Thanks to Whom Thanks is Do

I just want to take a moment to give props to Jared for all the work he has done on the website. Obviously he's got mad skillz and I'm glad he's with us. Vote for Pedro...I mean Jared. Jared man you're dynamite! Thanks from the whole emc gang.

Thoughts from a Mac Store

Hey there I just wanted to give a shout out to everyone from one of my favorite stores. So greetings from the Apple store in the Lenox Mall in Atlanta, GA. I love coming to the Apple Store. It is a symbol of excellence, innovation, stability, and infectious marketing. Apple throughout the years has chosen to do a few things well and it is paying off.

Everyone who reads my blog knows I'm a church planter (that means I am starting a new church). For those of you who have heard me share our vision, you know I am not about busying people with church programming. I think throughout the years the church has tried to do everything and in doing so has accomplished little. It is so important to know what God is calling you to do and then do that well.

I want to help those who find church irrelevant begin to grow in relationship with others and become devoted followers of Christ. For many people the operating system they are use to makes sense (i.e. PC). Within this system the idea of switching to a different platform (OSX) is perceived as confusing & cumbersome. In life we are all running our lives on some platform. For many Christian principles and the Church appear to be cumbersome at best, confusing at worst. We need to present to people that Christianity isn't about this meeting, teaching seminar,men's breakfast, and fund raisers. If we are not careful we will clutter our life's desktops with the good and miss out on the best. Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus and with other's as you grow together as followers of Christ. That's it! Yes we need to become more like Christ, yes we need to understand the principles of the Bible, yes we need to be concerned about our world, but many of the things we do in church are counter-productive. It is time to simplify.

I think Apple reveals to us the principle to do less for greater results. Jesus taught principles, he ate dinner with people, he showed expressions of love to children. I guess what I am trying to say is I want to be more like Christ. Embassy Metro Church will not have a handle on every niche of Christian ministry. We will create environments that relate to the unchurched introducing them to Christ and principles for life. We will reach our children and youth because they are our next generation. We will grow together in small groups because it's healthy and Jesus spent time with 12 other guys too. We will do less for more. We will be a group of people who focus on a few things and through the help of God's Holy Spirit we will become a place of excellence, innovation, stability, and infectious marketing. We hope in the years to come many will make the jump to a new operating system (JC...ok that was corny) for their lives because we chose to be intentional & focused.

Thoughts on Work and Life Outside the Christian Ghetto.

The past two weeks have definitely been different. I have been doing a remodeling job in Mid-town Atlanta. The place is a large production house that at one time edited some of your favorite movies (like Species) ok I actually never saw it, but it's always lurking on the video shelf when you are looking for movies like Spanglish, Space Balls, and Sparticus. The place has been closed down for a few years. Everything was just shut up as if the last day of work "2002 something" they expected to be back on Monday. Who knew how much a place could get run down by just sitting empty for a few years. Oak ceiling buckled from humidity in the non air-conditioned building. Mold growing in bathrooms, and every light bulb in the building (100's of light bulbs) all needing replaced. It's been weird not earning my livelihood full-time around a church setting. Weird, but not bad. The guys I am working with are salt of the earth great guys who know how to sling both dry wall mud and four letter words. The stories they tell are often a little crude, but they are there stories and it's been great getting to know them.


For the ten years before we came to GA I had the privilege of working full-time at a church. I must admit I enjoyed it immensely and look forward to it again, however, at times it was a bit too sanitized. It often felt like I was living in a Christian Ghetto where everyone spoke the same language and told the same stories. Everything so clean neat and orderly. I had to be very purposeful to venture outside the "shining" walls of our sweet and fair city. Whenever people fail to make the effort to walk beyond the walls of their Christian Ghetto it doesn't take too long before they forget about people who are lost just beyond self imposed borders. But Ross, we are to "come out from among them and be separate" yes, but we are to be salt and light effecting change and bringing direction to our world. We can't do that inside our Christian Ghettos. We have our language, our arts, our entertainment (wait innertainment), our stories.....so busy with our stories that we fail to listen to the stories of those outside our "fair cities." There has to be a place where our world can intersect and we can earn the right to be heard. That place is the border land of stories where person-hood is expressed and relationships are formed. Relationships that serve to effortlessly tug on another person to follow you as you are following Christ.

We have to take a few steps away from our Christian Ghetto and intersect life with those who are unfamiliar with the language, policies, protocol, and frankly "bull" that is often a part of fitting in to our environment. Listen to their lives as told through their stories. Hear their joys, and sorrows, victories and defeats....and tell your stories, not your two cent answers. They will venture out of their world to the border also and there they should find a person who isn't afraid to engage them and simply tell their stories. Sometimes these stories will be trivial; old girlfriends, fights, jobs, and adventures, but eventually and usually sooner than you would expect a spiritual element moves into your conversation. Nothing forced, it's just a part of your life and there in this border land someone on "the other side" wants a glimpse of your spirituality. Don't lead them up a hill of self righteousness because all they will see is a view of the Ghetto. Show them Jesus. The Jesus that loved you enough....tell the story. The Jesus that can still heal a broken heart.....tell the story. The Jesus that understands.....tell the story.

I would say 70% of my day with the guys I am working with is just telling stories. After a couple of weeks of this, yesterday they began wanting to know about spiritual things. Why? Because they want to know more about me, and my walk with Jesus is a huge part of me so they had to ask. Just like I had to ask about demolition car driving and somehow that conversation led into a diatribe on elaborate bongs (pipes for smoking pot: definition for those firmly entrenched in the CG) I now know more about the art of hittin' a bowl than a pastor will ever need to know, but yesterday they asked me about spiritual things! I guess that's all I got to say about that. Venture out, listen up, intersect, share life, reveal Christ, expand the kingdom.

They Grow Up So Fast

Today was the first day of school for my girls, Adalee (8) & Aubrynn (6). We dropped them off at their new school which is 4 times the size of their old school in Ohio. Needless to say we were experiencing a little parental angst. When we picked them up at the bus stop they both were full of stories to tell about the school, the potential of new friends, and how you don't need money for lunch you just punch your student # in a box and they "just give you your food without any money". What they didn't realize is we had paid for their lunches in advance....hmm I'll come back to this. Let me keep my mind on the start of school.

I am a really sappy kind of guy and the start of every schooI year acts as an annual FYI memo to my brain that says "your children are getting older and one day will be gone." Excuse me...I'm getting a little vaclemped...talk amongst yourselves...ok I'm better. With them going back to school so early in the summer I felt bad for them even though they do get five weeks off throughout the school year.

When I was a kid we didn't usually go back until the Tuesday after Labor Day. Three full months of fun before I had to go back and walk to school three miles each way barefoot in the snow. Summer was spent fishing in what I thought was a creek, but later found out it was just city run-off. I guess that explains the neon green three-eyed fish. Growing up life was what I would call normal, another would label amazing, and some would say "poor thing". For the most part we were a typical mid-western middle class family, if you call having a dad who was both a preacher and a hairstylist typical, but I digress. Anyhoo, I lived life without a care in the world knowing that all I had to do was open the fridge and there was free food. Turn on a faucett or light and leave them on. No reason to turn them off because all that comes with the house, right. Oh and there's a bed too. well this is childhood (or for many twenty-somethings young adulthood until you're tired of living in your parents basement, but I digress.)

I guess what I am trying to say is the good things we experience throughout life are all too often viewed as coming to us from the wrong source. Kind of like Addie's view of lunch. She didn't realize that daddy had already taken care of this provision in advanced. In life there is the tendency to look at our provisions through childish eyes. I made this life for me, "it's mine". This is my house...That's my car. All this came to me because I just pushed the right button (right college, right job, right investments) and put the right # in and "look what I got daddy!" and Daddy says " don't you realize I purchased these provisions for you in advance" The Bible says all good gifts come from our Father (Daddy) above." God help us to recognize Your involvement in all our possessions and provisions.

Well that's enough for tonight. My girls are getting older and I realize, they just grow up so fast. I guess one reason it gets me so sappy is, once they're grown where will I learn most of my life lessons from?