Living the New Life

I am back and better than ever!  Well, maybe not better than ever but definitely better rested.  I arrived back in Cochran from youth camp to a packed out and busy weekend.  First of all, Jean Tomlinson (Neil’s mother) passed away on Friday afternoon.  My associate and right hand man, Danny Joiner, scared me to death when I walked in and saw his eye lid falling down and a crooked smile.  I thought “Lord, He better not be having a stroke”.  After his hospital visit we learned it was Bells Palsey.  We are believing that he will be better in a few more days.  Until then he will be called Long John Silver because of the eye patch.

Sunday was a great day with several people at the altar getting touched by the Lord.  Attendance was 146 with still a lot of regulars out on vacation.  I am wondering where in the world are all these new attenders coming from!  God is good.

I will slowly update everyone on everything else in the coming dates.  I am neck up in work so check back later.

Yesterday started off really well.  When I jumped on the scales I found that my weight loss is now at 50.5 lbs.  That put me in a very good mood to say the least.  I treated myself and the family by going to La Cabana after church.  It was so crowded that we had poor service.  I have never had that happen there before.  I guess the Lord was saying that I should not be eating there.

Now for the service- I was expecting to be very down in attendance because so many had called and said that they would be away or had sickness in their family.  I was blown away in the fact that we had 149 in church.  God has blessed New Life so much and it is hard to fathom that our attendance could increase during the summer.  I am excited to see where we will be come August.

There was a sweet spirit in the service with the music being very good.  I continued the series “A Mighty Army”, with the message “Bone Structure”.  We had two accept Christ as Savior during the service. 

Last night, We had service at New Life at 5:00 and then hurriedly went to My Father’s House to be in service with them at 6:30.  We had almost 40 go with us and we appreciate the invite from Pastor Larry Williams.  Everyone was so friendly there.

I am currently in Tifton, GA getting ready for another youth camp.  I hope to be able to stay in contact on my blog this week with you all.  God Bless!

I have been doing a lot of different things today.  Basically, I am playing catch up.  I have made many phone calls, studied the church budget, and made a few home visits. 

I wanted to take a few moments to talk about last week.  I have a deep heart for youth camps.  It made a huge impact on my life, and I feel that the least that I can do is to sow into the next generation as well.  I have been doing team building games for the last few years.  It normally takes a lot of time of set these up and this year was no different.  The last few years I have been blessed with a staff to help me.  I have always had some good workers, but this year I was overly blessed.  Let me be honest, I have never had such a talented, hard working, and dedicated group of people to be around.  We worked hard, but never once did they slack off.  Each one brought different gifts to the table:  Lori was simply amazing in her knowledge and skill of so many different things.  She is the mac daddy on Excel.  She designed a program during the week that we will use for years to come.  Keleigh was a delight.  She won teen talent as the vocal solo for female and didn’t even share it until the end of the week.  She had such a humble spirit that you would never guess that she has the talent of a diva.  Keleigh, Kayli, and Kristen were the hardest working teens that I have ever been blessed with. (I have to put Yuri in this group as well even though now she is married and older)  Daniel Bunce has a great worker in Kayli.  Kristen was so quiet and looked like she was 10, but she loved campers so much that she decided to room with them when she didn’t have too.  I know that this was long -but this group of workers are definitely worth the time and space.

Happy Father’s Day!  I have been blessed with a great family and a wonderful dad.  I am glad that I can call you and say that I love you.  Sarah and the kids gave me wonderful gifts and I wore one of the shirts to church this morning.  She also made me homemade blackberry cobbler—-my, my, my!!!!

So far this summer our attendance has been up.  Today it seemed like summer was here.  We had so many regulars out today.  We still had 123 in service, but it felt empty.  We had several visitors today, so that is good.  I felt like the service was good with a wonderful spirit in our midst.  I spoke on our “Second Wind”.

I have not forgot about clueing everyone in on my youth camp experience.  It will come either late tonight or tomorrow.  Once again, Happy Father’s Day! 

This Sunday was very busy with a lot of different things going on.  All in all, I think we pulled it off.

- We had the Masonic Lodge in our church building offering the GA Chip program to our church and community.  They arrived early and stayed late.  They were super friendly, and I hope that we made a good impression on them.  The GA Chip program is a great idea that all parents should take part in.  The lodge members are great at community service.  Thank you guys and girls.  Also a special thanks to Helen Churchwell for heading it up on our end.

- With Cameron and Kailey on vacation we had Steven Bridgers, Jr and Brittany Lucas shoulder the music load.  I will be honest—I thought the music was great yesterday!!!!!  The praise team looked excited like few times I have seen before.

-We had 147 in attendance yesterday which I am very happy about considering so many gone on vacation.  I had several of the Mason’s comment that I preach excited.  Well, I am excited about the Lord and the work that He is doing at New Life.

-We had our monthly leadership meeting yesterday and I spoke on trust.  I am sure that we will upload it later.  I mentioned that July will be service to our community month.  We are planning on passing out Sweet Tea one Saturday, Giving away popcorn on another, and then the Esther Project on the 26th of July.  I believe that if you do not minister to others; you are not a church, you are a social club.

-Our Sunday evening classes are doing well.  So far changing the service time to 5:00 has been well received.  Charlie and Patricia Phillips are doing a great job in the cooking class.

Let me wrap this up by saying that I live in the greatest neighborhood there is.  There is a warmth that I feel from them.  They are truly amazing. 

I am leaving in the morning for youth camp.  Bethany will actually be going as a camper.  It seems like only yesterday that she was born.  I can’t wait to see her later today because she has been at my parents for about a week.  If I can get any Internet in Tifton, I will update my blog.

Today was special for many reasons but it has to start with my daughter Bethany’s 5th Birthday.  It is so hard to believe that she is already 5.  Wow, I feel old.

This morning was one for the books.  We had 148 in attendance with an old fashioned altar service.  I am tired and my throat is sore.  I believe that the Lord is up to something.  I love it!

One of the things that I constantly struggle with is my ability to communicate to my leaders my total concept.  I am a dreamer.  It is that simple.  If I am not careful, I fail to accurately portray my dream to the very ones who handle the nuts and bolts of putting my dream into action.  This is still a work in progress for me as I struggle with this constantly.

Communication should always be a two way street.  I hear a lot of leaders say that we need better communication.  The problem is that when people do communicate and it is not what we want to hear, then we get upset and make them either scared or uncomfortable.  This effectively ends real, honest, and truthful communication.  As leaders we have to have thick skin even though it is hard sometimes.  This is the only way that we can ever have meaningful dialogue.

I struggle with this and I tell my workers that what they say may get me upset, it may hurts my feelings, and it may even be wrong— but it may be right.  I have to have honest and forthright people around me so that we stay balanced as a church leadership team.

If you are wondering what has taken me so long to recap Sunday’s service it is because I really had no idea what happened.  I wasn’t there.  I was on vacation in Florida.  Well now I am back and better than ever-I hope. 

I know that Danny Joiner spoke and did a really good job.  We had 128 in attendance on a holiday weekend so I am very happy with that.  Last year, Memorial Day weekend was our lowest attended service of the year.  God is so good and faithful! 

I plan on sharing a good bit of the things that God has been dealing with me the last few weeks in the coming days.  I also will have some guest bloggers visiting later in the week.  Next week, I am going to be at our denomonations campmeeting in Tifton, GA.  Our State Bishop has really put together a great list of speakers for this year.  I am really looking forward to hearing Tommy Bates.  I have never heard him, but his reputation is outstanding.  I am believing God to do great and mighty things at this years campmeeting.  If you are going to be in the area show up and give me a shout.

I have started doing a leadership class once a month here at New Life for all of our leaders and volunteers.  Since my assistant went ahead and prepared it, I thought that I would go ahead and upload it.  If you take the time to listen, please give me some feedback.  If enough like, I will keep doing it and also upload the fill in the pdf file as well.  Here you go.

who-are-you-mentoring-_-are-you-being-mentored

Once a month we host a Senior Adult luncheon at the church.  We have different community leaders come and speak to the gathering.  Yesterday we had an outstanding lady named Rhonda Nobles share her story on her fight and victory with cancer.  My only regret is that I did not record her message.  I had several people ask if we did.

The Senior luncheon is led by Dock and Helen Churchwell and also by Danny and Rhonda Joiner.  New Life does not have an extremely large Senior Adult presence in our body like a lot of our sister churches.  At this month’s luncheon we had an all-time record attendance of 57.  I was very excited with the turnout.  We must be doing something right—it probably is the cooking.

Last night at church I could feel the summertime feeling settling in.  We had 93 in attendance last night and I feel real good about it going into the summer.  God definitely has blessed me.  We had the youth lead the music last night–they called it amateur night.  When I went to speak, I told them that I was the biggest amateur of them all.  If not for God’s help, I know that I would fall on my face each and every week.