Mountain Pastor

Some of you know that over the last 4 months my church (Life Church Franklin) has been renovating a space of 15,000 square feet for permanent room in Franklin. I learned a lot about the process that I will be sharing here of the coming posts, but I wanted to give a quick look at the actually process in video. 

All 15,000 square feet are for auditorium and LifeKIDS. We kept our offices downtown so we could maximize the new space for meeting Sundays and what not.

Let me know what you think in the comments below. I’m really proud of my team and our volunteers for making this happen. 

I was recently trying to explain what it was like living in a small town and pastoring a church. After trying a couple different attempts it came down to this. I said, “My town is so small we only have ONE Wal-Mart.”

He, of course, lives in a big city with retailers, restaurants and big chain box stores everywhere. I think the Wal-Mart illustration helped him understand a little better.

So, my new way to find out how small a town someone lives in is to ask them how many Wal-Marts are nearby.

For the first time since planting our church here in Franklin I went to church with my family. I didn’t go early to setup. I didn’t speak from the stage. I didn’t volunteer in LifeKIDS or the host team. I just showed up 20 minutes before worship and checked my kids in and worshipped with my wife and friends.
For 4 years we’ve worked and played hard as God has done so many great things and yet I realized I’ve never just attended my own church without volunteering, teaching, or helping in some way. I’ve taken Sundays off, but usually when I’m traveling, but this was different.
I jokingly told my wife that if I wasn’t the pastor of our church I would still come. I really enjoyed being with other Lifers worshipping God and learning from his word. I’m so grateful for a staff and volunteer team who work so hard to make Life Church happen so I can do these types of things.
The whole experience got me thinking. What if every pastor, both big and small churches, did this a couple times a year? I learned quite a bit about our church experience and saw things I would never see on my typical Sunday morning.
I’d encourage every pastor to find a ways do this sometime soon. I think you’ll thank yourself for doing so.

Since starting Life Church we have dedicated ourselves to making kids ministry one of our 5 areas of concentration and priority. We live in a small town with lots of families and their kids. We seen incredible growth happening every week through our kids area called LifeKIDS, but I wonder why do we bother with it?

Kids ministry is hard work. We have an incredible staff member and team of volunteers who make it happen every week. But it’s SO tough and can be very draining some weeks. Being a portable church there is the setup, then there is the scheduling, and materials, check-in, more setup, follow-up and tear down, etc… I could go on and on. But is it worth it? Should we bother with it?

My quick answer is YES! Not only are these kids learning about a what a real and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ is all about, we are seeing indirect results as well.

• Volunteers are learning with the children. Many volunteers tell me they learn as much as the kids most weeks!
• Volunteers are taking more and more leadership and ownership of the kids ministry. We have people stepping out and leading whole areas now instead of just week to week.
• Families are experiencing church community for the first time. Many parents hesitate to even bring their kids to a church. Because our LifeKIDS team is doing such a great job most parents don’t fret about leaving their kids. This gives them a peace of mind to come and worship, serve and experience/learn from God’s word with no distractions.

If you are a church leader and YOU WOULDN’T send your own kids to your church’s kids ministry if you didn’t have too, then I would encourage you to do whatever it takes to make it what it could be.

Let’s be passionate about partnering with families to lead them and their children to become fully devoted followers of Christ. It’s so worth it.

Note: I have asked my friend and worship pastor, Jason Nicholas, to share his thought on worship music and the idea that modern worship is sometimes called a rock show. You can follow Jason on twitter: @jnicholas79

It’s sad that the area of music can be one of the biggest dividers of a church. I also find it interesting that everyone has an opinion on this subject and seems to know what is best for the worship leader, team and their church( I’ve learned this from personal experience). One of the issues that our team( and lots of others) have been accused of is the fact that people view us as showy or that the team is just trying to be a rock band.
Now I personally cant speak for every Worship Pastor out there but I can speak for myself and our team so here it goes……

My first question to you would be, do you know the heart of the Worship Leader that you would say this about? I absolutely love playing and singing my heart out to God and I get excited! Real excited. I jump, dance, yell, swing my guitar around and sweat like crazy. Is it for our church that I do that? Am I putting on a good show for the new people? Am I just going crazy because my inner rock star is coming out? NO! I am up there to lead our church into the presence of God and to me that is worth getting excited about. Long story short….My life was radically changed by God. I lived for myself and no one else. I took whatever the world had to offer and did it. But God wrecked my life. He changed me…forever! I could jump around all day just knowing what I was saved out of and from! So why do I have so much fun on Sunday? Well, I am in love. (more…)

I once received a “comment” from an anonymous person who attended our church and said they wished we would play songs that more people knew. I brushed it off as someone who would like to hear more traditional or maybe even more popular worship songs. That’s fine. No problem. I can respect that.

But, after thinking about it for a couple of days I had a few questions of my own concerning that comment. What really is a song that “everyone” knows? Are we talking about just knowing how to sing the songs or is it that we want the songs we like and are comfortable with? (more…)

Oh boy! This just seems to be one of those hot topics in churches, period, but small towns can take it to another level. So what’s the right way? What’s the wrong way? I’m going to take a stab at worship music from some different angles for the next few days.

(more…)

Note: On Fridays I will be blogging about random thoughts concerning small towns.

I’m starting my 3rd year as a little league baseball coach this week. Little league in my community is a pretty big deal. There is really only one league so all the kids play in it.

I never played baseball growing up. I was never interested in it because it always seemed so slow and boring. So, my experience as a coach is full of little knowledge. This year I was smart enough to be an assistant instead of a head coach. I told the head coach to just tell me what to do and I’d do it. I realize I don’t know much about baseball so I want to make sure I don’t mess these kids up with improper technique and form. (more…)

Small towns have less noise, less traffic and seemingly a slower pace of life. Although the world is becoming “smaller” due to the internet, there is a sense of simplicity that comes with small towns. It can seem the world is not so complicated at times.
I think it’s wise for the Church to communicate the benefits of this in your town. God cares for them in the seemingly simplicity of their lives just as he does for the city slicker businessman in a 50 story building. (more…)

My favorite TV show of all time is The Andy Griffith Show. I grew up in a very large city so seeing Andy Griffith, Barney Fife and the tiny town of Mayberry laugh, cry and do life together always intrigued me.

After living in a small mountain town for the past 13 years I finally understand what if feels like to know everyone in your community. Now, I don’t exactly know every single person in Franklin, NC but it sure feels like it most days. (more…)