This is an exciting Sunday for me.

New Passion turns 6 months old this weekend! Wow, how time flies.

These last 6 months have been incredible, its been complete with our set of difficulties as well as many successes.

We started the church with a launch team of 21 adults and 14 children. Trust me I heard the “concern” for the size of our launch team and I experienced the push back from the so-called experts who happened to never launch a church, and I even wonder if they’ve ever even heard from God. I saw the perplexed looks I got and felt the doubt surrounding me.

It is a good thing we have Jesus on our side and what Steven Furtick would call a “Crack Smoking” launch team, because all we had was a call from God and a vision to lead people to a passionate relationship with Jesus. We had very little equipment (and the majority of what we are using is borrowed), we had very little money (we even had to get a loan), but we had a people who love Jesus passionately and love people.

In 6 months we’ve seen many people begin a relationship with Jesus, many people who have signed up to be baptized (Coming Soon!), our launch team has grown from 35 people to a church averaging 80-85 every week. More than just seeing visitors come check us out, we are seeing them hang around, and several have plugged in to serve in a ministry environment. Our finances have been trending up, the best news is, we’ve never done without, in fact, we have totally paid off our loan. Our new, small church provided Thanksgiving meals for over 20 families and provided a complete Christmas for 4 families, and recently helped pack a local mission’s food pantry with non-perishable foods. I see this as a sign that our people are embracing the vision of our church. We’ve heard stories of life transformation and experienced some amazing things from God. Just this past Sunday, we had a family offer our church .4 acres with a house on the property to help move New Passion towards a new home once our school lease is up. I can list story after story of how God has blown my mind in these last 6 months, no man or organization can take credit for New Passion. God is building it in such a way that only he can receive the glory.

I was checking out what one could expect from a 6 month old baby…because that’s basically what we are, check these 7 things out:

1. Developing New Skills & a Desire to Use Them - Like a baby, we are pretty uncoordinated with some stuff. However, every week we are improving and as we improve and  develop our skills, you’ll see vast improvement in what we offer to our community and our people.
2. Exploration - A baby likes to touch, taste, and see new things. They are curious little rug rats. I have said before, we are an experimental church. We want what we do to fit us like a glove, we don’t want to try and be someone else. Sure someone may look at us and say how they would never do it that way…Awesome! That’s why we are doing that way.
3. Ready to Crawl (Not Walk) - Although a baby at 6 months may be able  to stand or sit up straight, they are not ready to walk. Although some of our natural abilities may allow us to be strong in some areas, as a church, we are keeping it simple on purpose. We don’t have the structure or the finances to do too much too soon. We are okay with taking it slow.
4. Stimulation Through New Activity - A baby is stimulated through lights and color and sound. We want to make things different and provide different experiences for our people. This goes back to experimenting, but also in unleashing new avenues to live out our HEART in the community and around the world. This does not mean a bunch of programs, but new and different experiences in what we are already doing!
5. New Strategies - As a baby gets older, there comes a time to change strategies for eating and sleeping, to help adapt with how they are changing. As we grow there will come a place to start new strategies or adjust the ones we already have.
6. Try new foods - A baby cannot drink milk all of its life. Baby books encourage trying new foods while avoiding others. We always need to be aware of what we can handle and what will hurt us in this stage of our church. We can get new ideas from other places, but we must filter it to make sure it is healthy for our city, our people, and our vision.
7. Teeth - Some 6 month old babies have them and some don’t! If a 6 month old has teeth, its time to make sure they are properly taken care of. There are some things that we do well and we need give extra attention to  those areas. We need to make sure they are funded properly with a solid team of volunteers.

A lot of these areas build on each other and are connected. Personally, I have to pace myself and remind myself that we are only several months old and there are things we need to improve on and with time, we’ll perfect them. We must crawl before we walk, but while we are crawling, I challenge our people to be passionate about what Jesus is calling us to and to give our all to his plan. I cannot wait to see what happens in these next 6 months!

Several weeks ago I asked our people at New Passion, “Do you see the mission Jesus calls us to as your personal responsibility?”

I love the story of Nehemiah. One of the things that keeps sticking out to me is how everyone worked together for the common vision that God gave Nehemiah. There is no doubt that each person saw this mission from God as their personal responsibility. The Bible says that each person repaired the section of the wall in front of their own home. This mission was very personal.

I love the fact that it points out in one occasion that the people worked with enthusiasm and how Baruch zealously repaired an additional section of the wall. That means he didn’t have tunnel vision - he saw the entire project as his responsibility, not just his piece of the wall…he went above and beyond…Passion will cause you to do that. It’s kind of like the Lays potato chips challenge, “I Bet You Can’t Eat Just One” - When God puts a passion in your heart, you won’t be satisfied with a mundane approach to the mission he calls you to, you’ll want more! The Nobles  and Officials agreed to give back to the poor the interest they had charged them and to require no more payments for their debt to help relieve the financial stress and pressure on the lower class. These people were willing to sacrifice in order to unify under a common vision and a  common mission. They saw it as their responsibility!

So what about you? Do you see the mission Jesus calls His followers to as all of our personal responsibility? I believe when we get to that point, it adds a whole new dimension to the way we live out our faith. I believe it is an essential ingredient needed to change the world with the gospel.

Landing Page for Unleash 2010 Session Notes:

• Main Session #1 with Perry Noble
  (Click Here)
• Breakout Session #1 with Perry Noble & Steven Furtick (Click Here)
• Breakout Session #2 with Paul Marshall & Joe Sangl (Click Here)
• Main Session #2 with Perry Noble (Click Here)
• All Breakout Session Notes will be Posted HERE in PDF format soon!

Breakout Session 2

Giving…Budgeting…Spending

Paul Marshall & Joe Sangl

Giving:

0-1,000 People -

• Established Accurate (Excellent) record-keeping (Used Simple Access Database)
  (Without accurate record keeping, you have a mess!)
• 1st Time Giving Letter (No matter how much given)
• Let God be in the equation
• Build margin, early & often!

1,000 - 5,000 people -

• Moved to FellowshipOne (Helps track Ministry & Giving)
• Did 1st Capital Campaign (3 year pledge)
• Educating people about finances (FPU) - The church decided to take on the responsibility to teach the people about finances.

5,000+ people -

• Did 2nd Capital Campaign (3year pledge)
• Class - “Financial Learning Experience”
  *Common sense is uncommon
• Group Study: “I was broke. Now I’m Not.”
• Started looking at tithing/offering as a “Worship Experience”
  (52 Weeks - 52 Different Ways to focus)

Budgeting

0-1,000 people -

• Commitment to pay staff well from the start
• Benefits to staff employees from the start (100% of employee. 50% of dependents)
• Lead Team: Monthly review of finances
• Budget for a year
• Let God be in the Equation

1,000-5,000 people -

• ACS for Accounting (Linear System)
• Retirement plan w/ matching funds
• POs

5,000+ people -

• 3rd party salary survey for senior pastor
• Annual budgeting with approvals by SMT

Spending

0-1,000 people -

• Accurate record keeping of expenditures
• Pastor NEVER signs (signed) checks
• 2 Signatures required on all checks, with a signing limit (only a handful of signers 3-4, 2 signatures required)
• Farmed out Payroll
• Let God be in the Equation

1,000-5,000 people -

• Annual review by 3rd party (CPA)
• Brought payroll back in-house
• Purchased Land

5,000+ people -

• Changed to new PO system
• Sage MIP Accounting System (Segment Based)
• Microix
• True 3rd Party Audit
• Project next years budget from last 6 months income
• Watch cash flow
• Provide a wish list if God gives a special gift to the church (this is separate from budget)
• Individual ministry budgets: Breakout with current years expenses (money spent), column to list suggested next years budget with an additional column to list reasons why it is being suggested.
• No fundraisers. People give to a vision before they give to a need. Every Sunday is a Big Event, that helps cast vision.

Unleash 2010 Main Session 2

Session Notes

Acts 14:8-

The best thing a church can do is make sure their senior pastor is healthy

Be careful for the crowd….those who deify will crucify. (My Note: Wow!!!)

The problem with a lot of pastors is that we will not admit our humanity

vs 19 - The people stoned Paul…not Barnabas or anyone else. Paul, the Leader. The main guy…that’s it.

3 Words:

1. Awareness -

Many times we make mistakes because we are unaware.

• Some people’s thoughts is that they do as much as the Senior Pastor and they carry the same load.
  (Its not that they are trying to be mean…they are just UNAWARE)
  (When Satan wants to stop a movement he always goes after the leader)
• 3 Rocks Pastors Need to Be Aware Of -

1. Rock of Distractions - Distractions will come our way.
   Pastor, do not get distracted with things outside of Jesus
   • Don’t get distracted by false agendas
   • Don’t get distracted by yourself
   • Don’t get distracted by Pride

   If God is using us, its because we were barren, and God changed our lives, we did nothing ourselves.

2. Rock of Deception -
   • The deception that the Pastor has to do everything
   • The Bible calls those who do not work, lazy; It calls the one who will not rest, disobedient
   • Pastor - Do you have a date night with your wife? Without the kids? Without the cell phone?
   • Pastor, if this world can’t live without you for an hour…it’s in trouble!
   • Pastor, your kids need you!
   • Pastor, your marriage is the most important marriage in the church. It’s got to remain strong.
3. The Rock of Discouragement -
   
   • Listen to your coaches, not your critics

2. Unity -

• Pastor - Be a man worth rallying around
  How to be a man worth rallying around:
  
  • Lead with Integrity (Be real - Be Sexually Pure - ETC.)
  • Get Big Vision from God (You want great leaders? Have a great vision)
  • Listen to your staff (Ask your staff: What do you think?)
    Your leaders will have a solution, your robots will wait until they are told what to do.
    Pastor, make sure your leaders are resourced, and get out of their way.
  • Keep short accounts - Don’t be bitter at people.
  • Make expectations clear - You can’t keep people accountable to an unspoken rule or expectation.
  • Honor your leader’s time

3. Passion -

• The average pastor is the SBC is 22 months.
• Churches are unhealthy because there are men of God who are unwilling to stand when the rocks are thrown.
• If you can’t support the vision of the pastor, get off his team. If he is disobeying God…God will cut him down, not you.
• When a man of God has a supportive team or staff gathered around him, he can get back up when the stones are thrown.
• If a staff will rally around the pastor, no rock thrower is a match for them.
• Pastor, who do you have standing around you?
  

…updating

Unleash 2010 Main Session 1

Joshua 5

Session Notes:

Many times God takes leaders to a cliff and tells them to jump. If we don’t jump another generation will.

Leaders have to learn to jump.

If someone is going to jump, it should be the church. We should set the example. Problem is churches have forgotten how to jump!

4 Factors:

1. Desperation Factor

Joshua was given the task of circumcising all the men, with a flint knife, and no medicine to numb the pain.

Gen 34: Three men were able to kill an entire village because the men were in pain…

God brought Joshua and his followers to a place where they were completely vulnerable and exposed to their enemy.

He was bringing them to a place where they were marked men, but they would be desperate for Him.

When is the last time we were desperate for God (as leaders)?

Church leaders want safe and predictable.

Church Planter: You WILL be tested financially within your first year of your church plant

God will test you financially. If you are following God you will always have your back up against the wall financially.

Business people in your church want everything to make sense financially, but our God leads us to uncomfortable places.

2. The Sacrifice Factor

Every Israelite man loved the idea of progress…

Everyone loves the idea of progress, but they have a problem with the sacrifice requirements.

Two Things We Have to Sacrifice:

1.  Sacrifice Comforts

Satan is rubbing some leaders’ feet…you are comfortable where you are at…he’s rubbing your feet, setting you up for a fall…all because we want to be comfortable.

• Giving up personal preferences
• We are more interested in attendance than repentance

Random Note: Perry preaches about masturbation. Some pastors say they only preach about the “Holiness of God” - Perry, “You can’t get to the holiness of God, masturbating, that’s why we preach about it!”

• The church has to be comfortable with the lost (coming to our church) and acting like their lost
• Blended Worship is where we try to make everyone happy and no one enjoys it.
  

2. Sacrifice Conformity

• There are too many churches trying to conform to what a a denomination dictates to them rather than what God desires of them
• Missional is a buzz word that will not be around in 5 years, if you are the church, you should be Missional.

3. The Recognition Factor

• Some of our problems in the church world is that we no longer recognize JESUS
• No man is the most powerful person in your church….Jesus is the most powerful person in the church

4. The Strategy Factor

• One size fits all is a lie.
• Churches want a one size fits all strategy
• Some strategies work for some churches while they do not work for others
• One size fits all…Listen to God, Do What He Says. That strategy will work for anyone!
• Joshua 5 - Jericho strategy was the only time God used this strategy
• We need to be more dependent on the Supernatural rather than strategy
• Vision comes before Strategy not Strategy before Vision
• People want to get back to Acts 2. That was the foundation, why get back to where Jesus started?
• If you can fully explain what’s happening in your church, Jesus probably is not involved
• If we would be on fire for the ONE who called us, there is way more that he wants to offer us, way more than we have already seen
• Jesus didn’t die so we could do church our way, He died so we could do church His way

Unleash 2010 Breakout Session 1: Senior  Pastors Only

Perry Noble &
Steven Furtick

Breakout Session Notes

God can speak through people who are equivalent to Balaam’s donkey - Steven Furtick (They’re pretty much jackasses…Don’t tithe, don’t get involved, etc. But God can speak through them)

• The parameters of the overall vision gives the leadership freedom to lead & think Big - The overall vision comes from the pastor - Steve Furtick

(I was reminded about this quote from Church Planters Conference) “You can’t have a strategy without first having a philosophy” - Pete Wilson

• When you hear from God and your leaders know you hear from God, you can lead them to do some stupid stuff However, you have to REALLY hear from God, you cannot front like you hear from God.

• Leaders have to choose the path of humility - “God cannot lift an unbowed head” - Steven Furtick

• The unspoken lid to our leadership is the fear of being burned - Steven Furtick

• The Great players play hurt. Preach hurt, don’t preach bitter! - Perry Noble

• God’s promise is bigger than your perhaps - Steven Furtick

• A pastor cannot choose his successor - Perry Noble quoting Rick Warren

I was eating lunch with Jonothan, our worship leader, yesterday and he mentioned something I thought was pretty cool. So, since Jonothan does not blog and he just tweeted for the first time yesterday, I think I’ll post this myself. I like the way our people at New Passion think…it is scary what God can do through our church, if people will simply step out and follow what he is leading them to do.

Jonothan was talking about some of the books of the Bible he has been reading lately and mentioned that he noticed how Paul would travel to the various churches and would share what was taking place within the other churches, he would send encouragement from the other Christians that he was with at the time to those he was writing letters to. An example can be found Here and Here.

Jonothan mentioned that it would be a great ministry for someone to go around to other churches, spend time with them, and to find out what God is doing in their churches, not to copy them, or to enact their strategies, rather so they could come back to their home church and share the good news with their fellow believers. I believe it would be just as important and powerful to know how to pray for those other churches as well. Someone would not have to physically go to the churches, with Skype, Twitter, email, and phones, we could easily connect with a contact within the church that could speak for their body.

It’s funny. We’ll get on the internet and see what series another church is doing. We’ll go to conferences to see what new strategies and philosophies we can enact. But, if we can, we’ll take it and claim it as our own. I’m not pointing the finger, I’ve done it myself. However, I am trying to do a lot less of it. I want God to do new things through me and through New Passion, so I don’t want to bottleneck us where we are so reliant on doing what everyone else is doing. I think we as a church need to be willing to share what God is doing all over the world, through other churches. If it’s truly not a competition we should be willing to encourage our believers with what God is doing with the believers next door and in the next town.

Anyway, no telling what will ever come of this idea. I think it was a great thought. It’s definitely something new. I don’t know of anyone else who is taking time or giving space to spotlight what God is doing in other churches, but we sure like to brag on ourselves.

Everyone has scars.

Some are physical, while others are emotional and mental.

I have a scar in the bend of my right arm. I was around 5 years old and my mom had to stop by my grandma’s house, she told me to stay in the car while she quickly ran in. My sister had a better idea, I should get out of the car and call our friend Nikki (No, not my wife Nicki) to come to the fence, where we used to play and talk. I guess I figured by climbing the fence Nikki would hear me better, so I started to climb the fence to yell out her name, I got it out nice and loud one time, and then my foot slipped. This was an old school security fence with the two metal spikes sticking out of the top, not the modern day safety kind with the knots. My arm went right through the fence like a warm knife through butter. The next noise I made was a scream for my mom, she had to lift me off the fence, as I was dangling there from my arm. I don’t think I got a spanking for disobeying on that occasion, I guess my mom thought my lesson had been learned. My scar tells a story of how mom’s know what’s best for her children, and how children should obey their mom’s.

I have three scars from an emergency appendectomy. They tell numerous stories.

I wonder, if your physical, emotional, or mental scars could speak, what would they say?

Yesterday, at New Passion, we focused on how our life stories are intended to bring God glory. Everyone’s life story contains some type of wound. We tend to want to hide those elements of our story. We like to tell the good stuff, like when we met our significant other, or when our child was born, or we’ll tell about the time we landed that dream job.

However, I believe God wants our life story to tell of His story. One of the ways he does that is through our scars. Scars tell powerful stories. They tell an even more powerful story about God, if  we let it.

We cannot have a scar unless we first had a wound that has been healed.

God wants to heal our wounds (emotional, physical, mental) so that, our life story can tell his story. Even the difficult things in life that we experience are not about us, they are about God. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, “…God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.” I believe one way we are able to reconcile people back to God is by not covering up our scars, but rather let them tell a story…the story of how God healed them. Have you ever considered, that the story of how God redeemed & healed you, may be the very help the next person needs who is carrying around the same wound you once carried? It may be that you are still walking around with open wounds, and you need God to heal you first?

Join the Conversation…What is a story your scar could tell?

The image you are looking at on the left is a picture of Pedophile Pastor Nicholas Carnes. Just for clarification, he is a pedophile, not a pastor.

If you have come to this site because you are searching for him or his church, this is not it. I apologize. I used to be a youth pastor, but am now the lead pastor of New Passion Church in Grovetown, Georgia. (About Me Page)

Pedophile Nicholas Carnes, was the youth director at several local churches in Port Huron, Michigan. I am not sure which church specifically.

I understand that this pedophile is a sinner and loved by God just like everyone else, however, Jesus said the following, “It would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin.” Luke 17:2

What I know is that police have enough evidence to arrest him, however, I do not know that he harmed any students in his care, however, parents have come forward and reported that they were uncomfortable with his actions with their children and they  reported their concerns to the church and the church did nothing. I pray he did not harm one of the young teens in his care.

Although I am upset that Nicholas has hurt the name we share and the name of a real life hero, in addition to pastors and youth pastors. This is a sober reminder that we as the church must be aware of who we put into leadership, do background checks for all of our ministry environments that care for minors, and keep our eyes open at all times.