The Radical Reformission: by Mark Driscoll. Things I respect about Mark Driscoll.

Biblical: He describes his relationship to the scriptures as a life preserver in a rough sea. He demonstrates this in his willingness to stick to the biblical teachings on hard subjects that aren't to popular right now such as order of the home and homosexuality to name a few.

Grace: He does the above with maintaining a love for those people

Desire: Moreso than grace however he has an incredible desire to see lost people saved regardless of how "popular" he's going to be.

Emergent: He deals with emergent theology better than anyone I've read. I believe he exposes heresies for what they are but doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

Catch Up: I've been on vacation the last couple of days and my internet connection has been sporadic at best. That's not a bad thing. We're now finally down in Atlanta where we'll be until Sunday when we return home.

Family: On friday we drove down to Spartarburg, SC to visit with my sister, Beth and her husband and kids- Jason, Luke and Abby. I tell Luke he's my favorite nephew and Abby my favorite niece. This will be true unless my sister decides to have one more and then one of them will have the share the glory of my favorites list.

We had a great time and the kids all got along great. I think it was one of the best times I've been able to spend with them in a long time. We don't get to see each other as often as I'd like and when we do it's always a whirlwind of holiday's and visitng all other family with all other family trying to visit at the same time. Pure mayhem. But this time we beat the holiday rush by going a week before thanksgiving. It was great.

Toccoa: On Saturday we went to our alma mater, Toccoa Falls College. We did it as a fun trip and a trip to relax and visit the old places we once trounced. I'll post some pictures of what we saw and did. It was weird being back on campus after being away so long and with students in session. It was also weird at 26 being an old fart on the campus and having college kids look at me like I'm outdated. But I had fun, got to visit with a few students we know on campus and relax.

Christina: This is a shout out to Christina. I've known her since birth and have watched her grow up over the years. She was in the youth group I interned at one summer in college and I remember her being in Jr. high responding to an invitation to give her life more fully to God. Today she is going to TFC. Currently pursuing missions but leaving the door open for whatever God would have her to do. She is wise beyond her years and is a true woman of God. She loves people and loves God- he's going to do mighty things in her one day. She holds a special place in Heather and my heart! We had the chance to catch up a little while on campus, it was great.

Meetings: Today I took a tour of North Point Church in Alpharetta, GA (www.northpoint.org). I wanted to see how they are doing ministry and ask some practical questions. Their facility if phenomenal and will literally overwhelm you. Every space has function though and that's impressive. What I was most impressed is that every person I spoke with was excited about what North Point is doing and glad they are on board. Every person also knew what they were good at and did well and explaining it to me and how it fit into the vision of the church. They all spoke as if they were as important as Andy Stanley, in a humble, genuine way!

I also had a meeting with Ed Stetzer (www.newchurches.com) to pick his church planting brain. I met him at the North American Mission Board (Southern Baptist) where he has an office. Their building is incredible and I've seen less security at the Pentagon. My meeting with him was brief but I was able to ask him questions about church planting and some operational things I've been mulling around.

Here it is.

bzz: I am a bzz agent. I'm not even sure where I heard about it but bzzagent.com is a site where companies use them for word of mouth advertising. bzzagent.com offers points and then rewards for being an honest word of mouth advertiser. I signed up about 6 months ago. It was free and I like the idea of tipping and word of mouth advertising. Well I got an offer for a sonicare toothbrush to be a bzzagent for it. I filled out the form and viola' today my $90 sonicare toothbrush showed up. So now I buzz.

Video: I've been busting my hiny on a video that I sent out to our newsleeter supporters today and will have up on our website asap.

Books: I read two books over the weekend I'll comment briefly on them below.

Confession of a reformissional Rev. by Mark Driscoll- this book was great and one of the most encouraging I've read in a long time. Mark clearly loves people, mainly the "unsaved". Mark also clearly loves the gospel of Jesus Christ and refuses to compromise the gospel. This autobiography is one of the funniest books I've read in long time as well, he's blunt and honest. What was most surprising is that the book goes into his reformed theology which was completely unexpected but also quite appropriate.


Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport by Richard Mouw- Richard Mouw is the president of Fuller Theological, which he doesn't even mention until the last few chapters of the book and then only in passing as an unimportant fact. I'm not what you would call a reformed thinker or reformed theologian but I read this book at the recommendation of a friend after I was asking about his newly grasped calvinism.

The subject of TULIP is as gracefully handled as I've ever heart and Richard Mouw gives his honest opinions of some of the more hard to handle parts of calvinism. It's apparent by his writing that while he values and even loves a calvinist approach to salvation there are parts that don't sit well with him or sit well with scripture.

This was merely a side note in the book but Mouw mentioned a certain type of universalism in the book that I think I agree with. This is a thought I've had for some time now particularly after dealing with people from different religions. Mouw used the same example that I would use. He has a mormon friend that believes that he can only be saved by grace alone. It is only by the act of God that he can receive salvation. I too have talked to many mormons that tell me/us the same thing. But, Mouw asks, what about all the other things you believe in like that God was once a human and that if you play your cards right you might get to be a diety as well? Leaving those questions unanswered he wonders if that Mormon friend will be in heaven, if his grasp of divine grace includes salvation. I've wondered the same.

Bridge Link: We're getting ready for Bridge Link, which is tomorrow night. I'm excited about the evening. We have a few new things that we're going to be presenting to both people already part of the Bridge and people that are interested. The first is the video we made featuring testimonials from Launch Team members and the second is that I'm giving a mini-message about the views of God.

Open your eyes: Yesterday I had one of those moments where suddenly God makes me aware that I'm looking through life with a skewed perception. I have to be honest and I never intended for my mind to go this way. But I started to get stressed out. I started to wonder if God was really going to grow his church in Suffolk. I started to wonder if I was doing the right things to stimulate growth. I started to wonder if I as doing enough or doing it right and I started to wonder if I was ever going to see The Bridge Church reach it's potential.

Then as I was driving and praying I felt convicted? Since when was this plant ever about me. Since when was The Bridge about my glory as lead pastor and not on God's glory as...God? Truth is it never was intended to be about me and my success but rather on us being missional being focused on the community and making them aware of the deep spiritual need in their lives.

Change: I believe this is going to change a little bit of our interaction with the community. I would love to see us get into the community in news way...I don't know what these are yet. But I know it will be what God wants us to do.

Luke: Congrat to my favorite nephew Luke. My sister called today and told me that Luke had asked Jesus to save him and that he wants to be a Christian. Luke has had some hangups with the Christian faith. The first being that he didn't want to go to heaven. Luke has known 2 people that have gone to heaven and he didn't like the fact that once you go there you don't get to come back and you can't be around the people you love on earth.

He also has known for a while that he does stuff wrong and is a sinner but didn't want Jesus to have anything to do with it. Luke is 5 years old by the way and this week he took a huge step in his relationship with Christ.

There is no greater calling than to your family.

War: The media plays it out like it's a war. Democrat vs. Republican. If your party looses you are going to be enslaved for the next 2 years and you'll be forced to pay tariffs. Afterall the "other" party is so unlike you it's actually scientifically proven that there are two seperate human races.

I heard that later tonight there is going to be gunfire in the streets.

Identity Crisis

Trailer: Robbie and I went up to Frederick to pick up the trailer today. A few months back I got a call that a 14' trailer had been donated to our church. This is a huge gift for us literally saving us several thousand dollars. I kept waiting for a good day to come around during a week where we didn't have much going on. I finally realized that this wasn't going to happen, there are no longer weeks where there isn't much going on just weeks I can fit in a trip to Frederick.

So today Robbie and I took the 200 mile trip. We ran the gauntlet from here through DC, Richmond, Frederick and then back. We didn't hit traffic once and even got to enjoy a scenic drive through Leesburg and down 15/17 to Fredericksburg. The trailer is nice and we'll fix it up a little bit. It's going to get some fresh paint with our logo and stuff in the next month or so. I'll post a picture when we get it fixed up.

Road: This last trip to Frederick means that in the past week I have been to Richmond, Frederick, Selma North Carolina and back to Frederick. No more car trips for the next few days.

Sick: I hesistate to mention the name of this movie for fear of giving publicity to the movie. I read an article on Borat the movie. Evidently it's a faux documentary of a man from Kazakstan who is a racist, jew hating bigot. The goal of the movie appears to be as politically incorrect as possible.

It's labelled as a comedy.

I'm not defending anyone's actions here. But in a society where every public figure has to be overly careful about making comments that might be even taken as offensive I'm not sure this movie should be acceptable to be shown. Racism isn't funny. I don't every see it being funny.

Time: A few years back I realized something about pastors. Most pastors fall into two categories. There is a middle ground but this is definately the minority of church workers. The first category is the workaholic pastor. Often more ineffective than effective this pastor easily racks up 80 hours a week. Find it hard to connect with his family- probably because they resent and possibly hate him. The other type of pastor is the 20 hour a week pastor. Coming in at 10am and leaving by 2pm and taking the sacred day of Monday off. Both are ineffective, both are horrible examples to the people they are leading.

I am most ashamed of laziness. I might be a lot of bad things but I don't want to be considered lazy. Since we started planting this church I find my time more and more consumed with important things to do. Really stuff that just has to get done. A weird thing happened last week. I felt my stuff starting to go numb. I didn't notice it at first...I was numb like I said. But I had little emotion. I was accomplish lots of stuff during my day but was receiving little satisfaction from my accomplishments. I'm typically a very emotional person but I was feeling little.

In the way that God so often works he sent me a book. Time Traps by Todd Duncan. I read this quote today and wanted to share it with the readers of this blog.


"Having to go so fast to keep up, we miss stuff- our existence is truncated. Some things simply cannot be done going full speed: love, sex, conversation, food, family, friends, nature. In a whirl, we are less capable of appreciation, enjoyment, sustained concentration, sorrow, memory." Benjamin Kline Hunnicutt in Time Traps by Todd Duncan

Nasty: I've noticed a few things about this election. Politics are nasty. Nasty mostly because of the candidates smearing the others into the ground. I don't let myself get consumed with the details but I do want to figure out how I can best cast my vote.

The republicans are telling me that democrats are evil and if I have any values at all I won't vote democrat. For republicans it's clearly a battle of good versus evil and you don't want to land on the wrong side.

The democrats tell me that everything was perfect when they were in charge. In only they can control congress for the next two years this will provide balance to the force against the world's arch nemesis, George Dub. Then in '08 if a democrat can get into the white house utopia will be achieved, it will be like the good old days of the Clinton administration.

I mean with all this riding on the line the age old power of good vs. evil and the chance at utopia just on the horizon I'm torn like a pair of jeans on an '80's rocker.

Religion: Oh yeah and religion in politics. Politicians have figured that the religious vote is one they can no long ignore. I heard quoted "long gone are the days where religion in democratic party is visiting a few african american churches two weeks before the election". That was from a democrat.

So here are the days where politicians recognize the vote of the church. I suppose here are the days with a generic belief in God. I am not one of those pastors that stands on the claim that this is a christian nation. I even wonder if this "christian" nation is more detrimental to the north american church (think organism not organization). So I'm not going to fight that this is a christian nation but it will pain me to see the secularization of belief in God.

After all 93% of americans believe in God- why would politicians alienate this majority. But what does the church stand for? How does the church respond to this. I think my emphasis is on not being duped. On encouraging the church to stand for what they really need to stand for.

RPON Time: today is a good day for a random picture of Nathan.



he really doesn't look too much like this. In case you're wondering he's wearing a swimmer left over from the summer. He thought it was a hat and wore it around for about 45 minutes.

Hoodie: In a reply to the anonymous comment left a few posts back about men not wearing hoodies. The hoodie should be a major staple in any man's wardrobe. Jackets are cool but the hoodie is a sweatshirt with a garage for your head. Appreciate!

Hoodie

Halloweeners: Halloween...seriously. Do people really decorate for it? It's a major holidays these days. I grew up carving pumpkins and going out for candy. We really enjoyed it. I've never really been anti-halloween...until this year.

We passed out candy to the kids and just made sure Nathan didn't greet the kids in scary costumes. He had a blast without ever leaving the house. Overall I'm disturbed.

I don't want to be a fanatic but I can't help but comment. Halloween is a spiritual celebration. It was believed by pagans to be the time when the spirits made contact with the physical world and magic was most potent. Our acceptance of this pop-culture holiday shows our ignorance or our laziness.

Promise: Last Monday I was praying. I knew that our festival was coming up on saturday and that it was supposed to rain. Rain would ruin the event. Rain would cost us lots of money. Rain would really put a damper on our morale.

I was praying about the rain and asking God to step in...in one of those times I really can't explain I heard got speak to me "Nick, I got this." Funny how God uses the same phrases I use. So the week went on and I prayed about the rain but trusted that God was in control.

Thursday night Bible study came and everyone knew about the rain and...everyone said the same thing. We won't worry about it. God's going to take care of it.



This is a shot of the sky at noon. God delivered on his promise. "Nick, I got this."

Fall: Heather loves fall colors. She really loves the fall more than most colors. Because of her love my love for fall has grown immensely. Yesterday after I preached in Richmond we had decided to come up to Frederick and stay with some friends. Today we went for a drive to a park we used to enjoy when we lived here. Last time we were up at the waterfall Nathan was just 8 months old and not moving around too much. Today he was much more active and really enjoyed himself- so did we!

The weather was just about perfect. At times cool enough for a hoodie but other times just the t-shirt. We had a few minutes before lunch and Nathan had fallen asleep so we just pulled off at one of the overlooks and fell asleep ourselves. It was a great day.

We got to see some old friends and enjoy some of the relationships we built the 4 years we were here. It was a very good day!

Community Festival: Yesterday we had our largest preview event yet. The 2006 Community Festival was great. We had vendors from local and home based businesses. We had games for kids and lots of food and candy. It was a great event that really embodied the value of community. It wasn't just a clever name it really was community. Our 4500 piece mailer was great and we had over 200 people come out to the festival. Kristy O'Neal did a great job organizing the event! I'm so tired today but yesterday was incredible. It was the first of many great things for The Bridge Church!

Community Festival Pictures

Politics: For a few years now I've been trying to figure out what to do with politics. I feel responsible to vote and I feel responsible to have an answer to the question- why do you vote the way you do. There is this dichotomist separation between the repulicans and the democrats. They simply don't represent the same things. The problem is I want to pick and choose from either party. But apparently politics isn't a buffet...

The biggest problem: Right now I'm a staunch republican. Probably because I was raised that way and I've been corrupted from the conservative church. So I'm coming at it from a biased angle like anyone else would. I'm trying to convince myself to vote the other way. But in our system if you vote for one democratic, or one republican you vote for them all. Because of party allegiance most swing the same way.

This post lacks the passion I feel...maybe more to come later.

Stretchin it Out: We're in the home stretch for the Community Festival. I swear I spent most of the day on the phone confirming all of our orders and or setting up some last minute orders. All of the calls were positive and I haven't run into one situation where the answer was- no way we can't do that. I'm very much not a last minute person but I am continually amazed at what can be done at the last minute.

But back to the festival. The inflatables are rented, the tents are being put up tomorrow. I even have helium balloons. We have a score of local and home businesses coming to demonstrate their goods. Our goal this whole time has been to throw an event that will serve the community while previewing our idea of community and to expose the community to The Bridge Church.

If you pray then please pray for this event. If you don't pray- start!

Bridge Link: I got this idea from North Point but adapted it to fit our church, probably drastically adapted it. I'm very exited about it. Generally I wait to blog about an event until after I've put it before the launch team. This time I can't wait. I did a little write up for it in my prayer email this morning.

“Bridge Link” is a two hour event with an atmosphere that is highly relational; connecting people to people through refreshments and interactive activities, and connecting people to God through a brief message and a challenge to join a small group and to commit to coming to The Bridge. The first of these will be on Friday November 10 (just 2 weeks away!) and possibly Friday December 1.

Delegation: Delegation. Sometimes it’s hard to delegate. Not because I have a hard time trusting people, that’s not it at all. The fact of the matter is the reason delegation can be so hard for me is that sometimes I can handle it on my own. And sometimes I have way more time than most people on our launch team. I have a hard time delegating because at time I honestly have time to get it all done…this week.

But two reasons I delegate even when I don’t think I need to.

1. What happens on the week that I don’t have enough. People are so used to me doing it all that they don’t understand anything else.

2. When people contribute to a task they own it. And ownership is key to a successful church. But not really that ownership of the church helps one own the acting out of their faith. It’s a beautiful thing really.

3. When the Health Department calls and tell me I need a permit for the food on Saturday and I already have a list of stuff to do. I think of all the stuff that others are doing and I sigh in relief because that’s all the stuff I could be doing but others are doing…better than I can.

4. And another reason I delegate. Because others are far more capable at certain tasks than I am. Truth be told others might be more capable and talented at all tasks than I am…



Growth: This summer my lawn took a beating from the sun. When we moved in the grass was green and looked good. It was nothing to write home about but it was nice. This summer the sun was so hot and there was so little rain that lots of grass in my backyard got burnt. Then with the sudden rain at the end of the summer we got a ton of rain and weeds grew rampant.

I asked Robbie, my lawn care specialist, what I should do. So I put round up on the weeds and killed off all of the weeds. I had massive spots in my lawn with no grass or weeds at all. Just brown death. Then we rented an airator and airrated our lawsn (Brandon, Robbie and I). After doing that we seeded and fertilized. I had these huge plugs of dirt all over my lawn and I have to be honest. I thought we had just wasted money and time doing that. I thought there was no hope for the bald spots and little help for my lawn.

I watered faithfully then I went to Russia for 10 days. I left Heather with specific instructions on how to water and how often. When I came back a miracle had occurred. Grass had started to grow. It was only growing in the plug holes at first and looks like rows of crops. Then it started growing all over. The grass thickened and was greener than ever. My grass now looks much better than ever before.

Growth was what grass was meant to do. I shouldn’t have been surprised it was it’s natural function.