Today is June 30th, the midway through 2009. I thought I would take a few minutes to look back at my 9 goals for 2009 to see how I am doing.
- I have spent a lot of time seeking the face of God, never as much as I need to, but I really desire & need His guidance for my life and the life of Revolution Church. I am behind on my reading the entire New Testament. Gotta step that up a little.
- I feel I am making strides at being a better steward of my time. I still need to improve on balancing family, personal time, work, church, pastoral work, and everything in-between.
- Still not the pastor & leader I desire to be for Revolution Church. Changing my reading list from leadership books to more books on getting closer to God! (see #5)
- Hehe… Not too much healthier than 6 months ago. I dropped about 15 pounds, but still more to go!
- Reading list has changed a little (I knew it would). Main point in this goal was to always strive to learn. Currently reading Axiom: Powerful Leadership Proverbs
& Servolution: Starting a Church Revolution through Serving
. Next up is A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God
and Tim Keller’s The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith.
- This one I have done. I am learning to laugh and have more fun. I think this happened naturally as #2 improves. Seems the more time I spend with my family, the more I laugh and smile.
- Blogging & Social Networks… I am finding Facebook & Twitter have helped in communication with friends & Revolution peeps. My blogging is very hit and miss. Blogging takes time (see #2).
- Susanne and I have started making dents in our debt! BIG dents!!! Thank you Dave Ramsey: Emergency fund complete, and debt being attacked using the debt snowball!
- Dating my wife more: Not going so good. I have to start dating my wife more! For that matter, I also must be more intentional about taking my daughter out, so I can teach her how a guy is supposed to treat a gal.
So, how are your goals going? It is important to examine the progress of things we set out to do…
Wow… An entire month has flown by… So, this post is dedicated to June 2009. You just about killed me…
Family on Vacation
Susanne and the kids went on vacation without me this summer… no vacation time. 
They had a great time and they all have a tan. I think Jake is darker than I ever was!
Learning from the Best
Susanne and the kids left me for a second week to learn from my good friend John Sharp’s church. North Point Community Church does NICK AT NITE (VBS with a mess!) in Columbia, SC every summer. They were kind enough to let the kids take part and let Susanne learn how they pull it off. The kids talked about how awesome it was so much, they told me they had to go back Sunday for the last day… So I loaded up the truck and joined them… Great stuff going on in North East Columbia.
11 Years
On the 20th of June, Susanne and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. We woke up that Saturday to Sam throwing up. We didn’t get to do anything special that day, but I was able to take her to Carrabba’s last weekend. That is the best place in the world to eat and spend time with the one you love. Question I ask myself… How did she put up with me for 11 years… not sure, just glad she did.
Father’s Day
What a great day. My family made me fried pork chops & tiffy’s taters! Yes, that has to be one of my favorite meals. The honored me with a "World’s Best Father" award which I doubt I deserve, but I accepted. Best of all, the kids did not fuss with each other all day… that is what I wanted for my gift. I get to be the father to the three greatest kids on the face of the earth!
Youth LIFE Group
Starting Wednesday, July 8th, we will be adding a youth LIFE group at Revolution Church!! We would like to welcome Walter Brigman from Charleston Southern University & Journey Church. Walter will be leading this LIFE Group for upcoming 6th through 12th graders, and challenging students in their relationships with Christ. Our youth will operate on the same schedule as the children at FunDayGo. Hang out and eat from 6-7 pm with Bible Study from 7-8pm.
LifeChangers
I had the great honor to be the camp pastor for LifeChangers this year. There were 103 youth serving our city by painting, roofing, and repairing 8 houses. You can read more about it here. I preached three nights and poured my heart out. SIX youth made a decision to follow Christ and put Him first! I am so proud of those youth!
June was busy… tiring… but pretty dang AWESOME!
Hope to see you at Family Fun Night this Wednesday at Timrod Park here in Florence, SC.
This past Wednesday night, Revolution Church kicked off our first Family Fun Night of the summer! We had the great honor of having the Angels & the Indians join us. These are both Pee Wee baseball teams (4-6 years olds). One of the main reasons for having this particular "Family Fun Night" was to honor our players and their awesome season!
Needless to say, we had a great time!
I want to take a minute to reflect about our first family night as a church…
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I was impressed by our volunteers!
- This was probably the biggest event we have done in the life of our church and they did not disappoint.
- They showed up early to make sure everything was ready.
- Helped watch the kids on the slides. Some volunteers even got on the slides!!! (see video at the bottom of the post)
- Helped set up the pizza, drinks, and cupcakes.
- Helped greet and talk with our guests to make them feel welcome.
- The cleanup crew was awesome! They jumped in to help after the event was over without me having to ask!!! Now that is what I’m talking about!
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All the kids were insanely awesome!
- We had 75 people in attendance, which included around 50 kids.
- With that being said, we did not have one incident in the 2 hours. My two boys did not even get into a fuss .
- As each kid went up to get their trophy, all the other kids clapped and cheered them on! That was great to see.. they must have had great coaches on the ball field! (A big thank you goes out to Eric and Ethan… you guys were awesome assistants… thanks so much for chipping in to help out!)
I’d like to send out a special thank-you to the team moms, as well. They went above and beyond the call of duty all season… managing the dugouts and organizing snacks. Then to top it all off, they surprised us coaches with a special gift. I will cherish my "autographed team baseball" for many years to come… Thanks Dedra!
In case you missed this family night, we will be having Family Fun Nights in July & August, as well. If you would like to stay in touch with all the news, plans, and goings-on at Revolution, simply visit the church website, and sign up for the email newsletter.
If you have trouble seeing the video, see it here!
Today was a great day! This morning, started off with a bang! Several volunteers from Revolution Church went to Greenwood Elementary.
Yes, we met up for round two of Servolution at Greenwood. This time, we did not give the 91 staff a healthy snack…
This time, everyone got bags full of Snickers, Reese’s Cups, Almond Joys, and other "good for you" stuff. Each bag had a hand written personalized note thanking them for their service to our community.
We were even able to spend some time talking with a great bunch of ladies from the cafeteria. Everyone we came in contact with was so thankful! They were even kind enough to take a picture with me.
I am so proud of our volunteers that took the time to write those letters, stuff the bags, setup the tables with snacks, and deliver the candy bags! Y’all are awesome and I look forward to serving with you more in the next weeks and months…
It was a great week of serving the fine staff at Greenwood, but there is more to be done in Florence, SC! I want to hear your ideas. Do you have ideas of ways Revolution Church could serve our community?
Don’t be afraid, join in the discussion! Feel free to join our Facebook Group and join in the with the discussion! We are also looking for ideas where kids can serve & catch the Servolution bug too.
I will also be giving away a Revolution Church t-shirt to a random person for submitting their idea(s)!
Check out the video below for a little footage from this morning…
Video of Servolution At Revolution 5/28/09 from Chris Reeder.
Yesterday Revolution Church had our Memorial Day cookout. The food and fellowship were great. I love hanging out with friends, cooking burgers in the rain, and watching kidz run all over the house!
But the best part of the day was when our group took the time to prepare for Servolution.
Servolution is when we as a church model Jesus’ example and put others first.
Revolution Church is exists to lead others to become fully devoted followers of Christ who are not simply satisfied with going to church, but desire to BE THE CHURCH.
Today, we were being the church. Our teachers in Florence are some of the greatest! I can’t even imaging the struggles they encounter from day to day. They see so much hurt and pain in the kids of our community. I am so proud to have the teachers, office workers, custodians, and cooks of Greenwood Elementary in out community.
Thank you Greenwood for allowing us to serve you in this small way. We hope you enjoy the spread of snacks and know that every one of you are being prayed for! Revolution Church loves you!
I am sorry I did not get any video of the spread, there were teachers and other staff all around and I did not want to pull out a video camera and make them feel uncomfortable.
Yes… hold on to you seats, there is more to come later this week…
We had a great day working toward and planning two Servolution events for Revolution Church later this week. I will be sharing more about our summer of Servolution later…
As I sit here, Revolution peeps gone, boys are playing wonderfully, Susanne & Emilee are working on final run through for tomorrow’s Servolution event:
I wanted to take a minute to send a big THANK YOU to all those that have served and are serving this great country we live in. It’s because of you that we have freedom to worship a living God without fear of persecution.
Thank you American Soldier!
You are our TRUE AMERICAN IDOLS!
Wow what a conference! I am going to add it to the list to attend next year! Here are a few quotes from today on twitter.
- My teacher in church when I was young talked about Hell so much that I thought she was born there! She was mean.
- It is for freedom that Christ has set us free! -Gal 5:1
- How to have a life giving church
- 1. Keep innocence and never loose your first love
- 2. Don’t be authoritative. Love must be sincere!
- 3. Must be loyal! Peter did not know how loyal Jesus was until Peter blew it!
- 4. Be thankful when God blesses other ministries. Noah got a rainbow, Aaron got circumcision
- 5. Don’t forget about the pain. Think of those that are hurting!
- Have the kind of church that no matter how far gone they are, that they cannot wait to get back home!
- How to keep the sweetness Acts 16
- Dream it! make sure your vision is not what WE created!
- Dream comes from God and it is specific! God it is your dream!
- It is your job to ensure that God’s dream gets done
- Got to live it! Team has to have sense of urgency! Who is your we?
- Do you care more about your stewardship or your friendship
- Blessed are the flexible, for they shall remain standing
- Be careful of the "religious" spirit!
- If you don’t confront, you will never move up front
- ASK: Always Seek Knowledge
- Are we matching God’s rhythm? If you don’t take breaks, it will break you
- Do not steal an idea without making it better
- Jesus came from top to bottom to bring us from bottom to top
- If you pay your staff peanuts, you get monkeys
- There is a price to pay (pain) to advance the Kingdom of Christ
- What tough decision do you need to make? Embrace the pain!
- Let’s talk about the "S" word in church!!! Submission!!!
- Self promotion usually causes strife!
- The Son of God viewed Himself as a servant that is given the opportunity to lead
- We are here to pay the price and get the job done!
- I am glad we are blogging and twittering but what about our praying and fasting
What a day! What a week! And it’s not over yet!
I am in Raleigh, NC tonight trying to gather my thoughts for tomorrow night’s Revolution LIFE group gathering… But I keep going back to several things that were said today by several great leaders/pastors. If you follow me on Twitter, you have seen these quotes, but for those who are still not on twitter, I thought I would share them… Hope God speaks to you through them!
- Hello C3!!! http://twitpic.com/44bkt
- Healthy hearts grow healthy churches! http://twitpic.com/44pkn
- Rely on God’s power and not man’s methods!
- Rely on God’s power and not what we did last year!
- Getting the morning started singing about being a Revolution! Nice! http://twitpic.com/45kjg
- @dinorizzo is fixing to bring it! http://twitpic.com/45l6i
- Longevity is about my surrender to God working in my life
- Don’t say a word about it anymore, just get in The Word about it!
- Humility, Honesty, & Honor lead to Longevity!
- @gregsurratt taking stage now… This should be good!!! http://twitpic.com/45prm
- Base your preaching on the simplicity of The Gospel
- It’s easy to think God made a mistake when He choose you
- Base your hope on the fact that you are on the winning team! Amen! We win!
- Jesus has a picture of His bride the church in His wallet
- @chris_hodges up now!!!
- Don’t need to be faithful, need to become faithful (internal transformation)
- Focus on who you are becoming, not what you are doing!
- Share the Gospel & share our lives… 1 Thes 2:3-12
- Do I love the work of the Lord more than the Lord of the work?
Dino from Breakout
- @revolutionsc better watch out… Getting all jacked up about Servolution!!! Thanks @dinorizzo http://twitpic.com/45ytc
- There has got to be more than a weekend experience!
- Never underestimate the idea of service that God gives you!
Before tonight’s gathering
- Yes, we are the redeemed! http://twitpic.com/46kpk
- We got to live to give our love away! We are the Revolution, holding the one solution! Leaving it all to give our love away!
- @jonathanfalwell speaking to us! That is one man serious about planting churches!http://twitpic.com/46mrg
- We don’t do this for numbers, we do this for the love of Christ! -@jonathanfalwell
- @edyoung takes the stage!!! http://twitpic.com/46nb9
- Ministry is brutiful & ministry is beautiful!
- You can never get betrayed by your enemies
- Betrayal comes from those closest to you. They will kiss you, then diss you!
- Betrayal is fueled by jealousy & envy
- How do you react when people have God’s favor
- In ministry, pit happens! (in ref to Gen 37:23-24)
- Some people pimp Jesus & use Him for what they want
- Betrayal can lead to total breakdown or breakout
- @GaryLamb @edyoung just said Whole Notha Level… I thought… He stole that from Gary!
- Pottifer’s wife’s name was Hottifer!
- A betrayal is followed by a bunch of lies
- Do you have loyal people around you?
Don’t forget, you can join us live at http://www.allaccessconference.com tomorrow morning!
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