Tag Archive - worship

Highlands Church :: UpClose Round Table

August 23, 2009 in Christ Life Church, conference, Leadership, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Thursday and Friday of this week was spent at Church of the Highlands in  Birmingham, Alabama (first time there)

Phil Goldsberry, Chad Haymon and myself headed out on Southwest airlines  to spend a one and a half days with Chris Hodges and his team at Church of the Highlands. This round table was limited to 30 Senior/Lead Pastors and thier lead team…..about 50ish of us in total.

My expectations for the trip were pretty high – to learn and absorb as much as possible while we were there. I was ready to stand in fron of the fire hydrant and drink it all in.

Chris Hodges launched….I love the word launch rather they plant a church. If you dont know why we use this work read Nelson Searcy’s book called LAUNCH (great book)  …. anyway – he launched his church in 2000 and while we were there the church was around 12000 people with then starting thier 6 multi-site campus in three weeks. ….. WOW. A church that is 9 years old and running 12000+ people …. you have to admit that that is pretty spectacular!

The premise of the round table discussion was to get upcolse with the values and DNA of Highland Church. To read more of the history of the church go here.

Chris Hodges speaking

Chris Hodges speaking

If I had to take the 10+ hrs that we spent there and put it into four statements it would be that Church of the Highlands beleives in 1: The weekend Service 2:Growth Track (Membership and Spiritual Gift/Ministry Profile – I have blogged about how Christ Life Church does it here) 3: Small Groups 4: Dream Team (Volunteers)

Hopefully over the week I will spend some time on my blog debriefing how and why they do what they do – it is an incredibly simple proccess that I beleive has allowed them to remain a warship is the Kingdom battle that we are in and not a cruise ship that most churches have become.

Lastly – we go stuck at the airport so we had three hours to debrief our trip as we waited for our plane to arrive.

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Christ Life Church Sunday Debrief

May 4, 2009 in Christ Life Church with 1 Comment

We are in our third Sunday of the Ultimate Fight Series. I can truly say that I think 2009 has had some of the most solid-consistent and Spirit-birthed messages for Christ Life. We started the year off with One Month To Live. This was a 6 week ALL CHURCH campaign that allowed us to truly evaluate our  live. During this time we also had a record number of people connected in Life Groups.  Right after that series we jumped into “TRANSFORMATION” -  we  took the creative idea from the summer blockbuster of Transformers coming out.

Mind dump:

  • We are preparing to move to a third service in September.
  • We are in full swing of planting a church in Casa Grande (let me know if you want to help)
  • Attendance was up
  • I dont think the swine flu stopped people from coming to church
  • Second service worship was ‘driving’ – that is my new word for when it is good!
  • Rick Naranjo tore it up on the drums (twitter.com/undersinrickmo)
  • I am pumped that Chad Haymon will be joining us in two weeks as our new Worship Pastor
  • Christ Life Kidz were solidly prepared for any ‘swine flu’ issues…….there was  hand sanitizer everywhere – I even saw the camera guy that had his own bottle…..LOL…except it did not work.
  • Preached both services and knew that it was a God inspired message
  • Excited that Pastor Phil Goldsberry was preaching the house down at Christ Church Nashville. I told him he should have worn his Tap Out Shirt…HAHA……gotta have been at church to know that one.

Does time really fly?

April 21, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I have some serioulsy good intentions to blog over the last month. I mean – I have an iPhone with the wordpress app on it and I have not had a minute…..even a second to blog.

I made it thorugh Easter alive – it was incredible! The vision was birthed out of prayer and we worked and worked at it until it came to pass and it truly did. Additionally during the month of April we have been conducting final interviews with a worship/creative arts Pastor.

Additionally we are working on a 6 week “Breakthrough Parenting Series” that will be on Wednesday nights…..

Throw into that the launch of a video venue church in Casa Grande in September that is now on the table and a third service at our Tempe campus in September.

It is amazing to see how when, under solid leadership vision goes forth and the church rises to the occasion.

Lastly – this week I am off to Catalyst West Coast – seriously excited about this.

The Ultimate Fighter begins (set development)

April 1, 2009 in Christ Life Church with 0 Comments

A few pictures from last nights set design start….

John Maxwell

March 18, 2009 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Our church office is closed today because they are re-sealing the parking lot……..with that I am hitting the to-do list hard from the house.

ANYWAY…..back to John Maxwell….this guy has truly influenced my life! As a part of my morning devotions I am reading his “daily inspirations for leaders” and it dawned on me how many of his books that I have read and how much it has formed my thinking. I truly do not think that I would have the wisdom I do without so much of his writing. John Maxwell is truly a leader in our culture.

QUESTION:: How many of his books have you read?

Also- if you have not read any of his books…….why not?