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Pantano Southeast Campus

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A lot of new things have been happening in my life.

On September 8, we announced that Revolution would be joining Pantano Christian Church and become Pantano Church – Southeast Campus.

It has been a wild ride since April when this conversation began between myself and Glen Elliott, the lead pastor of Pantano.

And yesterday, we announced this step at Pantano and challenged people to move from the East Campus and attend and serve at our campus as we prepare to launch on January 5, 2020.

The response was overwhelming. Every day I am reminded of God’s hand at work through this entire process, dating back a decade when Glen and I met. It is one of those times when I shake my head and think, “only God.”

Here is the announcement from yesterday at Pantano.

If you have questions or would like information about serving at Pantano Southeast, you can go here.

Here are a few things you can be praying for:

  • The people of Revolution as they continue to put the Kingdom First to reach more people for Jesus.
  • For people who are moving from Pantano East to jump in and start serving from day one. We had over 60 families sign up yesterday at Pantano East who signed up to move to our campus and serve and/or attend.
  • That our team would have wisdom as we walk with people through this change and help two churches become one church in multiple locations.

These are exhilarating days. Every day I am blown away by what God is doing. For me, I have always wanted and prayed about being a part of something that can only be explained by God, and this feels like it. I’m savoring every moment of this ride and trying to keep up with how fast God is moving.

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How to Change the Things You’d like to Change

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Have you ever done something and thought, why did I do that? 

I remember growing up; whenever I would do something wrong, and my grandfather found out about it, he would say, “That’s not what our family does.”

We all have one of those things. 

It might be a feeling that we wished we could stop; we struggle with worry and anxiety and wish we didn’t. It might be controlling things or feeling fearful more than we want. 

Maybe you find yourself flying off the handle and see the damage it does but don’t know why.

You tell people close to you, that you are working on it, make promises to stop an addiction, but it keeps coming back. 

So what do we do? We take a class, read a book, see a counselor, which are all good things. But the problem is, most of the time we look for ways to stop being angry, to stop feeling something, to stop buying things we can’t afford or how to stop looking at porn. 

We miss the crucial thing. 

How to Change the Things You’d like to Change

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What is that?

We miss what is in us.

Often when we look to make a change, we look outside of us. The places we go, the things we do, the people we are with. This is important, but only tells us part of the story.

Change happens from inside out, not outside in.

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If you’re a follower of Jesus, this is one of the struggles you often bump into: When we start following Jesus, some of those stops immediately. We hear people say, “I was addicted to ____ for years and started following Jesus, and it was gone.” For many of us, the things we struggled with before following Jesus, we still struggle with after we follow Jesus.  We wonder if something is wrong with us. We wonder if we’re following Jesus and beat ourselves up because a good Christian shouldn’t struggle with what we struggle with.

Think about it like this: when we do anything, we are looking for something. This can be positive or negative.

When we do anything, we are looking for something.

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Every time we take a job or go on a vacation, we are looking for something and looking for something that will fill us.

When you look at porn. Why do you do that? What are you hoping that will fill in you?

When you work too much, what are you hoping that will do for you?

When you get angry and fly off the handle, what are you hoping to feel?

When you keep all your emotions in, what are you hoping you will get?

Every time we sin, we are hoping for something. 

Again, when we think of changing something, we look for ways to improve something, but the reality is that something came from somewhere. We have to face that.

This is painful for many of us. We have to look at our stories, what has come before us, and why we do things. 

Learning to face why you do things.

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To move forward in freedom, you have to ask, why do I respond in anger? Why do I pull away from people? Where does that come from in my story? Where have I seen this in my life or family or origin?

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Seasons of Life

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Seasons in life are funny things. We all experience them, but we rarely talk about them.

Seasons can be broken up by ages. There is the season of being a child, a tween, teenager — the experience of middle school and high school, and then college. You might think of them in decades, your 20’s, 30’s, 40’s and so on.

Sometimes when it comes to ages, we long to move on and be older. Sometimes we wish we could go backward.

Some think of seasons in terms of jobs, their career. They are starting, starting over, moving up and moving down.

Or we think of seasons in terms of relationships. Alone, falling in love, falling out of love, getting married, having kids.

Even parenting has its seasons: the beginning, the sleepless nights, the physical demands of young kinds, the emotional needs of teenagers, the school activities, being an empty nester, the demands of caring for aging parents.

The reality is, we are all in a season. And sometimes, we are experiencing seasons simultaneously.

Here’s the problem with seasons, we rarely talk about them. We rarely identify the one we are in currently.

Here’s why this matters: the season you are in is unique. For example, our kids range from 7 – 14 in age. Our season of parenting is drastically different today than it was when we had three kids under 3 and a half. It is very different from our friends who just took their youngest to college. It has unique challenges and unique blessings.

We often get jealous of someone else’s season. We long to be married when we’re single. We can’t wait to sleep through the night when our kids are young. We wish our bodies felt younger as we age. When we get jealous of someone else’s season but we don’t take into account the difficult parts of their seasons, their challenges, only the benefits.

Not only is each season unique, but each season has its challenges and its blessings. If you’re frustrated with your season right now, more than likely, you are only focusing on the challenges and missing out on the benefits of it. And if you do that, you will miss that season and what you are supposed to learn and discover in that season.

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5 Ways to Preach a Half Done Sermon

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Whenever I meet with a pastor or church planter, I ask them, “What are you preaching on this Sunday?” I love hearing what series other guys are doing, the creativity. Recently whenever I ask this question, I get blank stares or a response of “I’m not sure, I think I have a title.” Sometimes they aren’t even that far along.

Too many pastors allow the busyness of their lives and ministries to crowd out their sermon prep.

Here are 5 ways to make sure that you are killing yourself on Saturday night to put a sermon together.

Is your sermon half done?

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Don’t schedule it. Many pastors do not schedule when they will work on their sermon. For me, I work on mine in the morning; it is when I am most alert and creative. I block out Monday and Tuesday mornings for this purpose and do whatever I can to protect those times so that I can give my best hours to sermon prep.

Don’t plan. Don’t worry about it. Don’t think about future series, future topics, wait. By not planning, you will make sure that you won’t find great quotes, examples, stories to use. You will also keep from being able to use videos, certain songs that will allow artists to thrive in your church. And, the less time you spend thinking about something, the less passion you will bring to a topic. The longer you think on a topic, passage, or theme, the better.

What if you could have your sermon done before Saturday night?

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Believe that your sermon doesn’t matter. Some of these are connected, but a lot of people don’t think preaching is essential. Whether they hold that people don’t want to listen to a sermon or that they should give a lite “here’s how to make Monday better than Friday was” kind of a pep talk. Your sermon matters. The Holy Spirit likes to show up whenever we talk about Jesus and the hope we have in Him. Lives are changed through the power of opening Scripture.

Unclear on what is the most important thing you do. Too many pastors are not clear on what is the most important thing they do or what should get the majority of their time. Three things occupy the majority of my time:  sermon prep, developing leaders, meeting with new people. I primarily give almost my entire week to those three things. Even when our church was smaller and we didn’t have a staff, that’s what I spent my time on, it’s what I do that adds the most value to our church. If you haven’t already, clarify how much time your sermon will get, give the best of your day to it.

Be lazy. A mentor told me, “Someone pays the price for a sermon. Either the pastor in the preparation or the church who has to listen to it.” Too many churches are paying the price instead of the pastor. Why? The pastor is lazy.

Someone pays the price for a sermon. Either the pastor in the preparation or the church who has to listen to it.

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202 Favorite Quotes from the 2019 Leadership Summit

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session. I didn’t take notes at all the sessions because some of them felt more like stories and so I just listened and took that in, which was a new practice I tried this year and really benefited from it.

202 Takeaways from the 2019 Leadership Summit

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Here are my biggest takeaways from the talks I took notes over the two days:

202 Favorite Quotes from the 2019 Leadership Summit

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2019 Leadership Summit – 15 Quotes from Craig Groeschel on The Power of Emotions in Leadership

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Craig Groeschel on The Power of Emotions in Leadership:

  • Impressing you is not the same as connecting with you.
  • Emotions are relevant and important but they are the catalyst to growth.
  • The fastest way to change someone’s mind is to connect with their heart.
  • Knowledge alone rarely leads to action.
  • Knowledge leads to conclusion while emotion leads to action.
  • We must ask what do we want people to know, feel and do.
  • Share stories purposefully. 
  • Stories stick but facts fade.
  • Stories connect to the heart of emotions with the strength of logic.
  • Choose words deliberately. 
  • The words you choose determine the emotions that people feel.
  • Vision and values should inspire you and move you. If they don’t, they are too dull and safe.
  • Show vulnerability thoughtfully. 
  • We may impress people with our strengths but we connect through our weakness.
  • People would rather follow someone who is real instead of someone who is always right.
15 Quotes from Craig Groeschel on The Power of Emotions in Leadership

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2019 Leadership Summit – 15 Quotes from Jo Saxton on Leveling up Your Leadership

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Jo Saxton on leveling up your leadership:

  • Who were you before anyone told you who you were supposed to be?
  • Too many of us struggle with impostor syndrome.
  • We believe we are a fake and don’t deserve to be in the room.
  • Many of our stories create limits for us as a leader.
  • What we think is who we’re becoming.
  • The way you think about yourself is shaping your leadership.
  • The story we tell ourselves matter.
  • If your body could talk to you, what would it want to say?
  • If we don’t listen to our bodies, eventually it will speak loud enough that we won’t be able to ignore it.
  • You have one body and your leadership lives in it.
  • Who are your people?
  • Half of all CEO’s reported feeling lonely.
  • 60% of leaders say loneliness is affecting their performance.
  • There is loneliness when everyone wants an answer but you don’t have it.
  • Who are you leveling up as a leader? Who are you investing in to help them become great leaders?
15 Quotes from Jo Saxton on Leveling up Your Leadership

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2019 Leadership Summit – 10 Quotes from Dr. Krish Kandiah on Vision and Seeing Things Differently

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Dr. Krish Kandiah on Vision and Seeing Things Differently:

  • Leadership is about seeing things differently than other people.
  • A visionary leader helps other people to see things differently.
  • Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. -Jonathan Swift
  • Leaders are called to see potential where others see trouble.
  • Leaders see hope where others see chaos.
  • You and I are more than the worst thing we’ve ever done or the worst thing that was ever done to us.
  • The opposite of prejudice is hospitality.
  • What legacy would be passed on to your children if you brought kids into your home that were in need?
  • Investment in people leads to loyalty.
  • The kitchen table is the most valuable part of your house because of the stories that are shared around them.
10 Quotes from Dr. Krish Kandiah on Vision and Seeing Things Differently

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2019 Leadership Summit – 20 Quotes from Todd Henry on Leading Creative Teams

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Todd Henry on Leading Creative Teams:

  • We should aim to be prolific, brilliant and healthy.
  • Creative people need a challenge.
  • Creative people need stability.
  • A leader needs to speak courage into the people who follow them.
  • If you have low stability and low challenge, your team is lost.
  • A leader needs to know how much stability and challenge each person on their team needs.
  • Never assume that your people are with you.
  • Trust is the currency of creative teams.
  • It is the little things we do that cause us to lose trust in the big moments.
  • Leaders need to declare undeclarables. 
  • We breach trust by pretending to be a superhero.
  • We fail as leaders when we push people away.
  • Insecurity is at the center of so many poor leadership decisions and actions.
  • The place of your insecurity is the place you have the potential to do the most damage to the people around you.
  • Your job as a leader isn’t to do the work or control the work, but to get the work done.
  • We have to transition from leading by control to leading by influence.
  • Leaders, you have to take care of #1.
  • If you are not inspired, you cannot inspire.
  • If you don’t take time to fill your well, you won’t have any overflow for your team.
  • You owe it to your team to know what prolific, brilliant and healthy look like.
20 Quotes from Todd Henry on Leading Creative Teams

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2019 Leadership Summit – 6 Quotes from Jia Jiang on Rejection

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Every year, my team and I attend the leadership summit and it is always refreshing, challenging and recharging for me. Easily the best leadership material in a conference that is out there. I try to share some of the highlights I took from each session.

Here are some thoughts from the session with Jia Jiang on rejection:

  • Rejection is a numbers game.
  • Someone will say yes to us at some point.
  • Rejection is an opinion.
  • We think rejection is all about us, but it isn’t.
  • Rejection is just someone’s opinion.
  • Rejection is growth.