Rearview Mirror

• Great weekend
• Got to escort my little girl at her football homecoming on Saturday - that was pretty cool!
• Watched UGA vs. Alabama Saturday night - Roll Tide!!  As a Tech fan, it was great watching the dismay of the Dawg fans as they were in disbelief in what was happening.  Kind of felt sorry....for a moment or two!!
• Great day at NStar today - wrapped up Kingdom series by talking about being out on the front line!!  Really a picture of who we are as a church and why we do church the way we do it!
• Had baptism tonight at our house - 20 baptized!!!  Awesome stories walking through the cold water!!!
• After baptism we had about 14 new people at our Newcomers - also at our house!!  We had an awesome time hosting these 2 great events!
• The Unit is back on - one of my favorite shows!!
• I am absolutely worn out and ready to chill for the night!!!

Idea Nation - You have to join!

One of the things we work hard on at NorthStar is staying creative and ahead of the curve!! A good buddy of mine, Josh Webb, who is one of the most brilliant minds I know has created a site that I think is going to be huge for leaders!

Join Idea Nation and be a part of this awesome grass roots "sharing" opportunity!!

Praying for big day!!

I am about to head out to teach the last week in our "Kingdom" series......I am praying for a big day not only for NStar but for our partner churches!!!  Will you pray for these Pastors & Churches as well that God would show up today in big ways.........Praying for a big day "Out on the front line"

Kingdom Pastors & Churches........

• Brian Bloye & WestRidge Church
  
• Mike Stephens & Burnt Hickory Baptist Church
  
• Billy Moss & Noonday Baptist Church
• Ken Williams & West Cobb Church
• Ike Reighard & Piedmont Church
• Ronnie Cheatwood & Mt. Calvary Baptist
• Tom Tanner & RiverStone Church
• George Wright & CedarCrest Church

Highlight of the week!!!

On Tuesday, Anne & I were able to go out and eat lunch with Brian & Amy Bloye and Jr & Devin Lee. We had a blast and it was so great to hang out with like-minded friends who love the same things we love and experience all of the same things we experience!! What I love most about these guys is that they are real and what you see in public is really who they are!!

Brian & I have been friends for the past 11 years and he is absolutely one of the most solid leaders I have ever met! He knows what he is about and sticks to his plan better than anyone I know!! I love that guy......he is a true friend and I cannot even begin to tell you what an encouragement he has been to me!

JR & I met a few months ago and outside Brian when WestRidge started, I knew there was a new game in town! He is funny, super sharp & a learner! Freedom has big days in store and JR is the perfect guy to lead this great church! My next Sunday off I am heading to Freedom and checking it out!! Can't wait!

I can't wait until we all hook up again soon!!

Praying

Do you ever reach those times that you really can't get a handle on what you are thinking or feeling?? NorthStar has never been blessed more than we are being blessed right now but yet you know there is something more & bigger for us! I trust God knows so I will trust Him!

Rearview Mirror

• Great time speaking to the NStar men on Friday night at Berry College!!  There was a ton of energy in the room!!  
• I love my time with the Allatoona football team.  They are a first year team and they have a ton of fight in them - we are talking about the life of Paul and learning to "play to win"!  Being a chaplain is pretty cool!!
• Got to see the GT Jackets on Saturday - these guys smashed Miss. State!!  Should be an interesting year!
• Another solid day at NStar on Sunday.....crowds down a little from last week but still very solid!  Lauren Boyd & Ryan Williams led in Compass and they were extremely good!
• Heading out to executive study and then a day of worship evaluating & planning!  I love starting the day early with my executive small group - there are some super sharp guys in that room and I always learn so much from them!
• Casey has a baseball game tonight at 6pm way up at Creekview High School between Canton & Cumming.......good full day ahead!!

I want to be great!

I want NorthStar to be a great church! I truly want this body of believers to make a HUGE difference in Kennesaw & Acworth (GA)! Personally, I want to be an incredible leader and lead in a Godly way not only at the church but also at my home! Bottom line, if I am involved in something I want it to be Great!

We learned yesterday @ NorthStar that God's view of greatness is a little different than ours!

To be great - I have to be a great servant and go to the back of the line! I have to be okay that no one knows my name and no one knows of NStar - they just have to know about the God that I serve!

Greatness is exhibited most by serving.........Everything in me tells me to step up and go the front and God says....stay in the back and let others go first!

I pray that at the end of my journey, God finds my life to have been a "great" one!!

Hope

Last night I spoke to 2 very different groups about 1 subject that they both needed to hear!! The subject was HOPE and they reason that they both need to hear it, is that when the day comes that our circumstances or crisis are bigger than the hope we have within us.....we are in big trouble!!

Hope..........keeps us moving forward, gives us light to walk in, at the end of the day expects to win & not lose......We can't lose hope!! The enemy that we all face wants us to quit and to look at what is going on right now as the end. The reason, if he can get our eyes off of "hope", he can get us out of the race and get us to quit!!

My prayer for the group of 80 football players at Allatoona and then later that night the "men of NStar" at their retreat - is that they hold on to HOPE with all that they have!! Our hope is not in anything we can do, but rather what God has already done & accomplished on our behalf!!

Hold on buddy..........Hope in a God who will never let you go and He will always see you through!!!

Serve!

We had the opportunity today to serve lunch for the teachers of North Cobb High School! What a great way to say thank you to these people who are on the front-lines with our kids! The lunch today was a joint effort of Mayor Mark Matthews & The City of Kennesaw and Mayor Tommy Allegood and the City of Acworth and NorthStar Church!

The school is so crowded, they have 5 different lunch periods and at each hour we prayed over the teachers at each hour....it was awesome!! Partnering with both of our cities and using the time to bless teachers & leaders is a blast!! The interim principal at NCHS, Dr. Mike Johnson, joined us for a time as well....he is an incredible leader!

I am so honored to have so many friends in our community who want the same things we want and that is to make our community the greatest place in America to live & raise a family!

Strategy!

Tuesday for me is a strategy day.......Here is a peek at a pretty normal Tuesday:

• 9am - evaluation meeting of this past weekend (What worked in our services and on our campus and what did not work in the services and on our campus)  If it did not work - who is going to work to correct it......Great meeting!  Pretty honest & open!!  
• 10:15am - creative worship planning - we do a quick overview of the upcoming service and then do the process & planning for the service 2 weeks out.  I go over the sermon for that day with the team and then we begin to creatively lay out the flow.  This meeting has been paying huge dividends since we moved to this design!
• 12:30pm - future planning - The key question of this meeting is what in the world are we going to do with the crowds??  We know we will be adding a service....when will it be?  what else will be offered?  is it live or on video or both?  how will we market?  how will we move current Nstar attenders to it to create seats at our prime hours?  Right now, we have more questions than answers but we are getting there!!!
• 2:00 - done - Return calls & e-mails from AM

Today, I get a break after the last meeting and I will be going to Kennesaw Mountain High School to hear Dr. Jack Llellewyn speak to all of their coaches!  It is early release day in the schools, so they are bringing in Dr. Jack to speak to their leaders!!  I am going to go & sit in and serve and then....just enjoy!  NStar is providing snacks for the coaches to say thank you for all that they do!!   This is going to be a blast!!

Tonight - Casey has a game against North Cobb High School in fall baseball!  Looking forward to the game and catching up with some good friends at North Cobb!

Rearview Mirror

• Clothesline was this weekend at NStar.......over 400 people were lined up around our building to get in to shop!!  We had over 250 volunteers that served and there were 1200 33 gallon bags of clothes given away!!  Incredible!!  I could not believe the crowd that was there - thanks to Melanie Mooney and her team for the super job they did!  They lived out our mission statement "To show God's love in such a way"
• Today we had the 2nd week in our Kingdom series......WOW - where do I start?
• I preached early in the service on the "Kingdom of God" is like a treasure out of Matthew 13.......when we find the treasure - everything else pales in comparison to finding what God has for us!
• We then sang "He loves us" with the stories of 4 NStar people who have given their lives to Christ in the past year or two......It was unreal.....I cried the entire song and just hearing their stories while listening to that song was over the top!  
• At the end of the song, in the Compass Centre Daniel led in a time of prayer for people to meet Christ - when he closed he asked those who had accepted to Christ to stand......there were 15 in the 9:30am and 25 in the 11:00am......The stories of some of those who stood - I know and they sent me over the edge!  It makes everything you do WORTH IT and more!  
• When they stood - the roar of our crowd was SO loud!  Then we sang the old hymn "I stand Amazed".....the words captured all that we were feeling and then the band kicked it in and it rocked!
• It was the most amazing service I have ever attended.....I cannot put it into words what I am thinking & feeling today!
• Heard that Cedarcrest Church (part of our Kingdom network of churches) had close to 40 baptized in a spontaneous baptism!!  Awesome!

If you were at NStar today - I would love to see your comments and what the day meant to you - maybe you can capture it better than me!

Great meeting

I had a great chance to catch up today with Aaron Coe, who is the pastor of the Gallery Church in NYC!  Aaron served with us at NStar and I knew he would be a guy would not keep long when he came....he is a visionary leader who runs in a different gear!!  It was so great to catch up with him and hear his new dreams for NYC and what they are putting in place to reach the city!

The Allatoona baseball team came up short tonight (8-6) - with only 1 junior on the field they are battling Varsity teams and it is good to see them hang in!!

Look forward to going to the NCHS vs. Harrison football game tomorrow night - the Top of the Rock classic sponsored by NStar Church!!  Should be fun!

Allatoona kicked off FCA this AM and had over 100 students for their first meeting!!  I got to speak and it was cool to be a part of the very first one ever!!  That school has some good days ahead!

5 reasons I love NStar!

• Big dreamers everywhere (staff & people)!
  
• No one ever minds adjusting on the fly!
• The greater the challenge, the more excited people become!
• People love our families!
• It is where I would go to church even if I did not work there!!
  

I could do 20 reasons but.......I gotta go!

Rearview Mirror

• The Kingdom series started today......NStar joined 8 other local churches to talk about "The Kingdom" - I heard a phrase last year from Vance Pittman who pastors in Las Vegas...."The church is a gathering place where we teach & talk about the kingdom"
• The Kingdom of God = the rule & reign of God in our lives!
• Services were slammed and standing room only in the main room at our 11am service and standing room only at 11am in True North!  WOW!
• Used Matt Papa song "Kingdom Come"....it was strong!
• Introduced "God of this City" as our close each week - the passion our people sang with gave me chills!
• We shot a video today for next Sunday that will be unreal - you can't miss seeing it next week!
• We were home this afternoon and I watched the Falcons whip the Lions!  I was so happy for the Falcons after the long year they had last year - it looked they were having a great time!
• GT looked good yesterday - big win over BC on the road!
• Mary-Michal did great cheering again Saturday - I am so proud of her, she looks so big out there!!  I love that girl!
• I so miss coaching right now but I am enjoying going and being a spectator at Casey's practices & games....
• Had a great time with Allatoona as chaplain again this past Friday - I am going to enjoy watching these guys grow up!  Coach Varner & his coaches are doing a super job!
• Big week this week - big decisions and big prayers being prayed!!  Can't wait to see what God has in store!

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Red Sea Rules & Meeting Notes

This past Wednesday we had our monthly "Learning Leadership" challenge with our staff! I love the first Wednesday of every month because we have some of the greatest leaders in our area come in and share their leadership area of expertise and there is no doubt that we are all better for it!! We have had some HIGH octane leaders and I always leave better and challenged to be better!

Ike Reighard, our founding Pastor at NStar, was our guest and he knocked it out! He shared principles from a book by Robert Morgan called Red Sea Rules. The info was solid and right on the money for where we are and we are facing! Ike filled in at the last minute and he was incredible! There is absolutely no leader in the world that believes in people like Ike does.....it is His gift in life! For a full look at what Ike covered, go to Randy Elsters blog and check it out!

On Tuesday, I met with a good friend named Brian Dodd who works for Injoy Stewarship Services. Brian is a great leader and as perceptive about the church world as anyone I know! He made a statement that was huge for me about where we are at NStar......I will share it with you this weekend!

Making life count!

One of my goals in life is to make a difference in people's lives that God has put me around! I want my life to count....I want to use my influence to make a difference for Christ! As I was reading Wild Goose Chase by Mark Batterson, I found a story that will forever mark me!!

A missionary named A.W. Milne felt called to a tribe of headhunters in the New Hebrides. All of the other missionaries to this tribe had been martyred, but this did not stop Milne from going. He lived among the tribe for the 35 years and never returned home. When the tribe buried him, this was written on his tombstone........(page 149)

"When he came there was no light. When he left there was no darkness."