Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend at Oak Leaf Church is going to be crazy.  Seven services, beginning on Thursday night. A Friday night service for teenagers.  Live interpretation into Spanish at the 1pm service on Sunday.  Start praying now.  And start making lists of who you can invite.

Teaching Notes

That’s a picture of what Jeff Kapusta has in front of him as he’s teaching the people of Lifepoint Church.  I asked a few of my friends what they took on stage with them to teach.  Here’s what they do:

• Tadd Grandstaff recently mixed things up and uses mind-mapping, though it’s usually memorized and the notes are just for emergency.
• Josh Roberts pastes notes in his Moleskin…usually scripture on half and notes on the other half.
• J.R. Lee says his notes might not make sense to anyone but him.
• Jeff Henderson tries to memorize this, which is also what he gives to the production team.
• Perry Noble usually doesn’t teach with notes, but uses this to study and prepare.  When he’s got a lot of various Scripture references, he uses notes to cut down on page-turning.
• Tony McCollum usually has his stuff memorized, but puts this into a little leather 3-ring binder in case his mind goes blank.
• Jeff Kapusta prints his notes on double sided card stock and puts them in a leather binder.  Bold phrases are main points or something for the screen.  Scripture is in red and also on the screen.  Blue and green is an illustration or story.  He got his notebook from right here.
• Devin Hudson gathers all his content into a couple of pages and then takes an outline to the stage.
• Jeff Murphy uses these notes.

I usually make hand-written notes as I study and prepare and then create a 2-page document that serves as an outline that’s done on Monday morning.  On Saturday afternoon, I copy those notes into a notebook and teach from that. The copying process is a final review.

If you’re a preacher or teacher, how do you prepare?  What do you have in front of you as you teach?

Leadership Summits

Four times a year, we gather all of our volunteers on a Sunday night for what we simply call a “Leadership Summit.” These meetings have really become a highlight of our calendar year…it’s awesome to see volunteers from every ministry area come together.

At each summit, we give away one or two “Leafy” awards…really cool looking, custom-made, Grammy-style awards to a volunteer that has just gone over and above. Everybody celebrates that.

We usually do some worship, and the band plays some of our favorite songs. Since it’s the Oak Leaf family in the room, everyone belts it out pretty good.

Then there is usually a teaching/vision component. I will share the vision for the upcoming year at one, we’ll bring in a guest speaker to encourage and challenge everyone at one, we will divide up into breakout sessions at one, and we’ll really have an extended time of worship at one.

Each leadership summit has a little different feel, yet it’s a consistent way to encourage our people and share important information.

Help Spread the Word about Nuts and Bolts

I’d love your help in spreading the word about our one-day conference for church planters and their teams.  Download some graphics and put them in your profiles and blogs.  Grab the twitter icon.  Point people to the website.

Here’s the highlights (feel free to cut and paste)

What is it? Nuts and Bolts is a one-day conference for church planters, church leaders and their teams.  There will be two main sessions and one breakout session (you’ll choose from about six of them)

When is it? Saturday, June 26.  We chose to do this on a Saturday so bi-vocational pastors or church planters with day jobs can come and can bring people.  It starts at 9am and it will end with an early-edition of our weekend service.

How much does it cost? $10 a person.  We wanted to keep the cost extremely low because we’re not trying to make money…we’re trying to equip church planters.  And 100% of the registration fee goes to church planting.

Get more information and register at http://www.nutsandboltsconference.com

Can’t Miss Weekends

At the beginning of each year, I make a list of can’t miss weekends and share that list with our staff. These are 7-8 big weekends that our staff can’t miss. No vacations. No sicknesses. Okay, the sicknesses part is hard to enforce, but you get the idea.

Just a practical tip for pastors and church leaders to help bring clarity to the calendar.

Around the Leaf

Here’s a few things that are happening around Oak Leaf Church.

• Oak Leaf University starts this next week.  We’ve got five classes, and all of them meet on Wednesday night for six weeks.  I’m teaching Spiritual Leadership.  There’s Introduction to the New Testament, a class on Spiritual Disciplines and Biblical Finances.  And if you are a new Christian or returning to the faith, then Starting Point is where you should begin.  Register this weekend or on the website.
• On Easter Weekend, we’re holding SEVEN SERVICES so you can invite your friends.  Thursday, Friday and Saturday night at 6pm.  Then Sunday at 8:30, 10:00, 11:30 and 1pm.
• The Egg Drop is March 27 and we’re planning for thousands and thousands of people.  50,000 eggs…two separate drop times with four age groups each time.  Free inflatables.  Food vendors on site.  You can get more information and pre-register at the Egg Drop site.
• If you’re interested in learning more about the Canton Campus or joining that team, then the next campus team meeting is Sunday night, March 14.  We’d love to see you there.  Practice services for Canton start this summer.
• If you’ve got kids, we’re hosting Storytime on Mondays at 10:30am.  A great story-teller is coming in for your kids and the Coffee Bar will be open.  Pick up a flyer in the Coffee Bar.
• ACTION WEEK (our souped up version of VBS) is June 7-11.  There will be a morning AND an evening version.  Bekah and her team have been planning for a while, and it’s going to be amazing.

Choosing to Be Lazy

Expanding on a thought from twitter last week…

I’m afraid that too many pastors and church planters use “family first” or “choosing to cheat” as an excuse to be lazy and miss deadlines.

Please don’t hear me knock the importance of family, but stop using it as an excuse not to fulfill your God-given obligations. If you’re a pastor called into the ministry, then that ministry is important. You can’t be irresponsible or give half your heart to a task and blame it on family time.

Pastors…stop asking God to bail you out on Saturday night and give you a message and start honoring God throughout the week by studying and praying and writing a message for His church.  Don’t cheat your family, but don’t cheat your calling either.

Being a leader at a church is hard work and it requires sacrifice.

Bigger Thinking, Part Two

In addition to think about what it looks like to accomplish the great commission through cities, God is broadening my global perspective.  People like Rick Warren and Bob Roberts have challenged my thinking in this area.

Did you know that the world’s tallest building isn’t in the US? The richest man in the world is Mexican and the largest publicly-traded company is Chinese. The world’s biggest plane is built in Russia and The Ukrane. The largest Ferris Wheel is in Singapore.  Macao surpasses Las Vegas in casino revenue. Only 1 of the top 10 malls is in the United States.  2.5 billion people in the world live in just two countries…India and China.  I know us Americans think that live revolves around us, and while we may be the world’s only military superpower, finances, industry, society and culture is no longer centered here. (Thanks to Fareed Zakaria for these statistics)

In order to accomplish the Great Commission, we’re going to have to mentally get outside the borders of our own country.  We can’t fear Islam (with more than 1 Billion adherents)…we must understand it and take the light of Jesus Christ there.  We’re going to have to get out of our American bubble and understand that we live in a global world.

Nuts and Bolts

I announced this on twitter and the blog a few weeks ago (and some have already registered), but the website for Nuts and Bolts is now live and registration is officially open.

What is it? Nuts and Bolts is a one-day conference for church planters, church leaders and their teams.  There will be two main sessions and one breakout session (you’ll choose from about six of them)

When is it? Saturday, June 26.  We chose to do this on a Saturday so bi-vocational pastors or church planters with day jobs can come and can bring people.  It starts at 9am and it will end with an early-edition of our weekend service.

How much does it cost? $10 a person.  We wanted to keep the cost extremely low because we’re not trying to make money…we’re trying to equip church planters.  And 100% of the registration fee goes to church planting.

Check out the website and the schedule, and make plans to attend.  We can hold about 450 people in our building, so when all the tickets are gone, it’s sold out.

Bigger Thinking

God is stretching my thinking and my vision in two big areas.  Part one today; part two tomorrow.

For the first time in human history, more people live in cities than in suburbs or in rural areas. (article link) Look back at every cultural, religious, or political movement and you will see it go from the city to the countryside. Cities are were art, music, religion, and education are centered. So, if we want to change the world, we need to start in the cities.

It was Mark Driscoll who first got me thinking this way in a sermon he preached on Nehemiah.  And I’ve had a lot of conversations and done a lot of reading on this in the last year.

I’m starting what it would look like to be a part of something that started churches in the worlds largest cities? What if Oak Leaf Church started churches in 50 influential US cities?  I’ll be honest…it’s much easier to start a church in a small town or a suburb, but we need some pioneers who will take the Gospel into the heart of cities.

The suburbs are comfortable and family-friendly, but ideas spread outward from city centers.  Not sure what this looks like yet, but something is brewing.