Meeting Stephen Baldwin @ Krogers

Tonight I had a really cool experience. I was on my way home from my night job and I was debating on whether to get dog food tonight or tomorrow. I decided to get it now so I pulled into the grocery store near my house to get my pooches some grub. As I was walking toward the dog food aisle I saw this guy standing there and instantly knew who the guy was but I convinced myself that it couldn't be him. So I called my wife and told her that I thought I just saw Stephen Baldwin at Kroger's. At that moment Stephen stepped into the main aisle and it was obvious that it was him.

At that moment I hung up the phone walked up to Stephen and introduce myself. I think I freaked him out alittle. The reality was that I was a little nervous as I was introducing myself. Don't act like you wouldn't have been nervous meeting Stephen Baldwin. Seriously it was a really cool moment, how many times do you meet a person who is influential in the Hollywood and Christian world at the grocery store?

Anyway, I then began to share with him that I pastor a church in Dahlonega Georgia and that we have a large group of skaters in Dahlonega and I was praying how we could impact this ignored and displaced group of students. He then gave me his ministry card and told me to email one of the organizer of the Assalt Tour. The ASSALT TOUR is a completely FREE event that offers the youth a drug free and positive environment to come and see some of today's hottest bands, professional freestyle moto-x, bmx, and skateboarders. The tour also offers amateur skaters the chance to show off their skills to the pros and win cash & prizes!

Can you image if this ministry came to Dahlonega. Countless lives would be changed forever. I'm seriously going to try to make this happen. I have no idea how to make this happen but my bible tells me that nothing is impossible for my God. So DAGer's and Dahlonega get ready because God willing the Assalt Tour is coming. If you want more information about the Assalt Tour check out it here.

Just in case you are reading this post thanks Stephen for listening and introducing me to the Assalt Tour. It would be great to have you and the Assalt Tour in Dahlonega.

Sunday Night Mind Dump

• WOW what an incredible day!
• I am totally exhausted but it was totally worth it.
• I am so proud of our worship team! Every week it gets better and better.
• We had several guest.
• Life has been a little crazy and stressful for many of our folks.
• I really felt today that alot of people had their JOY restored.
• Our guest speaker, Noel Rosa, hit it out of the park this morning and tonight!
• He has this unique way of connecting with every generation.
• He really stressed how important it is for the older generation to pour into the younger generation.
• If you want someone that knows how to jam on the guitar and tell you how it is you have got to invite Noel to you church, school, or events. I promise you won't be disappointed.
• Let me know if you want his info.
• Had lunch at the Smith House in Dahlonega it was amazing!
• It's a little pricey but totally worth it...it's the best country food in north Georgia.
• I was so jacked up about our fall carnival this Friday. It's going to be blast.
• I am so tried...
• Still working on several projects at the church.
• I just ordered our new church sign.
• Our current one was made in the 70's...seriously. It looks pretty bad right now but hopefully we will have our new sign in 5 weeks.
• Pretty excited about our new cafe area. we're currently looking at furniture to complete it.
• I'm think about getting a tap for a rootbeer keg to make rootbeer floats:)
• Just thinking about it:)
• The last couple of weeks I haven't preached so I can't wait to preach next Sunday!!!
• The Sunday before Election Day...it's gonna be interesting.
• Good night!

THIS SUNDAY!!!

Hey just wanted ya'll to know and remind all you DAGer's out there about this Sunday. A couple of days ago I got a call from Noel Rosa. Noel is a award winning singer/song writer/speaker. He is also the designer of a new guitar line series that is storming the music industry. On top of all that he is a passionate follower of Christ. He has travel all over the country performing in front of small and large crowds with a message that communicates to every generation. Long story short he will be at our church this Sunday October 26th at 10:30am service and at our 5:00pm Student Ministry service. Below is a short bio of Noel, I hope to see you on Sunday morning.

With his unique percussive-style of guitar playing Noel Rosa has been amazing audiences around the country. He has won over the hearts of thousands of fans with powerful heartfelt songs, an approachable personality and an exciting stage presence. People of all ages are raving about this incredible performer.

Noel has shared the stage and worked with national and world wide ministries over a 15 year career on both the speaking and music circuit. Noel has opened for such national music names as Audio Adrenaline, Rich Mullins, Pierce Pettis, and many more. He has also worked with Billy Graham’s organization, Benny Hinn, Louise Pallau, Dave Reover and many more.

His strength is approaching the gospel on a parable form, using word pictures to make his messages easily understood for all ages and emphasizing mentorship of the young.

If you love your Senior Pastor...

If you love your Senior Pastor you have got to read this post. Pastor Perry just wrote a great post that I totally agree with and hope everyone at DAG reads it. It's entitled, Seven Things Senior Pastors Want Their Staff To Know–Part One check it out here.

Thoughts about GOLD RUSH

Wow what a crazy weekend. This past weekend Dahlonega hosted their most popular festival of the year Gold Rush Days. What's Gold Rush Days you ask...basically it's a two day festival celebrating the 1828 discovery of gold in Dahlonega Georgia. Historical Dahlonega is the official first site of the US gold rush. Just like any small town festival there are arts and crafts, kiddie rides, and of course a ton of food. Since 1979 Dahlonega Assembly has been selling our world famous funnel cakes at Gold Rush. Okay, maybe they're not world famous...yet but they are Gold Rush famous. Seriously we had people looking for us at Gold Rush because they had to have our funnel cakes. That's crazy!

This year was my first Gold Rush experience and I got to admit I am exhausted! My feet are killing me, my back is hurting, and I'm just physically tried but I had a blast!!! It was so much fun hanging out with our church family for two days. It was amazing seeing how our people rally together to make Gold Rush successful. I had a lot of people telling me it was going to be a lot of hard work and they weren't joking it was hard work but it was totally worth it. In the past the money raised at Gold Rush all went to foreign missions but this year along with global missions we are going to invest into our community (local outreaches and mission projects).

I am so proud of our folks at Dahlonega Assembly of God! DAGer's because of your faithfulness lives will be changed in our community and the world. I am so honored that I get to pastor such an amazing church. Thank you for serving with all of your heart ya'll are amazing!!! I can't wait until next year's Gold Rush!

I did something crazy...

I did something that most pastors would never do...I cancelled a Sunday morning service! I know that's crazy, who in their right mind would give up a perfectly good Sunday service...I would!

A couple of weeks ago I decided to cancel yesterday's morning service. You see this past weekend our community was hosting it's biggest festival of the year Gold Rush Days. In years passed this event would bring in 100,000 people in a community of 17,000 people. Wow...who in their right mind would miss an opportunity to reach 100,000 people in a weekend? Sure most of these folks are just visiting Dahlonega but that shouldn't stop us from trying to connect people to Jesus. My prayer was that in our serving and interacting with people this past weekend that they would see something different in us.

Now before some of you jump on your high horse and tell me that I took away an opportunity from someone to know Jesus by not having a service "at church" let me remind you that most of Jesus' ministry recorded in the Bible happened in the streets, shorelines, fields, hills, marketplaces, in people's homes, oh yea on the cross. Jesus seized every opportunity no matter where He was , even when he was hanging on the cross, to share and show the message of the gospel.

One of the things that really tick me off are Pastors who think the ONLY PLACE that we can teach people about Jesus is in a church building. Just for the record, I believe in establishing a place (church building) for Christ Followers to come together regularly to encourage each other, to worship together, and to grow in the Word. That's why we are investing a lot of resources in updating our facilities right now, but it's stupid for us to think that it's the ONLY place that a person's life can be changed. When that foolishness comes out of our mouth what we are communicating to Christ Followers and disconnected people is that their relationship with Jesus is based on a particular environment and not a 24/7 no matter where you're at growing relationship with Jesus.

Serving people at our funnel cake booth gave us an amazing opportunity to speak into and interact with countless lives. I know there are some of you out there asking if it was worth cancelling a Sunday morning service...my answer is YES! Let me remind you that I am willing to do everything up to sin to reach ONE person for Jesus. I promise you this will not be the last time we cancel a Sunday morning service.

Finally, I am so stinkin' proud of our church! The folks at Dahlonega Assembly did a great job representing Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven. My wife and I are so blessed to be apart of a church who is willing to take some risk for the sake of reaching just ONE person. DAGer's ya'll are so awesome! Thanks for doing whatever it takes to reach people with the life giving message of Jesus Christ. Love ya'll!!!

Sunday Night Mind Dump

• Wow Sunday was amazing!
• I want to give a quick shout out to everyone on the worship team. You guys did awesome job on Sunday. Thank you for serving with all your heart!
• Our attendance has been weird lately. A little frustrating but God is still in control.
• I was so ready to preach I couldn't wait to get up there and share what the Lord had laid on my heart.
• I'm loving the series that we are on right now it's called Fear Factor.
• We're taking a look at how FEAR keeps us from our full potential as people and especially as Christians.
• check out Sunday's message at our NEW website. Let me know what you think:)
• At the end of my message I asked folks if they had any fears that were keeping them from their maxium potential and if they were ready to face it and take it out to raise their hand...it was so awesome to see people step up and take the challenge and begin to move forward! God is so good.
• I GOT TO BRAG on God for a second. Right now we are in the middle of a lot of projects at our church right now. I mean BIG projects like we just put on a new roof, we just repainted our building, we're doing a ton of painting inside, we just installed a new water filter system, we are about to order a new street sign, we are getting ready to create a new kids church area, we're thinking about doing some work on our parking lot, and the list can go on and on my whole point is that God has been extremely faithful throughout this entire time.
• I am discovering when you are doing exactly what God wants you to do and has called you to do even when it doesn't make sense to you EVERYTHING falls into place.
• Thank you God for being BIGGER than our circumstances and thank you DAGer's for being faithful during this season of transitions. I can't wait to see what God does in the next couple of months.

I ALMOST MISSED IT!

Got to be honest...I've been a little disappointed that I wasn't able to go to the Catalyst Conference this year. Three years ago I went to my first Catalyst Conference and it rocked my world. Since than I haven't been able to attend but this year I was determined to make it and at the last minute my schedule changed. So I was being a little whiny yesterday. The problem is that I almost missed an amazing opportunity yesterday.

I got to hang out with my son all day long! You see my evening work schedule and everything that has been going on at the church has been crazy lately and I haven't been able to hang out with him as much as I would like to. But yesterday during the day it was all about "daddy and the Josiah". After my wife got home from work we got ready and went to Chili's for dinner. On our way to Chili's we drove by the Cumming Fair and my wife mentioned she would love to go and take our son to his first Fair. Honestly...I wasn't in the mood to go to the Fair and walk around and buy over priced funnel cakes and corn dogs so we continued to Chili's.

After dinner we did a little shopping and on our way home I drove by the Fair again and saw my son's and wife's face and I couldn't take it any more so I parked and we went to the Fair. Once again I ALMOST MISSED an opportunity to create a memory with my family. We had a blast at the Fair! It was our son's first fair and it was so funny seeing his face as he took everything in. My wife (the prepared one) had the camera locked and loaded to take pictures and yes we did buy the over priced corn dogs, lemonade, and funnel cakes and they were amazing delicious!!! I also bought my son an overpriced light up toy that he already broke today but it was totally worth seeing his face.

I can't believe it I ALMOST MISSED IT! I almost missed creating this unforgettable memory with my family. I would have love to had been at the Catalyst Conference this year and hopefully I can make it to next years conference but I learned the most important life lesson yesterday...FAMILY FIRST before ministry.

The greatest impact I can make for Jesus on this earth is investing TIME...not just time but "QUALITY TIME" into my family. I realize this statement sounds simplistic and obvious but the problem is that many Pastors MISS THESE KINDS OF MEMORIES because we put "others & church stuff" in front of our families.

Listen I'm all about conferences and leadership training. We have got to invest into ourselves to become better leaders but not at the expense of our families.

Whether you're a pastor or not STOP MISSING OPPORTUNITIES WITH YOUR FAMILY. The greatest leadership lesson I learned this year wasn't at Catalyst while being surrounded by some of the most amazing and creative leaders in America but at the Cumming Country Fair surrounded by my family. Don't miss your opportunity!