Life Point Blog

24 Hours

I am sitting in "MY CHAIR". Sweating. Nervous. Praying. Emotional. Tomorrow this time we will be at the Muvico Theater in Estero at Coconut Point. We launch Life Point Church. Tomorrow. The band is ready. The volunteers are in place. The Children's ministry is firing on all cylinders. We got fresh fruit and pastries from Panera Bread coming. We got coffee from Starbucks. We got banners and greeters and we got people who will make sure everything is ready. People who get it. People who want to be a part of this crazy journey God has called us to be on. We had 2 preview services... worked the kinks out. We got an interview in today's paper spotlighting the church. Read it HERE.

We ran a full page ad in the paper and even put on the neon sticky on the front page. This is the ad.

But I am in my chair. Scared. Its been a year and a half. A long journey but a great journey. Satan has thrown everything at us but has and will continue to fail. You cant stop God. Life Point is a God-Thing. Its not about Henry or Russ or anyone else... Its about Jesus. and the people who don't know Him.
I almost quit. Many months ago I almost gave up. I called THIS GUY... a fellow redneck preacher. My brother and friend. I am here because he told me to get off my butt and stop whining and do this thing God has called me to do.

I listened to him. Planting a church looks great on paper. The 100 things you must do to plant a church. Good on paper but crap in real life. NOTHING goes the way you want it to. Nothing happens clean and precise like on the paper. Church Planters listen it does not work that way. If God is in it... get off your behind and do what he called you to do. On paper... well we are not ready... We have NO money. 347.00 in bank right now.
I have raised Barely NOTHING money wise. I dont have everything bought and we are doing this literally on a shoe string.

But I would rather do this on a shoe string with GOD holding the string than have everything picture perfect But I tell you what I do have:
1: A PASSION for the people in SW Florida
2: A love so great for JESUS that I want everyone to know HIM.
3: Faith that GOD WILL BE GOD
4: A GREAT group of people who get it and are in this thing with me come hell or high water
5: People that are praying.

I WOULD TAKE THAT OVER MONEY ANY DAY!!!

So tomorrow we are firing this thing up. The ride is going to be awesome. People will meet JESUS. Lives will be changed and God will get ALL the glory.

But I am still scared as a possum in a hen house.

FGCU UPDATE

Spoke last night at CCF at FGCU. AWESOME. These kids are great and Lucas does a great job. Good crowd and here is the most awesome thing... 7 people found Jesus and 9 rededicated their life
16 new or renewed Christ-Followers. WOW!

Counting Sunday through Wednesday we know that from the preview services and ministry at FGCU the following:

12 People have gotten saved and now have Jesus as their Lord and Savior
16 People have re-dedicated their life and are now sold out Christ - Followers.
29 lives impacted for Jesus

The extra one is mine.

God is doing amazing things at Life Point and We are only through our first preview service. Our next service is October 28th and I promise all the kinks will be worked out and God will show up. Please invite people and Please see they will come. October 28th at 10:00 am at Muvico Theater.

I cant wait

2 Weeks To First Preview Service

Yesterday was just an awesome day:
1: Went to Summit Church in morning and saw their new building. AWESOME! Those guys are rocking. Jared and Orlando were on fire. A very moving service.

2: Ate lunch at Johnny Rockets and worked launch team meeting.

3: Todd and Tammy were just rocking yesterday getting everything done for last night.

Speaking of last night it ROCKED.

* Russ opened with prayer and gave the vision over view
* I taught on Luke 5:26 - 29 where Jesus calls Matthew - Follow Me- and then Matt throws a GREAT Banquet for Jesus with all MISFITS. I then talked about our vision to ask misfits to follow Jesus.
* We had great pizza, fresh baked nestle cookies and awesome fellowship
* our launch team grew by 7 more people

4: Our house band is going to ROCK! these guys are pumped and Mitch, Dixon, and Manny are totally professional and got the vision. We met afterwards to talk about the music and what it looks like.

5: The whole purpose of Life Point Church is to attract the misfits of the world and then Transform their lives through Jesus.

TRANSFORMATION

Wow what a night.

Incredible Day

Sunday night worship with our launch team was incredible! Thanks to Ali and Dennis who lead our music. Dennis is a really good guitarist. Very talented. Ali sang several songs and did a great job. She has a great future ahead of her. I taught on Luke Chapter 5 and the leper Jesus healed. I brought out the point that Jesus touched the leper before He healed him. I love the part "if you are willing". Wow. Jesus is willing to touch us when we are unclean. Whats awesome is that we all are lepers. We all need healing and Jesus stands ready to touch us. Whats even more incredible is that Jesus told the healed leper to go show the priests he was healed and cleansed. That meant he was RESTORED immediately. Jesus did not quote Leviticus 13 and 14. He immediately healed him and restored him. That speaks volumes to those of us who have "leprosy". Wow! This Sunday night we talk about the paralytic who Jesus healed with all the "Church" watching. All they cared about was Jesus' actions. They did not care about the healed leper. HMMM. Wait til Sunday...

Anyway our preview dates are October 14 and October 28. We launch November 11, 2007. 11.11.07. It is coming together. Todd and I had a great meeting with a really talented guitarist this morning. He is going to help us pull our band together. He is really connected. A good fit and truly gets the vision. Really humble about his talent and boy is he talented. Looks like the music will be okay.

I continually am amazed at this journey and how God is blessing it in so many ways. How he is providing and protecting the ministry by getting the right people on board. Glory!!!

Great Insight From Gary Lamb

Gary Lamb is one incredible human being. A true friend ( we both love bar-b-que and are rednecks at heart). He is also one of the best pastors and planters I know and is a legend in the blogging world. I am honored to call him a friend. He is the man at Revolution Church. He is a primary reason I am still in the ministry. He is also setting the town of Canton on fire for Jesus. He wrote the following about what he wished he had known when planting Revolution Church. Here they are directly from the man himself:

"I had a church planter email and me ask me the top 10 things I know now that I wish I would have known when we launched. These aren’t the top 10 things I would tell a church planter, just the top 10 things I wish I would have known when we started. The question really got me thinking so in no real order here they are:

1. Be secure in your calling. Already talked about that here.
2. People who come one time and act like you are the greatest thing in the world, want to sign up for everything after one visit, talk about how they are called to ministry after one visit, etc are the ones that won’t last long. It happens every time.
3. You can NEVER cast vision too much. Volunteers do what they do because of the vision, not because they need something else on their schedule.
4. Small groups are a lot of work and NO ONE is doing them well especially if they are reaching unchurched people. However when they run right there is nothing greater.
5. Who you do this thing with is so important. Do it with friends and people you enjoy being around.
6. Don’t be afraid to talk about money. The bible talks a lot about it and it is part of spiritual growth. Big vision takes big money and God uses people to fund that vision.
7. Be yourself. The world doesn’t need another Ed Young, Andy Stanley, Rob Bell, or Erwin McManus. It does however need you to be you and who God created you to be.
8. Don’t be afraid to lose people. I never want to see people go, but there are times when people nned to leave and in the early days I was too afraid to lose people that I kept people around that needed to leave.
9. Take time off!!!! Starting a church is a marathon, not a sprint. You are in this thing for the long haul so take care of your body, your mind, your soul, your marriage, and your family now where you can be doing this thing later.
10. Enjoy the ride. Quit worrying about the next growth barrier, the other churches in town, the critics, etc. Just enjoy what God is doing. Stop and smell the roses. If you don’t do it now, you never will. Keep pushing to reach more people, but enjoy what is happening while it is happening."

Unbelievable the insight this bubba has. WOW
Thanks Gary

Sunday Visit To First Chrisitan Church

Today we visited First Christian Church in Fort Myers. FCC is a very established church with 2 services and a boat load of ministries. The praise and worship was true blend of the old traditional and the new contemporary. Pastor Gary was in Costa Rica on a mission trip so the executive pastor Mike, did the honors. He talked about Andrew and Jesus calling him. Pretty good sermon but ALOT of points. They had a baptism and communion and a commissioning of a missionary. All in all it was pretty cool.

However, there were no greeters we saw and no one really came up to us to say hello. The exception was a few pastors who some of our team knew. The children's ministry was really good with lots of kids. IT was comfortable and worshipful and established.

Afterwards we went to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. That was WONDERFUL. Why? Or team just got to hang out for a couple of hours. We are at the point we are now family. I love this team! I am telling you God put all of us together to accomplish something for the Kingdom.

Next week we go to the East Coast to see my brother Bob Franquiz. Bob is a fellow blogger and you can read his blog HERE. He is the founding and lead pastor of Calvary Fellowship and their website is HERE.. Bob has written 2 books: Watermark: An Explanation of Baptism and Elements: Starting a Revolution in Your World.

This will be the first time the team has seen a church in a movie theater. So we are pumped. Bob is going to hang out with us after church( of course I am buying lunch) and our team and his team get to play together for a while. This is going to be so cool for us and really bring the vision for us home.

Weekly Update

It is incredible to look back on a week where you can literally see the hand of God moving in such a way that says " I AM WITH YOU!" Boy some incredible things happened this week.

1: God keeps bringing new people to check us out. This week I have met so many people that are stoked about a church coming to Coconut Point Muvico Theater.

2: Our team God is putting together is just the MOST AWESOME TEAM I can imagine. Russ, Jim, Angelia are pure talented God ordained incredible people and I am SOOOOO blessed to have them on this journey with me. Chad, Wannah, Todd and Tammy are people that are just INCREDIBLE!!!

3: We are going to Summit Church at FGCU this Sunday. Those guys are incredible.

4: The other morning we were at a live remote at Johnny Rocketts right next to the Muvico Theater. Wild Bill was there from Fox News. Tom, the manager is hooking up with our team and will be coming on Tuesday nights. They will also partner with us each Sunday along with The Soup Man, (Tom & Pat), the Asian Co. (Bruce) and the Nestle Cookie Company (Eduardo) All these guys are right next to the Muvico Theater and will be providing food each Sunday!!!

5: Its happening. Life Point is getting LIFE!!! I love this excitement and buzz and people coming up to me at the mall and saying Hey when is the first service. I love my team. I love our staff. I love my Lord. I can't believe I get ot do this everyday. Somebody Pinch Me!!!

Whats Been Going On...

It has been a crazy couple of weeks... in a good way. Things are progressing very well. Here are some highlights:
1: Had another incredible launch team meeting and are getting to the point of "rolling up our sleeves". There is SO much work to be done that at times it seems overwhelming. But I love it.

2: We had a praise and worship service Sunday Night at the Tahitian Village rec center. IT WAS AWESOME!!!! We had almost 30 people!!!. I preached on "Baggage." Everyone, at the end of the service brought their "bag" to the wooden cross we had made and laid it at the cross. Then took a nail and nailed it in the cross, symbolizing release and freedom because of Jesus' death for us. Then went to the communion table and took communion. It was a powerful experience.

3: Smitty, and his team went to the prison on Saturday for their ministry. It was a HOME RUN. They had over 130 baptisms. They played twice and many people got saved and baptised right in the yard. AWESOME!!!

4: We all miss James "The Lessor". He is visiting family and has been gone for almost 10 days. He is coming back Thursday night. Jim... WE MISS AND LOVE YOU MAN!!! I promise we are going to work his butt off when he returns.

5: I lost my voice from a cold and preaching. All of our team said a prayer of thanksgiving :-)) What's up with that????

6: We got a busy rest of the week. Smitty and Catalyst are playing at the park tomorrow. Tonight we are having a little fellowship at one of our staff's home. Thursday morning we are going to a community event at Coconut Point. Friday evening, Wendy is playing a gig at The Grape again at Coconut Point. We have a launch team meeting on Thursday night. Sunday we are going to visit Summit Church at FGCU. WOW!!!!

7: I love this team!!! I love this area!!! I love being a church planter!!! Most of all I love Jesus!!!

Sunday Night Update

Here is an update on where we are:

1: Tuesday we had another incredible launch team meeting. We DOUBLED in size!! Go GOD.
2: We decided the best scenario would be to meet for launch team worship every other Sunday night at 6:00 pm and the the alternate Sunday morning visiting churches in the area.
3: Went back to Next Level Church. Pastor Matt Keller knocked it out the park. He and his team started a new series called Take Me Out To The Ball Game. It was awesome. Great job Matt and team.
4: Our team thoroughly enjoyed themselves and really got a fresh look at just what Life Point is going to be all about.
5: We got a real chance to land the most incredible Children's Minister I have EVER SEEN!!. Already her ideas are off the charts and her goal is to have The Best Children's Ministry In SW Florida!
6: We are blessed to have another team member who is one of the neatest people I have met. He has "local knowledge". He is one gifted individual and I know God is giving him the vision for Life Point and particularly the Coconut Point area.
7: I LOVE what I am doing. I LOVE being a church planter. I LOVE the people in SW Florida. I LOVE the fact that God is working in a mighty way. I LOVE our launch team. God is putting the most awesome and gifted group of people together. PRAISE TO YOU JESUS!!!

Podcast With Tom Cheney of NAMB

While I was at the Exponential Conference, my friend Tom Cheney of the NAMB interview me for his podcast. YOU can listen to it HERE.
Tom is a church planter's kind of guy. The Church Planting Village at NAMB is full of rich resources to assist the planter in every phase of the journey. Thank you Tom for the honor of being interviewd and thank you and your team at NAMB for the heart you have for church planting.