WholeHeartedLife

Buckhead Nite of Worship TONITE

Hey everyone! Just wanted to make you aware that Buckhead Church in Atlanta will be LIVE Streaming their "Night of Worship" on their blog tonite at 7:30PM. It promises to be an unbelievable evening of worship that they want to share with the world. I for one plan to be "there" - hope you'll join me for the interactive experience.

You can link to it here .

Another transformed life...

"I was so out of it I had lost consciousness, but my body had kept going, down the middle of the road, cars whizzing by on either side. I had run out of gas on my way to a drug dealer's house, and from there I left the truck and started walking. I had taken Klonopin, a prescription antianxiety drug, along with whatever else I was using at the time, and the combination had put me over the edge. It's the perfect example of what I was: a dead man walking."

I don't know if you're a baseball fan or not, but have you heard of Josh Hamilton? What's more important is this question: do you know his story.

Monday night in the home run derby, Josh Hamilton hit 28 home runs in Round 1. You may not comprehend how CRAZY that is. Here's what isn't crazy - this guy, a former full-blown drug addict met JESUS and put his life and family back together and Josh is telling his story every chance he gets. Do you see what's happening? God did a great work in this man's life and now JESUS is giving Josh a platform to talk about it.

If you have a few minutes, check it out. God is good and is at work in this world drawing people to Himself - we're blessed enough to serve in the middle of it.

A Rockstar Learning to follow JESUS!

Credit goes out to Chris Reeder for this one. Chris is a church planter in nearby Florence, SC.

If you never listened to 80's rock this one will go right over your head - but those of you who know me know where I came from. It seems that C.C. DeVille, guitarist for the band Poison, is a new believer. A pastor from Nashville, Tn, was invited to hang with C.C. the other night backstage to pray and to answer questions that C.C. had about his newfound faith. Just a few years ago I saw C.C. on tv and he was a mess; his life seemed to be in shambles. Awesome stuff - Soveriegn God at work in places you would never imagined.

Here's the link to the post - it's definitely worth the read and the short documentary-style video is priceless. (Also, the comments are classic, especially the one where a guy condemns the pastor for not dropping the hammer on C.C. - keep going down for the pastor's great reply).

Somebody Better Praise Him!

This is what happens when people fall in love with JESUS and desire nothing more than to grow as one of His followers and worship Him with His people... beautiful

Do you Facebook?

Well, do you have one? What's the big deal? How does it work?

Facebook is a free "social networking tool" that can be used to stay in touch with people all over the world.

According to Wikipedia,

The free-access website allows users to join one or more networks, such as a school, place of employment, or geographic region to easily connect and interact with other people. Users can post messages for their friends to see, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.

I have quite a few friends on Facebook and it grows by the day but here's a few things I've found interesting about it...

• I've gotten back in touch with people lately whom I had lost contact with. Facebook is so huge that everyone's joining. I've enjoyed getting feedback on where different friends are and what they've been up to.
• The updates help me catch a glimpse of other's daily lives. I love the status update section (especially the ones of those who update a few times per day) because I have the opportunity to look into their lives and what they're experiencing. Whenever I log on I go to the homepage so i can get a quick update of what everyone has been up to "today".
• I get to see what they've been up to. The photos, videos and posts let me see them, their families, their interests...who they now are.

I know, I know...it's just another thing that everyone will forget about soon but in the meantime...

I'M ENJOYING THE OPPORTUNITY TO FOLLOW YOUR LIVES AND CATCH A LITTLE GLIMPSE OF WHO YOU "REALLY" ARE.

If you haven't joined but do, add me to your friend list. What are you waiting for? (ps - i expect a bunch of new "friends" by the end of today!)

What would U do?

A Picture on a table...

Don't forget: it's still not too late to sign up for the "Financial Life Experience with Joe Sangl" that will take place this Sunday afternoon at 3pm - do it here

Every once in a while i try to share with you some post that i have read that personally affected me. I also pass on stuff that would be helpful to all of us - today i've picked 2, so for a quick WholeHearted here they are:

"When to Pray for Your Pastor" - this was on Perry Noble's blog today - we cherish your prayers for us!

"A Lot of Candles" - this one is by a pastor named Vince Antonucci - he's in Virginia Beach. A challenging message...one day, we'll just be a picture on a table.

Four Qualities of an Awesome Team Member

Hey guys - i HAD to share this with you because my heart is SO in this place today...we can't go where we need to go if the people on our teams aren't awesome!! This goes for everyone - whether your on the worship team, the parking team, our staff team or a cooking team - i repeat: EVERYONE ON THE TEAM'S GOTTA HAVE CERTAIN QUALITIES or they will hold the team back.

Perry Noble has a great post about this that i SO agree with - check it out!

Reaching people can be Scary!

I just read a post over at Gary Lamb's blog about planting churches that truly reach the "disconnected" that was the RAWEST and most honest post on the subject i've seen. In it he says...

I honestly believe most planters would freak out if they started having to deal with the issues that come from reaching truly unchurched people. It is messy, ugly, scary...

When I say it is messy, I don’t think most guys understand what I mean, so allow me to walk you through my week that just got done. This is a pretty typical week at Revolution and the side 99% never see.

He then goes on to give examples. You've gotta read this whole post - reaching the lost is messy and uncomfortable - but it's what we're called to do!

Whopper Freak-out?

Have you seen the buger king commercial where they quit selling Whoppers? People are "freaked-out" and understandably so - Whoppers are what BK does - when organizations quit doing what the "do" they lose their significance, their meaning... they just exist.

"The question" shocked me the first time i heard it. I didn't like the answer i came up with. I've asked hyde park "the question" - matter of fact, I've asked pastors and other churches i speak at the "question". What's "The question"?

"If your (our) church was no longer here tomorrow, would anyone in your community miss it?"

The people who attend hp, they would definitely miss it. Those who have given their service to JESUS through this fellowship, they would miss it. But our community... would they? Would our "disappearance" from the landscape leave "a hole"? Would they even notice that we were gone.

The other night at the end of our music rehearsal we were taking prayer requests and people were sharing a lot of requests for what seemed to be "Hope-LESS" situations. In the end I told them, "I want everyone here to remember, we aren't offering people "church" or a better "church-alternative" than what they already have...we offer them JESUS and the prospect that HE and only HE transforms lives through the power of His Spirit. Otherwise, we're nothing more than another organization doing good deeds." We offer the Hope of JESUS to people who feel Hopeless through the means of a personal relationship with Him (Jesus - at least that's what I "signed up" for) - when we quit doing that, we've removed "the Whopper" from the menu.

Lately, there's been some talk about this in "blogworld": Jay talked about it here, Jake has an excellent post here, but Ben's link to "Burger King" (you've gotta watch this BK video, it's better than the commercial you've seen Great Ending!) says it all - Whopperless BK's? It would almost be like "Hope-Less" churches lacking the power of JESUS and the excellence He (and they) deserve...

May we always keep THE main thing OUR main thing.