The second reflection I would like to offer from my time as a worship minister is this:

People notice how you do your job.
I have always been surprised at how much attention most people paid to how I did my job. Notice I didn’t say how well I did my job, just how I did it. As most of my friends know I am a very anal person. I like things done in a very specific, very neat, and very efficient way. And whether people see that as a positive or negative, they notice it, and they let me know that they notice it.

Team members can tell when you have put 10 hours into planning a service and are prepared for rehearsal, but they also know when you put 2 hours into it and haven’t even run through the songs yet. I don’t care what kind of business you run your people will notice the class and maturity with which you handle your duties. If you are constantly a mess and scrambling to get things done, most people won’t be able to deal with that for long, and you will find yourself with a rotating cast of team members, staff members, or employees. This is an all-to-common situation that most churches find themselves in.

I believe that the mark of any good leader is that he or she is always OVER-prepared to lead their team, and prepared to modify that plan to fit the ever-changing situation.

Today marks my final day as a worship minister. After today I will officially be out of the professional music biz, and because of the impact this job has had on my life over the last 6 years I wanted to share some of the things that I have learned, with you.

Musical style doesn’t matter!
I have been in traditional old churches and contemporary new churches and even though their styles were drastically different I have learned that the type or style of the music we play doesn’t really matter. I believe that every problem person I have ever met, and everyone of my biggest fans would have remained on the same side of the fence no matter what style of music I introduced (within reason of course). Sometimes, people use musical style as an excuse for why they don’t like you, and if you are a worship minister you have to realize that they probably wouldn’t like you no matter what your style was, and you should NEVER let that bother you.

This world has problem people, but I believe that there are more compassionate and caring people than we often let ourselves believe there are. I have, by far, had more fans than foes over the year, and what I have come to realize is that the people who loved me and supported my ministry didn’t do so because of style, they did it because of my heart. They weren’t looking at how well I performed my job duties, they were looking at character, integrity, and class with which I did those duties. I believe that how you do the job is always more important than how well you do the job.

More to come, later this week. Peace out Louisville, KY!

After reading a series of posts on Mike’s blog about the local church I was inspired to take a few minutes out to thank some local churches who have really stepped it up to spread the gospel message to the world. These are churches that are supporting Horizon in our new church efforts. I am very thankful that there are churches out there that share our passion for reaching the lost so much that they have freely given of their financial resources to help Horizon do just that. Check out their websites for more information, and pray for these churches who are steppin’ up to advance the kingdom of God!

• Bethlehem Church of Christ (Winchester, OH)
• Garden City Church of Christ (Columbus, IN)
• Harvest Pointe Christian Church (Goshen, OH)
• River Valley Christian Church (Louisville, KY)

This week, a Missouri woman found Jesus in a bag of cheetos. “Cheesus” is what this woman claims to be the perfect likeness of Jesus hanging on the cross made out of a cheetos cheese puff. Read the whole story.

When I first heard this story this morning on the radio I thought, “Some people will do anything to get their 15 minutes of fame!” But the more I thought about what this woman was claiming the more it broke my heart. You see, I came to realize that there are some people in this world who are so desperate to find God in any corner of their life that they are even willing to pretend they see Him in a cheetos bag.

There are people out there that are so desperate to feel the love and acceptance of Christ, but they go looking in all of the wrong places for it. This just makes me want to do whatever it takes to make our churches in America the FIRST place people go when they are seeking to truly meet God. As funny as it sounds I don’t think that most of the public would go directly to the church if they were seeking to find an authentic God, and that’s why they go in so many other directions.

What can we do as members of the Body of Christ to change this?!?!

The other day I was posting on this blog when I noticed that I had inadvertently blown past my 100th post. No big deal, but I think that’s something worth celebrating. For almost two years now I have been sharing my thoughts, hopes, and fears with the world through this blog and like all milestones I think it would be worthwhile to stop and reflect on how I got here and what I learned I the process. Allow me to share.

I have learned to value others’ opinions
If you blog, you know that not everyone is going to agree with everything that you say. There are even some people who will vehemently oppose your viewpoints and will not be shy about letting you know it. But through it all I have learned that you don’t need to agree with someone to learn something from them.

I have learned to be transparent
Something that I have grown into over these last 106 posts is becoming more transparent as a leader. Nobody wants to follow someone who is always right and pretends to have zero problems. Those kind of people aren’t easy to relate to. So, I have tried to be as transparent about my struggles, fears, and opinions as possible on this blog, and I think it has helped people see the real me.

I have learned to be committed to sharing my life with others
Knowing that I should blog two or three times a week, or probably more, has helped me to stay more committed to sharing my life with others. This has even spread to more than just the cyber world for me. Since, I have been blogging I feel like a portal to my life has been opened for all to see, and I have become more willing to share about my life and experiences; something that I have found infinitely useful as a teacher.

I hope I learn as much from the next 107 posts as I did the first.

I’m a simple man. It doesn’t take much to get me excited, and last night was a perfect example. I arrived home at about 9:30pm from Louisville to find two huge boxes waiting at my door. It was the first round of custom printed envelopes and letterhead for Horizon. This wouldn’t normally get someone excited, but I was just tickled. I guess it’s because after over a year this church is becoming more of a reality every day.

Every time we break a small barrier down, or have a simple milestone pass I get excited; much like I do as a father when my son does small yet monumental things. Now just imagine how God feels when we have those small victories in our life. Things that other people might not think are a very big deal, but for your life and situation might be a huge leap of faith or step in the right direction.

I think we should take time in our lives to be proud of even the small steps we take to become closer to God and His will for our lives. Don’t let others dictate what excites you about your progress.

This week I have become Mr. Mom. In transition my wife has started a part time job, that requires a month of full time training. So, I’m adjusting my schedule to become Mr. Mom for the family for the next month. It’s actually been great to spend some extended alone time with my son. I mean until now,there have been very few times where we have been alone together without mommy.

One of the greatest things is that while mom’s gone we get to play and wrestle like REAL men. He was even showing off his new found wrestling skills to our group this weekend when he tackled me and started biting my ankle to force me into submission. Because of this he has found a new favorite game, and I like to call it, “Climb over Daddy”. We’ll sit on the floor together and he will time after time climb over my legs, then turn around and do it again. My thought is that he is proud of the fact that he can easily climb over me and is trying to impress me, and I have to admit he does every time.

As we were playing this game this morning I got to thinking. Don’t some of us try to do this same thing? Sometimes we take on more than we can handle, or try to do impossible things alone just to prove to someone that we can. While I can understand why my son loves this game, I don’t understand why we as adults do this. Even though I have done this very thing before I don’t understand it.

We serve a God who is there to help us, and with His help we are able to do a lot more than we can ourselves. So why do we go it alone so many times?

Ok, so I have to give some props to something that I was VERY skeptical about. A couple months ago I was on the verge of leaving my wireless provider (who isn’t these days) but because of some new features I decided to give Verizon one more chance to keep me. So, I upgraded to a LG voyage with all the bells and whistles; text, internet, email, and VZ Navigator. I knew I would use most of these features, but the one thing that I thought would be utterly useless was the navigator, but man have I been wrong.

With the click of a button this thing can search all the gas stations around you and find you the cheapest gas. It can search local events happening near you and even get you movie times, ratings, and descriptions. But here’s what it’s really good at.

Last night at about 9:00pm I was rolling back to Cincy from Louisville after a LONG day of work and meetings. About 30 minutes from home, I-71 turned into a parking lot. After about 5 minutes of waiting I checked my navigator to see how bad the traffic was, and it was really bad. So, I hit the grass and turned around depending on my trusty navigator to get me home. Within 20 minutes I was back on the interstate ahead of all the traffic. This thing detoured me around all of the congestion and got me ahead of it all as fast as possible.

If you are considering upgrading to a premium package through Verizon, I would highly recommend it. The internet is fast and the navigator is awesome!

Today, as I worked out of a local Panera Bread today I overheard a very agitating conversation. A conversation that I wish I could just erase from my memory all together. There was a table of people (all in there 40’s or 50’s) directly behind me talking very loudly and rudely about area churches. They basically went through every local church I had ever heard of, and believe me with all the research we have done for Horizon’s launch I have a deep knowledge of the local churches, and shamelessly bashed them for one thing or another. No matter what the denomination, belief, or style they were shooting lasers at em’ all.

One lady shamelessly spoke about how she shopped several local churches looking for which one would, “give her what she needed to stay happy.” And even though no church could do that, she settled at the one who did the best job.

Then, the gentleman across from her spent ten minutes blasting a church for not adhering to a specific Biblical principle, and then proceed to explain why he thought churches were stupid for teaching that hell exists. The concept of hell was just too judgmental for him to believe. COME ON!

Now, I was sitting at my table quietly preparing a lesson for this weekend with Bible and laptop open, and I was embarrassed that other people around us, who could obviously hear them, might associate me with these people. Worse yet, when the conversation inevitably turned to their church, it turned out to be the church of a pastor that I know personally. I was just infuriated, because I know this is not what this man is teaching, yet these people will be viewed as the product of his teaching.

Here’s my point. The reason God’s kingdom is not moving closer towards unity is not because there are too many conflicting beliefs between denominations, it’s because of selfish, judgmental, hypocritical individuals. The church does not exist to make us feel good. The church exists to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world and to educate everyone, through the Bible, on how we can better accomplish this goal.

Here’s my question as a concerned pastor of a new church: How can we stop our churches from producing people with attitudes like this, or is it just inevitable?

Man, this past weekend was just awesome! Horizon had its first official event as a church with all of our groups together in one place on Sunday evening. We had a cookout and sand volleyball blowout, and it was just as good as it could be. The weather was nothing less than absolutely perfect, and I had a chance to meet a lot of the new people that have been exploring our community groups. We had 30+ people at the event and I was really excited about the potential that these groups are showing for connecting people through real relationships.

Of course we had some sweet volleyball action, but we also had some chill time to get to know each other as a large group. It really was an evening that God guided from start to finish. Thanks to EVERYONE who did ANYTHING from bringing a cooler, bringing a volleyball, making food, or cleaning up. You made it happen!

If you would like to see the complete album of pictures from the event, courtesy of Brian McCartney then follow this link to his Facebook page.