The Water !

Today we started the day by going to a soccer camp giving out water and cards for the church here in Cleveland then we went down to hunington beach and finished giving the water and cards out and you would believe the conversations that we had with people. All I could think about was that I was giving out bottle water and what they need is the living water I continued to pass them out as I prayed that they would come to North Point get connected to Jesus and never thirst again! If your churchplanting and you need an event to do go pass out water on a hot day I promise you'll have some takers. The ladies on this thip stepped out of there comfort zone today but they were glad that they did. Great Job! Stacy, Lenice, and Haley. So with that said God gives a free gift of water just like we gave out today but with his you will never thirst again.

Cleveland

We are here! Landed yesterday in Cleveland Ohio to help the strategic focus city reach out in the name of Jesus. Joe Cerise is the Pastor of North Point Community
Church the church that we are helping the team I am with is awesome they all love Jesus and are gung ho for reaching the community. We have already been blessed just to get to know each other. Pray this week that the work that we do here will harvest results that are out of this world. Go therefore into all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit...... I am always blessed when I have opportunities like short term missions to reach out. Joe will be a great well to draw from this week in the process of church planting post launch. North Point Community Church launched the church on Easter. I want to give a shoat out to my boys I am leading Adam Cestlow,and Mike Mcdaniel there are great guys and they have already blessed me.

Holy Smoke Batman!

Why did Batman always have people to help him like Commissoner Gordon, Alferd the housekeeper, and of course Robin and not use them. Batman thought he would just do it all. The sad thing is Batman always got in trouble with the riddler because he never deligated. Man when you have help use it! People want to serve! Don't get stuck in a sticky situation. That Why Robin had a uniform so he could save Batman don't have your side kick save you have them help you. This is for all the people who think they have to do it yourself because some one else won't do a good job.

Network 35

I am excited to jump on board with several other churches and West Ridge to become a member of Network 35 a network that has a heart for church planting and coaching along with the church planting school I can't see how a church planter could do without this kind of organization. I have been fortunate enough this past year to jump on board with West Ridges School and learn tons. I can only imagine how many mistakes I would have made without it. Maybe even costing me like many others the downfall of a ministry or years of unwanted headaches. Bryan Bloye, Matt Willington,
Jim Akins, are just a few heavy hitters on the list. Man I can't wait to see what happens as we start planting healtthy churches together. If you are interested in the network or in the church planting school check it out

Clarify the Win!

Andy Stanley's has a Podcast out Practically Speaking that gives 7 practices for effective ministry. The First practice is "Clarify the Win" What are you after to call your program a win. Is it when a person comes to faith in Jesus a win?
Is it a win when a person starts serving in ministry? Is it a win when a person
gets involved in a small group for fellowship and community. Each of these can be wins but each program needs to clarify the win so they can reach the goal they need to too be successful. So many churches try to do everything and never accomp,lish anything. Have each ministry Clarify what a win looks like.

Invest and Invite!

Granger Community Church hits the nail on the head when they talk about assimulating
people into the local church. Have you ever been the person that slips into the back row of the church just to get stared at in some okward way and feel like a guest that was ignored. Man I've been there. People need to feel like they fit in. What better way than to get invited by a friend and introduced to the church community for real life. Well you may say how can I invite them without feeling okward and the way is to invest in them first! Then as you grow a relationship with them it will come natural to invite them to get involved in what God is doing. The question is not who have you invited but who are you investing in that is not connected. Community is important! Reaching them for Jesus is the goal! So Invest!

Staff Meeting

This past year has been a great opportunity for me to be involved with the great staff of Westridge Church. The staff meeting always start with worship and prayer and updateing ministry areas. Getting everyone on the same page no matter what the ministry area is. Team work has been great attribute of the success of Westridge.
God has really used this staff to touch my heart and has been teaching me what it really takes to build an effective team and church. The term I guess I could use is Pure At Heart.

Good to Great!

As I am discovering for the first time I am amazed by the insight from the book "Good to Great" By Jim Collins on the topic of leadership. How many companies that have gone from being a good company to a Great company despite the leadership. Lot's of companies have great leadership but the people never buy into the companies philosphy. While other companies get "gung hoe" about the state of the company and once they see the company as a place of longevity and potential growth on the inside the company starts growing. This tells me as a church planter that my leadership can be off the charts good but if people's lives are not being built up,encouraged and put on a mission that it will make no differance in if you are a good church are great church. God wants us to encourage and teach his people to labor for Him.

Fathers Day

As we approach the day of the year that all fathers dream about and we try to guess what we are going to get let us not forget that this holiday is not just a holiday for new lawn tools or bigger TV's, but it is also a season to celebrate what a wonder father of all that we have in God the Father. The one that created the world and us to live in it. So many people go through this season depressed maybe they have lost their earthly father or had a dead beat for a Dad never the less you have a Daddy that loves has loved you all along. This Fathers Day how about expressing to Him what a great Father that He is.

Let's Get it Started!

For the next few months we are going to be traveling all over the place to visit our partnering churches. We have decided to do a Mission Now Weekend on Aug 4th-6th
where we will have youth groups from other churches send there youth for the weekend to pass out doorhangers and were going to have a concert and guest speaker. We are planning to Rock Rockmart that weekend. August 6th is our preview service and we are excited about what God is going to do. If your youth group or church would like to be a part of that weekend email me at dannye@westridge.com.

I'm BACK

Man! it has been a crazy month. Here is an update we had a meeting this past Sunday night we put an ad in the paper and sent out a postcard to all of the personal contacts that we had which was about 200. We had 90 people show up Sunday night.
We had great music our band rocked and all the pastors and directors shared the vision of the church. It's just the beginning of what is going to happen. We look forward to our preview service August 6th. Our launch team was awesome and worked hard.

My Little Friend!

Today I received a picture of our children's director Jennifer Gray's son Collier. It was awesome.
He had recently broke the ladder off of his fire truck but has replaced it with the cross so he would be able continue to have a tool to get people "SAVED" it even seemed ironic that it was from fire. This is a child that has a heart for evangelism.
Great job Jennifer in teaching your son "The Great Commission"

A Breath Of Fresh Air

A lot of churches are for church planting as long as it is not in there back yard.
Last week I had a chance to go to Dalton Ga to "The Wink" Theater transformed churchand had the opportunity to hang out with a great guy
that loves God and church planting. Matt Evens went to Dalton several
years ago started a church to reach the unchurched and has been very successful.As I set back and just listened to the wisdom of Matt I learned a ton.
Check this church out they have grown from 27 to 700 and are reaching people every week. Thanks Matt for believing in what we
are doing in Rockmart. If you know anyone that lives in the Dalton
area send them to Rockbridge they will not leave disappointed!

PRIDE

Pride may well be a leaders worst enemy,and causes the downfall of many.
Pride Tempts leaders to take the credit from others. The writer of Proverbs 27:2 urges, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth, a stranger, and not your own lips"Pride causes Leaders to think they are self-sufficient this makes them not rely on God as much in there decisions or direction because they can figure it out. D.L.Moody stated I can never forget that everything I have I owe it all to God.
Pride Leads to loss of compassion. Some leaders lead from what they can gain oppose to what hey can give. Pride just gets in the way "Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled,but he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Luke 18:14) I am not qualified and will never I myself be good enough but the identity that I have in Christ is that of a Conquer but only because of what He can do through me nothing can be done with any significance on my own.