I think this is a Bad Smoke. Senior Hip-Hop??
Oh well, here goes…
I wasn’t sure about posting this, but I will. I keep seeing my Mimi up there trying to relate to me when I wore my boxers coming out from under my shorts. She never got it… I don’t get it now. Boxers hanging out from under your shorts were kind of like the tattoo of the day…just not permanent. See me in this pic for proof of my geekness.
Oh My...
They did change the lyrics…though you can’t really understand them. I’ll betcha they didn’t know the originals. 
The Nelly part – “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your robes” — now that was funny.
And to think, most of the lady’s up there would be in the Mick Jagger age range. You go granny!
Don’t Get Burnt trying to find the Dough – ok, a stretch to make it a smoking analogy, sorry.
A friend and mentor of mine in Atlanta, Dave Putman, just did an article that most church planters need to read. They also need to read the follow up articles that will be coming. And when I say they, I include me. Even though I planted a church in Midtown and helped with a Satellite launch outside of Atlanta, this is something I’ve never really had to set my mind to do. With Midtown, the money just kinda came. I know that is unusual now. I’m getting ready to enter this phase again, and you better bet I’ll be reading every word Dave has to write. I may be calling him to. You can reach him at 770-555-haha. A snippet of his money smoke (again, a smoke is a blog post of my site) he did on his personal blog.
Financing the mission is one of our five best practices at churchplanters.com. Today I spent about an hour talk with Will Henderson our Aussie church planting resident. I gave him a structure for laying out his initial budget. I thought I would pass it on to other church planters.
Whenever laying out your financial plan in a new church I always break it down into three catagories: They are start-up budget, salary for first couple of years, and operating budget.
Seriously, this post is a great smoke.Technorati Tags: smoke, money, church plant, dave putman, churchplanters.com, finances, budget, atlanta, durham, mike little, follower
I’m Not Blowing Smoke: I did cheer at UNC and UK
OK. People don’t believe me. I cheered at UNC and graduated in 1993 and was a the national championship in New Orleans. What a great time. However, I also cheered at the University of Kentucky in 1991. It is a long story and would love to chat with any of you about it. However, just to “prove” that I did what I say I did I’ll post two videos. The one today is from me at the University of Kentucky. I’ll post one tomorrow of me at UNC. I was a bit more, what is the word — TONE in these shots!
If you were at the UNC / Notre Dame game this year, you will note that I single-handedly started the TAR – HEEL chant in the stadium during the time out. Thanks goodness I wasn’t leading worship the next day!
Editorial Correction
Light me up! I made a wrong shout out. It is fullSTEAM, not fullstream. Totally my bad. You need to go check out their site though!
The Smokemeister. Notice my head exploding.
Smoking on an Aerial Mono-Flyer
Interesting smoke that you might want to check out. From a new friend at a company called Fullstream (with the F backwards). Wouldn’t you like to fly on this thing??
Mono-flyer of the Future
The amazing website Paleo-Future (tagline: a look into the future that never was) is a constant source of inspiration and insight for retro-future fans like us. Check it out – but don’t blame us if you’re still looking at it four hours from now.
In the past, the future looked so bright. Today’s
vision of the future? Take your pick: famine, war, overpopulation, John
Conner hooked on meth instead of saving humankind. Modern society just
doesn’t have the optimism of years past.
Perhaps it’s because we realized that concepts like the Aerial
Mono-Flyer of the Future (1918) were best left as an artist’s
rendering.
Is our own knowledge numbing us? We know how to build wind-resistant
cars to increase gas mileage; the result is that they all end up
looking kind of similar. We know that the Aerial Mono-Flyer of the
Future is folly; by building more practical machines, well, less people
die.
Or do they? For every Hindenburg, there’s a Steve Fossett. For every
Aerial Mono-Flyer of the Future, there are 25 million of us texting
while we drive homogenous transporters, mindlessly crossing the median.
Every era has its robots and dreamers.
Many many thanks to Matt at Paleo-Future for all the research, creativity, and writing that goes into his site. We owe him some Fullsteam. In the future.
- Image courtesy of Paleo-Future
Interesting Smoke: Organic Movement – Reverse Church Planting
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on church planting recently. Things change so rapidly and the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area is so different from where I planted before. I ran across a very interesting blog post that you should check out at Goodmanson.com. It’s funny, it echo’s what can be found in the vision papers from Midtown Church 10 years ago! Here is an excerpt and diagram from the post.
Today, a lot of what is called church planting is really starting a new 1 hour service for people to attend. There’s a belief that just by opening your doors and great preaching, you will start a revolution. We’ve seen these new churches spring up and begin to market themselves as the cool new ‘un-church’ where they hope to get marginal Christians to commit to the new endeavor. The debates go back and forth about planting with a core or planting big and gathering a core from that. As we’ve been involved in church planting, our thinking has changed. Here is how we envision Planting New Gatherings in the City (pdf):
Diagram from Goodmanson.com
New Church Lights: The Creek Church in NW Cary (North Carolina)
A New Church in NW Cary
Quck Glance: The Creek, a new church in NW Cary. Here is a summary article on the vision from Matt Rice’s blog.
The Amazing Power of starting a Church…
Another piece of what I want this blog to be about is a place to hightlight new churches and God gatherings on Tobacco Road in North Carolina. I’ve already mentioned I have a good connection and a great relationship with Hope Community Church. They have been going about 10 years and are doing an amazing thing. If you are in the Cary area, you should check them out.
However, I have a passion for the new things God is doing. It is a fact that more people come into a releationship with Him through new churches being started than any other means. Why?? I think it is because of several reasons…
- God is always about doing something new. He is always about creating, re-creating, renewing all around us.
- A new church start give people who have never served an opportunity to do something that is not focused on them.
- A new church is uniquely positioned to adapt to the culture around it and therefore reach the community with the Gospel.
Hightlight today, The Creek, a new church in NW Cary, North Carolina. I have had the priviledge of getting to know some of the leaders in this church. Matt Rice, lead pastor, (who I met complements of a freind from High School complements of Facebok) is an incredible man of God that has been given a passion and burden to reach those in his community. He had the opportunity to take path that would have led him to pastoring one of the larger churches in the area in the not-so-distant future, but he instead listened to God and stepped out on a dangerous but EXCITING adventure with God. I’ve also had the priviledge of hanging out with Mike Pope, the worship guy (he’s more of a dude if you ask me), and seen a heart that burns to see people know what it means to be a Christ Follower.
Every church looks different, so let me tell you about some of the things that the Creek is doing that really stands out to me…
- The have a core that is clearly committed to the vision and is willing not only to follow Matt, but to guard his back as well.
- They have a leader that is not afraid (even early on) to allow others to teach, because he realizes that the church is about God and not about him.
- They are doing things specifically in their community to connect. They are having their small groups (huddle groups) connect with different businesses in the area and basically do random acts of kindness. One group just took a stack of domino’s pizza over to a Wachovia bank for lunch. No strings attached.
If you have never been involved in a start I encourage you to do so. The church isn’t about you. It is about God’s community in our world pouring themselves out to join him in what He is doing all around us. I promise it is the most difficult, exciting, rewarding and challenging thing you will ever do. Here are a few websites you might want to check out that will give you a better idea of church starting (or church planting) and what is happening around our world.
New Church Lights: The Creek
A New Church in NW Cary
Quck Glance: The Creek, a new church in NW Cary. Here is a summary article on the vision from Matt Rice’s blog.
An Artist who Smokes
Justin Rosolino is a good friend of mine. More importantly, he is one of the most gifted musicians that I have ever known. He and another friend, Billy Cerveny, write amazing lyrics and are the standard for singer songwriters. He is getting married in January, and I am praying his family to Durham!
He is smokin hot on the guitar! Look up 29 on YouTube and check him out on iTunes.
