One of the things that I love about NewSpring Church is that we are not afraid to change to meet the growing needs that our church has. Change is sometimes a very hard thing for people to cope with. They struggle with it, they agonize over it, and sometimes they are flat out against it! I believe that the reason so many struggle with change is because it is hard for them to let go. Let go of pride, position, power, etc.

The characteristic of our leadership team that is so prevalent is that they SOAK every decision in prayer. If they are going to change, they make sure it is what God is calling them to do. Now, understand that our leadership team is tasked with leading our church, which sometimes requires change without getting approval from everyone and their momma. They do not have time to get everyone’s approval because we are in desperate times…people are dying and going to Hell. My trust is in the Lord God Almighty and if God told them that we need to do something or change something, then lets strap on the boots and get to work! The church has the solution, and I am so thankful that our leadership team will not sit on the sidelines and watch people die and go to Hell! Because it is GAMETIME!!!

So with that said, I am changing positions at NewSpring Church. I am going to be transitioning out of the Student Ministry as a Student Pastor and taking on a leadership role in our Care Ministry. I will be serving alongside the best Care Ministry Staff in the country. My role will be to serve as Care Pastor for NewSpring Church with my responsibilities including overseeing and managing:

• 3 Other FABULOUS Staff Members
• Membership Process
• Baptism
• Pre-Marital Class and Counseling
• Benevolence
• Bereavement
• Hospital Team
• Meals Ministry
• Weekday Prayer Team
• Sunday Care Team
• Weekday Care Team
• Weekend Care Team
• Counseling for Men
• Recruitment and Training Care Ministry Volunteers

So many things to do and accomplish!! It is going to be exciting, so please pray for me as I begin a brand new area of ministry. I am looking forward to being able to serve Christ by serving people in a very real and tangible way! Let the adventure begin!!!!

My Tuesdays are usually slammed packed with meetings.  I usually start the day with a meeting 10AM-12PM, then sometimes a lunch meeting, another meeting at 1:30-3:00, another at 3:30-4:30, and finally a meeting to end the day at 4:35-5:00.  Well, today I am changing that up a little bit!  Since I lead or co-lead the final 3 meetings of the day, I am doing something a little different.  I am meeting my staff at 12:30 PM, we are going to enjoy a nice lunch together and then venture out on a field trip.

I have something that I want them to think about and evaluate and the best way to do it is in the form of  a field trip.  I always loved field trips when I was in school, so I figured I would bring that to the work environment!  I will post why we went with stories and pictures later on!  Well, got to run and get ready for a GREAT day!

Everyone on staff at NewSpring that has some sort of online presence (blog, Virb, Facebook, MySpace, etc.) met with Tony Morgan after our All-Staff Meeting with Perry. He gave us “10 Things to Remember When Blogging.” These things are all given to us to help protect us and the church as we all continue to reach out to others in the online community.

10 Things to Remember When Blogging:

1. Let your boss know.
   • Do you want your direct supervisor to be surprised?
2. Respect confidentiality.
   • Two questions to ask:
     • Is this news to people?
     • Has our Senior Pastor shared this with the congregation?
     • If the answer is no, then hold back.
3. Respect the church and the staff.
   • Have each other’s back.
4. Respect the law.
   • Make sure you have the facts correct, no copyrighted material, etc.
5. Respect your time.
   • Our first repsonsibility is to Jesus, family, and then to NewSpring Church.
6. Respect other ministries.
   • We shouldn’t say anything negative about another specific ministry or ministry leader, but should discuss strategies, etc. Remember, we are on the same team.
7. Let Communications Department know about media inquiries.
8. People will find what you write.
   • Google is a wonderful tool.
9. Once you publish it, it cannot be retrieved.
   • RSS Feed Readers are a joyous thing, but can be dangerous.
10. You never take your staff hat off.

It was a GREAT session, and these are all good things to be reminded of from time to time. Thanks Tony!

I would also say that we always need to remember why we are here on this earth: To Make Jesus Famous. Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men…” So, do you blog to cause a stir? Do you blog so your stats will rise through the roof? If you blog for any of those reasons or others that are not to Make Jesus Famous…then STOP right now! If Jesus is not the reason…then you have no reason! Just to add my thoughts to an already great list of things to remember.

We finished the first of two or five Easter Services at NewSpring Church. I did not sit in on a service today, but look forward to doing so tomorrow. From what I heard though….the music was jamming and Perry was hitting it out of the park.

The most exciting part of the night was that I got to spend a lot of time in the Theater 2 Room, the room for our 3rd, 4th, and 5th Graders! All I have to say is that NewSpring Church’s Children’s Ministry Staff is rocking it out! Today, the IGNITE staff made a guest appearance in this room to introduce ourselves to the rising 6th Graders! We gave a way a bunch of t-shirts, stickers, and gift certificates to the students. They were jacked up!

We wanted to get in front of the 5th Graders EARLY before they move up to IGNITE. We truly desire for them to stay connected and involved in the Children’s Ministry right up to the point they move up to our ministry. This will not only help the Children’s Ministry, but help us as well, so that we can stay connected to the students in a more effective way, instead of a “Welcome Letter” from someone they have never met.

I look forward to having all of them join our ministry…but, I really need to thank Pudge and Howard for giving us the opportunity to come in there and get in front of the students. So many churches and their ministries are territorial. They compete for resources, staff, attention, and so much more, but we don’t have to worry about that at NewSpring. Pudge and I consider ourselves a team! We take time out of our busy schedules to talk strategy, to listen to each other’s frustrations, hang out, and just chill. I consider it a part of my job to help Pudge and his team succeed. If Pudge is not doing his job of training up the students and getting them excited about coming to IGNITE then I am…well…screwed! I need Pudge, just like he needs Cherie Duffey, Preschool Director and just like Brad Cooper, High School Pastor needs me. We all need each other, we all need to work together to make it happen!

I hope that your church functions this way. I hope your ministries can rely on each other to help each other, encourage each other, and support each other!

For the past couple of weeks, I have been thinking about the people that serve on the Middle School Ministry Staff at NewSpring. We have a quite diverse group of young people. John Flowers, David Hall, and Lindsay Owens do an incredible job of serving our students. Each one of them have a passion for Jesus, for middle school students, and or the local church. I consider it a privilege to be able to lead, but more importantly serve alongside them.

For sometime now, I have had the feeling that we were not structured in the most effective way for us to continue to grow. As most leaders can say, “We need more staff!” Although, I agree that we could all use more staff, the bigger question for me became “Are we structured to continue to grow with the staff that we currently have?” My answer was no!

Marcus Buckingham stated, “Great managers find out what is unique about a person and capitalizes on that.” In an effort to be the most effective manager/leader, that was an evaluation that I needed to make of my staff. Needless to say, when I took a concentrated look at the unique qualities and passions of my staff, I knew that changes must be made.

First, I was trying to pigeon hole two different people into one job description/role. John and David are totally different in personalities and passion. How could I get them in a role/situation that would give them the best opportunity to succeed? That meant for me that I needed to put them in a role that they were excited and passionate about.

John’s strengths lie in creative thinking, brainstorming, creating videos, creating skits, acting, random thoughts, and creating creative environments/sets. David’s strengths lie in loving students, creating relationships with those students, being about to get into the student’s worlds, know what is going on in their lives, and a desire to push them deeper in their relationship with Jesus. How could I capitalize on those and still be effective and grow in the ministry? How do I make sure that every area they were responsible for continues to be covered as well.

The answer: CHANGE…MOVE OUT OF COMFORT…GET HELP! Now, David and John are both serving in their strong areas. David is in charge of campus visits (coordinating visits with volunteers leaders, schools, and making sure that they have permission and any information they need to visit students), follow-up, and assisting me create the best discipleship program for our students. John is in charge of our creative sets, skits, videos, and execution of the night at IGNITE.

John and David used to be over all of our volunteers. Now the volunteer leaders report to volunteer Team Leaders. These Team Leaders report to me. See I had to pull stuff off of my staff and take on some responsibility, but minimize that responsibility by recruiting people who wanted to love on small group leaders. This meant giving away responsibility to VOLUNTEERS. I was really nervous about this, but each Team Leader is stoked about it. They have arose to the occasion and taking on the care and ministering of the small group leaders. It has been great so far.

Also, the neat thing about it is that David and John are both recruiting leaders to assist them in these roles. they are are GIVING away opportunities to ENABLE others to serve Jesus. John has a team that meets with him each Saturday morning to discuss creative sets, design, games, etc. David is in the process of getting a group together to assist in visiting schools (we have over 10 represented in our ministry)and doing follow-up. That is so cool.

Lindsay, continues to do an AWESOME job of assisting me, keeping organized, scheduling appointments, and making sure my brain does not get fried. She has also taken on other responsibilities in accordance with her passion. She now takes care of all of our potential volunteers and walks them through the process of getting involved, volunteer training, volunteer appreciation, and much more. This is something she is passionate about and does a whole lot better than me!

These decisions and changes made me get out of my comfort place and JUMP into a place that is much better! Thank God for doing this and making it work! You are awesome!