Life Point Blog

The Evolve Conference

Yes we are taking our entire team for Life Point Church. Registration is open for the churchplanters.com conference. This is the best conference out there for church planters. As Gary Lamb said I didn’t say the best church planting conference, I said the best conference…period.

This year looks to be just as good. Seriously I would put the line up of main session speakers up against ANYONE. Bil Corneilus, Steven Furtick, Darin Patrick, Mark Batterson, and Shawn Lovejoy. That is an amazing group of speakers. Shawn Lovejoy is not only a friend but one of the great people, pastors, church planters I know. They are where we are going to be 5 years from now. Plus I owe him bar-b-que. :-)

Along with the main sessions, I think they do the best breakouts anywhere. Gary Lamb will be teaching on the subject of portability is not an excuse. Revolution Church does know about being portable.

Get Going and sign up NOW. The current special price right now is $99!!!!

be there... we will

My Thoughts on NNCC

Okay, I am in Naples and tomorrow is officially day one on site. I am scared and alone and can only rely on God for this journey. Tadd, please tell Gary Lamb to start reading my blog again since I am blogging about ME and this journey. I love you Gary Lamb... You are one of the main reasons I did not quit ministry a few months ago... one conversation... man you rock.
But here are my closing thoughts on the NNCC. Yes the master blogger list is almost ready and will be forth coming as well as all the notes I could find on all blogs and people emailing me.
Here goes:
1: Todd Wilson is one of the most impressive individuals I have ever met. He is smart, a leader, and now a friend. Todd, I will volunteer to help you any time. Thank you for letting me serve.

2: Pat Ferguson is an incredible guy who is part of Life Point's team indirectly. We are using Passion 4 Planting and specifically CONVERGE. All I can say is if you are planting a church and NOT using CONVERGE, well you are just STUPID.

3: Brianne is the most incredible organizer I have seen. She is responsible for the success of this conference and if Todd and Pat treat her bad in any way I am coming to Va and kick their butts (in love of course)

4: Todd Wilson's mother Rose; is a whole lot cooler than he is.

5: Jason Dukes is not only a great pastor/teacher ( I was at their church last Sunday) but an incredible leader. I got to know him as we worked off each other all week. Jason... you are a friend and ministry partner and I look forward to next year working with you if you will have me

6: The entire volunteer team was incredible. We all got along, became friends, and there was never any problems among us. Highly unusual. Great Job guys. Esp Rob Collingsworth (dude even tho I got socks older than you... you rock)

7: The blogging lunch was the highlight of the week for me. I am not going to name all the guys here because your egos are way to BIG as it is. But you are now friends and prayer partners and even more, fellow sojourners.

8: I got to know Alan Hirsch AND Andrew Jones AND Shawn Lovejoy this week. Alan, I will see you in San Francisco and thanks for the great talks we had during the week ( sorry we never found your sign) Thank you for letting me serve you. Andrew, I will see you in Oxford later this year. Thanks for the invitation. I cant wait to hang out with you. Shawn I have an incredible respect for you and you have influenced me more than you know. It was an honor to meet you and I will buy you a steak dinner for some one on one time with you at Ruth Chris Steak House.

9: Dave Ferguson: YOU ROCK... Thanks for being on my prayer team, letting me bug you with so many questions and emails, Thank you espec for what you did for me at the end of the closing service. I will never forget that. I am going to make my son Mark name his first child Dave Ferguson Judy. :-)

10: True confession... After Bill Hybel's talk, I went forward and cried like a baby on the alter. It hit me... I do not have just a hankering for this area, Life Point Church, other church planters and for people to come to Jesus. I have a PASSION BEYOND MEASURE! I have to do this or DIE. Todd thank you and Margaret ( who is THE sharpest woman and one of the most brilliant thinkers I have ever met and I am honored to call her a dear friend) for what you did for me at this time.

11: FINALLY to a group of guys from WEST VIRGINIA... you know who you are... You prayed for me personally right in front of everyone and as new friends and fellow bloggers and planters... Well I dont even have words ... you guys ROCK!!!

OK One More Thing...

I have been asked not only to compile the Exponential Bloggers Roundtable Book of Life according to Andrew, BUT the conference notes. SO heres what I will do. I will go and compile all the notes that are posted on all the blogs. IF you have some notes email them to me HERE and I will use in the master.

Wouldn't it be cool to have an outline from all the main and breakout sessions in one convient PDF or Word File... The man in the orange shirt lives to serve

NNCC Bloggers Luncheon

I am putting the blogging luncheon list together. I have a lot but if you want your blog on the list email me here

Henry

The Big Idea

Dave Ferguson sent me a copy of his book The Big Idea.

I have read it once and starting my second read. I have to tell you it is one of the most incredible books I have read in a long time. I am not just saying that because Dave is a friend and mentor. I am saying that because utilizing The Big Idea paradigm could revolutionize the church and firmly establish a model to accomplish in part the Acts 1:8 principle of the Jesus Mission.

I even had to buy another highlighter. I will be posting a complete book review here and on Amazon next week. This is a MUST read book for any pastor or church.

Nelson Searcy & Launch Conference

Back from New York. Now I know why I live in Florida. Conference was overall good. I would rate it a C+. I have 16 pages of notes Download Blog_Notes_Launch_Conference.pdf

Basically they walked us through the book in a fill in the blank format. Not much new stuff but heavy on the "What" and not much on the "How". This is a major weakness of the book and conference.

Good Points:
1: Free in Cost
2: A good basic linear approach systematically laid out for starting a new church
3: Great stuff on monthly services and building a launch team

Bad Points:
1: No price break on resources. For example the cost of the book was $15.00 at conference when Amazon is showing a list price of 12.99 and you can buy it for 10.99. All of the other resources were very expensive.

2: The constant plugging of resources by Nelson. I stopped counting at 31 times a plug in some fashion was made for products.

3: A seamingly standoffnish by both Nelson and Kerrick. For most sessions they just disappeared when they finished. Some sessions they stuck around but for most part just went out side door. One thing I noticed was when one attendee came up to Nelson and ask him to sign his book and was put off until the break because they had to speak exactly 2 minutes and 15 seconds later. (Yes I counted). WRONG... always make time. I would have signed the book with the guy right up on stage and use it as a plug for the book.

4: The fact they provided NOTHING for the attendees in terms of coffee or water or anything. However they came on stage with water bottles every time even after we were told we could not eat or drink inside the sanctuary. Wow!

I am not coming down on them but I ask one of them to look at my fund raising brochure and it was like yea sure but never ask to see it or ask me to send it to them. It was like they just did not have time for little ole me. I am not the only one to feel this way I heard.

All in all the conference was mainly to film Nelson and Kerrick for another resources to sell. This was apparent due to the separation from the audience. It felt like we were in a production studio at times. It was like the audience was not there. Like a podcast or something.

Anyway if you can get the book for 11.00 buy it but otherwise download my notes and save the money.

New York Bound

I am on my way to New York for the Launch Conference with Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas. This promises to be a great, 2 day conference on how to launch a church from scratch. I will be posting notes from all the conference as I am able. Their book was just released and after the cursory reading is a timely, and important work to the planter. The only problem is the weather in NYC: 30 degrees right now. That was 40 degrees colder than Florida. Burrrr....

Must Attend Conferences 2007

By last count there were over 100 conferences scheduled for pastors and planters in 2007. We are definitively going to attend two of them. The first will be the Church Planters Conference in Atlanta Feb. 26-27. Perry Noble Dave Ferguson and Ed Stetzer are the keynotes. This is a must attend for anyone who is planting a church.

The other one will be The National New Church Conference or The Exponential Conference in Orlando April 23 -26, 2007. This too is a must attend since it will be the largest gathering of church planters ever assembled in one place.
The main speaker list is huge: Vince Antonucci, Mark Batterson, Matt Chandler, Wayne Corderio, Bil Cornelius, Dave Ferguson, Bill Hybels, Bob Logan, Shawn Lovejoy, Larry Osborne, Darrin Patrick, Jim Putman, David Putman, Bob Roberts, Rick Rusaw, Ed Stetzer, Ron Sylvia just to name a few.

Check out the websites for each one:
Church Planters Conference
The Exponential Conference