MADE

I’m lying here in bed still trying to figure out exactly how my message this weekend is going to flow. We’re starting a new series, titled “MADE”. It’s all about how God has MADE us, who He MADE us to be, and what He MADE us to do.

This series was born from years of ministry experience with people, and specifically conversations I’ve had with people over the past few months. We all make bad choices; relationally, financially, spiritually, morally, etc… I believe the poor decisions we make stem from gaps in our inner self, where we lack the security, confidence and purpose that we were MADE to have.

So, the big idea for this series is to help people understand “who they are because of whose they are” If you’re in the Palm Valley area, make sure you’re here this weekend, and bring friends who don’t know Chirst! You’ll also want to purchase a copy of “The Purpose Driven Life”, as we will be reading it daily to accompany this series.

The key passage for this series is Psalm 139:13-14…

“13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

Hurricane Katrina Relief

One of the things I said right after Hurricane Katrina was that we needed to think long term, not just short term. Now remember, we had a team on the ground in Mississippi within a week of the tragedy, so I’m not saying we shouldn’t act right away. However, I believed then and believe now that the church needs to think about caring for the long haul.

So we’re planning to send a team to Louisians/Mississippi during the holiday season this year. We’re going to be feeding the hungry, helping those who are trying to rebuild their homes, and teaming with local churches to share the gospel.

If you attend Palm Valley and are interested in being a part of this, please send an email to kflanagan@palmvalley.org noting your interest. We’ll get you more details in the coming days, but we’ll include you on the info list. Please pray that God would use our teams to share His love with hurting people this holiday season.  

Outreach Opportunities

One of the vision points of PVC is reach the world for Christ. As Jesus said in Acts 1:8, this begins by sharing His love with our neighbors in our own community. Then we’re to reach out to other cultures around us, and then around the world with the gospel.

In obedience to His teaching, we focus first on reaching our community for Christ.I think a lot of churches focus more on foreign missions because it’s more glamorous. It makes us Christians feel good to say we’re sending a team to Africa, but truth be told we’re not even willing to walk across the street and tell our neighbors about Jesus. It’s easier to throw money at the poor, than to wash their feet.

So, to help every person at Palm Valley, we do a few things. First, we challenge you to share Christ with your friends, co-workers and neighbors every week, and invite them to come to church with you. We do mailers, give everyone invite cards, and provide a service where your guests will hear the gospel

This fall I want to challenge you to reach out to others in our area who have different life situations. So I’m challenging every Home Team at Palm Valley to pick an outreach opportunity for the Thanksgiving season. We have relationships to have you serve at Phoenix Rescue Mission, help with the New Life women’s shelter, and many others. You may already have your own idea; I encourage you to get your Home Team thinking and planning for an outreach event this fall..

I’m Whipped!

Lori and I left our hotel room in Atlanta at 7:30 Sunday morning to preach at RidgeStone, have lunch with church planters, drive to NewSpring in Anderson, SC, have dinner with Perry and Lucretia, drive back to Canton, Ga to drop off Gary and Deanna, and back to the hotel.

We arrived in our room about 1:30 Monday morning. Man, that was an insane day. Much props to my baby girl, 8 months old, 19 hours out on the road, and not one cry. She’s awesome! I think she has Perry praying for a little girl

What a great weekend, I learned a ton, was challenged, made some tough decisions regarding Palm Valley, and got to hang with some great leaders!

NewSpring In Action

After the morning at the Stone, we drove 150 miles to be at the Sunday evening service of NewSpring Church, pastored by this guy. Here’s what I saw…

1) Perry’s staff are ferocious about the vision that Perry has laid out. This DOES NOT mean that they are robots, but that they trust that God is using Perry as the leader of the church, and they want to support what God wants to do. This was obvious in EVERY staff member I spoke to. The unity of their leadership is awesome.

2) The worship service was phenomenal. It was great for me to just sit and worship. Perry’s reaching a ton of young people, and this was obvious in the energy of the crowd during worship. NewSpring’s worship team is off the hook!

3) Perry can bring it. Flat out. Perry’s message made me want to join NewSpring as a member and back him. Lori suggested instead we stay at Palm Valley

4) The closing worship song was insane. We’re stealing it, and we’ll be singing it the 2nd week of October, so get ready!

It was big for me to see their service. NewSpring is a little older, and a couple steps ahead of us. About 18 months ago they were Palm Valley’s size, and now they’re running 6,000. I was challenged to make some decisions that will help us go to the next level!

RidgeStone Church

Sunday morning Lori and I were at RidgeStone Church, pastored by this guy.  Let me just say that for a church 2 years old, running over 500 people, God is clearly at work. Here’s what I saw…

1) The volunteers at RidgeStone are awesome. They clearly believe in and own the vision that God has given them. Even though service starts at 10:00, the kids check-in volunteers, children’s volunteers, greeters and ushers were all there and ready to go by 9:30 am. They were at their posts ready to welcome people. This showed me that they’re passionate about serving, and they see the impact they’re making on people.

2) RidgeStone puts a lot of work into their service. They do a complete run through, including the speaker notes. As we did my run through, we found a mistake on the notes and the team had it fixed before service started.

3) RidgeStone Rocks! The band was excellent, and the people were passionate about their worship. It’s clear to me that the Stone is hitting its target with their worship music.

4) The speaker was horrible. I had the privilege to speak for Gary, I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again. It was very cool to connect with the Stone, and the people were very warm to me. I loved hearing from so many people how their lives have been changed! Gary did tell me they had their best offering ever, so I’ll take credit for that

5) The nursery was great. We put our daughter in there, and she was loved on and cared for. Her diaper was changed, and when we picked her up they explained everything that she had done during the hour. They were also great with security, checking our tags to make sure we were supposed to be taking her. As  a parent, I appreciated this!

Overall, I was amazed at how much Gary and his staff have accomplished. They clearly are grasping what it means to lead a growing church, and the people of RidgeStone trust them (wtih due reason).  I believe God’s going to do big things through the Stone, so it was a privilege to be with them this week. Thanks to everyone for the great hospitality!

 

This Weekend At Palm Valley

I heard Ryan did an incredible job this weekend speaking on “Help For Single Parents”. Having visited a number of churches over the years when the Senior Pastor wasn’t speaking, I’m so thankful that we don’t miss a beat at PVC when I’m gone.

I have a phrase, “never throw away a weekend“. I believe a lot of churches “throw away” weekends when the pastor isn’t there. They don’t put a lot of planning into the worship, they aren’t as creative, and the other speakers generally aren’t well prepared (my observations).

Not at Palm Valley. We put just as much effort into every weekend, our phrase is “52 big events a year“. Every weekend counts, because every weekend people come who need to know Christ as their Savior and those who want to grow in their relationship. Jesus doesn’t take Labor day off, neither should His followers!

So thanks to Ryan and his mother Rosemary for sharing your journey with us this weekend! I can’t wait to watch the DVD.

Mountain Lake Church

Met up with Gary & Deanna tonight to visit Mountain Lake Church in Cumming, Georgia. First of all, it was just plain great to sit in a worship service with my beautiful wife. Lori and I rarely get to go to church together, so it’s a special treat for me to just get to worship with here.

Here’s some thoughts from my visit…

1) Mountain Lake is in a new building, and they’re using it very effectively. They run 5 services in order to reach about 2,000 people per week.

2) Mountain Lake has the best signage of any church I’ve visited, no matter the size. They must wear their plotter out, because everything was big, full color, and matched the style of the church. Their graphics person is incredibly talented. The signage was also very clear, helping us to find where to go wihtout any confusion.

3) The people are very friendly. It was obvious to me that the leaders of this church spend a lot of time cultivating an atmosphere of belonging. We were welcomed many times over.

4) The nursery area was very clean, and the volunteers friendly, helpful, and caring. We checked our baby into the nursery, and they were great with her. A quick note church planters: invest in a computerized check in system like Fellowship One, it makes a big difference in the confidence level for parents dropping off their kids.

5) This church is getting it done. It was obvious to me that they’re reaching their community, and that the people are excited about the vision God has given them.

It was great to visit MLC, and I appreciated the chance to sit and worship and be fed in a caring community of believers!

 

Hangin With Perry

Had a blast today hanging out with Perry Noble, pastor of NewSpring Church. Perry started NewSpring 7 years ago, and they’re running just under 6,000 people per week. Perry’s an insane (compliment) leader who is seeing God use him in incredible ways.

NewSpring is a year older and a few steps ahead of Palm Valley, so it’s cool for me to be able to pick his brain and see what’s next for PVC. I got a glimpse of the next few years today just hanging with him.

Perry takes a ton of criticism and abuse from people for his leadership, so it was helpful to talk through this with him. It’s nice to know that it’s not just me. Universal fact, every time God uses somebody, other Christians will attack that person and try to knock him down. WWJD?

I love that he’s a what you see is what you get kind of guy. There’s no pretense with Perry. It was obvious to me that his staff owns the vision of their church, and they trust his leadership. That shows me they believe he’s the real deal, because they’ve placed themselves under him.

Perry is the real deal, he loves Jesus, loves his wife, and loves leading the people of NewSpring. His passion flows out of him. Look out Anderson, because Gods’ doing something big through this church!

Perry, thanks for hanging out today. Great bacon cheeseburger, and fun to talk. I look forward to being in NewSpring’s service Sunday night and hanging out some more. Just be warned, I’ll have Gary with me

NewSpring Church

This morning I got up and drove 2 hours to Anderson, South Carolina, to check out NewSpring Church. A big thanks to John McDermott, their Pastor of Construction. He’s an incredible knowledgeable and talented guy, with a huge heart for the Lord. He’s been around NewSpring since the beginning, so he owns their vision. John, thanks for taking time on your day off to show me around.

Man, NewSpring did a great job on their building! Their worship center, seating 2500, is one of the best I’ve seen. The sight lines are incredible, adn the stage is huge. I can’t wait to see it in action Sunday night.

The office area was incredible, making great use of every available space. They also did a very good job of creating different atmospheres for people to work and be creative; some areas more formal and corporate, some areas more casual and comfortable.

John was very honest with me about the lessons they learned in Phase 1. We’ve visited dozens of churches over the past few years, and I always ask what they’d do differenly if they could. I appreciate guys willing to share the things they wish they’d done differently, it will save Palm Valley a ton of headaches and millions of dollars on our campus.

NewSpring’s going to be starting Phase 2 of their campus soon, and I’m excited to see how they do it.