Spirituality and the Dentist Chair

So yesterday I twittered something that I know sounded like I had been given too much novacaine. I twittered that going to the dentist was like coming to church in many ways. Now before you start sending me emails of your dentist horror stories just listen to mine. For one I have the most amazing dentist in the world. (Dr Mike) Shameless plug for my friend and fellow Relevant peep. So be kind with the dentist stories at church he is sensitive. (LOL) Back to the story. So a couple of weeks ago I went in to have some dental work done and at that time Mike told me that I really needed a good cleaning. So that is what I had done yesterday and that is when God spoke to me in the dentist chair. (I admit it is a little weird, but stay with me). As I sat down in the chair the hygienist (Penny) came in to perform the same cleaning that she has done on probably hundreds of patients, but God wanted to speak to me as His patient at the same time.

So the cleaning began. She started by asking me some questions you know the standard "do you have any pain in your mouth?" etc to which I responded, "actually one tooth on the top is kind of hurting." She then said, let's take a closer look at that and she pulled out the x-ray machine and snapped a picture. "We will take a look at that in a moment," she said as she went back to work. She proceeded to scrape off all of the tartar that had built up on my teeth over the past year. As she was scraping the tartar off she was telling me why it was hurting and bleeding a little. She said when you do not brush and floss on a daily basis the bacteria in the food mixes with your own saliva and creates this substance called tartar and then there is no way you can get it off without help. She then asked me the dreaded question, "Do you floss?" to which I responded, "Well sometimes but probably not as much as I should." I told her that I like the new flossing tools on the stick. I said "those make it easier," to which she responded. "They do make it easier but they do not do it properly." I was busted. She then told me she was going to polish my teeth and get them looking good. Then she said, "now I am going to teach you how to brush and floss the right way." I was a bit taken back, I mean I am 40 years old and I have been brushing my teeth and flossing occasionally for years. I did not think I needed a class on brushing and flossing. But she insisted. She then showed me that she had a mirror above the dentist light and she adjusted it so that I could see what she was doing. She said " I want you to watch how I do every step so you can replicate it when you get home." I watched her brush and floss every tooth with precise detail. Her next statement rocked my world. She said, "Paul I can show you how to do all of this, but now I am going to give you all of the tools and you are going to have to go home and do it every day for yourself." It was now my choice to determine the health of my teeth. So I left the office with a bag of tools that could and would help to keep my teeth healthy if I choose to use them.

WOW! that is when it all sunk in and God smacked me in the head with this idea that I had just experienced church. You see we come in each week and hear a message that generally poses a question as to where we are on our spiritual journey. Then we look into the Word of God to see what God has to say about that situation. Upon looking at what God says about it, sometimes we feel Him scraping the tartar off of our life and sometimes this process hurts. Then, we generally ask the question, "How did things get so bad?" This only leads to a response from God in the form of another question, "Have you been spiritually brushing and flossing each day?" After realizing that maybe we have been neglecting the proper form of spiritual maintenance, God tells us, "No problem I am going to polish you up and show you exactly what you need to do to continue the process". There is only one catch, "When you leave here, He says, you will have to do some of this yourself!"

You see, I think we get confused sometimes with two words. Salvation and Sanctification Salvation or the act of becoming a Christ follower is something that only God can do. Salvation comes from God, but sanctification is the process that God uses to make us more like Him and just like flossing and brushing, we are very involved in the success of this process. I think Proverbs is a great book to help us in this process. Keep reading this week and don't skip the process

This will be a weekend to remember

Well Susie and I have enjoyed another Friday date day and it looks like we are going to end it at the Cheesecake Factory tonight. Yum!! This morning over coffee Susie and I were reading in the book of Numbers. Not a book that I normally read, but that is the awesome thing about You Version. It forces you to read from all over the Bible. Well today we were reading Numbers chapter 8 and it was where Moses was giving instruction for the Levites. I have never noticed Gods retirement plan for the people that worked in the temple. check out theses verses:

Numbers 8:23-26 (NLT)
²³ The Lord also instructed Moses, ²⁴ “This is the rule the Levites must follow: They must begin serving in the Tabernacle at the age of twenty-five, ²⁵ and they must retire at the age of fifty. ²⁶ After retirement they may assist their fellow Levites by serving as guards at the Tabernacle, but they may not officiate in the service. This is how you must assign duties to the Levites.”

The only bad about this whole thing is the fact that I turned 40 this year. Wonder if this means that I only have 1o good years left to work in the church. So this got me thinking. What would I do if I only had 10 years left to make a difference for the kingdom? Then I thought I hope I am doing what I will be doing this weekend. Serving our community through March Madness (yard clean up) with over 70 people from Relevant on Saturday. Then having a BEACH BAPTISM service at the beach on Sunday where I get the privilege of baptizing over 15 people who have become Christ Followers at Relevant and are now taking their next step by getting baptized.

I think I could be part of this for the next 10 years and beyond if God allows me. Life Change is the most amazing thing to be part of. It never gets old.

If you would like to join us Sunday at the beach but find yourself too far away. We will be streaming the service live on Sunday at 11am. CLICK HERE to watch the service Sunday. Or to view last weeks service at Relevant.

Incredible Week Not so Incredible

Well here we are at the close of another week and I do not know if you have ever felt this way but for me this week has been anything but remarkable or incredible. Sure I finished my first Triathlon in under an hour and finished in the top 50, Sure Ashlyn had an MRI on her knee that came back pretty clear, just a minor problem. Sure Anthony pitched his first 2 innings of baseball and got 6 outs, no hits, and no walks. But for some reason I have had one of those weeks I would like to forget. You may ask Paul did anything bad happen? "not really". It seems like I have just allowed things to get in my life this week and rob me of my joy. Now that may sound cliche but I really think it can happen. Things are going along pretty well for us and then all of a sudden something comes along and bam our day is shot. Well that has been my week. Multiple times Susie has asked me if I was ok to which I responded "yeah, I feel like I am just in one of those moods" (Fun week for Susie HUH)

So as I was basking in my funk. I decided I would read the Psalms because it seems to me that the Psalmist had some of those funk days as well. So I wanted to share with you what I found. Here is a small portion of it but is you want the whole passage click HERE.

Psalms 66:1-6 (NLT)
1 Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth! 2 Sing about the glory of his name! Tell the world how glorious he is. 3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! Your enemies cringe before your mighty power. 4 Everything on earth will worship you; they will sing your praises, shouting your name in glorious songs. 5 Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he does for his people! 6 He made a dry path through the Red Sea, and his people went across on foot.Come, let us rejoice in who he is.

For me these passages told me that even when I am in a funk I need to just keep shouting out all the wonderful things that God has done and then maybe I will not focus so much on the small things that keep robbing me of my joy. And this week at Relevant we have a ton to be joyful about. Here are just a few.
as crazy as this may sound to you we are launching our very first satellite campus via our live video stream in Centerville VA this weekend. That is right!! I was contacted this week by a couple who has visited Relevant several time who lives up there and they asked if they could launch a small house church in their home and watch the live stream with their friends who need Christ. WOW!!! I am so pumped about this I just know God is all over this and we are going to see him do great things through this. Pray for them this week their names are Alex and Charlotte Wright. You can like to their group via Facebook. Let them know that you are praying for them.
Our church blog has been taken over by some of the most creative writers I have ever read. There is a group of about 7 different people who write ever week about what God spoke to them about in the past weeks message. All I can say is that when I read what God is doing in the lives of people in our church I flipin go nuts. God is so Good. If you have not been to the blog in a while check it out here. You can follow the staff via Twitter from there as well.
This week at Relevant we will have a special guest with us. Dr David Clarke Phd. Dr. Clark is an incredible communicator and is going to share with us the craving that we all have as men and women for communication but for some reason our craving does not usually turn in to authentic communication. I cannot wait to hear him. Trust me you do not want to miss this opportunity.
Next week many of us will be traveling down Bayshore Blvd. Not in a car but on our feet. Yes that is right the Gasparilla Run is Coming up February 28 and if you have signed up for the race could you please shoot me an email so that I can make sure that we have your shirt for you. This is going to be a blast. I look forward to running with you all.

Greeting from the Snowy White North

Well I am writing you this update from the Cleveland International Airport. And yes it is cold outside and there is a ton of snow on the ground. (scratch that I am finishing this from the Houston International airport, got bumped for a $200 voucher. Still not sure if that was a good idea.) I have been in Granger Indiana for most of the week with about 15 other pastors from around the country discussing church leadership and the changing role of missions in the church. All I can say is WOW! God is really at work around the country and around the world and I am so glad that we get to be a part of it.

MORE TO COME ABOUT THE TRIP ON MONDAY!!

This week we are launching our new series "Crave" and I trust that many of you have been using the evite or postcards to invite you friends and family to join you this Sunday. This whole idea of Crave was brought to light in a devotional that one pastor shared yesterday morning. He said that about a month ago he was praying before a service and was asking God to give him strength and wisdom and courage to speak. He was craving for God to do something special in his life and ministry that day. Have you been there lately? Well he said that all of a sudden he really felt like God said "Mike stop asking me to give you strength and wisdom and courage, that is not what you need" Obviously he was puzzled but he said that this impression continued and he felt like God said "stop asking me to give you all of those things and start asking me to be your strength and be your wisdom and be your courage. WOW!!! I think so many times our craving are all about what we need or what we desire or what want to happen. All of it revolves around us. Maybe it is time to evaluate our cravings.

I think that During the next few weeks God is going to do some reshaping of our cravings. I am so excited about what we are going to be discussing this weekend as we unpack the first week of Crave. Please join us as discover what authentic cravings should be.

See you all on Sunday.

Fire alarms maybe they are telling me something?

I hope that all of you are enjoying the nice brisk weather we have been having the past week. It seem the cold has kept me inside for my workouts most of the week. That is until today. You see my first triathlon of the season is on February 14 and I really need to get some time in the pool so that I am ready. Well all week I have been going from YMCA to YMCA looking for a pool that was open. It seemed like every one that I went to was closed for the season. Well today I finally found out that the Campo YMCA in Brandon had their pool open, so I decided to check it out. Now mind you I am a pretty good swimmer, I was never on the swim team or anything but I felt I was ok. Keep in mind that it was like 38 degrees out this morning at 7:30am when I arrived and you could see the steam coming off of the pool. I have to admit it looked pretty cool. So I dawned my triathlon spandex shorts, grabbed my goggles and headed outside. I jumped in the nice warm pool all by myself and began to swim. 1 lap, 2 laps, 3 laps, "are we finished yet" I began to think. I was only at 150 meters and my body was telling me "you should have started working on this part of you training a whole lot sooner than now". Well I continued swimming for about a half an hour and I can tell you I was dead tired when I finished. But the story does not end there, you see as I was finishing my last lap the lifeguard came over to me and told me that I needed to get out because the fire alarm was going off. I said "but I only have my spandex on what about my clothes. They told me I could run in and get them and then change outside. So that is what I did. lucky for me (or maybe everyone outside) they had an outdoor restroom. That was my morning how was yours?

So I know you are all saying Paul what does this have to do with anything at Relevant. Well the fire alarm story was just for fun but the swimming story is the key. You see I have been telling myself for 2 months now "the swimming part of the triathlon is no big deal, just wait till a few weeks before the race and you will be fine" Well I am a few weeks before the race and my running and cycling are great and my swimming sucks. Do you know why? Because I have neglected that portion of training. I tried to skip a step in the process and now I am paying the price. Sure I will be ready and finish the race, but things could have been so much easier if I would have just been working on every part of the training a little bit at a time.

I think that the same is true in our spiritual journey. Maybe we have alarms going off all the time telling us something is wrong but we just ignore them. Many of us make a decision to become a follower of Christ much like I decided to become a triathlete but we leave certain steps out of the process that will help us maximize our experience with Jesus. We like the thought of being a Christ Follower but hate the training that goes long with it. Then we have an alarm that goes off and it reveals the problem that we have been ignoring. Well this week at Relevant we are going to be discussing the Spiritual Bailout that we receive from Jesus and also what process of spiritual fitness goes along with this Bailout.

Just Say It Already

So I stated last week that Monday was going to be leadership day for my blog. Well let me just preface this first one by saying that Mondays for me are not my big mercy days. Not that I have a lot on any other days either but Mondays are: let's just say shoot straight days. So here goes on my first leadership bullets for this blog.

• "Just say it already"

I have been in so many conversations with people over the years where there was so much said that had nothing to do with what needed to be said that it kills me. Quite frankly I have been the one initiating those types of conversations many times. When I think about why I choose to engage in conversation like that rather that get straight to the point I really had to unpack my reasoning behind it and this is what I came up with so here goes.

1. We don't just say it because we are afraid of what may happen if we do. But I think sometimes the better question is what happens if we don't. What will we sacrifice in our ministry or leadership or life if we choose not to engage in those Fierce Conversation. (this web site is part of Susan Scott's material from her book with the same title. Great stuff)
   
2. We don't just say it because we think it will work itself out. Quite frankly it does sometimes and maybe we have gained a small victory, but in the process lost some desire to communicate with the other person. When this happens distance is created in the relationship.
3. We don't just say it because we avoid a fight that way. I can tell you that for me this is true. When people come to me with issues about me that I disagree with I typically get angry first and get rational second. I am not saying that this is good, it is just the way I am and because of that I think that people who know me best may not even "just say it" to me. (side note this is not an call to everyone who has ever wanted to tell me something to come out of the wood works. I did not say I had a handle on it yet) HA HA

Maybe we need to take a que from the master confronter Jesus about just saying it. I was studying last week for my message and I was using the passage in John 4 about the woman at the well and Jesus engages her in conversation and the communication does not go very long until Jesus "Just says it" He lays out in front of her just who she is and what her life is like and in that moment she has to respond. There is no small talk, Jesus gets straight to the point because He know that if the woman deals with that issue many of the other things will fall in line.

Maybe this week you need to have some of those "Just Say It Already" conversations and see what happens. hey at least you will not have to spend 3 hours talking about nothing and get nothing resolved. Just know that in these types of conversations there is someone else involved and they may not respond the way that you want them to immediately. Give them time to process everything and consider coming back for a follow-up conversation.

Talk to you all Wednesday

Thursday Morning Thoughts

This week has been a roller coaster week, so to speak, around here and it has prompted me to reflect on a few things that I thought I would share with everyone.

1. Life is really short- Monday night I received a phone call from one of our members informing me that Dr. Forrest Pollock and his son had gone missing in their plane. Tuesday morning the search was over and they had found Dr. Pollock's plane wreckage and there were no survivors. I could not help but think of his wife and other 5 children and a church family that is crushed by this whole situation. I hugged my kids a bit tighter Tuesday night and reflected on the idea of what legacy would I leave if God were to take me home today.

2. Comebacks are awesome- I know that you have not heard a baseball story in a while so here is one for the record books. As many of you know Anthony has been playing his first season of baseball and at the beginning of the season things were not going so well. That is not the case now. He is now batting second and is about to make me go broke because of a deal I made with him that for every hit I would give him $5. Well Tuesday night was the second round of the tournament and our Tigers were down 7-0 in the bottom of the 3rd inning. I told Anthony this game is not over if you guys will just play your game. So that inning they did just that and scored the max 5 runs. So we have a score of 7-5 at the top of the 4th inning well things did not go so well on defense and the other team scored 2 more runs making it 9-5 in the bottom of the fourth inning. Well this was going to be it because there was not enough time to play another inning, however, we were at the bottom of our batting order. You know the guys who struggle a bit when they are up to bat. Well the 5th, 6th, and 7th batter got on base and then scored on pass balls then the 8th batter struck out. So here we were the score 9-8 with batters 9-11 up. Well number 9 leads off with a single up the middle, then number 10 hits a double to right field and the game is all tied up with the number 11 batter up. Now you must know that the number 11 batter has only had 2 hits all season. But tonight was his night, he has a great swing but has just not connected with one yet. Well he takes a strike, then a ball, then another strike, then another ball, then he connects and it is a bomb to right field that goes all the way to the fence. Well, crazy legs as we call him is trucking around the bases and by the time he gets to third he has caught up with the number 10 guy and they both run home for a 11-9 win. WOW!!! Can you believe a bunch of 9, 10, and 11 year old kids have the heart to come back for certain defeat. Why is it that as adults when faced with difficult times we often times quit instead of busting through and see the win? Boy I sure enjoyed watching and learning from theses kids. I want to be like them.

Working out is actually fun- yes I know that this sounds crazy but I am actually enjoying doing this whole workout thing. I am now on week three and I have not missed a day. I am so stoked . I have not checked the weight this week yet because I usually do that on Friday but I will let you know. I trust that many of you have decided to get off of the couch during this series and will continue the journey to fitness. Here is what one person said after viewing the burst training video.

Yeah!!!!
I am so glad I go to Relevant Church!!
I downloaded the Rocky sound track to my iPOD and Monday when the video didn't make it online I went jogging and jammed out eye of the tiger!
Today I am going out to my shed and dust off that old home gym wait bench!
I wasn't going to do it but after watching Paul do the burst training I gota try it ha ha!
You Guys Rock!

Well if you have not checked out the video or tried the Burst Training check out the BLOG. Let me remind you this is pretty intense.

Paul

Sweatin to the 80's is sometimes just sweatin

Well this weekend launches our brand new series "Sweatin to the 80's" and as many of you may know the staff and I started working out at the YMCA everyday for the last two weeks. Well I am excited to say that this past week I have lost 5lbs. I am so stoked about this I can hardly stand it. I know that it is not much but it is a start and I am pumped.

Know I want everyone to know that this series is going to be much more than just physical fitness. We are going to deal with emotional fitness, spiritual fitness, and our churches fitness as a whole. But this week we are going to focus our attention on our physical bodies.

Here are a couple of things I have noticed since I have begun to work out again. And please remember I am not the poster child for GNC. I struggle with a need for some double cheeseburger actions all the time.

1. Having a partner makes all the difference. Knowing that people are depending on me everyday to be there motivates me to get up every morning and workout.
2. When I work out I feel better about myself. I do not know what it is but when I am working out I feel better about my whole appearance even though there have not been significant changes yet.
3. My attitude is better. Maybe I just had a bad attitude before, but now I seem to be a bit more even tempered. My staff may disagree though.

During this journey we are going to be giving you tool to help you along the journey. So start looking at our Blog starting Monday for your first training schedule.

FYI message follow-up

WOW!!! Yesterday was amazing at Relevant. I know that I told you that I would post some more Bible study helps for you today so here goes. I am going to give you the sketch outline from yesterday to make sure that you follow the proper format when approaching the Bible for Study.

1. Remember that you have to read it if you are going to ever get anything out of it

• Read about what you dealing with right now.
• anger
• pride
• lust
• patience
• questions about God
• etc

A great source for this is Path Lights.

2. Find out the meaning of the passage that you are reading.

• Ask the following questions
• Who? is in the story? is it written too? wrote it?
• What? is it about? kind of culture is it? type of people are they?
  
• Where? are the people located? is the writer?
  
• When? did the story take place?
• Why? was the story written, did the situation happen?

A great resource for this type of bible study is God Squad .

This form of Biblical study is call the inductive Bible Study Method for a detailed program of inductive Bible Study Methods check out Into Thy Word.

3. Apply what you have read

• Remember Information without application will never lead to transformation and the reason the Bible was written was for our transformation.
• Application happens when you see your story as it related to the stories in the Bible not as you place yourself into the stories of the Bible.

4. Model what you have learned, examined, and applied

• as we model what we have learned others will catch on as well.
• people cannot follow what is not modeled.

I hope that this will help each of you continue in your journey with Jesus.

Remember what Starbucks says about what they supply.

• flavors our senses
• sweetens my disposition
• stirs my imagination
• nourishes my dreams

If Starbucks can do all of that I wonder what God could do in our lives if we would feast on His word.

• 
  

Things I learned at Leadership Live day 1

This has been an amazing 24 hours so far. I told Susie last night it is hard to put into words everything that i have learned.  But I thought I would put down a few of the highlights from yesterday.

• The most dangerous person on your team is not the one who opposes you it is the one who is just out of alignment
• people follow for a variety of reasons

some because of your marriage

some because of your education 

some because of you life stage

• people will watch how I handle conflict 
• people will leave for as many reasons as they came to you church
• team will out perform individuals every time
• Every leader must get a stranglehold on what they are not good at
• where you step today will be where you stand tomorrow so make sure you are careful where you step
• The easier the product is to access the more people will utilize it 

This is how to get your volunteers to reproduce what you want

• people model what gets noticed
• people model what get celebrated
• What get celebrated and noticed gets replicated

Well there are a few things from day one it has been incredible so far I cannot wait to learn more today.  Here is what I think is the most amazing thing about the SMT at Granger they are just real guys who are doing ministry together and want to help others.  They are approachable.  WOW that is a huge difference from other SMT's of other large churches.

More later.

It has been a while

I know it has been a while but quite frankly I had to take a break with all of the stuff going on with the 30 day sex challenge. That was some crazy stuff let me tell you. I was thrilled at the opportunity God gave us but I really am glad it has slowed down. I have been spending some time with the family recently. Susie and I went to Costa Rica for 4 days and then we took the kids to Disney for spring break. It was an awesome time of refreshing. We just launched a new series called "TXT" it seems to be going great and we are working on our next two series after that "sweatin with the 80's" and our summer movie series. Both of these should be great. Well I have a leadership thing I am going to share tomorrow. Just thought I would say God has been great here and Relevant is still the best place in the world to serve.

What is it costing you?

Two days ago we had about 10 pastors here for our monthly gathering of church planters. This is always a great time to get together and share ideas, struggles, and just life together. As I was preparing for the meeting and our challenge for the day this idea of cost kept coming up in my head. For weeks now the word cost has just been buzzing around every area of my life. So as I was preparing for my talk I started unpacking this idea of cost and here is what I came up with.

• What is pastoring or church planting costing you right now?

I really believe that pastoring and church planting cost more than many men and women are willing to pay. And I totally understand that. But I really do get tired of hearing pastors of church plants say "I really hope we can find a place where we do not have to set up anymore" In a perfect world that would be great but I know that Saddleback Church did not have a building for 10 years and grew to over 10,000 people I bet that it cost them some stuff.
We are blessed in the fact that we can store a lot of our stuff at our rented facility but we still have a major set up and tear down on Sunday morning. In some ways I wonder just how we would plug that many people into serving if we did not have those jobs for them. Some of them will never be children's workers or greeters but they are fulfilled when they serve setting up and tearing down and they are awesome.

As a church planter I heard a guy once say that as a church plant pastor, you are the chief, cook and bottle washer. Basically he was letting me know you do everything for a while and then you as a leader enlist other people to join you in serving. Bill Hybels once said that we should never be ashamed to ask people to serve because we are giving them an opportunity to serve the King of Kings and that is so much bigger than any fortune 500 gig they could ever have. The problem happens when after 6 months or a year and you still have the same people helping every week and you have not enlisted anyone else to join you on the journey. We are blessed to have over 100 volunteers serving at Relevant. WOW!!! you volunteers rock my world every week.

Peter Drucker once said "whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision"

That is so true and courageous decisions are not made while counting pennies they are made while spending courageously. Notice I did not say spending foolishly but courageously. There is a huge difference. We can spend foolishly and get no results or spend courageously and watch God show up big.

I was drawn to the story of King David in II Samuel 24 where David was going to build an altar and offering a sacrifice to God. Now the story goes that David went to build an altar to sacrifice a burnt offering to appease the anger of God but when he arrived at the place where he was to build the altar the man there said that he would give him everything to build the altar and he would even give him the animal to offer. Now I know most church planter that I roll wit would see this as an answered prayer and say God this is cool you have provided again just like you did when Abraham was going to offer up Issac. But for some reason David said no and I think his comments are piercing. Here is what he said "No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” I wonder how many times we are offering up to God an offering that does not cost us anything.

I remember as a kid my parent would say just wait until you have to pay for things yourself then you will learn to appreciate them. They were right; now I find myself saying the same things to my kids. You see when things cost us something we work hard at them and we lay ourselves on the line to make sure that they make it but when it cost us nothing then we have nothing to lose.

I know for me this whole idea of church planting has cost Susie and I and our team a great deal; security, relationships, support, sleep, finances and much more but the rewards of lives being changed is so worth it.

My challenge to you today is that if you are a church leader and what you are doing right now is not costing you anything. Take a good hard look at your ministry and you life and ask God what He may be asking you to spend. Remember comfort is the breading ground for complacency and complacency only leads to a critical spirit. If you find yourself criticizing more than creating you may be in the dreaded comfort zone and not in the cost zone. In the cost zone you must create or you will go bankrupt. Think about it.

Paul

Birthday Week

I know many of you have had those weeks where someone in your family is having birthday and so you are running around all week making preparations for the big day. Well that is happening for me this week except instead of one birthday in our house this week there are 3 yes that is right three. Ashlyn's (12) was yesterday, Susie's (I am not supposed to say 40) is Friday, and Anthony's (9) is Saturday, so need less to say there is some stress in our house this week. It is kind of cool to have them all so close together because I never forget them but the special day sort of thing is lost a bit because everything is so close together. You know we go from princess stuff. to over the hill stuff, to power rangers, I thought an Old Princess Ranger would be a cool twist but I did not receive any takers on the idea.
So we celebrated our little princess's birthday party on Sunday after church and Ashlyn was thrilled. You know sometimes her being special needs teaches me a ton of things. She received several presents but they were not huge dollar items, however, she just loved the fact that someone got her something and she was able to open gifts. After Susie wrapped one of her gifts Saturday night Ashlyn looked at it she said OH a new puzzle!! How did she know? But she kept it wrapped all night and even took it to church the next day clutching it in her arms because it was her present.
This got me thinking God has given us His son as our gift and many times I decide not to take him anywhere with me. I wonder why that is? Could it be that we do not view Him as being as special as He once was? Could we be treating Him like kids do with many toys "they are great for a while but then we want something different? I am reminded of a verse that maybe we all need to commit to memory.

Heb 4:12 (NLT)
12For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.

The word of God is Living Power that means it should continually satisfy us. Just like in this series we are daily focusing on the intimacy with our spouses we need to be focusing our attention on our relationship with Christ as well.

OK so I have to go now I still have two parties to plan. BTW if anyone has any ideas about what to do for Susie's 40 please leave me some comments. I need some help.

Paul

Things I am learning

Well we are 9 days into the 30 day sex challenge and the media buzz is still very alive. So today I wanted to write out what I have learned over the last 13 days from all of this:

• The media is not our enemy. I say this because for the most part every main stream media outlet that I have spoken with has been more respectful to me and our our church than many religious people.

• People believe what they want to believe even if the facts are right in front of them.

• You really know who your true friends are when your are in the spotlight.
  

• TD Jakes is amazing. I heard his message at C3 the other night and I wept. I cannot find it online yet but it was amazing. Thanks for bringing the word TD, God used you like you will never know.

• New friend pop up that just bless your socks off like Mike Glenn from First Baptist of Brentwood. Thanks for the encouragement dude.

• You pray like crazy. My wife and I have had a couple of all night prayer meeting over the last week that have been more amazing than any church service I have ever been to.

• God is so much bigger than me. I am amazed and humbled that God would use me to share His plan for marriage and relationships to the masses. He really does have the best plan for singles and married people alike.
  

• I love our people at Relevant. As I watched some interviews of couples taking the challenge everything that we prayed is beginning to happen. Couples are beginning to talk to each other and read the Bible together, they are turning the TV off and actually communicating with each other all the while meeting each other deepest emotional needs. Yeah God

• I have the most amazing prayer team. They have been praying for me and Susie and our family nonstop since before we even launched this series. Thank you prayer warriors Susie and I have really felt your prayers.

Well I am off to a creative meeting with our team to pray and plan our next series "TXT" Trust me this one is going to stretch each of us spiritually like never before.

Paul

My Prayer Time Today

Well I had an extended prayer time today because God woke me up at 3am. I am not complaining although I did wake Susie up as well. So she may be a little sleepy this morning. I will tell you this when God does these sort of thing in my life I usually just go back to sleep but this morning was different. Susie and I enjoyed the most incredible time of prayer together and talking about what God was doing with this whole 30 days things and we just gave it back over to God and said this is all yours do whatever you want with it to make Your name famous. I truly believe God wants to restore marriages and relationship back to the way He intended them to be and for 30 days if we will do it His way I think there could be a revolution. Let pray that way.

Here is a verse that kept popping into my head this morning.

John 3:14-15
14Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

This is my prayer in all of this that the Name of Jesus would be made famous over all of the earth.

Paul

What a weekend

So there I was in my office on Valentines Day finishing up my message for Sunday and planning on a nice quiet evening with Susie over in Orlando when I get an email from someone letting me know that the story about our new series "The 30 Day Sex Challenge" was one the newspapers web site. I thought that was cool so I went and read the article and was pleased that God had given us favor and a story was being written about our church and our new series. What I did not know was what was about to take place over the next 72 hours. From that moment around 2:30pm on Thursday I have spoken with every network TV station in Tampa and have been contacted by a half a dozen radio stations we even made Fox News Nationally on Friday afternoon. Crazy

What I think is crazy is that when the church decides to talk about sex "God's Idea" the media go bananas and the "Christians" get mad. I can say that the vast majority of main stream media has been very kind to us and as clear as they can be without being a church. I think ABC Action News did the best job so far. They were out last night at our evening service. It was cool to see our band rocking on TV.

I write all of this to say that I am humbled by the fact that God would use us to do this think called church planting. Our goal in this whole series is to draw people to a closer relationship with Christ and a closer relationship with their spouse if they are married and if they are single to understand that singleness is not a bad thing it is incredible.

If you want to know more about the challenge you can go to our churches blog I will be posting there each day of the 30 day challenge. Hey if you are married or single why not join us for the journey. All the information that you need can be found at the blog site. If you do decide to join us please let us know so we can track the success of the series.

If you are local it looks like I am going to be on the radio with Nancy and Chris in the morning Tuesday at 7:40am on Mix 100.7 Please pray for me.

Peace

What's In Your Wallet

Well We have been going through this new series called "Green" for the past few weeks and man has it been incredible. The first week we tackled the MasterCard slogan "what's in your wallet" and I think we really made some strides with this whole idea of debt and also how to put a little more green back in your wallet. Here are some stories that I received from people after last week.


story 1:

The way I save money is by washing clothing...I find miscellaneous dollar bills and I hide them until things get a little tight. Each week I try and put away about $10 and then when necessary...my stash becomes the saving grace..:) (Tip: Switch hiding places often...)
Also, I try to pay about 15% ahead on all the bills...when there is an emergency (car breaks down or Christmas comes around the corner and nothing has been purchased yet), no stress. The bills are tiny and non threatening.

Story 2:

When you go out to eat with you wife or significant other split every thing except the drink and you will find yourself spending about 1/2 the money and eating about 1/2 the calories. Also you most likely won't have left overs that sit in the fridge accumulating mold that will just get thrown out next week when the smell hits you as you look for a snack!

story 3:

Because of your teaching we spent some of Sunday afternoon creating a budget which included getting to our safety net goal, determining how much we could spend on fun every month, specific events for this year that we are saving for, and determining exactly what are our financial goals.

I know these are just a few and I am sure that there are many more but I guess I really just want us to stop spending money that we do not have and really start learning the principle of paying off debt and living within our means. There are so many people who could do some incredible things for God and for their families but they are strapped to the man because of debt and by the man I do not mean their boss I mean their creditors. Here is what Proverbs says.
Proverbs 22:7
Just as the rich rule the poor, so the borrower is servant to the lender.

What does that verse say to you? please leave comments. Also I have included the video that we used for the transition. I think This nails it one the head. Enjoy.

WOW I can's believe it's been 3 years

So I was came face to face with the reality that we are no longer a church plant but a church the other day when we celebrated our 3rd year anniversary. Yes that is right on January the 9 Relevant turned 3 years old. I know if you have been around here for a while it seems crazy that we are that old but we are. Here are just a few things that have amazed me over the past 3 years and also things that I am thankful for.

1. Thanks Perry for telling me to jump I really needed a friend to tell me straight just do it if God is calling you. And you have not stopped since then. Thanks dude you are an inspiration.

2. Thanks Kevin, Charlotte, Jamie, Carly, and Susie for believing in me even when I questioned myself. You guys are the best. I will never forget some of those meetings with just the 6 of us in a living room dreaming of what Relevant might be and now look at it. God is so good.

3. Thanks Carl and Kristin you are the best worship leader in the country and you listened to God and came on the dream of what God could do here at Relevant. You were worth the risk of having no money. You guys are incredible.

4. Thanks Bay Life Church. You guys have been such a great support church. You prepared me for the journey I am now on.

5. Thanks to the people who started with us in the hotel ballroom and are still with us today at the Italian Club. You guys serve like no other church in America.

6. Thanks Jason for serving here while working at other places just to be a part of Relevant your kind of commitment is rare.

So now that I have thanked people I just want to thank God because without Him I know I would be stuck in the burbs not having a blast in the city.

• God I am amazed everyday that you choose to let me be a part of your big plan here at Relevant.

• Thanks for proving all of our critics wrong who said that a church for 20 and 3o somethings was impossible.

• Thanks for the over 150 people who have been baptized over the last 3 years.

• Thanks for crazy growth. from 120 on the first Sunday to over 350 after just 3 years that is 50% growth per year. Only you can do that.

• Thanks for taking care of us financially. Without outside support once we launched You God provided for every need. I am in awe of that.

• From 1 service in Jan of 05 to two services 9 months later to three services one year after that WOW God you are awesome.

• Over 100 volunteers serving each weekend just to make sure we make the name of Jesus famous.

• God you allowed us to rebuild a house for a widow on our 1 year anniversary. WOW

I know I could go on and on at what God has done over the past 3 years . I am so blessed to be able to serve here at Relevant. But the past 3 years have not been without their challenges and I am sure that this year will not be any different. All I can say is I am ready for the challenges of 08 and I am ready to see how God blows us away this year.

Crazy Christmas Gifts

I don't know if any of you do crazy things for your kids at Christmas. But Susie and I have a problem I think. We start getting gifts around September just so we can get just the right gifts and also spread out the cost so that we can afford it. It works pretty well until one week before Christmas you find your sons Christmas list that he has wrote out and in big bold print he has the one thing you did not get. For us this year it was a puppy. now if you know anything about our family we have tried to do the dog thing twice now and not had such good luck one ended with Anthony in the hospital getting his ear re-attached and the other ended with a child from our church with teeth marks in his head. But when you read as a parent I would give everything back if I could just have a dog. WOW that cuts deep. So yesterday I set out on my quest to find a good dog for my family and that quest landed me in Miami 5 hours from home. But I have secured the dog that I hope will make a little boys dream come true. By the way it is a Dachshund, pictures will follow later.

So I was thinking of the verses in the new testament where Jesus says:
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:11 NIV

If this is true than why do we not ask for more things from our heavenly dad. I wonder if when we pray He acts like I did when I say Anthony's list. Does He get all excited about the list because we finally asked Him for something? Does His heart leap a bit when He is sure that we are going to get it? Does He have a hard time waiting to give us the gift because He is so excited about our reaction. I think that of all of the emotion that I am feeling right now as I anticipate my kids reaction I think that they must pail in significance to how God (our heavenly Dad feels when he gives us gifts) I wonder if that is how He felt when He gave the world His son as the ultimate gift. Now that was a crazy gift. One we needed but quite frankly could not even fathom receiving but He gave it and we can receive it. WOW our God is so amazing. Thanks for the Gift God!!!!!

I Love December

I do not know what it is about this month that just makes me happy but I know I am happier in December. It may be the fact that I am hoping for some new stuff for Christmas or the joy that I see on my kids face when they open their presents but The excitement is sturring. We have already put up all of our decorations in fact our tree went up the weekend before thanksgiving. We are much like the Griswalds when it comes to decorations, I really do desire to have the best in the neighborhood and have them up before everyone. But I guess one of the things that I am most excited about is our new Christmas series "The Best Christmas Ever" that we are launching this weekend.

I do not know if you have ever felt this way but it seems like most Christmas series that churches do revolve around what we do not do at Christmas and then what we should do. So this year we decided to just talk about what people actual do during the holidays and actually do the same as a church. So we are going to try and help people have the best Christmas ever. We are accomplishing this each week by giving random stuff away to unsuspecting people. We have already given a Wii away (the hottest game unit of 2007) and that is just the beginning. This truly is going to be the best Christmas Ever. Don't miss out.