Monday Morning Mind Dump…

• Such an awesome day yesterday
• We had our highest non-holiday attendance ever!
• So amazing how God continues to grow our church
• We had to add more chairs, which we almost ran out of
• I preached on one of my favorite passages yesterday, John 10
• Had someone else take the step of following Jesus
• We’ve had at least 1 person every week for the last month
• Never gets old seeing people start following Jesus
• If you missed it, you can listen to it here
• I had my fantasy football draft last night with some guys from church
• Can’t wait for football to start
• So ready
• If you’re curious, you can see my team here
• This week, our paperwork should be submitted to the embassy in Ethiopia to bring our son home
• This is a huge step, so pray that nothing slows it down
• You can read Katie’s last blog post (and see some pictures) on the journey here and here
• We still need to raise close to $3,000 to bring him home, so if you would like to help us, you give a tax deductible gift here
• Every little bit helps
• Wednesday we are shooting our 5 year anniversary video
• So excited to celebrate what God has done on September 15th and look towards the future
• Lord willing, this time next year we will begin preview services for Revolution Church|Midtown
• Speaking of midtown
• This past week, I got to spend some time with some pastors leading or planting churches in midtown praying together for each other and our churches
• Love the unity that God is bringing to Tucson
• Definitely a change since we moved here 7 years ago
• Got to go and buy the fabric Katie will use to make our kids halloween costumes yesterday
• A princess, 2 crusaders and 2 vikings
• Should be pretty funny
• Our boys are excited that they get weapons
• Yes, we go trick or treating
• Here’s why
• Friday on date night, Katie and I went to see The Butler
  
• So good
• Adopting a child of another race, the movie made a huge impact on me and the history of our country and world
• Til next week…

Fake Football is Here!

I had my fantasy football draft last night. Pretty excited about it. I won the league last year and it is a keeper league, so we could keep 4 players. It’s a 12 team league with points per reception. Here’s my draft. The (K) means they were a keeper:

1. AJ Green
2. Adrian Peterson (K)
3. Darren McFadden
4. Daryl Richardson
5. Reggie Wayne (K)
6. Giovani Bernard
7. Shane Vereen
8. Golden Tate
9. Ryan Broyles
10. Justin Blackmon
11. Danny Amendola (K)
12. Colin Kapernick (K)
13. Jordan Cameron
14. Brian Hartline
15. New York Jets Defense
16. Jacquizz Rodgers

This post simply means football is almost here!

Links I Like

1. Redeeming fantasy football.
2. Steve DeWitt on Fighting for purity in your life.
3. Beginners guide to visiting someone in the hospital.
4. Joe Thorn on Testing for pride.
5. How NOT to witness.
6. Chris Sprad on 5 tips on raising boys to be men of God and 5 tips on raising girls to be women of God.

[Image Credit]

Fantasy Football: The Night Fury

For the 3 of you who care, here is my fantasy team. I had the last pick in a 12 team snake draft. And it’s a keeper league. Feeling pretty good about my draft.

1. Matt Forte
2. Cam Newton
3. A.J. Green
4. Wes Welker
5. Antonio Brown
6. Shonn Green
7. Reggie Wayne
8. Rashard Mendenhall
9. Santonio Holmes
10. Jacquizz Rodgers
11. Dustin Keller
12. Ryan Williams
13. Daniel Thomas
14. Davone Bess
15. New England
16. Rob Bironas

My Fantasy Team

For the 3 of you who are wondering about my fantasy team, I had my draft last night and here is how it turned out. I had the 6th pick in a 12 team league. It was interesting as we drafted individual defensive players instead of defenses.

1. Rashard Mendenhall
2. Roddy White
3. Matt Ryan
4. Desean Jackson
5. Santonio Holmes
6. Jahvid Best
7. Brandon Pettigrew
8. Joseph Addai
9. Steve Smith (CAR)
10. Ray Lewis
11. Jonathan Stewart
12. A.J. Green
13. Ryan Fitzpatrick
14. Mike Williams
15. Thomas Jones
16. Jacoby Ford
17. Troy Polamalu
18. Jared Allen
19. Jay Feely

Felt pretty solid about my draft and my team is called Captain Awesome.

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• Tonight was a great night at Revolution
• Dove into the question, “Is Jesus really God?”
• Obviously, one could talk for hours on that question
• Love the way my sermon came together and how I re-wrote it at 3:30 while at Starbucks
• Love how God continues to speak and give ideas for a sermon
• It was awesome to hear the conversations tonight about the sermon
• Love how God is challenging people every week at Revolution
• Here is a page of recommended resources on the topic of where Jesus was before coming to earth, why He died on a cross, how we know He rose from the dead, where He is now and how we know He will return (use this as a resource for yourself, but also pass it along to others who have questions in these areas)
• If you missed tonight, you can listen to it here
• To keep up on what is happening at Revolution, be sure to become a fan on facebook
• We announced tonight that Christe is stepping down as our admin
• It is sad to see her go, but excited about what is ahead for her and our church
• The cool thing is that her and Dave are going nowhere and will still be leading small groups
• Got to tell a pastor today about all the things God is doing right now at Revolution
• The list is quite long and incredible
• I’m blown away every week by the amount of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd time guests
• All the next steps people keep taking
• If you need a laugh, check this out
• Definitely feeling the pace from the last few weeks of speaking on Sundays in other churches
• Looking forward to taking a break from that
• So excited about the newcomer’s brunch tomorrow
• Love hanging with new Revolutionaries, hearing how they found Revolution, what they think of it and talking about the mission of our church
• One of my favorite parts of my job
• Reading two books right now that are really challenging me:  The Gathered AND Scattered Church and The Executive and the Elephant
• I have my phone interview with Acts 29 this week, really excited about Revolution joining the Acts 29 network
• I now need to look at my fantasy rosters and make sure I’m all set to continue my dominance in my 2 leagues

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• Tonight was a night where I didn’t speak and got to attend church, a rare treat
• Felt weird though
• Dave did a great job preaching tonight
• It’s nice to have guys who can preach to give me a night off
• He talked about how Christians get so caught up in different ideas and agendas (not all of them bad or even unbiblical) but that in the process, we lose sight of the gospel
• The message of 2 Timothy is fight for the gospel
• The gospel is the answer, it is the only thing that changes lives, always fall back on that, always rest in that, always push that
• The gospel should be our only agenda
• I’ll get off my soapbox
• 🙂
• Equally cool is seeing our band step up and take the challenge of cover songs
• We did a Skillet song a few weeks ago, but tonight they hit a home run with a Panic at the Disco song
• Wow
• Because I wasn’t preaching, I was bored before the service so I just walked around
• It was amazing to see all the people who show up early to make Revolution happen each week
• It is humbling to see everyone and how bought in they are and wanting to make Revolution great each and every week
• We seriously have the best staff and volunteers on the planet
• We shot a video after church tonight that we will use next Saturday during one of the worship songs that is going to be powerful
• So ready for football season to be here
• Even though my Steelers will probably have a rough start, any football is good football
• Got 2 fantasy drafts tomorrow night, one with some guys from Revolution and one with a bunch of pastors in Tucson
• Right now, I’m in this weird funk right now and I’m not sure why
• I’d appreciate your prayers
• Had a really hard week that left me feeling beat up
• Which means God knew what he was doing by doing it before a holiday weekend so I can recover
• Looking forward to 2 days with nothing but hanging out with Katie and the kids
• Thinking about hiking one of those days
• So cool seeing our fall small groups filling up
• I think at least one of them is already full and a few are getting close, so don’t wait
• For more info, check this out
• One of the cool things that has been happening every week at Revolution is a bunch of first time guests
• Love meeting them, hearing how they found Revolution and how much they like it
• Sweet
• The coolest part is almost all of them came with someone
• Way to go Revolutionaries!
• Speaking of tonight’s sermon, here are two great links on how Christians should live out their faith:  here is Russell Moore’s take and Chuck Colson’s take
• You definitely don’t want to miss next week
• I’ll be preaching about how to have freedom and fight the sin in your life
• If you or someone you know would love to have freedom in their life from something but can never seem to find it, then you need to bring them next week
• It will be powerful

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• Been a great week
• Hectic, but great
• Great Revolutionary Christmas on Christmas Eve
• Finished up our series on the sermon on the mount tonight
• It was really great spending the fall in those 3 important chapters
• Crazy how empty our church gets over the holidays
• Over half of our church goes home for the holidays
• It’s like a ghost town
• I told our team that I was planning to preach for under 20 minutes on Christmas Eve
• No one believed me
• They all took the over
• Came in at 19:57
• Really excited about kicking off Nehemiah in January
• This is going to be the biggest and most important series we have ever done at Revolution
• We’ll be kicking off the first week talking about who we are as a church, where we are going and what 2010 will look like
• Finished up a study guide for this series this past week that we will release that night
• We are praying big, audacious and crazy prayers and trusting God to do big things
• 2009 was an unbelievable year at Revolution, we saw God triple our church and we are asking Him to do it again in 2010
• Imagine that for a moment
• I don’t want you to miss this
• We are asking God this in 2010 to grow us from 100 – 300!
• This book right now is really stretching my thinking as a leader and about Revolution and what God has ahead for us
• Talked about inciting incidents and how storms reveal what we really believe  on Christmas Eve
• Finished up my favorite book and albums lists for 2009, they’ll post next week
• Huge week in fantasy football: semis in 1 league and the third place game in the other
• I’m playing Paul for 3rd place, feeling pretty confident
• Feels weird not having church tonight
• But the break is really appreciated
• Christmas morning with my parents was great
• The kids had a blast
• Ash loved the paper more than the gifts
• It took Gavin about 4 hours to open all his gifts
• He kept stopping to play with them
• Here is his favorite
• Ava was done opening presents in about 3 minutes
• She kept telling Gavin to hurry
• It was funny and a great look into their different personalities
• Here is her favorite
• We spent most of the day shopping today, hitting the after Christmas sales
• Katie and I got some new clothes
• This week on the blog I’ll be rolling out the top 9 posts of 09
• Here is the first one
• We went to Winterhaven as a family last night
• The kids had a blast, we sang some songs, saw some lights and tried to stay warm in the 50 degree night
• Pretty good way to spend Christmas night
• It’s been cool this year because Ava and Gavin are old enough to know what is happening at Christmas
• Love making family traditions and passing on our faith to our kids during this season
• I got to take them both on daddy dates this past week
• One of my favorite parts of being a dad
• Really excited about doing a whole lot of nothing this week
• Some reading, running, and lots of time with Katie and the kids
• We ARE having church on January 2nd
• You don’t want to miss this
• Revolutionaries, be praying with us as leaders that God will use us to be a force in Tucson and we would see Him triple Revolution in 2010

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• Good night tonight
• Attendance was a little down, but still a really powerful night
• Talked about judgment tonight and whether or not we will be judged one day
• I think it was very Christmasy
• We did Q & A tonight, which is always fun
• Love the first night of a series
• If you missed tonight, you can listen here
• If the topics in this series are of interest to you, here are some resources worth checking out
• Here is a great quote from N.T. Wright that really sums up tonight
• I am really enjoying doing Advent in our service and how that is preparing us for Christmas
• Get to wake up at 4:30 tomorrow for our mission project in the morning, gonna be a great time serving
• We have our staff/elder team Christmas party this week
• I am so blessed to serve with the leaders I do
• I am amazed as I think about the people God has sent to Revolution and how they have all shown up at just the right time
• This past week was our last small group of the semester, always sad when our groups end, but the 4 week break does me good and then I will be geared up for our groups to start in January
• Be on the lookout, sign ups for our spring small groups start in a week
• Our staff and elders will be wrapping up the budget for 2010 this week
• We’d appreciate your prayers, we want to dream big dreams and see God do even more at Revolution in 2010
• Blown away how badly the NFL season has gone for my Steelers
• Can’t believe we lost to the Browns and we are out of the playoffs
• Playoffs? Playoffs?
• At least my fantasy teams are doing better
• Fantasy football playoffs start this weekend
• Last night we went to see the Christmas lights at the zoo as a family
• It is so cool to me the way our kids love Christmas lights
• Here is how Ash enjoyed the night
• Men, as you are getting ready for Christmas, do you know what role you play in your house? If not, check this list out
• I have my lead pastor coaching network this week, really enjoying what God has been teaching me and what has transpired at Revolution because of it
• Talking about the evangelism system this month
• Speaking of that…
• 8 letters as to why you CAN”T miss next week and you have to do everything in your power to get all of your unchurched friends to Revolution
• Hell
• AC/DC
• Don’t be late or you will miss something you will not expect to see at church!
• Off to sit with Katie on the couch and watch Julie & Julia

Saturday Night Mind Dump…

• Sitting in Lancaster right now
• Weird coming back to the place you grew up at
• Going to where you are from is tough in that there is so little time and a ton of people to see
• Tiring
• Got to spend the day with friends from Baltimore, which was awesome
• Had dinner tonight with the couple who mentored us right after we got married and who had a huge impact in our marriage
• We still quote them whenever we talk to couples
• We also got to have lunch with my mentor from college, who also did our wedding
• It has been a week down memory lane
• It has also been a week that has made us really appreciate and miss Tucson
• It has been freezing this week
• Definitely missed being at church tonight
• I heard Paul and the band nailed Johnny B. Goode
• It was great to introduce our church to Perry Noble, what an amazing communicator
• Last night Katie and I got to go on a great date night to a local brewery
• If you missed church last week, you need to check out the baptism video that we showed
• You are not going to want to miss next week
• I love how creative our team is becoming, the ideas
• This past week we nailed down a lot of the creative elements for our next series
• To say that it is going to be awesome is an understatement
• This series is going to take Revolution to a new level
• If you haven’t signed up for a fall small group yet, you can do it here
• This is something you do not want to miss out on at Revolution
• Found out this week that the average church in American keeps 1 out of every 40 first time guests
• This year at Revolution it has been 1 out of every 3
• Keep it up
• I’m hoping to get together with some guys I used to play in a band with on Monday, should be fun to reminisce about when I used to sing
• I’m excited to just attend church tomorrow with Katie
• It is a rare thing for me to just sit with Katie, not have to think about things and just connect with God in that way
• I’m hoping it is a good experience
• In case you care, I did my fantasy drafts this week
• You can check out my teams here and here
• In case you missed them, here are the top posts from last month
• I was reminded again tonight why I love the team at our church
• We have the hardest working leaders on the planet
• I loved hearing from them tonight, their excitement for what God is doing and hearing how God worked tonight
• Makes me love what I do