This is my word for the day. I was having a conversation with my wife last week and I used the word frenetic to describe our pace of life lately. After arguing with me that it was not a word, I looked it up just to make sure and found the definition.

Fast and energetic in a rather wild and uncontrolled way: “a frenetic pace of activity”.

That seems to describe the last few weeks for us. Between my responsibilities at church, my classwork for the seminary classes I’m taking, raising three kids, and everything else I’m involved in, this has been a busy time. I seem to go through stages in life where everything hits at one time and I over-commit. That’s why the blog has been neglected a little lately.

It’s a challenge to abide in Christ when you become too busy. We have a rhythm of life where we must balance abiding in Christ and being fruitful. I’m doing a lot of good things right now, but sometimes the good can keep me from doing what is best. Here’s a question that I come back to when I think about my rhythm in life.

Am I working from rest, or resting from work?

There is a huge difference between the two. In the Bible, our rest is considered an act of worship. Honoring the Sabbath is even part of the ten commandments. God calls those who don’t work, lazy, but He calls those who don’t rest, disobedient.  I’ve been too busy lately, so I’m looking at my schedule to see what can be cut out. Rest is important, and if I am to abide in Christ and be fruitful, I need to have a healthy rhythm of life.

Frenetic may indeed be a word, but it is not one that should regularly describe our lives.

I had the honor of speaking at a fund-raising dinner for the Boy Scouts this week. I received my Eagle Scout award back in 1991, and Scouting was a big part of my teenage years. I loved the hiking and camping, and was even able to go backpacking in New Mexico at Philmont two times. In thinking through what I learned from scouting, I remembered one experience from my freshman engineering class.

I had good grades and was blessed to have a major university scholarship to Virginia Tech. I was in a special scholarship section of my freshman engineering class with a bunch of people that were smarter than me. The professor went through a series of questions about our backgrounds. He asked how many straight A students, how many perfect scores on SAT, how many valedictorians, and finally how many Eagle Scouts were in the class. Over half the class raised their hands and shared that they were Eagle Scouts and I realized that scouting had prepared me to be a leader. That one incident gave me the confidence that I belonged.

This week at the dinner, I shared some of the leadership lessons I learned from scouting. These have helped shape me into the leader that I am, so I wanted to share these lessons with you. I learned …

• The importance of discipline – There are constant goals you are working towards, and it takes discipline  to meet the requirements. You can’t quit until you reach your goal.
• The importance of working together – When you are backpacking, you have to work together and learn to get along with the people you are with. You learn a lot about conflict resolution and teamwork.
• The importance of responsibility – When teaching younger scouts or leading the group, you learn the importance of taking responsibility.
• The importance of being prepared – You never know what to expect, so you learn to always be prepared.
• The importance of ingenuity – Scouting teaches you how to be a problem solver. It’s a skill that defined my career as an engineer, and it definitely helps me in ministry as well.
• The importance of worship – You can’t help but worship when you see God’s beautiful creation. Hiking through pristine mountains teaches you to slow down and simply worship God.
• The importance of service – You learn how to serve others. The Scout Oath teaches you to “help other people at all times”

Scouting is so much more than hiking and camping, because it is a place where young leaders are developed.

I wanted to share this online conference for all of my ministry friends. Preaching can be tough. Every week you have the responsibility to share multiple messages with the people of your church. If you are like me, you appreciate all the help and training you can get. Here is an opportunity to learn from great communicators and pastors who do a great job each week preaching God’s Word.

On March 15th, from 1-4pm, you can watch this free online conference to learn how you can preach better sermons. Just go to the website and signup, and then login on the day of the event to watch and learn. For my local friends, if you would like to come join me, I’ll broadcast it on the big screens at Cornerstone. Let me know if you can join me for this. Here’s more information about the event

After talking to hundreds of pastors, we’ve realized that while preachers love preaching, it’s the preparation that often hurts.  So we’re going “behind the scenes” with some of America’s best preachers to find out how they bring great content week in and week out.

Would you like to hear how Andy Stanley, Perry Noble, Dr. Charles Stanley, Louie Giglio, and Vanable Moody prepare their messages?  How would you like to learn communication principles from one of America’s best comedians…Jeff Foxworthy?

All of this happens on Thursday, March 15 at 1pm EST.  And best of all, it’s 100% free. Preach Better Sermons is a free, three-hour, online conference focused on helping communicators prepare and deliver messages that matter.  Some of the best communicators in the world will unpack these seven preaching principles.

1. Start with the Scripture.
2. Keep it simple.
3. Make it portable.
4. Show it, don’t just say it.
5. Find common ground.
6. Finish early in the week.
7. Preach with the end in mind.

It’s 100% free and since it happens online, there are no travel costs.  Register for the free event here.

Last year, a group of community leaders came together to host the Chick-fil-A Leadercast here in our own community. We are excited to bring it back this year. The Leadercast will be on Friday May 4th, and will be from 8am to 4:30pm at the Crossroads Institute in Galax. Speakers include: Soledad O’Brien, Tim Tebow, Patrick Lencioni, Marcus Buckingham, John Maxwell, Angela Ahrendts, Roland Fryer, Urban Meyer, Andy Stanley, and Sheena Iyengar. Click here to order tickets or find out more information about this great webcast.

Many times I feel like the father in Mark 9:24 who says, ““I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” A lack of faith is usually directly related to a high need for control. For me, I like having a plan, and I struggle when the plan doesn’t work out as I have anticipated.  But God continually amazes me as He stretches my faith in every area of my life. And I’m learning that God’s plan is always better than my own.

On Christmas day at Cornerstone, we took up a love offering for our local Free Medical Clinic. As a church, we wanted to match the gift, so we encouraged everyone for several weeks that we would be collecting this on Christmas day. Honestly, I didn’t expect it to be very much. There were lots of reasons why I was anxious about the gift. We didn’t know how many people would come to church on Christmas morning, our love offerings have historically been low, and our area has been hit hard by job loss over the past few years. What happened next simply amazed me.

After we counted everything that was collected and mailed in, we ended up with a $10,000 gift, far beyond my wildest expectations. On top of that, as a church, we found a way to match the gift from our Missions Fund so that the Free Clinic received a total amount of $20,000! They have been struggling financially, so this was a huge gift for them. I am beyond excited about the generosity of our church, and I am happy that we are able to help support such a great local ministry.

The embarrassing part is that I really had no expectations that we would receive an offering this large, or even that we could match it. But God worked everything out perfectly. And here’s the really amazing part, our regular offering at church on Christmas was the highest one day offering in our history. My faith is being stretched and I am learning to trust God completely. I stand amazed!

I had the great opportunity to spend a few days at a church conference called The Sticks with a few of our leaders from Cornerstone. This conference is different in that it is geared towards churches in small towns. I’ve been to a lot of different conferences and seminars over the years, but this one had to be one of the best for us.

So much of what is taught at the big conferences are geared toward larger urban and suburban areas. Small towns and rural areas are forgotten and written off. But over the last few days, I was able to learn from and meet many other pastors who are facing similar challenges.Ministry in rural areas can be tough at times, and we face unique problems that only small town pastors understand. I want to give a big thanks to Cornerstone Community Church of Orangeburg, South Carolina for hosting this event. I’m definitely planning on attending again. I’ll try to share some of my thoughts about what I learned over the next few weeks.

A friend asked me last week about how we have structured Cornerstone for ministry. He was curious about how we do meetings and committees, and I realized that I haven’t really blogged about our structure much. So here’s a quick overview of our leadership structure.

Teams Not Committees

We don’t believe in committees. When you mention the word committee, most people picture a boring round-table discussion. Committees tend to review decisions and they are typically structured to prevent bad things from happening. Just like in sports, a good defense is important, but you can’t advance the ball down the field if you are always playing defense. That’s why we like meeting as teams instead of committees.

In a team, everyone plays a part and the goal is to do ministry. Instead of control, the focus is on action, so our teams are structured around ministry instead of decisions. This involves a high level of trust, because you have to trust ministry leaders to make daily decisions, but it empowers people to make a difference. Instead of having to clear every decision through numerous boards and committees, they can focus on ministering to others. In order to do this, we have created a system that allows for strong leadership with accountability, a system designed around trust and around action. Here’s how.

3 Tiered Leadership Structure

A new church has the advantage of creating a structure. While the Bible has much to say about the roles and functions we have in a church, the Bible does give us freedom in structure and methodology. At Cornerstone, we studied the Bible and other churches and came up with a system that we hope is both Biblical and effective. It’s based on 3 main leadership groups: our Elder Team, our Administrative Team, and our Ministry Leadership Team. Keep reading to find out more.

Continue Reading…

I’m officially a student again! I started taking classes this week through Liberty University Online. About 8 years ago I started taking classes for my Master’s degree through Liberty’s online seminary. At the time I was working a full-time engineering job, doing part-time youth ministry, and raising a young family. I took a few classes, but I found I had too much to do and not enough time to get it done. So I put my plans aside and waited for the right time to jump back in.

It took me a while to get to the place where I was ready to think about classes again, but I finally started the process. A few things have definitely changed. They don’t mail out VCR tapes now and the internet has really changed how you communicate with professors and other students. Liberty does a great job providing opportunities for people everywhere to take classes. I was able to find a scholarship and work out the financing, and I signed back up. I’m currently working on a Master of Arts in Christian Leadership Studies. I believe that all leaders should be learners, and this is an exciting time for me as I stretch my leadership by learning more about how to lead like Christ.

It’s still going to be a challenge to find the time to fit in studying and writing papers, but I’m confident that I can get through this with God’s help. This semester I’m taking Biblical Foundations of Christian Leadership, Church Growth, and Systematic Theology. I appreciate your prayers. As a wise man once told me, “I need the prayers, and you need the practice”