Viva Catie Concert...THIS THURSDAY

This coming Thursday night is going to be an amazing night in the life of relevant student ministry as we continue to try to see where God is working and then move that direction. On January 29 we will host the first Viva Catie concert as we unite together through music to raise support for the Lance Armstrong Fund to support cancer research. Cancer Sucks, it destroys lives, we can fight it, we are going to take action. Will post again later in the week but I ask you out there to pray for us as we get ready for Thursday night and help us raise a ton of money to fight this disease. Hope you can make it out to see Mike's Chair, Daniel Doss Band, the remix band, Will Mckelvy, and Jason Roy. There are no ticket for the show, donations only! Help us do something about this disease. for details hit relevanstudents.com!

good stuff...

Last week I showed the girls the Photo Booth program on my Mac and they loved it, really loved it. Who doesn't like making their head look like a stretchy mess on a computer screen. If you want to see our first collection just go look on my facebook page. It has been a busy week. Just the fact that I missed posting yesterday will let ya know it was a crazy Thursday. Sure I have a few things to knock out this weekend but I am really excited about being with the family. I just need to slow down for a few days...make some more pictures, HA.

In office news - The GCC office is officially moving over to the MAC, wow it is a glorious day. Now we can all make stretchy head pictures!

the right response?

Most of life is made up of responses? Responding to people, responding to problems, responding to success, responding to hurt...Response is a pretty big thing. This week I had the chance to watch a student I have mentored respond to a difficult situation. It was so exciting to see maturity rise to the top in the middle of chaos. My friend had spent several weeks planning an event at school. Tons of time, tons of effort and the event turned out great. After the event a teacher confronted him and was very sarcastic in asking why something was not done the way she wanted it. The student thought it was a joke then later asked the teacher if there was a problem. THEN CAME THE RESPONSE MOMENT - the teacher shared their feelings and added several wonderful choice words and attacked my friends character. WOW, how would you respond. The student apologized then wrote a letter formally apologizing later that day. With all he could have said and all the commotion that could have been caused the student apologized and moved on. Really he did nothing wrong but he apologized for missing a detail important to this teacher. What a response! This is the verse I was reminded off...

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but harsh words stir up anger. Proverbs 15:1

My friend had every right to throw that teacher under the bus and cause a major stink over what was said and done. He could have fired back and been confrontational. He chose to respond with respect and patience. He chose the gentle response. Sounds like something Jesus would do. There is a time to confront. There is a time to respond in tons of different ways. We must know the God does care about the response we choose. How we respond to life determines the outcome of so many situations. No matter what we just need to respond well. Thanks to my friend for the reminder.

plan and evaluate

We are spending the day in an all day planning session with our staff here at Grace Community. At every church I have served at we have done planning different. Some we did little planning, some we did longer off site planning retreats, and some we did on campus planning meetings. Every team is going to plan differently, but if any organization is going to make progress the team has to know the PLAN. Not that our plans will last, we are limited in our knowledge but the One we serve kind of knows all. Well ok, God does know all. It does not mean we plan less. The fact that God knows all should drive our teams to gather, dream out loud, and seek the plan in prayer. Our team at GCC functions better when we have a plan and we feel like we have given God full chance to influence that plan. When we plan we have direction that guides our effort. We can say no to distraction. We can manage our time better. We can celebrate and evaluate at the end of the plan. Our planning strategy here is to gather 3 or 4 days a year for one day planning sessions. We always get away from the office and we always take time together to just be WITH GOD but other than those 2 things we keep if flexible. The pace of life moves so fast that spreading our planning days out keeps us alert and flexible to change.

So there ya go...Bayne's thoughts on planning. Go plan and trust God. One thing is for sure, your plan will change but having direction will make a huge difference in your life.

monday brain dump

Had a great weekend hanging out with my wife. This is the first time we have dropped the kids off with grandparents and come back to Clarksville to hang out for the weekend. We went on 2 dates, got to rest, and just had a good time. Our kids had a great time in Shelbyville with their grandparents. It was a win win and we will have to do this again. Man I love my wife, she is the best. Here are some random thoughts on Monday!

• What are we about at Grace Community? Go listen to the podcast from this week. Good stuff, in fact God has been really blowing us away these past few months. We are so grateful that God is allowing us to be able to serve Clarksville.
• When I saw our attendance this week I almost passed out. In fact I thought it was a mistake. Thanks to everyone who did the GRACE SQUEEZE to move to the middle seats in the gathering. I think our next move will be to ask some of our leaders to sit in the front 2 rows to free up seats in the back for guests. Good problems to have. Thanks GCCer's for being flexible!
• We had a huge challenge in our set up process Sunday and Katrina Watts handled it so well. I am so proud of our family ministry staff. They just rock it each week. Thanks to our set up and tear down volunteers, you are amazing and we could not do this without you!
  
• Cross Street Live is coming up on Feb. 8. This will be our second family production. Hope to have a promo video ready this week. We will see!
• Terrace Crawford got a new job, way to go T, I know you will do a great job!
• Staff planning day this week and a few lunches with student pastors in the area. I am looking forward to connecting.
• the Viva Catie concert is next week. This is a concert we are hosting to raise money for cancer research. Yes we are taking action and yes we can make a difference. Pray for us as we get close to this night. Go to www.relevantstudents.com for more info
• We had our second community group meting last night. It was great!
• watched 2 movies this weekend with Chelsea, Valkarie was great and wathed the new Hulk on DVD, it was great also.
  
• FINALLY - it was hard to not see the Titans in the championship game against the Steelers. Congrats to Steeler and Cardinal fans. It will be a fun Super Bowl.

2 things I keep laughing at...

There are 2 things I keep laughing at...first the phrase "IN THIS ECONOMY". When you place that in front or after whatever you are talking about it makes what you are talking about not seem so bad. I lost half my 401K...BUT In this economy we are doing well. My house is now worth 5 dollars and that is good in THIS ECONOMY. My burger cost 60 cents what a deal IN THIS ECONOMY. I may be the only one who is tied of hearing the phrase. I just add IN THIS ECONOMY to everything I say right now.

The second is this commercial...Thanks Pete for the pic, this is a HORRIBLE idea and if I ever walk into my house and see on of these I promise to burn it on the spot...Yes it is the dreaded SNUGGIE, use a blanket people not a blanket poncho!!!!
Have a great weekend and order a SNUGGIE so you can knit on the couch and be warm!

opportunity...

The student pastor at my church invited me to volunteer in the student ministry. I ran sound, help with events, led small group stuff, went on mission trips all as a volunteer. AMAZING OPPORTUNITY to serve in my church, shaped my life forever!

I was in college and my pastor invited me to join the staff at Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church and experience ministry from a staff perspective...what a huge OPPORTUNITY before I left for seminary (grad school for pastors, it is kind of boring at times well for that matter all school is)

At First Clarksville I got the OPPORTUNITY to create environments for middle school students...camps, service, Bible Study groups, events...I learned I loved to create environments and work with teams of volunteers!

At First Norfolk I was given the OPPORTUNITY to serve on a creative team with my pastor and several on the staff as we worked to shape the service flow each week. Great to learn how to contribute in the creative process with a group of leaders.

Now at Grace Community I have been given the OPPORTUNITY to experiment, create and shape environments for kids and teens. I have been given the OPPORTUNITY to create from the ground up but this current OPPORTUNITY is shaped by all the people that gave me opportunities in the past and invested in my life. I am the person I am today because of the opportunities I have been given over time. I am so grateful people have believed in me along the way and given me a chance to lead. It is so important to remember when we give other chances to lead in our current ministry or organization we are a part of that persons journey. We don't just give people "jobs" or "responsibilities" we give them OPPORTUNITY to make a difference. Who are you giving OPPORTUNITY to right now?

Viva Catie Concert - January 29...

This is one night where RELEVANT is going to sponsor a concert where we simply gather to raise money to fight cancer. How can we fight back...we can raise support to help research through the Lance Armstrong Foundation. All of us have been effected by cancer at some point in our life and we are hoping that tons of you in Clarksville will join us in this effort. The remix band, Mike's Chair, Jason Roy from Building 429, and DDB (the daniel doss band) are just a few of the artists that will be at the show. We are just asking people to come, enjoy, and donate so that we can be a part of the solution. Will be blogging more next week about Catie Summers...the incredible young lady this event is named after.

2009 Father/Daughter PURITY BALL!

If you live in Clarksville, and you are a dad of a K-12 grade daughter you need to check incredible event out. Every year the Hope Center here in Clarksville sponsors this night for dads and daughters for an incredible night of connection and dancing, YES DANCING...my little girl is thrilled. The plan is to get some dads together, dress up, take our daughters out, go to the ball, and have an amazing night. What girl does not want to go to a ball. Oh yea, they have a night for kids and a night for teens. I am a HUGE fan of this night and Kozbi is so excited. Click on the logo above to get more info!

random monday thoughts, just random...

It is Monday and it has been a early start to the week. Early morning meeting to think, pray and plan some stuff at Grace Community. Not a big early morning person but I made it and I made it on time. That is huge for me and early morning meetings. Today I was on time, what a WIN. God is doing some amazing things at Grace Community in the lives of people. It was great to pray, think, discuss, dream about the future with a group of people that love Jesus more than attendance, buildings, and budgets. It is great to look to the future and ask God what he wants us to do....NOT WHAT WE WANT TO DO. Our ideas are good but the best path forward is God's plan. Great days are ahead for GCC but hope we do not have too many more of these early morning things, wow...lunch anybody! Please! Just a few other thought banding around in my head this morning...

• We each need to be coming to God in prayer with the details of our life! How can we gripe about life when we do not talk to God about real life stuff. Problems at work, hard times with family, the money crunch going around. We all really need to ask God to be a part of the details of our life. Just been reminded of this so much lately.
• Chelsea and I had a great time last night in our new community group. Kids loved playing with their friends more. So glad God has allowed us to connect with this group of people.
• Proud of the Titans not blaming the loss on the refs and that terrible NO CALL on the delay of game in the 4th quarter. REFS, TERRIBLE job but our tram lost that game. Titans are a class organization.
• Proud of our family ministry team here at GCC and the volunteer staff. SUNDAY and last Wednesday WAS GREAT and you made it happen. Thanks for investing in the lives of kids and teens each week.
• It was great to see so many folks at Grace Community Sunday. It dawned on me that in the beginning people came to grace because of the buzz and invitations of friends. Inviting people i so important but now people are coming back because of significance. God is doing significant things in our hearts. Thanks God.
• Last week we had some warm weather and we got to hang out with our neighbors on the best street in America. We love our neighbors, can not wait for warm weather and cookouts! BOOOOOOOO WINTER!
• Go Eagles, my playoff hope!
• check this commercial out from New Spring Church / AMAZING COMMERCIAL!