guys were in the freaking zone.
• Tons of our regular volunteers out today and I loved seeing new people stepping up to make stuff happen.
• The band busted out the song “Watch Over You” by Altar Bridge. That is a powerful tune and Phil nailed it.
• I preached on what to do when the “high” or your recovery goes away and you experience the dip. Seemed like a lot of people could relate to the sermon.
• So proud of all of our people who are stepping up and trusting God with their finances. God has been blessing our offerings and it is pretty nice to actually be able to pay the bills every week.
• I would appreciate your prayers on Tuesday morning in a huge way!
• The Fire Marshall stopped by our building this week and is not to happy with some changes we’ve made to our building.
• It is our desire to make sure everything is up to code but honestly, some of the things they are upset about our insane.
• He called the city inspectors out to the meeting too and it seems there is some issues with our staging and sidewalls we built.
• There is also a huge issue with the fact that we have transformed a bus for the homeless of our city to sleep in.
• Pray that I handle things with wisdom and stand where I need to stand and submit where I need to submit.
• I trust God will handle the details.
• I feel so blessed with the team God has given us at Action.  They are truly servants and learning to be great leaders.
• Next week I’m talking about what you do when you “slip-up” in your recovery. I have never taught on this subject before so I’d appreciate your prayers on that as well.
• My Bride and I have been reading Mark Driscoll’s new book called Real Marriage. It has spawned some great discussions and I’m glad we’re going through a book together.
• I have now been with Elena for three years and I’d by lying if I said it was always easy but I’m so glad we both are willing to work non-stop in our marriage.
• As much as I’m loving this series, I can’t wait for our next series called “The Truth About The Birds and The Bees.” Should be fun.
• I think one of my favorite things about pastoring Action is that it is a beautiful picture of God’s Second Chances and as such I get the honor of talking to pastors every week who need a reminder that God isn’t done with them after their screw up.
• We had a couple show up to our Celebrate Recovery ministry Friday night because they thought our building was a bar. I loved that.
• So proud of all the people who showed up to get our clothing closet in order yesterday.
• I love my church!

• Hands down, my favorite service we’ve had at Action Church!
• Started a new series called HOSTAGE and I got to preach what has become known as one my signature sermons called One More Night With The Frogs. I’ve preached it several times but God hadn’t allowed me to teach it to our crowd yet.
• You’ll be able to hear it later today by clicking here.
• Today was the completion of what we envisioned for a Sunday morning service when we started.
• It was our first time doing a stage design and the crew nailed it.
• It was the first time we outsourced video and the results were obvious with our bumper video.
• It was the first time we coordinated our background video with our songs and it was obvious.
• The band nailed the set today.
• It was just an incredible Sunday.
• Next week we continue the series and I look forward to sharing with everyone the follow up message.
• I have never been part of a church that I love as much as Action Church.
• That is not meant as a knock on the previous places I have pastored, it is just I love the vision, I love the realness, I love the heart, the people, and I am so proud of what our ragtag group has accomplished through Jesus.
• With all due respect to Ed Young Jr. this is a pretty cheesy idea.
• Had a great meeting with all of our band and sound guys after church today.  We raised the bar big time and they seem to be responding.
• I wrote this on twitter this week and some people got upset but I’ll say it again: Church Planters would be better served and have a better band if they got out of the worship musician circles and got in the bar band musician circles. I think I’ll write more about this later this week.
• We have had a sick house all week and I’m about over it.
• I hate seeing Luke sick because he seems so helpless.
• NFL playoffs are on and I’m surprised how little interest I have in it. If it ain’t UGA, I could care less.
• Elena and I started watching Break Bad and Revenge this week. Both are pretty good.
• If you are looking for a church home in Canton, I would love to have you come check us out one Sunday morning.
• Had a guy visit from Gainesville today who has been reading my blog for a few years. BLOWN away by his generosity and heart. Truly a blessing.
• It’s rainy and cold so I see a nap about to happen. Peace out.

• Been unplugged for a few weeks…and it was needed!
• Having church on January 1st was a little weird.
• Obviously we were lower in attendance than normal but we actually had a great crowd.
• I talked about money so that is always fun.
• Taught on the concept of quit trying get rich and instead learn how to be rich!
• I’m convinced one of the reasons the church is so ineffective is because the people who attend don’t know how to live by Biblical principles when it comes to their finances.
• Before service things were dragging but I was proud of our people for picking up the pace and showing some energy today.
• The last two months have been HUGE at the church and I’m pretty excited what 2012 holds in store!
• Next week we start a series called HOSTAGE on breaking free from whatever it is in our lives that has us captive.
• Series on hurts, habits, and hang-ups are my sugar sticks so I can’t wait to preach!
• Crap, my mind is fried so my thoughts are short today. Sorry. :0

• POWERFUL Sunday at Action Church!
• Taught on an issue I am very passionate about which is the subject of forgiveness.
• I know from my own life that unforgiveness will eat away at you in ways you can never imagine.
• At the end of the service, the altar was full of people literally crying out to God. Powerful moment.
• We had Isaac Clark (aka Big Daddy) leading worship today. He always does a great job when he is with us!
• EVERY week we’re making improvements at the building and I love seeing God do his thing!
• I also love how many other churches are partnering with what we’re doing through our community efforts. Humbled.
• I have been part of a couple of pretty amazing churches and I can say I have never been part of a place that has as much raw momentum as Action does right now. It’s pretty stinking powerful.
• I had to leave the building right before service and as I was pulling back in I started laughing realizing we don’t even have a sign on our building yet we are running out of seats every week!
• So thankful for a church that is bringing us 250 more chairs the first week in January. We get to use them until right before Easter so that buys us some time.
• This week we hope to actually get the side screens up in the building so we can have two projectors going and you can actually see the words to the songs!
• I’m so proud of our Action Kids.  What they have done with their space is amazing.
• EVERYONE wants to know about to Kids Bus so hopefully I’ll post get some time to post some pictures this week.
• It is pretty freaking cool!
• It’s amazing what God is doing with our finances. They are still so horrible, but they are so much better than they were a month ago.
• I’m looking forward to our Christmas Eve service this Saturday night at 6 p.m.
• I am teaching at CR this Friday so that freaking jacks me up!
• Also looking forward to our band playing too!
• Your prayers are appreciated this week as Elena and I have a CRAZY schedule!
• Speaking of Elena…..she freaking rocked out “Do You Hear What I Hear” today at church! Holy Smokes!
• We have 5 kids in our little house right now. Not cool.
• We are officially looking for a bigger house. We HATE to leave this place. We love living downtown, 2 blocks from the church and we love our house but it is way to small for our growing family.
• Seriously, I can’t get over today. Awesome Sunday.
• It was so awesome that I’m dead so I’m out so I can got to sleep!

• Really good day today at Action Church!
• Today was the first day since I’ve been in ministry where I was jealous someone else was teaching.
• I took a Sunday off and Mark taught. He did a really great job, but dang the atmosphere was so electric I wanted to teach like crazy!
• This was our first Sunday with our new kids area up and running. The space was packed out! Seriously we have got to figure out a way to get more space asap.
• We have a ton of tweaking to do in regard to our kids area.  You’ve got to go through the worship area to get there. That’s not ideal, but it is what it is.
• I’m so proud of all of our workers who made things happen this week. Taylor and the Action Kid volunteers knocked it out of the park!
• Due to our lack of space, we remodeled a bus for our elementary kids to meet in and it is off the freaking hook!
• We have put together a worship space that will hold about 50-60 kids for less than $500.
• Bus was donated, paint we bought was “oops” paint at Home Depot, the flooring was about $125 and we bought the huge TV on Black Friday, and the graffiti artist only charged us paint to do the outside!
• I’m so proud of our building. A building is simply a tool but we have created a really nice place for pennies. So thankful for all the churches and pastors who donated stuff to us!
• We have the opportunity coming up to step out on faith in a HUGE way. Pray for wisdom in that regard!
• Someone blessed out entire staff last night by taking us to CHOPS in Atlanta. Food was good. Company was better!
• I love the team I get to work with!
• I feel we are two additions to our team away from going to the next level in huge ways!
• Elena and the band nailed that rendition of Little Drummer Boy to kick off the service.
• That’s about all that is on my mind because the Holy Hangover is in full effect and I didn’t even preach!

• Hands down, one of my favorite days ever in ministry was today! Powerful day!
• We announced that C3 Church is now Action Church!
• Action Church….Because Talk Is Cheap! Just seems to fit with everything that we’re about!
• The atmosphere was off the charts today!
• We were literally standing room only. We need more chairs bad! If you are a church that has some chairs you are not using, I know a church that is reaching messy people that could use them. Just sayin….
• I know this probably sounds really dumb to a lot of people who read this but this was our first week having a stage and it made all the difference in the world! Wow, it changed the vibe of everything.
• Our next project is getting some type of lighting going in the building. It will be simple, but we got to get something going. Again, I’m not to proud to ask so if any churches have any color changers or par cans they want to get rid of, i know a church that could use them!
• I’m so proud of the people of Action Church. You have stepped up in the area of finances in a huge way the last couple of weeks. Thank you!
• I’m jacked out of my mind right now! Seriously, I can’t quit smiling!
• We are getting another food truck in this Tuesday! It’s not as big as our last one but still we should give out around 10,000lbs of food. Love it!
• I think the truck is God’s way of saying if you are going to have the name Action Church….you better prove it.
• One thing about changing your name is you don’t realize how many things your old name is on.
• Our band is in the freaking zone!!!!! That has been the biggest bone of contention for us for so long and we have found our groove!
• It is so nice to be using our own sound equipment! We need to upgrade a lot of stuff soon but it’s a good start!
• Having Scott and Joesph taking over sound has been just what we needed. They’ve both led sound for me for years and I’m glad to have them at Action Church now!
• Love having my bride back on stage singing too!! I love her voice and she’s a lot prettier to look at than Phil.
• You know you reach messy people when my friend Brian Cain showed up in his police uniform and people started getting nervous and I think a few thought about running!
• So thankful for everyone who did so much at the building this week! The thing looks amazing but we have a long way to go!!
• Excited about getting our kids back in our building this week!
• We’re trying something with kids that is so crazy that I don’t even want to tell you about it until we get it complete.
• I have spent the last hour looking at old CD recordings of our sound guy and both of our guitar players. Our two guitar players had the greatest hair back in the day!
• My Dawgs gave it their best shot yesterday but they are just not ready to be a elite team. I’m afraid as long as Mark Richt is our coach that will always be the case.
• Nevertheless, I’m proud of them.
• Tons more to do this week so I’m unplugging.
• But before I do, thank you to everyone out there who has believed in me and believes in 2nd Chances!

For whatever reason, I have always had a unique ability to connect with unchurched people.  I don’t know why and there are probably several factors but I just have always been able to do it.  I’ve always been more comfortable around non-Christians than I have most Christians.  However, I have learned that still understanding the thought pattern of those who don’t regularly attend church is something you have to be intentional about.

When I started my previous church I was very intentional about it and the results were obvious.  We reached a lot of unchurched, dechurched, burned out on church people.  As the church grew, I got to the point where I became a “professional” Christian.  I hung out with other pastors and church people than I did with those who didn’t attend church.  The results from this were obvious too.  Most probably didn’t see it but we were drawing in more and more churched people every week and that was dulling the edge of the church.

After working the secular world for 18 months, I was around those who don’t attend church on a regular basis.  I loved that aspect of it.  It was one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had in a long time.  Things I read about, heard preachers talk about, and things I thought about those who don’t attend church were so far off from reality.

Sunday I asked the question on FB to those who don’t attend church what they first 5 words that popped in their mind were when they thought of the word church.  You can read the responses here.  After posting it, I got several private messages from pastors telling me I shouldn’t put much stock in the responses because it was obvious most of those people were “hurt” and “bitter” with the church.  Of course they are.  That is why they responded the way the did and their responses are something the Church needs to pay attention to if these are the type of people you hope to reach.

As I read through the responses my first reaction was that they simply had bad experiences and I could probably explain everything they wrote away.  But Perception is Reality….even if it isn’t true.  The church has left a bad taste in the mouth of many people and no matter how “cool” your church is, this isn’t going to change their point of view.  You’ve got to figure out what will.

Here are some random thoughts I had as I was processing through the responses:

• Do most pastors truly have relationships with those who don’t attend church?  I’m not asking do you know someone, I’m asking do you truly have relationships with people who want nothing to do with church.
• Do you care enough about reaching those who don’t attend church to actually ask their thoughts about church?  Trust me, it can be painful and no one likes to look in their own mirror but you’ve got to do it if you want to reach those who don’t attend church.
• It is easy to reach those who have never attended church. It is a lot harder to reach those who have been hurt by church. Yet both are equally important and loved by God.
• What is the church I pastor doing to add to these misconceptions?  Yes, there are always going to be people who fall through the cracks, get hurt, take something the wrong way, or get hurt.  Instead of just shrugging  it off when it happens, are we doing whatever we can to make things right with these people.
• Are we more concerned with doing church in a cool way or an effective way?  I’m convinced most pastors want to be cool than they do effective.  I don’t even know if they know this, but it is true.
• Most pastors will never be effective at reaching those who don’t attend church. That doesn’t make them a bad person, a bad preacher, a bad leader, etc.  But most pastors have been so out of touch with the “secular” world that they simply can not relate to those who don’t attend church.
• Something has to change. I know as long as people are involved, church will never be a clean cut thing but the church is hurting a lot of people. Pastors need to step back and see what their part in that is.

Random thoughts but they were on my mind and I wanted to get them off my chest.

Comments are open so I’d love to hear your thoughts…

Two weeks ago we started a series that will believe is the ULTIMATE game-changer for us. After almost a year into starting this thing we finally feel like we know our DNA and what makes us unique.  After evaluating, everything we did we came up with what we call THE CODE.

THE CODE is simply our set of values.  It let’s us know what gets a yes and what gets a no.  Last week, we covered the first 6 of our values and you can read those here.

Yesterday, we covered the final 6 values.

• We keep it simple -We live in a complicated world so we will keep things simple.  We Love God, Love People. Take Action.

• We are united under the visionary – We are built on the vision that God has given Pastor Gary. We will aggressively defend our unity and his vision.

• We are more about what is Lost than what is Found – We will not cater to personal preference in our mission to reach our city. We are more concerned with the people we are trying to reach than the people we are trying to keep.

• We will always get “out of the boat” – No matter how insane the circumstances around us seem, we will always follow God’s leading and step out in faith.

• We will Party Hard! – Ministry is too hard not to be fun.  We’ll make sure we enjoy everything God is doing and take time to celebrate every victory.

• We will Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing – No matter what, everything we do is about Jesus, not our egos, preferences or traditions.

• Last service of C3 Church today!!!
• Next week we start _________ Church.
• I swore when I started this mind dump, that I would sit here and just talk about all the good things and gloss over the crappy things.
• So, let me tell you that I felt I laid a egg today with my message.
• I couldn’t buy a “amen” today.
• It was nice to have Phil back leading worship.  It just seems right when he is there.
• The last two weeks we have had a old friend of mine, Scott King in house running sound.
• Hands down, I think Scott is one of the best sound guys around. He has been with me since the very first informational meeting of when I started Revolution.  Glad he’s helping us out now.
• It was also great to have another one of my old sound guys around today.
• Sound has been a huge issue with us so it’s nice to start getting that zeroed in.
• Today we used about 90% of our own sound equipment for the first time. That was nice.
• It was also awesome to see my awesome bride back in the band today. I’m partial but I love hearing her sing!
• Things are so slow coming together for us with our building but I love and appreciate every step of the adventure.
• We are still trying to get one of the buses up and operational like we envision it but this past week it had displaced people in it every night and one night we had every bed filled.
• One thing about doing church the way we are doing it is it is causing us to have to really be prepared with some issues I have never experienced before when it comes to people and their sin, their past, and keeping the big picture in view.
• Making sure we have our I’s dotted and our T’s crossed is so vitally important.
• This past week we intentionally didn’t do a community Thanksgiving dinner because so many other great groups/churches were doing stuff.  However, we did host a Thanksgiving dinner for those who attend our church and had nowhere to go.
• An amazing thing happened at that dinner.  While we were doing dinner, person after person from kept dropping by and dropping off Thanksgiving food.  A total of 5 different churches dropped food off because they knew we would make sure it got distributed to those with needs.
• I have NEVER been more proud of a church.  People didn’t even know the name of our church or what we were about, but they knew we were a place that helped people in need out.
• We ended up with as much food after our meal as we had before our meal.
• I’ll admit I gave up on my Dawgs after the first two games of the year but dang if they haven’t ran the table.  It hasn’t always been pretty, but they have done it. I think we might actually surprise LSU this week. We might not win, but we’ll show up ready to play.
• My daughter called me today to tell me she shaved her legs for the first time. I’m to young to have a daughter who shaves!!!
• Have you heard about Hungry For A Day?
• We’re their December project so check out their website and pray about how God would have you to help as we seek to get our freezer working so we can help more people with food.
• God gave me a GREAT idea for our Christmas series this year! Yes, it is a little late but when God tells you to do something, you do it!
• I basically unplugged last week and I needed it so bad!!!!!!!
• Pastoring a church that is full of constant hurting people, I’m learning the importance of unplugging and making sure I am healthy so I can lead.
• I’m ready to hit the ground running in the morning!
• I’m dead. Good night.
• I love what God allows me to do!