Last week of our marriage series

I know it is Memorial Weekend and a lot of families will be gone, but if you are in the area you don't want to miss tomorrow's service. We could have laid back and said let's coast this weekend, but we have a great day plan. My wife Amie will be co-teaching with me which will ensure for an entertaining experience. Actually my wife is the one who gives me the best stuff I put in my talks every week any how.

Also we have a 1st edition video installment from three emc-ers that will have you rollin'. you guys tore me up. With the band kicking, a little Hendrix memorial music, and God showing up in a powerful way we are going to have an amazing Sunday. I can't wait!!!

See you tomorrow. If you can't be there be safe and have a great weekend with your family and remember to take some time to reflect on our service men's sacrifice for our freedom.

The Intern Cometh

Last month I received a call from the U.S. Missions department of the Assemblies of God. Evangel University had contacted them looking for a church plant to place one of their students with during the month of July. The student will be doing his practicum with embassy metro church. His name is Micah and will be with us from June 1st through July 8th. He has to have a work project that he is focusing on that church planters organize often so he will be working with us on everything it takes to pull off an event like the July fourth parade and park ministry and the promotion and design of our July series. Everyone make Micah feel welcomed on Sunday June 3rd and if you want to include him in any events you are doing throughout the month just let me know.

Amazing Staff Meeting Tonight

Tonight we put everything on the table nothing was sacred. We laid out every area of Embassy Metro Church and dreamed of how we can take it to the next level. The last couple of months we have all become busy working in the organization, but not necessarily on the organization. This the major reason organizations get stale, stagnant, and eventually atrophy. We refuse to allow stale & stagnant to become adjectives that will ever characterize the embassy.

Tonight we made a giant punch list that goes beyond maintenance and into the realm of fresh vision. Churches or business that only focus on maintenance, or merely working in the organization, will eventually lose the drive and fire they began with and will eventually become caretakers of the status quo. With that in mind as we go into the summer, a time often embraced by status quo churches to just lay back we have decided to charge ahead. The next three months will be an amazing time to be a part of Embassy Metro Church.

Hold on to your seat and get ready....I don't do this very often but I am going to ask you to serve like you have never served before, give like you have never given before, and invest in your friends and invite them to come experiencing what God is doing at the embassy like you have never done before!!!

You know I don't talk about numbers very often. I have never put numeric goals on our church, because I fear we'll focus on people as digits instead of souls desperately in need of a loving God. Well I just want to tell you that we are getting ourselves into a position as a church that we could have 300 people coming to the Embassy by January. That's huge I know, but God is able to do this as we give him our best in service, finances, and connecting with and inviting others.

We launch with such a small handful, but look what you have accomplished in a year and four months. With us moving together with passion and commitment we can double our church body by January. Well why should we do that? I can tell you it's not so we have bragging rights because I have been a major part of a church that grew to nearly 1000 people and if I wanted that I could have just stayed their telling our story for years to come. It's not so we can build our own kingdom frankly because building quasi-spiritual kingdoms for man's glory sucks and stinks in the nostrils of God.

Then Why!!!??? It's so that 100's & 1000's of people in the North Metro Area of North Cobb & Cherokee County can find Christ and find His better way to journey through life through the ministries of Embassy Metro Church.

If you are a Team EMC-er(member)at emc then join with us in the next season of our church and let's endeavor together to make an impact on our region.I think the Devil will fight us, the gates of hell will not relinquish victory easily, but we are going to kick his teeth in through our faithfulness and we are going to see lives changed like never before. Get your addict friends to the embassy, get your neighbor who feels like life is meaningless to the embassy, get your own rear end to the embassy, because God is getting ready to blow our socks off (never quite understood that expression) We will be the ones who can say "we were there being used by God when God blew our minds"

I'm sorry this was a novel, but I feel like God is ready to pour out increase on our church. Get a fresh vision of your role in this explosion and embrace your place at the embassy and watch as our efforts together serve to change the lives of those who are near and dear to you.

Can't Beat Free Stuff

This week a friend of ours from Ohio had a cosmetic denistry conference to be at in Atlanta. He brought the whole family in an RV and they have used our house as home base all week. It's been great being with old friends and it's been great getting hooked up on some awesome entertainment and grub. Monday we took the kids out of school and they took all of us to here, and tonight we are getting sitters and they are taking Amie and I to here. I guess you could say we've had a "surf & turf" week.

Man I could spit!

Last night we had a great Creative Design Team meeting. So today I took all the info we came up with and began to compile and add to it. With that accomplished a great deal of our June series is now slated.

After 2 hours of work I decided I would turn it into a pdf file and upload it to our CDT google group so we can add more thoughts to it etc. Well somehow I killed the file and all I can get it to say is mumbo jumbo computer talk.

If you are a preacher you know how frustrating this is, because the whole time you are feeling directed in your prep by God and He was adding some great stuff. Then it's all gone and you have to start over, but you know you won't remember everything you had written, so you feel like you're leaving something out. Well anyways that's life. I retrieved my crumpled notes from last nights meeting from the trash (thank God I hadn't thrown them out yet) and it's back to getting everything compiled and added to again.

I'm so frustrated I could spit.

Jerry Falwell August 11, 1933 – May 15, 2007

I admire deeply what Dr. Falwell has accomplished
for Christ through out the years. Welcome Home Dr. Falwell...good and faithful servant enter into your rest.

New Series begins this Sunday

Tomorrow is mother's day and we are launching a new series called "Just Married?" I can't wait as we begin to unpack some of the stuff we all deal with in our marriages. We're going to kick it off right as we look at resolving conflict in the home in a teaching called "Fight Right". If you are single you need this series too. See you all in the morning!

Project Hero makes the Atlanta Journal Constitution

Communities of Faith: Home makeover with heart
Embassy Metro members aid woman

By Candice Hannigan
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/10/07

There were no network camera crews filming the extreme home makeover near downtown Woodstock last weekend. Buses weren't needed to bring in throngs of volunteers for the job.

Yet members of the Embassy Metro Church hope the work they did on the home will change the life of the woman who lives there.

"This is going to make a big difference in her life. I know she appreciates what this church and these people did to help her get her house and her yard in order," said Sara Blalock, a friend of the woman, who asked not to be identified.

Blalock said the woman is 66 years old and single, with no family nearby to help her. She faces multiple health challenges, including diabetes, and lives on a small monthly income.

About 40 volunteers spent the weekend painting inside and outside her home, installing new flooring, landscaping, repairing appliances, lights and cleaning from floor to ceiling.

Some church members are taking her to lunch, and out for a new hairstyle and a manicure. Her two dogs are even being sent for grooming. And for the next month, church members will keep the woman's refrigerator and freezer stocked with healthy meals suited for a diabetic's needs.

This home improvement project wraps up a Hero series that pastor Ross Wiseman started on Easter Sunday.

Services have featured public safety workers and other "real-life heroes," as well as challenges from Wiseman to "position ourselves and stand for something that's worth standing for. Our families, our integrity, the lives of those who are lost in our communities, those things that are right and good. We need to be heroes in our communities, and you can't be a hero if you don't take a stand."

Members also raised $1,000 for a firefighter whose son has been undergoing treatment for a brain tumor.

"There's something powerful when people unite together to do something that's bigger than they can do on their own," said Wiseman. "We want to go into the community and let people know they're valuable to God, whether or not they've stepped into the four walls of our church. We want to be a body that's focused more outward than inward."

Embassy Metro Church: Sunday services begin at 10:02 a.m. at Cherokee 16 Cinemas off Towne Lake Parkway in Woodstock. Contact: 678-384-4919 or www.embassymetro.org.

Project Hero Before & Afters

Most of you know that we are doing an extreme makeover on a ladies home in Woodstock this weekend. She has been through a great deal of hardship and health issues. Those of you who were not at the embassy this weekend didn't hear the announcement that we are canceling church Sunday to go be the church. Actually the entire weekend will be full of opportunity to love like Christ and be a hero to Miss Ann. This is going to be an amazing weekend for our church, our community, Miss Ann, and our God!!!!! Is it going to be tough OH Yeah, but we can do it! Yesterday was the first day of cleaning and removing flooring. Everyone blew my mind on how hard they worked. I'll throw some pictures up and tell the story Sunday night when we are finished.