cool pic’s from the land

Today we shot some video for this weekend’s services. We’re unveiling the campus & building plans, so it’s going to be very cool! Palm Valleyer’s, you don’t want to miss this historical weekend. I believe we’ll look back at this weekend for years to come and remember how incredible God is! It will be one of our rock piles for future generations. Remember, Seize The Moment!

Reading the Bible

As we kicked off the “Dangerous Church” series, we looked at Acts 4:13, and realized that ordinary people like Peter and John are able to do extraordinary things when they spend time with Jesus.

I challenged our body to spend time each day in prayer and reading the Bible. Palm Valley Church is reading Scripture together for the next 50 days, giving us an overview of the Bible. If you’d like to join us, here’s the reading plan…

50 Day Bible Reading Plan For Palm Valley Church

It’s going to be fun to see how God grows us through the coming weeks.

New Friend & Kind Words

Last week at the Launch Conference I met some great church planters. I love planters because they are on the cutting edge of faith. I believe there’s no riskier endeavor (from experience) that starting a church from scratch. I love hanging out with these guys for 2 reasons…

1. I’m committed to helping them. We’ve learned a lot at PVC, and I want to share our experiences to benefit other churches.
2. They keep me fresh. These guys are risk takers; they challenge me to stay hungry and uncomfortable!

One of the great guys I met this week was Jimmy Britt. We had just a few moments together, but he seemed very genuine. He shared that he’s friends with Gary, so I instantly liked him Jimmy had some kind words about me and Palm Valley on his blog (read here)…

Jimmy, I’m no big dog, but it was great to meet you! Next time our paths cross I’d love to spend some time talking over mcnuggets!

Weekend Reflections

I’m flat out tired this evening. Last week was incredibly busy, and it really hit me this afternoon. Here’s some thoughts I feel this evening…

1. I made a good value decision Friday night. I really wanted to go to the Chris Tomlin concert, but I gave my tickets away and spent time with my boys. We hit Wienerschnitzel for a gourmet hot dog dinner, and then headed to a high school basketball game to watch some young guys from our church play. The boys and I had a blast, and it was cool for me to see them get excited about possibly playing in the future. We’ve also got some serious players in our church!
2. When set-up goes long, it makes Saturday night rough. We had some rough moments with the sound system and it left the praise team and me w/o adequate stage time before the service. Caused a few glitches in the service, but it’s all good.
3. Being a dangerous church is fun. It was cool to sense people wrestling with God as we talked about some tough stuff this weekend. I’m excited to see how the Lord uses it to grow our body.
4. I never want to be a part of a safe church.
5. I’m pumped about next weekend as we’ll unveil “Seize The Moment”; our building campaign. I’m so excited for the people of Palm Valley Church to see the building designs and campus map as we dream together about what we believe God is going to do in the coming days!
6. It’s been 3 weeks since I’ve been in the gym and I’m feeling it. I need to get to the gym tomorrow; so I’ll pack my clothes and take them to work with me, that way I have no excuses

Sunday Night Laugh

This cartoon needs no explanation, other than it’s funny because it’s true…

Makes Me Proud

Last fall we introduced the “Extending Our Reach” focus. The goal was to get hundreds of people from our body to get out of their comfort zone and show Christ’s love to people who don’t know Him. The people of Palm Valley stepped up and reached out in incredible ways. You make me proud to be your pastor!

A cool video we made and showed in services last weekend shows the impact this focus had. You can watch it here…

Some of the project we undertook…

• Filled 2 trailers of food for rescue mission over 2 weekends.
• Over 50 people from PVC fed meals to over 1,000 homeless people, including all day Christmas day.
• Team of 18 traveled to Mexico and helped do projects at a school for the deaf.
• Over 40 PVC’ers made 4 trips to the Hopi Indian reservations, presenting programs for kids through games, music and teaching about Jesus.
• Our kids filled hundreds of shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child.
• Adopted 150 children of prisoners, providing Christmas presents for them from their incarcerated parents.
• Adopted a platoon of 160 soldiers in Mamadia, Iraq. Families from PVC filled boxes (large boxes) with Christmas presents, treats, and items. Each soldier was adopted by a family in our church.

PV Bloggers

A number of our staff have started blogging. I love the guys & gals on our staff, and it’s fun for me to hear their thoughts. I think you’ll enjoy getting to know them too…

Mark Gumm – Executive Pastor

Derrick Logan – Worship Director

Michael Gray – Pastor of Communications

Paul Lewis – Pastor To New Believers

It’s Happening!

Art Day, our Pastor of Development & Construction, sent me pictures he took today from our land. It seems like an impossible dream, but dirt is actually being turned on Verrado Road & Roosevelt, our building site!

SunBelt Development, the company developing the shopping centers around us, has received permits and is beginning to do all the infrastructure (sewer, water, electrictiy) and roads for the large development we’re a part of (about 1 square mile). Here’s some pic’s and descriptions…

the land marker on the north/east corner of our 40 acres.

Equipment ready to start digging. They’re sitting at the corner of Verrado & Roosevelt, 400 yards south of the freeway.

One of the wells, pumping plenty of water for the whole development.

These are our sewer pipes, they will carry all of our: That’s probably enough pics for today. I’m pumped about this process, and can’t wait to see how God continues to grow us day by day!

For Church Planters

As I’ve talked about, church planters are heroes to me. Having planted a church and pastored it for 6 years, I get all that’s involved. It’s my desire that as Palm Valley continues to grow and develop, we will develop a coaching network for church planters; to help them along the way.

Early this week I went to the Launch conference hosted by Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas of Jouney New York. Nelson is a systems genius and has a huge heart for the Kingdom. These guys are flat out getting it done in Manhattan. You can get all of their resources here.

If you’re a church planter do yourself a huge favor and get familiar with Nelson and his coaching team. They have, in my opinon, the best system for helping you to launch a church and do it well.

As a church of 2,000 the systems they talked about were a huge challenge to me about how we function. The reminded me how I always want to be hungry for every person who doesn’t know Christ, and living daily with a desparation to reach people for Christ.

Good Reads

A couple of excellent books I’m reading through right now, and digging…

Integrity by Henry Cloud… very challenging, to consider that integrity is more than just “not doing the wrong things in life”, it’s all about spending our life doing the best things. Every person should read this book, and apply it!

Made To Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath… every person who has anything to say, market, sell, or teach should read this book. Every church leader should make this a must read. We have the most important message in the world, it deserves the effort to say it well!