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Great Opportunity

If you're a Pastor in South Florida, there's a great event coming to West Palm Beach on Friday, October 13 (Spooky). Nelson Searcy, Lead Pastor of The Journey in New York City and a Keynote speaker for our Momentum Conference in March is going to be doing a free workshop for churches to break growth barriers.

I've heard some of Nelson's stuff on this subject and it's great! Really practical and insightful. You can RSVP on his site by clicking here.

See you there... (Hopefully, the Yankees will be out of the post-season by then)

Momentum Conference Info

Just so you know, our Momentum Conference site is going live on Monday, October 2nd!

It will have all the details:
speakers
breakouts
pricing
hotel/ travel info
stuff to do while you're in Miami
recipes (OK, maybe not)
a conference blog

The site is www.momentumconference.com. See you there on Monday!

Book Review: The Great Divorce

I have wanted to read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis for quite some time now, and finally got around to it. I liked it, but to be totally honest, I don't know if I completely got it. I need to read it again.

Although, Lewis' preface says this book is not meant to be an explanation of his beliefs concerning hell, I think some of his theology naturally leaks out (it happens to every communicator).

From reading the book, it seems that Lewis believes that the unregenerate will be able to repent after their death. He seems to believe that hell is not a place of conscious torment, but instead, a town where people stew in the sins they wouldn't let go of, much like a baby sitting in a dirty diaper. I liked the book. I'm interested to read some reviews that others wrote about it. It got me thinking, which is what good books do...

Things are Cool...

My new A/C unit just got installed and life is returning the temperature that God intended for us to live in :) This new unit is a beast. It's almost twice the size of the old A/C. We shouldn't be having any more cooling issues for a long time (prayerfully)...

Amazed!

I was walking this morning and listening to Hillsong united on my ipod, when I came to a realization: we have the best worship leader in America! I was standing in the back of the auditorium on Sunday night (which is going great by the way - I'm convinced I prefer Sunday night to Sunday morning) and I thought, "We have the best worship leader in America!"

Mark has the ability to take the songs he doesn't write and make them better than the original. Most people can't do that. A lot of worship leaders end up sounding like this guy. So I listened to a few Hillsong United songs in my afore mentioned walk and found them to be kind of lame in comparison to Mark's versions.

Hence my conclusion: we have the best worship leader in America.

No A/C

There aren't a lot of things you need to survive in Florida.

A few of them are:

- Hurricane Shutters
- Sunscreen
- Sunglasses
- Air Conditioning!

I woke up this morning and my A/C wasn't working. Needless to say, my house was an inferno. So an A/C guy in our church came to my house to check things out. I found out my compressor is dead! It needs to be replaced. This isn't good, especially when your wife is 20 weeks pregnant (even though I've complained more than her).

So we're trying to remain very still and our fans are running full blast. Pray that our compressor gets replaced ASAP. Because this heat may drive me to hurt someone!

4 Bibles

We continued our Spotlight series this morning and evening and I used 4 Bibles as a prop to talk about my own spiritual journey. I brought the 4 Bibles that I have used over the last 13 years.

The KJV Hebrew-Greek Study Bible - My brother gave me this right after I prayed to ask Jesus into my life. I hadn't opened it in years but I found a flyer that had some course selections for the Bible College I ended up attending and later running.

NKJV personal Study Bible - The Bible I used all throughout Bible College. It had so many notes it was crazy. I learned so much with that Bible in my hand. The first time I ever spoke in front of people was with that Bible.

NKJV John McArthur Edition (The Calvinists cheer!) - I got this Bible as a gift when I graduated from Bible College and used it when I started teaching. I taught from that Bible from 1997 - 2003. So many notes, circled words, cross references, highlights, and underlines - totally insane.

My NKJV slim line - This one has no commentary, just some cross references. It's smaller, so I don't feel like I'm carrying around a dictionary. But I've been using this since 2004. I had a brief bout with an NLT, but it didn't quite cut it.

Anyway, I could have spent the entire message chronicling my journey just from those Bibles. While they were marked up, I found that they had really marked me. This has been quite a ride. I can't wait to tell Mia all about it someday...

Practicing Greatness

I bought Practicing Greatness by Reggie McNeal because it was recommended to me, but I must admit I was a bit skeptical. While I liked The Present Future, I didn't love it. I thought there was much to be learned, I'm more of a fan of practitioners who talk about what churches need to do to reach new generations.

Anyway, I loved Practicing Greatness and I think I understand the heart behind The Present Future better. This is such a healthy book for Pastors to read. It is a book that calls you to examine yourself and look for the blind spots. Then he lays out some steps on how to sure them up. The book shares a ton of stories with people he has met with and counseled. I saw myself on the pages more than once and that was a bit unnerving. He described me perfectly and all of my dysfunction.

Yet what I loved was Reggie's real life, spiritually driven solutions to the issues that befall most leaders. These 7 practices that great leaders do are challenging and drove me to really consider my life, actions, time, and priorities. Buy this book...

Momentum Logo

The Momentum Conference website is getting set to launch on October 1st, but I thought I'd share the logo for the conference before then. (Mad props to Mark for designing it)

I really believe this conference is going to help a lot of churches that meet in portable settings. Bob, Nelson, and I are going to be speaking and there's going to be a bunch of workshops for Pastors, Administrators, Children's leaders, Small Group leaders, and church staffs in general.

We have met in a school, a hotel, a theatre, and other churches in our 6-year history and we are going to download everything we've learned and hopefully learn some things as well. March 1-2, 2007. It's a beautiful time in Miami...

Yes, another Cuban Restaurant opens in Miami..

I think Miami has the most Cuban restaurants per capita in the world (Yes, that includes Cuba)! But Sergio's, another Cuban restaurant opened up the street from our offices on Monday and today I headed over there for lunch.

Verdict: Awesome! The beans weren't quite as good as other places, but they put the ball in play. Everything was good. What's funny is, with there being so many Cuban places (by the way, I've never seen one close here), we go to different ones for different reasons. Some do pork better. Others do sandwiches better. Others are open 24 hours. Sometimes you need a pan con bistec at 2AM and the Latin American in Hialeah can accommodate that request.

The basic rule is that the cheaper the place, the better the food. If someone tries to charge you $20 for a plate of Cuban food they need to be hit! Heap it on and keep it cheap. Anything else is a tourist trap and the food will be lame. But Sergio's delivered the goods. Carey got chicken, I got steak and we both left happy.