The Art of Organization

I am A.D.D. Not officially, but my brain seems to goes in every direction possible. Not sure if you can relate, but if you can, then you know that it can be frustrating not to have organization in your life.

I recently found a few things that I have added to my life that have helped me. 1. People 2. A Calendar 3. Communication.

I notice that if I can take out a little time to add these things to my life it can save me a lot of stress. It is kind of like disciplining a child. A parent can either stay on top of them when they are young and make sure the child does not rule, reign and run the house. If a parent actually parents the kid when they are young then it saves them a lifetime of being ruled by the kid. If a parent does not discipline, then the child rules the rest of their lives in many different areas and many different ways and the parents are frustrated. The point is this; take out a little bit of time to parent well and it will make life a lot easier. I am finding it is the same with organization. Take out a little time to organize and everything will be easier.

In leading a church, I have put two other men by my side (people). We meet weekly to talk about the direction of the church (communication) and plan out where we want to go and what we want to do to get to where we want to go (calendar).

The same with my home life. Faith, my wife, and I are still working at this, but I will meet with her (people) and talk through things (communication) and write them down (calendar). Here is a perfect example. Right now we are working on moving into our new house! So that is exciting, but it takes a lot of work. We are working now with getting people to help (people), getting dates set to move (calendar) and getting a list set up for what people can do when they get here (communication).

I am not an expert, but this is where I am and what I am learning. I hope this can help you.

I Can See Clearly Now the Pain is Gone

Wow. I can finally see clearly now that the pain is gone. Do you have a kid or know someone that has a kid that made a mistake? At some time they were told, "No", for something, but it was just one of those things that they had to learn by themselves. I remember the other day when we told Kylie (4) not to jump off of the helicopter at the playground. The helicopter is the tallest toy at Northgate Mall playground. You see, Kylie had jumped off the rest of them and had to jump off this one. We told her no several times. With her cute, "Please Daddy" look she conned me into holding her while she jumped. Within 5 times of jumping she talked me into letting her do it by herself (sly little thing). She is the negotiator in our family. She is four years old and the CEO of the Deweese clan. Well, she jumped, and you guessed it; she hurt her ankle. Through all of the whining and "daddy pleases" she got her way and got hurt.

I recently got hurt trying to do church by myself. My prayers were to God and my heart was for God, but I was doing it my way. I have been through a lot of pain the last couple of months. There have been several times that I have been close to saying "I Quit". (That is where the logo from LifeChurch.tv comes into play. nice plug huh?). I had put the pressure of growing people on my shoulders. Thats right, for some reason I thought it was my responsibility to grow people in Christ. I guess when you are so caught up in wanting to jump off of the helicopter, what once seemed clear is now a blur.

I talked with some men in my church and a buddy/pastor Mark "show me some" Love and they were all a huge encouragement to me. They helped me through the pain and see a little clearer. I went through some pain and the main thing that I learned is that I need to quit. Not my job, but quit taking Gods job. This had messed me up so bad that we made sure we put it in our vision statement to make sure we do not go back to it again. At Awaken we have divided the vision into two parts. Awaken: The Organization and Awaken: The People. Awaken Organizations responsibility is to simply lead, aid and equip the Awaken People. Notice I did not say grow. The role and goal of the Awaken People is to grow in Christ, Connect people to Him and live in Community together. I feel free now, but it took having to go through the pain to live in and experience the freedom now.

Well, Kylie's ankle is better now and so is my focus. Hopefully we will both gain some wisdom and avoid our falls next time around.

One of My Biggest Mistakes as a Church Planter

Well, before I start, the only people that may relate to me on this post could be church planters. Not sure if your experience is like mine, but if it is, then you feel like you are always failing.

This is such a hard job and I now see why that when I started many people said if you can do anything else in your life but plant a church, then do it! You have to be called to this stuff. This is tuff.

Well, the bottom line is that I messed up the vision. Yeah, the vision. Yeah, the number one thing that everyone in the church planting world tells you to keep at the front of all things and do not let go of. Some even saying, "Be mean about the vision". Well, let me tell you how I messed up and maybe it will give you a wake up call, or maybe not. Maybe you will fail too and it will take you failing for God to bring you where He wants to bring you.

I had the vision. I spoke the vision. Over and over again. My people knew it. Great!, Right? No.... People started to get tired of the vision and some even left. Disheartening, but God is in control when we are weak and even foolish. So, what was my problem? For the last serveral years, with my core group and even after we launched the church, I was preaching the vision and kept pointing our people toward the vision. It looked like this: our people ----> VISION. Right? That is what I learned. But the problem was that I was pointing people to a mirage that did not exist. I was pointing people to great words of unfulfillment. Tragedy. God has taught me that the vision is not: our people ---> VISION, but OUR PEOPLE <----- vision. The vision of Jesus Christ was to come and save a depraved, broken, helpless world. To give us hope and life. Paul says in Ephesians that we are to equip the Saints for good works, not point the saints to a non reality.

You see, I was saying "Hey guys, lets do this and this". "Hey guys, what if God did that?" But none of this and that ever happened. The saints were not equipped.

Now, once the Saints are equipped, then you can point them to what God has called your church to do. Also, make sure the visionary has people around him to help organize and layout the vision in a calendar where you can see the vision in ink and what it looks like detailed out through a year. That has been another problem in our church. I preached the vision, but people did not see it played out. The vision was words, no one experienced it in reality. Now we are heading into a season where we have the vision, the Saints are equipped and they can see the vision. God is in the organization and clarity.

For some reason, although I have failed badly, God has kept people in our faith family and they have come around me to support me. I have a renewed passion. Now the goal is preaching the vision to our people and having them catch it and role with it this time around. This is tuff, but worth it. This is still my calling and I pray that God would use my weakness to make His name great. The challenges of church planting! Wow, what a ride of faith and failure.

Awaken's One Year Anniversary

We just celebrated our one year anniversary yesterday from when we launched Awaken. It went well. We had many people from our community come and had a record attendance of 80 people come out. It was also just our third meeting in our Middle Valley building.

Church planting can be a love/hate relationship. At times you wonder if this thing is really going to work even at one year in. At other times you cant believe what God is doing and the relationships that you have built. Yesterday was a good day. So excited to see what God wants to do. We know that we are in this thing for the long haul.

Our New Location.... Middle Valley.

Mid September will be the one year anniversary for Awaken Community Church. God has given us a little present as we turn one; a building.

I look forward to see what God will do in the lives of people in Middle Valley. I am challenging our church to meet people in the area, get gas in the area, eat at restaurants in the area and yes even move to the area. Why? Because if we really want to see the gospel of Jesus spread in our city, then we should start in the areas where we live. Many of the people in our church live five minutes or less from the new building. Jesus said to the apostles before he ascended into Heaven, "Go make disciples... into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the utter most parts of the world". Middle Valley is our Jerusalem. Many of us are already gathering creative ideas to influence and help our community.

I would like to invite you to our service on Sunday morning at 10:30 am. There are many ways to get involved; Sunday morning, small groups or serving. We would love to meet you, be a part of your life and encourage you to give up everything to follow Jesus. Our website is www.awakencc.org

Second Year, New Building?

Awaken is approaching its second year. God has done so much in the life of our church. It is amazing to read in Acts and see how they started the church out of nothing. We are starting our second year as a church reaching a dechurched/searching generation in Hixson, TN.

We have an opportunity that has come our way to rent a building at a stupid, cheap price. It is interesting to see what God has done in my life, my wife's life and through Awakens life even in the last few months to build character and responsibility in pruning us to get us ready for a building. It will take more leadership, giving, responsibility, faith to enter the building and hopefully will produce more dechurched people coming back to Jesus and finding hope, the lost having a Savior and our faith family being excited that we have a building where the urinal does not pee on you (our current building has some issues).

A lot of times in considering a new place, it becomes about the "New Place". I am trying to lead our church in our thinking that this New place is not the end of our vision, but just the next step in fulfilling our vision. I have heard horror stories of body of believers getting the building and then things start to go down hill.

"God, be our vision and lead us to build believers in Christ and reach a community far from You, for your glory". Amen

9 Months After Launch

Well, we have finished up our eighth month and heading into month nine into our church plant. In this blog, I would like to catch family, friends and supporters up on whats happened and also encourage and maybe throw some ideas our for other church planters.

Here is my blog for month 5 of the plant and I will just pick up from there.

We have leaders set up in each of the following areas:

Creative Arts - Brad Bennett
Connections - Brenda Haustein
Community Involvement - Dana Wyatt
Finance - JJ Jackson
Children - Brandi Jackson
Community Groups - Tony Holland

Tony, Awaken's Executive Pastor, oversees all of those groups and meets with each leader monthly. We are also start a bi-monthly meeting soon where all leaders meet together to evaluate church structure and systems.

It has been a great 9 months and especially the last few. We have had so many people stepping up and taking on roles, so that we, as a church, can fulfill the vision that God has given us; to change the Hixson/Soddy Daisy area because God is working radically through us. Each leader in the areas above are over a team and are in the process of working out systems and strategies to ultimately lead others closer to Christ.

We expect to have over 100 people meeting weekly in the Fall. With all of the relationships being built and the community that is happening, we are preparing and getting ready for the Holy Spirit to work in and through us.

Please continue to pray for us daily that we may submit our lives to Christ and follow the great commission in our city. Pray for a new building. We are growing out of our current one. Pray for the believers here to deepen their walk and commitment to the gospel, and pray that we would relentlessly take the gospel to our city and to the nations.

The Move

We finally moved to Hixson. It feels good to follow where God leads. I honestly thought if God called me to do something great, then it would be to raise a bunch of money to go to Africa or some far away country, but He didn't. He called me to go back to where I grew up to start Awaken Community Church.

We sold our house in 10 days and found an apartment in the area. We had family and many people from our church come and help us move. We have already met some neighbors in the neighborhood and around the complex and have had premarital counseling with two couples in our new living room. God is already at work in the new place.

We have laid our lives open before God to do what He wants us to do. We look forward to see what and whose lives He has in mind for us to be apart of.

God called me to plant a church. What has He called you to be apart of? May be you need to move on. Maybe its away from something or to something. Follow God, it may be tough, but follow the vision that He has placed on your life; it will be worth it and more fulfilling than anything that you will ever do in your life.

Five Months of Church Planting

Today I realized how much I love my job. We launched Awaken Community Church five months ago and it is going strong. We had one of the highest attendances this week (around 65) and at least ten new visitors. The two main groups we are trying to reach are the non Christians and the de-churched. These are people who grew up in church and for whatever reason, they were done. Here is what I have been learning to do lately:

1. Delegate and follow up with those who are taking on new responsibilities.
2. Always cast vision and actively do the things it takes to fulfill it.
3. Meet with leadership weekly.
4. Ask everyone committed their gifts and get them plugged in.
5. Make sure your main leaders are not getting burnt out.
6. Meet with people in your church weekly.
7. Always try to have a visitor over to your house to get to know them.
8. Focus on your strengths and fill your weakness when people come to fulfill them.
9. Be in the community meeting people and challenge your church too as well.
10. Develop leaders that develop leaders.

Thoughts on Church Planting

We launched our church in September and we are entering into our fourth month at Awaken. Here are some thoughts so far:

1. Must make time to pray.

2. Must make time to study.

3. Most things I have planned have not worked out the way I thought... different, better. Before you plan your church, become your church.

4. Give lots of money and invest lots of time in the community.

5. Family first.

6. If Jesus is not leading, I should not be going.

7. Always.... Always cast vision. Don't just cast vision, fulfill it.

8. Preach with the power of the Holy Spirit with confidence.

9. Be you, not the church down the street or on the internet.

10. Preach series, topic or verse by verse depending on your style and where your church is and what your church needs.

11. Build people not numbers.

12. Need to start baptisms and communion.

13. 65 people strong! - lots of responsibility.

14. Delegate, even if you can do it better.

15. Accountability and mentors are good to pray with and to gain wisdom, insights and share mistakes and successes with.

16. Find your identity and be you.

17. Never forget vision.

18. Be in the community, always meeting people.

19. Be with your church always mentoring someone. Set up leaders in your church to mentor others.

20. Get good small group leaders.

I Love my Church

I love my church. I have been attending churches most of my life and have been a Christian for 11 years now and I can honestly say that I LOVE MY CHURCH. I have liked many of my churches in the past, but I love it here at Awaken. Here is what I love about it:

1. The Gospel: It is preached; not weak or watered down, but just truth.

2. Music: I can relate to the music and worship God with songs that are relevant, meaningful and true.

3. The People: The people here at Awaken are awesome. Everyone is caring and real. They are the church, not a club.

4. Community Groups: I can meet with people every Tuesday night with laughs, food, the Bible, maybe tears and come away feeling like I furthered my walk with Christ.

5. The Place: We meet at the YMCA in Hixson. The Activity Center is where we meet. There is nothing amazing about it. It is small and old, but it is us. 

6. Age: Most people that do not go to church are between 16-29. We are 93% 29 and under. We are reaching the ones falling away. With that said, we need people 30 and above for leadership and wisdom. 

7. Mike Lamb: Mike Lamb goes to our church. Thats all that needs to be said.

8. Church Plant: We are a church plant, which means we can have new creative things that change the way people think and feel about church. 

9. Love and Honesty: Everyone loves and is honest about who they are.

10. Giving: Half of our money goes back into our community and missions.

I hope you have a church and love your church. If not, come become apart of us. If you do not live in Chattanooga I can network and find a church in your area.

What You Want is Not What You Always Get

Do you ever think that you have everything figured out about a goal or a dream and then not all the things that you put together turned out the way you thought? Maybe you had goal to workout and you bought all of your workout clothes, got your food list and set off on your journey, but you got busy and life crowded out your goal. Maybe you had a dream for a job or going to school and what seemed like a good idea seemed to fade away because time and life crowded it out.

I worked my tail off studying church planting and networking to launch Awaken Community Church. Not much has worked out the way that I had planned. It is for better and for worse. Worse - because I had all of my goals put into place, but other things changed the direction in where we went. Maybe it just hurt my pride and plans. For better because our team, our church, is loving one another and we are developing who we are; our DNA and identity. Because we are coming together, we have different thoughts and opinions that are making who we are. "I" launched the church, but when people came, "WE" became the church and now "GOD" is growing His church. It was all about God in the first place and we just had to play our roles to get where we are.

Now that we are 5-6 weeks in as a church, I can't believe where God has brought us. We have 60-70 people interested and coming off and on to Awaken, over 120 people attend since we launched and out of that group we have about 30 strong that are committed to grow in their faith and reach their community. I think 30 people excited about the things of God and people can change a city. 

Sometimes when things don't work out the way you want, you find in the end that although it worked out differently, it worked out better.

Easily Forgetful

I hate it when I lose the remote or my car keys. Its so inconvenient. I have to stop and retrace my steps. Sometimes I find what I was looking for, but sometimes it can take a few days or even a few weeks. Take the remote for example, we lost it 3 days ago and just found it tonight. Where? Right behind the cushion, where else? Go figure. 

Not sure if you have heard of the children of Israel. They were God's chosen people in the Old Testament. They followed God and many times rebelled and went against God. God would bless them at times and also discipline them at times, just as earthly fathers have to do sometimes with their kids. But the real kicker is the Red Sea.... God parted a sea. Are you kidding me? For me it takes faith to believe that, but for the children of Israel they actually walked through it. They experienced one of the coolest miracles of all times and yet they still forgot Gods promises and set their eyes back on themselves. They easily forgot about God.

As I think through that I wonder, "Wow, how could you turn your back on God after a miracle like that" and then I think of my life and the miracles God has done for me. It's easy for me to forget as well.

As I have been doing this church plant, Awaken, I have been doing a lot of ministry on my own strength. Today I was talking to a fellow church planter, Ryan, and I was amazed to see what he doesn't do with his time. He is more laid back and does a few things well and he lets the details work themselves out. I learned a lot today because I have been anal and stressing about all of the details that "need" to get done as we have launched our church. Today I feel like I have been set free from "doing ministry" and have peace, freedom and trust to let Christ build His church and I can be faithful with doing a few things well and let the rest work itself out. Not sure if you are a perfectionist or are anal about getting many things done, but I encourage you to let a lot of it go and just breathe and relax.... it feels good.

Awaken and the YMCA

We have our first practice service at the YMCA tomorrow morning. I am stoked. We are doing a run through with the greeting, kids and the main meeting. We want to make sure we work hard to make it easy for people to come and be loved at Awaken. Many people will walk in the door being very sketchy about God, church, Awaken and who we are. Many people will come to church one final time before they call it quits. What do we have to offer them: A program, tradition or love and compassion? We want to make sure we do a great job in our preparation that it seems effortless when people come and attend Awaken.

I always like to extend an invitation for people to come to Awaken because I truly believe everyone needs a real relationship with God and people. We want to provide that at Awaken. Come to the YMCA in Hixson on 9.13.09  at 10:30 and start over in life. 

Failures

The more that I look at my life, the more I realize that I have to trust in Christ. I mess up a lot. I fail a lot. I try to be a solid Christian, Husband, Father and Pastor, but many times I fail. I am continuing to realize that I will not be perfect in any of these areas and that I need to trust in Christ to help me be the man I need to be. The more I am seeking Jesus the better I do at these things and the more I stop wasting my time on things that do not matter. Its almost a formula for me: Trust in Christ = do things well and efficient. Don't seek Christ and waste time on meaningless things.

I have been really busy in life the last few months and have taken the latter part of that "formula". This past week I have been seeking Christ more and I can tell a difference in my life.

Awaken's New Location

Awaken started in a house with a good core group. After just a few weeks of meeting together we grew out of it and God opened up a door through pastor Mitchel Reaves at North Side Community Church. We have enjoyed our last few months worshiping together there. We have been praying that something would open up in our target area, and now it has.

Starting today, June 7, 2009 we will be meeting at Middle Valley Baptist Church from 6:00-7:15. The address is 7901 Middle Valley Road - Hixson, TN 37343.

Over the next few months we hope to meet new people that are not plugged into church. We will meet at Middle Valley until the end of August, then we move into our new location and launch Awaken Community Church to the community.

Bipolar Church Planting

Sometimes I feel bipolar when planting Awaken Community Church. I go back and forth with my emotions. One day I am exhausted from all of the long hard hours not to mention the spiritual, physical and emotional stress it puts on me and my family. The next day I envision families and generations changed because there was a church that reached out to them one day and loved them. It is day to day on how I am feeling and which way my emotions are swaying. I just have to trust in God and be under His leadership and protection to get through each day.

It takes faith and a lot of prayer to plant a church. I am also convinced that you have to be either crazy or called to plant a church. I praise God for what He has put on my heart and how He wants to use an average neighborhood kid like me to be a part of changing a city.

Please pray for me, my family and our core group as we continue this radical, faith building journey that God has put us on. Pray for patience, endurance, clear direction and an open heart to God and people. Pray for yourself to see if you should join us in anyway to be apart of this movement. To God truly be the glory for who He is, what He has done and what He continues to have in store for His church.

Free Money!!!

We had a great meeting last night at Awaken where we announced some big news. We are giving half of our money to our community and to missions. If you visit and give $50 to Awaken Community Church, $25 will go to help someone and advance the gospel. If you give $200, $100 will go out for life change. Think about this, if we grow and become a church with a million dollar yearly budget, that means $500,000 a year will go to our community and missions. That means an average of $10,500 a week will go to change our city!

Many may say that this would not be smart as a business standpoint and although I agree, we are not a business, we are a church. I understand that it may take me longer to get on staff full time, but the church should be about change in our community. We hope to bless single moms with groceries, give kids that do not have much some backpacks or shoes. There is so much we can do! When you think of Jesus and the way He lived his life, He had nothing. This is a challenge not only with our money, but also with our lives.

My wife and I are trying to eliminate all of our debt besides our house in the next couple of years. We want to honor God with our money and give to people in need. I challenge you to think through what you spend your money on and think about others and changing a community.

If you live in Chattanooga and have not found a church, I would like to invite you to our next Awaken meeting. I would love for you to become apart of a life changing and a community changing church. This Sunday we meet from 6:00-7:15 at 819 Mississippi Ave Chattanooga, TN 37405. Hope to see you there.

How to Start a Church

There are 3 areas that we are currently focusing on during this season at Awaken. They all gear around Sunday morning and they are; Connections, Program and Children. As I have been studying church planting, I have realized that these three areas must be done well or you will just have a mediocre church. (there area more areas, but these are our current focus)

Connections: Connections is connecting people to our church. What are you first thoughts on a church when you walk in? This has much to do with the Connections Ministry. Here are some questions we are thinking about: Do you have greeters in place? Do you give something to first time guests? Is what your giving them good enough? Is it too much? Do you greeters walk people to the worship service, kids area or the students area? Do we buy umbrellas and meet people at their cars when its raining or get a golf cart (that would be fun)? Do we have a follow up plan? DO we show love to the people that are walking through the doors? Do we have greeters that know how to greet or just let anyone who is willing do it? Much more...

Program: How is the service? How does the opening of the service work? Does the pastor welcome everyone or does another leader in the church welcome? Who leads worship? What kind of songs? How many songs? When do you do the songs; before, after preaching; both? How does the pastor communicate? Is the message thought provoking, funny, engaging, use object lessons, relevant, good, helpful, applicable and more? Do you have someone give a testimony, use media, play a special song, and do you have a reflection time? Much more...

Children: You could have the best welcoming/Connections team in your city and have a phenomenal program, but if you do not take care of peoples kids, then you have failed. Are our kids safe, have fun, creative, prepared? Have we done background checks, made T-Shirts, have a follow up plan? Are good effective people that love children in place to serve? Much more...

This is just the beginning, the tip of the ice berg. We are going to churches on Sunday mornings and studying these things. If you want to be a loving church that does things well, then you must make sure a lot of time and thought goes into each area of ministry. These things must be done well and have leaders that do them well. Poring your time into the things that matter show people in your community that you care about them. These are just a few things that we are looking into to start our church.

Take note: We have not launched our church. These are just observations that I have learned through study, asking questions to church planters, reading blogs, prayer, the Bible and more.

Take a Dump on You

OK, I know the title is a little "Middle School" like, but hey it got you here didn't it?

Imagine someone came into your life and just "dumped" a tone of resources onto your lap. Just say someone walked up and gave you a check for $50 and said I just wanted to bless you. Would that $50 change your life? Probably not. It may however, make your day or maybe even your week, but I will guarantee you this, YOU WILL NEVER FORGET THE PERSON THAT GAVE IT TO YOU.

At Awaken, we want Jesus to look attractive to people. We want our community to see the love of Jesus. I was talking to a few people tonight at work about targeting a Trailer Park in the area where we are looking to plant our church. I said what if we hung out there for a few weeks and started to get to know some of the people. After a few weeks, we put on a little carnival for the children in their community. Get inflatables, icee's, funnel cakes, hand out t-shirts and love on them. Finally we give every family a gift card to Wal Mart.

We also will build relationships with the people in the community and start a small group Bible Study. We start to target and pray for each home in that community that is far from God and pray that God would change their lives.

After talking about this I asked some of the people that I was casting this vision to, "Why wouldn't it work?" This really started getting me excited about my purpose in life and the purpose for Awaken. Would all of these people come to our church? I am sure some would, but that is not point at all. The point is just to love them. Most of them probably believe that Jesus exists, but have just not seen His love through His followers. So we are going to do it.

What are some creative ideas that you have wanted to do, but just have not had a chance to do it before?