Freedom Church

At a recent meeting, my Pastor shared these 3 levels of visionary buy-in:

1.  Some people will buy-in just enough to benefit from it.  These people will never get super involved.  They have a consumer mentality.  Everyone enters at this level.

2.  Some people will contribute comfortably.  They are ok as long as the process doesn’t cost too much.  You have to help them realize that God designed them form something much bigger than they are.  Mediocrity is mass produced.  Greatness is customed designed.

3.  Some people will believe enough to give their life.  These are the people that can’t leave you, even if they wanted to.

At Freedom, we have people in all 3 levels.  Our goal : Do all that we can to move them through the process.

A few people have wondered why we are doing a series called, ‘Let’s Get It On’.  Here’s the deal, the church has avoided talking about controversial subjects for far too long.  If the church isn’t talking about it, we are allowing beliefs and views to be shaped by culture and society.  That’s extremely dangerous!  One of the things that I appreciate about Freedom is that we aren’t scared to tackle any subject.

Also, the Bible has an entire book dedicated to the subject.  That must mean that it is something that God deems important.  And if it is important to God, then it should also be important to us!

So…let’s talk about sex baby!

1.  UNLEASH:  We are taking 35 of our partners to the Unleash conference at Newspring.  I believe that this is going to be a great vision enhancing trip for our people!  I can’t wait!!

2.  THIS WEEKEND:  Joni and I are getting away for a couple of days.  Just the 2 of us.  I am pumped about spending some time with her..ALONE

3.  SUNDAY:  This week will be the highlight of the Let’s Get It On series.  You won’t want to miss it!

It’s here!  Freedom Church is officially launching the ‘Freedom Rocks’ campaign.  It’s an opportunity for you to win $100.  Check it here.

Today is my birthday.  My last birthday.  I’m officially cancelling all birthdays after this one.

On my 34th birthday…

I’m married to the hottest, most incredible woman on the planet!

I have 2 kids who bring me extreme amounts of joy.

I have another girl on the way that doesn’t yet have a name but already has my heart.

I get to do what I love every day!  I seriously feel like I was born for this and have no desire to ever do anything else.

I am in the best shape of my life.

Could life get any better?

I am fortunate enough to be able to lead our Guest Services team at Freedom.  I am having a great time in doing so.  Guests to our church come in contact with members from this team as soon as they enter the parking area.  In fact, they also come in contact with our greeters, first time guest, hospitality team, resource, and other guest services team members.  That means that before a person steps a foot into our service, there is an opportunity for them to have a good or bad experience.

One of the things that we are striving to do is to exceed guests’ expectations about how they are treated when they attend Freedom.  We want to go out of our way to let them know that we are honored that they would choose to spend a portion of their weekend with us. 

What does this look like?  This past weekend, it was freezing and pouring rain.  Our parking team was meeting people at their cars to help them get into the building without getting wet.  Those guys were willing to get soaked so that expectations could be exceeded.  I am very grateful for guys like that!

So, get ready…. you are going to hear me talk a lot about exceeding expectations.

Just ripped off these pics from Ian.  Best stage design yet!

This past Sunday, we rented out Sparkles Skating Rink for our Partner Appreciation Party.  In conjunction with that, we threw an ENORMOUS 80s party.  It was so much fun to hang out together and see everyone in all of their 80s glory. 

It was a great opportunity for us to let them know that there is absolutely no way that we could make Freedom Church happen without them.  They give hours of their time, energy, and resources each week so that people far from God can experience life in Christ. 

These are the kind of people that can begin a revolution.  These are the kind of people that I want to do life with!  Hang on Freedom Partners…..the ride has been fun this far, but the best is yet to come!

Yesterday at Freedom Church was the end of the ‘We Bare All’ series.  It was also the most intense.  We tackled the issue of pornography.  The bottom line is every guy and most girls struggle with it.  Most churches are just scared to talk about it.  We did…in typical Freedom fashion.

J.R. did an incredible job communicating a difficult topic and was extremely honest!  Not to mention, I thought the action steps were extremely practical.  During the invitation, our friends at Internet Safety made it possible for us to give every family a free year of Safeyes (a $55 value).  I believe that this will be a huge day for a lot of people.  It will be the day that they got rid of their dirty little secret.

One of the highlights of my week is the time I get to spend with our college students every week.  We hang out every Wednesday night at 9pm at KSU.

I love college students.  I love the energy they bring.  I love that they are open and receptive to God’s plan for their life.  I love that once they are passionate about something, they will go all out.

Last night, we had 30 students packed into a dorm room.  The living room was full.  The kitchen was full.  There were people everywhere. 

God is doing big stuff!  I’m just glad to be a part of it!!