That is what I have toldl myself the last couple of days. In the middle of Kelly and I preparing to leave for our mission trip to West Africa, we have encountered several “interruptions” that have thrown us some curveballs. Here is a quick list (all in the last 7 days):

• Find out I need new brakes from my truck. Get it back and it is rattling, so the next day I found out I need new tires, too.
• Back and forth to South Carolina.
• Order a will and have it overnighted so I can have everything in order before our trip. FedEx decides to deliver it to our side door which we never use; not our front porch with nice roof over the top of it. It rains all night and I see it the next day as I am leaving and it is soaked.
• Our van begins to act weird, gets worse, so we take to it the service shop to found out the transmission is gone and we have to replace it. That one really took my breathe away. Ouch!
• Yesterday our water heater went out. The cold water literally did take my breath away. (I guess it is good prep for the trip with no hot water in Guinea.)
• Continued piling on of projects at work has created a little more anxiety: rebranding at LifePoint, new website, hosting this conference, launching this conference, record growth, awesome events upcoming at LifePoint, new strategies for communications, etc.

That is all I can remember right now. I am sure there are a few more that have been blinded by ‘bigger’ things. I was talking to someone yesterday about all of these “curve balls” and they asked a great question, ‘Why do you think all of this is happening now?’ Wow, big question. I don’t think there are any simple answers but here are some of my thoughts:

• Obviously the enemy is at work trying to distract Kelly and I from focusing on our upcoming opportunity to spread the fame of Christ in another land. The reality though is God is in control and not the enemy or us. God doesn’t need us to spread His fame, we get the privilege of being a part of it. Yet, I wish I could be dreaming, reading, studying, preparing instead of rushing through details, crisis management, making on the spot decision.
• God is showing me again that I am human, broken, and incredible need of Him. I know this is a test and a learning opportunity. Someone mentioned to me today I need to stop and figure out what God is teaching me. I wish it were that simple and I could. I can’t today—I have to get two cars fixed, water heater repaired, and other things for my family so I can leave. Plus, I have to equip and hand-off ministry to a great team to keep things going forward. Furthermore, I don’t think stopping for a few minutes would download a revelation from my Father, I think this is just the beginning of the journey.
• This might be too simplistic but things break when you live in a 30+ year old house, drive cars with 100,000+ miles, etc. Too bad they just all happen at once.
• The level of distraction hopefully is just a fraction of the level of what God is going to do through our team next week in Africa.
• Reminder for how God does provide in crazy times. Thankful, that while this will cause some short-term frustration and discomfort, God has provided the resources to take care of these needs.
• Another great reminder, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond.” -Chuck Swindoll. The mental choice I must make even now is a decision not to focus on self…me…my…mine, but on others, God’s call and mission.
• People are praying for us!

So, with that said, I do not write these words to throw a pity party. I write primarily for me to process the last few days. Maybe, somewhere there is an encouragement for you. Even greater maybe you will be encouraged, for you to pray for Kelly and I, and especially our three incredible children while mommy and daddy are away. More importantly, pray for God’s fame to be spread in Guinea.

Finally, you still have time to help us ‘Help West Africa’ and consider donating (in the right sidebar of this blog).

In less than 72 hours, I will be boarding a plane to travel to Kankan, Guinea in West Africa. LifePoint has a partnership with missionaries on the field in Kankan to reach the Maninka people group with the gospel. Kelly is going as well and has already written some great posts here, here and here. I invite you to read more about our trip and how you can be involved. Simply, there are 4+ million Maninka, most living in primitive conditions and only .06% are Christian. Many have never heard about Jesus! For $5 dollars you can provide crucial tool that will help sustain African villages.

Stay tuned for reports and pictures for our trip.

Over the last six months, my travel has been heavier than normal. Although it makes life a little crazy at times, I do enjoy some ‘alone time’ in the car, barreling down the interstate. It is a chance for me to dream, download, listen to podcasts, process, and more. I go from cranking the music; to soaking in some of my favorite leaders/speakers; radio off so I can think, pray, unwind; and then the whole thing starts over. The last two days I have had the pedal to the metal going about 5 1/2 hours to Anderson, SC and back to gather with some fellow church leaders to swap strategy and soak in some wisdom and encouragement.

My eleven hours of drive time the last two days again was a wonderful time to reposition my focus, gain some incredible insight, and recharge for the weeks ahead. Here are some of companions that made the long drive go much faster:

• Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast (episodes: ‘Systems’ & ‘Becoming a Student’)
• Catalyst Podcast including leaders Perry Noble,  Craig Groeschel, Jon Gordon, Pete Scazzero, Brad Lomenick
• Josh Wilson
• U2 — The Best Of 1980 – 1990 & Achtung Baby
• The Fray

Check them out! I have the biggest road (and air trip) of my life in 6 days (16 1/2 hours in the air, then 12 hour across the African country side…one way), any suggestions to fill the time?

Recap of the Grammys from some of my favorite tweets I followed during the evening:

@tonymorganlive That's exactly what we need. Let's make the govt bigger and put them in charge of the arts.

@loswhit Brothers head + a cotton hat = better than velcro #grammys

@timastevens I'm a little late to the pop culture game. Just noticed Paul McCartney wears his guitar backwards.

@tonymorganlive At least stevie doesn't have to watch them. Sometimes it pays to be blind.

@loswhit I have to pee. But would it be disrespectful if I do it while they are doing the dead people montage? #grammys

@eddiemosley sweet…Go Neil Go. Probably 40 years since i saw him. (this so reminds me of Eddie)

We are starting a new worship venue this Sunday that I am pumped about. We define a worship venue as any gathering we have on one of our campuses for worship. So, our current services are ‘Worship in the Auditorium’ on Sundays at 9:00am and 10:45am and we launch our new ‘Worship in the Hub’ this Sunday that will be, you guessed it…in the Hub, at 10:45am.

Worship in the Hub will appeal to those of you guys who enjoy a little more driving worship experience. The environment will be a little more coffee house feel and smaller, too. Micah will be leading in there primarily as we get this going. For those you who might be interested, you can help make the Hub happen each Sunday in a couple of ways and you can sign up online.

I am excited about the Hub for many reasons:

• It gives LifePoint attenders another compelling worship environment to invite friends to so they can hear about Christ.
  
• It will open up seats in our second hour of worship in the Auditorium which is close to be completely full. And, with our church growth strategy of i2i, leveraging our people to invest and invite others to our environments, having seats available is crucial.
  
• It is something new and I like new stuff and many other people do, too…so, another great reason to invite someone.
• We will have more opportunities for people to volunteer and grow in leadership in tons of areas including artists, staff, First Impressions, Production, and more.
• We will get to continue to test and use technology and innovative practices to reach people and grow the Kingdom of God.

I hope you are excited, too. We will see you Sunday and bring a friend!

I am pregame mode for the big game…who will show the best commercial tonight? No really, I will enjoy the game and the commercials! Which reminds another reason I love being at LifePoint Church, I don’t have to do some church gig tonight and can enjoy the game and the commercials.

Without the Titans in the game, hard to figure out who to rout for. I like Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. I was a Steelers fan as a little kid during the Steel Curtain days. So, when the game kick-offs I will probably end up rooting for the black and gold. The are a dominate franchise. Plus, I love Mike Tomlin as a leader and a coach.

I remember a couple of things he said just as he became Steelers head coach two years ago. One was when asked how his relationship will be with QB Ben Roethlisberger, “I will relationship will grow and be fine as we have shared experiences and build trust.” Pretty simple way to break down relationships. Then Tomlin said on why he feels he got the Steelers’ job, “I am a fundamentalist compared to schemes. It is a violent game and the most violent team wins. I believe in running the ball and stopping the run.” Good reminder for leaders to be focused, true to who they are, and be great at the most important things for your organization to be great.

So, my prediction Steelers 23, Cardinals 20.

Who are you rooting for? What is your prediction?

For many organizations today, the web and their little piece of the internet world is of huge importance. At LifePoint, that is true for us. Here are stats for fbcsmyrna.org / lifepointchurch.org and the traffic that has navigated there over the last 30 days:

• 6094 Visits
• 25,226 Pageviews
• 4.14 Pages per Visit
• 3:32 Average time on site
• 53% New Visits

Our Visits have been up 31% over the last month. I am sure our move to LifePoint has helped along with this article and this article from local newspapers.

Thanks to Google Analytics this information and much, much more is easy to access and drill down. We will be looking at how we increase our Visits, Pageviews, Time on Site, etc. as we begin the redesign of lifepointchurch.org with Speak Creative this week.

Another interesting stat: 70% of Visits use Internet Explorer, 2nd is Firefox at 23%. The Firefox percentage is growing but needs to go way up, Firefox is by far the best browser to use on Windows or Macs. If you don't have Firefox as your default browser, download and begin using it today. It is free and easy to do, even for those technically challenged.

Huge day at FBCSmyrna…now LifePoint Church. Today, Pat gave a great picture and vision of the story God is writing through our church. As we are in the process of becoming a multi-site church, we took a key step today by adopting what we have called a “glocal identity.” Meaning a name that will allow us to be as effective as possible connecting people to God locally in Middle Tennessee and globally through our global-i partnerships.

I had the privilege of walking through several steps of the process that led to today. Throughout what has been a 6+ month journey, interacting with almost 600 people to discover our glocal identity, I am blown away by the unity of our church, the focus on the mission of reaching those outside the faith by our attenders, and the blessing of God on our staff and faith community.

In the coming days, I hope to share many of the steps and insight that has gotten our church to this point and many of the lessons I discovered. Also, read some blog posts of other staff members and friends like Pat, Sully, Micah, Lloyd, Kyle, Chris, Kelly (the wifey), David, and Ryan.

You can join our new Facebook Group for LifePoint Church and follow Lifepoint on Twitter.

The video below was created by Sully as was used in our services for the unveiling:

LifePoint Church on Vimeo.

Most people I come across say they hate meetings. I must be weird, because I actually like them…well most of them. I'm like you, I have been in some snoozers and time-wasters with the best of them.

I value teamwork and collaboration! Good meetings allow for teams to be built, tasks to be accomplished, great ideas to be implemented, and dreams to be dreamed. And it is a good thing I like meetings because I found myself in a ton of them. Thankfully, I am a hands on with this and this great team and surrounded by a staff full of great friends and great thinkers who are passionate about our mission. I am fortunate to be at place that leverages the ability of each team member and encourages cohesion and not silos in our organization. At former stops, this was not valued and those former organization were filled with apathy, little creativity, and marginal unity.

Over and over again, I walk out of a regular weekly meeting or special meeting I facilitate for a new strategy, event, etc. and I am blown away by the creativity, synergy, and building upon one idea to another that creates some real momentum and action.

Just today:

• I was a part of our regular weekly meeting with my Worship Programming team where we finalized plans for some incredible Sunday services this Sunday.
• Then, we had our monthly all staff meeting. Each month we celebrate what God is doing in our church, communicate huge items that are coming, pray together, and listen to Pat share vision and leadership wisdom.
• This afternoon, I was a part of an incredible planning and brainstorming session for our first conference that we will host and lead as a church called 'The Sending Church Conference' which will be April 25. We are incredibly excited about the opportunity to equip our church and other churches on how we can 'send the whole church to be the church where there is no church.' The website will launch in two weeks, check back for updates!
• Then, I was in an impromptu meeting with our senior management team plus Sully to put the final touches on our new church logo that will be unveiled this Sunday with our new glocal identity.

Wow, what a day!
…and yes, things can acutally be accomplished in meetings (be looking for some key principles to come)

We had a great weekend around FBCSmyrna! The Imagine Christmas Productions drew great crowds with dozens of stories of people connecting to our church for the first time and desiring to get involved.

Our Sunday services were compelling. Pat had a great message called Revolutionary Mary looking at how a young teenage girl was a key part of a bold revolution in our world. We are leveraging the momentum of the Production for our Christmas Series. Micah led a great worship set! Attendance continues to trend 20% up compared to last year with this past week seeing growth of 431 people (23%).

The best part of the weekend for me was the privilege of baptizing 3 adults in the first service. I got to hear two of their stories in detail. Incredibly encouraging! One lady told the story of her and her 7 year-old attending on and off for over a year without the husband. About two months ago, the 7 year old asked the dad to come to church with them the next day. He did and has loved and been inviting people ever since.

Another story is of a guy who was baptized this past Sunday and come to realize that Kelly and I had sat with he and his wife at the last Real Marriage event this fall. He told me that they had started attending just a little bit before that and were at that time separated. There marriage has been healed, he has embraced Christ, and is loving what God is doing in his life. Yes!

Here are some pics from this past Sunday thanks to Crutch: