who you loving on?

ok, don't read that the wrong way - but who are you loving on? what i mean is who is walking by your side, who are you spending time with, who are you being a 'rabbi' to, who is walking in your dust, whose life are you changing?

for us to grow as a church, we need all our leaders loving on someone. sounds hard? well, it's not. and the best thing is, we are going to start asking all our leaders to love on someone.

very soon we will be teaching leaders how to coach. not a sports team, but other people. coaching is all about taking people to new levels. its about helping people find the best that is in them. it's not telling them they stink, or that they aren't worth anything, but it is about helping people be the best they can. by coaching, our church will change. people will grow. and we will carry out our vision to love God, love people and to share our stuff.

really!

WOW!

i have said before, i am not a numbers guy - but i have heard it said, 'if your not counting, your not managing.' so here are some numbers for yesterday, not to brag, but to tell you God is doing some great stuff at haymarket. so let's do some managing...

102

the number of people back in kidzone yesterday! 2nd service there were 25 kids in the k through 3rd grade class. WOW!

259

total attendance yesterday. and that doesn't count the divorcecare and genesis life group numbers. it was our biggest day since we started the campus (that wasn't christmas or easter). WOW!

12 to 5

the final score of our colts vs bears survey! guess who won? come find out this weekend...

otherwise, great to see people are coming out! remember, you are making a difference in people's lives!

more than we can see update

you'll probably see a lot more of posts with that title in the upcoming weeks - so bear with me!

anyway, some cool stuff is happening here at new life. take a moment and go to brett's blog and read about what is happening with passion4community. it applies to our land and building campaign. God is on the move...

more than we can see

update for ya - as you have hopefully heard MANY times over the last 2 months, we are moving forward with our More Than We Can See campaign. God is moving in many ways at new life and we are along for the ride! so here is an update for you about the haymarket campus.

this week, we will have a great idea of potential land we can pray for and purchase for our community center. of course, we would love for someone to proffer us a portion of land! no matter what happens, we should have a place you can drive by and pray about this week! so stay tuned...

the 'eyes' have it

vision - in many churches, this can be the death nail. why? so many churches lose the vision they once had. or worse, they keep the vision, but add on to that vision to the point of creating an unwieldy monster where that earliest vision is nothing more than words.

so how does a church keep the vision simple and focused? it really boils down to leadership. if leadership vears off the vision or constantly makes changes, the vision dies.

so here we are. we know the vision. to reach people for Christ. so what else do we need to do? make sure we as leaders stay focused. in all we do, we have to ask ourselves, how is this helping bring people back to God?

one of the reasons we want to meet for our vip room is to keep us focused, but to also develop leaders. that is why we are also working on a coaching plan for our leaders. once we begin to develop leaders and have coaching in place, our vision will stay focused.

i want us to be a church that continues to impact lives long after i am gone! so let's start leading, let's start coaching, and let's start changing lives beyond anything we can imagine!

the vip room

last sunday night, 21 people gathered to chat about the haymarket campus - i believe it will be the turning point for us. great conversations. great connections. great food. i could sense that for some of us there, it was one of those "aha!" moments.

at one point, we talked about this process...

love God - love people - share your stuff

simple.

i believe this group will take those words and make them a part of who we are. if each one of us bring others along on this journey, God will do some incredible things here in this area.

our set up is nothing!

think our set-up is tough?
take a look at this pic from an event that took place at the vatican recently. makes our set up look like kid's play.

thanks to all who make sunday's happen! you are awesome!
and i will do my best to make it so we never have to set up this many chairs!

the vip room

i'm excited! tomorrow night, we are holding our first vip room! this is our leadership community.

for us - as a church - to move forward, we have to have leaders in place to move us forward. this is our first time together. i invited leaders, people who are entertaining leading in some fashion and potential leaders.

i am looking forward to the conversations, the excitement, and the future that this group of people will bring to our church, to our community and to the kingdom of God!

not good stuff, but great stuff...

holocaust museum

my wife and i received an incredible christmas gift from kara's sister - a 3-day, 2-night get away to d.c. with no kids! so we spent all day thursday until today hanging out in d.c. lots of fun!

this may sound weird, but the highlight of our time away (besides being able to sleep through the night) was 3 hours at the holocaust museum. really. what an incredible story of human ego, human torture, human pain, human suffering, human salvation, human hope, human love.

to walk around that place was eerie, but there is so much to learn from those who lived and died in that sad moment in time. i highly suggest you take a half a day and spend time at the holocaust museum.

you will never look at things the same again...

a little behind

now, if i said those words to my kids, they would laugh and say, "no daddy, it's a little booty" - got to love those kids! anyway, just a bit behind in getting some stuff on this page. sorry. been a bit busy. but never fear, keep coming back. i'll get back on track this week...

college football

i love this time of year - not necessarily for the holidays, but for college football bowl games! and of course, i am especially interested in this year's games as wake forest is playing in the orange bowl tonight! as harry carey said so many times before he passed away - HOLY COW!

so here's to wake forest! have a great game! and don't embarrass us!