• It’s hard to believe it is almost Christmas.
• I had to have the first draft of my Christmas Eve sermon to our teaching team yesterday.
• It was hard sledding for a while, but I think it hit a good spot for right now.
• I’m so thankful for the process of teaching we use and how helpful it is.
• My wife, Katie, preached her first sermon this past Sunday as we continued our series Unexpected: The Story of Christmas. She taught on finding hope at Christmas through the story of Elizabeth.
• I’m so proud of her as this was a huge step out for her, but her story fits so beautifully with Elizabeth’s.
• If you want to watch or listen to it, you can do so here.
• I don’t know about you, but I am excited about the College football playoff this year.
• Three teams that could be #1.
• It might finally be a good three games in the college playoffs.
• Our boys are super excited about the new Star Wars movie.
• I told them we need to rewatch the other ones.
• I don’t remember what happened.
• Guess I’m that age now.
• Feels like there are so many movies out now that I want to see.
• Started reading What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture over the weekend, and it might be one of my favorite books of the year. 
• We’re having a lot of discussion about church culture at our church right now, so it felt timely.
• I handed in my first draft of my Christmas Eve sermon yesterday to the teaching team.
• Thankful for the insight they give during the teaching process.
• Pretty nervous and excited about it.
• And I get to do it five times!
• This Sunday, we’re going to celebrate all that God has done in our church over the last decade as we get ready to transition to becoming the Southeast Campus on January 5th officially.
• We wanted to do it before Christmas break hit so we can make sure people are a part of it.
• It’s hard to imagine that we’ve met in 5 different locations over these years and all that God has done.
• I’m so thankful for this long, beautiful road He’s taken us on.
• And that we’re just getting started as we become one church in multiple locations.

It’s been a while since I posted a Friday Five. The transition of becoming a campus of Pantano Church has been an enormous one. A lot of people have asked how it is going, and it is going better than I expected, but it is more work than I anticipated (although I thought it would be a lot). Honestly, it might be harder than church planting. Maybe.

Right now, I am learning so much about church cultures, structures, merging churches, and those cultures that I can’t wait to write out and share because I believe that churches working together like we’re doing will become more common in the future.

Now, onto my Friday Five:

Favorite book:

I’ve been working ahead on sermon prep for 2020, and one of the series we’re doing is tentatively titled Invitations, and we’re looking at several invitations from Jesus. The idea is that the Christian life is a series of invitations: to follow, to abide, to renew our thinking, to let go of guilt and shame and so on. One of the books I read in creating that series was What Does Your Soul Love?: Eight Questions That Reveal God’s Work in You. Definitely one to put on your summer reading list as a leader to dive into what is happening in your soul. 

Favorite podcasts:

Carey Nieuwhof’s interview with Gordon MacDonald was one of the best podcasts I’ve ever heard in my life. It was so rich and had so much wisdom.

Craig Groeschel had a great podcast on how to cut the slack in your organization that has been incredibly timely for me in the midst of the transition our church is in. How to cut back on emails, meetings, and make quick decisions. So crucial for any leader or church to figure out, especially as a church grows or things become complex.

Favorite blog posts:

Five questions about motivation with Daniel Pink. This came on the anniversary of his book Drive and what has changed since then and stayed the same when it comes to motivation.

Since Thanksgiving is this week, here’s a helpful blog about how to teach your children (and yourself) gratitude.

I hope you have a great thanksgiving!

• I haven’t done a mind dump in a while and felt like today was a good day for it.
• I’ve been blogging a lot less lately because of the transition that our church is a part of.
• Someone asked me recently if joining two churches together was harder than church planting.
• I’m not sure which one is harder, but they both take a lot of work.
• What has been amazing to me, though, is how seamless it has been.
• Now, it has been hard, emotional, humbling, and everything in between.
• Daily I am reminded how God has gone before us and paved the way for this.
• I was reminded again and again yesterday when I got to kick off our brand new series How Could We Not? on the east campus.
• Everyone I talked to gets the vision of multi-site and is excited about it.
• It was stretching for me to teach three times in a row yesterday, but great practice for Christmas Eve.
• I slept almost 10 hours last night!
• If you want to watch yesterday’s message, it will be posted here.
• I love getting to work with the East campus of Pantano but also being able to team up with Glen Elliott, our lead pastor.
• He taught at the Southeast campus yesterday and did an awesome job.
• There are so many things about this step and transition that I am excited about, but one of the biggest ones is happening in 3 weeks to serve our city.
• Another reason I see God’s hand in this is how well the people of Revolution have processed this.
• There have been a ton of great questions and feedback.
• The responses have run the gamut of uncertainty to all-out excitement.
• But almost everyone has said, “We’re here, we’re in, we’re praying, and we’ll see what this is going to be like.”
• I couldn’t ask for anything more.
• We had someone come from the East campus yesterday to the Southeast campus for the first time, and they serve on they served on their first day!
• Three books that I’m reading right now that are stretching me: Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell, Stillness Is the Key, and What Does Your Soul Love?: Eight Questions That Reveal God’s Work in You. 
• One of my favorite parts of this multi-site transition has been the format of our teaching team and how we are putting together sermons and series with multiple teachers and working on them together.
• That is a longer blog post, but it has been exciting to watch it come together.
• Not only does it strengthen the teaching in our church, but is also still gives each communicator their unique voice and keeps the unity of our church.
• Introduced our kids to That Thing You Do! last night.
• Such a classic.
• One thing I love about the end of October is that it is finally cooling off!

It’s hard to believe it is summer. I’m a little over a week away from my summer preaching break and excited for some downtime with Katie and the Reich 5, to play, take some naps, explore and read some good books and have some slow days.

So, to help you with your summer travels here is my Friday Five:

Favorite book:

I recently read Tyler Reagin’s book The Life-Giving Leader: Learning to Lead from Your Truest Self. I mentioned Tyler in another Friday Five from a podcast interview I had with him. One of the things I enjoyed the most about this book is the parts about listening to your body, understanding what is happening inside of you while working and in relationships. 

I always have a novel going while I read leadership or ministry books, and I just finished Steve Berry’s new one, The Malta Exchange. I love books that involve church history (even if some of it isn’t accurate), I find it fascinating and this book, along with the series, was fantastic.

Favorite podcast:

I love all of Jim  Collins’ books, and when I saw that Tim Ferriss interviewed him, I was so excited, and this podcast episode did not disappoint. So much leadership wisdom packed into it.

The most recent Craig Groeschel leadership podcast on energy management might be his best episode yet. I love this idea and have found it to be right on in my life. This episode is a great listen for any leader (or parent) on how to know when you should do what in your life.

Favorite blog posts:

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on life stages and what happens at each life stage for a man, and it has been incredibly helpful. Helpful to see where I’ve been, where I am, and where I am going. The art of manliness had a great blog post that went with this in terms of anticipation in our lives.

What a week. Katie’s birthday was yesterday and mine is next week. Always fun that our birthdays are this close, but unfortunately this year we were traveling so we weren’t together yesterday. Life on the run!

I was able to lead a cohort of church planters for Acts 29 through some training, and she was at a conference in Atlanta.

But big plans next week!

Now, onto my Friday Five:

Favorite book:

Last week I read Managing Leadership Anxiety: Yours and Theirs by Steve Cuss. I loved this book. If you’re a leader, you need to read this book. I got so much out of it as it relates to the interaction leaders have with people, what runs through their heads and what happens between people. So helpful. 

Favorite podcast:

This interview with Tyler Reagin on leading a large organization when you’re not a detail person was gold. He got into important (but rarely talked about) leadership topics like self-acceptance and self-confidence. Been thinking about this a lot.

I love Marcus Buckingham’s stuff and how he thinks so differently about leadership, so this podcast interview was incredible. I took a ton of notes and immediately bought the book.

Favorite blog posts:

Leaders are culture makers, and every church has a culture. Too many though are toxic and leaders often feel powerless to change it. I know I have. But this post shares four keys to creating a healthy culture that fights against toxic people and toxic culture.

This blog post: The only metric of success that matters is the one we ignore was powerful, convicting and insightful — lots of wisdom here on the importance of friendships in our culture.

• Easter week.
• A busy but amazing week in the life of a pastor and church.
• I feel like we are flying into Easter week.
• Judah’s birthday was this past week.
• Can’t believe we’ve had him in our family for almost six years now.
• If you’ve been a pastor at your church for any length of time, you know the ebbs and flows of seasons in the life of your church. The same thing happens in a business.
• You have high seasons, hard seasons, seasons of unity and disunity — seasons of clarity and seasons where things are muddy and unclear.
• Right now is one of my favorite seasons ever in the life of our church.
• The unity of our team, everyone working in their area of giftedness, the clarity of our spiritual formation track and growth track is amazing (and working!).
• We just finished our series #RelationshipGoals, and the response was overwhelming.
• So many people took their next steps to work on their most important relationships.
• I had a couple who has been married for almost 50 years tell me they learned something new every week!
• I can’t wait for this weekend as we walk through the Stations of the Cross on Friday and kick off a brand new series on the book of Colossians on Sunday called Mastermind.
• I’m also looking forward to having a couple of weeks off from preaching soon.
• I’m heading into week 11 which is way past my normal rhythm and length of time preaching.
• So pray for your preacher!
• You don’t want to skip church this week; you’ll miss something.
• Have a great week!

Happy March madness. Hopefully, your bracket isn’t too destroyed and you’re getting some things done despite the temptation to watch every game!

Each week, I’m on the lookout for new books, recipes, podcasts, blogs, and other exciting things.

So I’m sharing my five favorite things (with 2 extra!) you should check out this weekend.

If you don’t attend Revolution Church, you may not know that we are in the middle of a series called #RelationshipGoals. This past Sunday, my wife Katie and I taught together on the marks of a great marriage. We also did a live Q&A at the end that you can watch here. You can also read some ideas we shared on the idea of a love bank and why that matters in every relationship you have. We based a lot of our sermon on the book His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard Harley.

Here you go:

Favorite book:

I’m always reading a novel as a way to shut my brain off and take a break and finished up the new gray man novel by Mark Greaney called Mission Critical. This is one of my favorite novel series right now.

Favorite podcast:

This podcast interview that Carey Nieuwhof did with Drew Powell and Matt Warren on Why Attractional Church is Past Peak, Why It’s Changing and What’s Next for Weekend Services was incredible. So helpful to see how a church is transitioning and reaching new heights.

Favorite blog posts:

Pastor, did you know that You’re Hurting the Female Leaders in Your Church (and You Don’t Know It)? I loved this article and can’t wait to read her book. We’ve been making a lot of changes in our church in this area and I’m excited about the future.

What makes the perfect team? Every leader wants to know this and while this research has appeared in a variety of places, I appreciate how Todd pared this down for us.

This video of a military dad surprising his son at taekwondo is so perfect and will make you cry

It’s the weekend…finally.

And since it’s the weekend, it’s the perfect time to catch up on some reading. Below, you’ll find some articles I came across this week that I found helpful as a leader and parent and hope you do as well.

Before we get to those, I wanted to share some exciting news from our family.

I also wrote two other posts this week that I hope helps you. One is on how to fight for courage in your life. We’re in the new year and maybe you made some goals, maybe you didn’t. My guess is, there is a relationship or somethign in your life that requires courage, a step to take. If so, you have to fight for courage. There are 5 things that can destroy your courage.

The second is how to let go of hurts in your life, especially if you are a leader or in ministry. It is hard when you’ve been betrayed, you’re run down or exhausted, maybe you feel unappreciated or overlooked. At that moment, you have a choice and depending on what you choose will determine where you end up. I give you 9 ways I’ve learned to let go of those hurts so you can move forward. .

And in case you missed them this week. Here are the top 3 posts on my blog this week that I hope you find helpful:

• Five Things That Destroy Your Courage in Life
• 11 Ways to Know You’ve Settled for a Mediocre Marriage
• How to Ask God for Help (Psalm 121)

Now, here’s what I found helpful:

If you read my blog, you know I am a big fan of goals, habits and growth plans, so hopefully, you have one for 2019. If you don’t, Brandon Kelley has you covered on how to develop a plan.

Going right along with creating a growth plan is productivity. With a growing church and fast-paced family, it is easy to get lost in the weeds and get overwhelmed. Which is why I appreciated this post of 9 productivity hacks.

If you’re anything like me as a parent, you are trying to figure out the balance of technology in your home, with your kids. When do you give them a phone, social media accounts, etc? How much screen time should they have, what should they do on it? Andy Crouch has a great book called The Tech-Wise Family and he talked recently with Russell Moore about how to handle technology in your family.

The beginning of a new year often means new growth for your church, but it can also mean decline as people move on. Sometimes those reasons are good and other times as a leader, if you’re honest, they are frustrating. This post will help you to know the difference. And here are 24 reasons someone might quit attending your church and what to do about it. And one more, 10 reasons people don’t invite people to church.

As it’s the weekend, it’s a perfect time to review your week. Look for things to celebrate, things to process and changes to make moving forward. Here are 10 questions to help you do that.

This post by Chuck DeGroat on The lost pastor is a startling look at the inner life of pastors and why it is so important to grow your soul as a leader. He shares 3 important steps forward to “being found.”