At 8:00PM on August 14th, at Rocketown in beautiful downtown Nashville, a campus will relaunch. A campus geared towards reaching college students that are in a stage of life that is as much about growing than it is about learning.

I am personally pumped up and can’t wait to start. I’ve got big dreams and plans and I am praying that God does as well, but I also have questions.

Cross Point Community Church believes in this age group. While most churches have a college ministry, Cross Point has a college “church”. An entire church campus dedicated to college students. That’s where the whole “how to launch a campus in 10 days comes in.” Sure, we will launch. We have volunteers returning, new ones starting and teams in place to make this successful, but I can’t help but be challenged by this question: How do we create an environment where college students will come and consider this campus their “home” church? This isn’t a secondary meeting. It will be the same programming as Sunday morning.

Most of us grew up getting up on Sunday mornings and going to church, so we have a mindset that church happens on Sunday morning. This is going to be a change for some people. Or maybe we will attract those kids that never got up on Sundays and went to church, or students who were out too late on Saturday night. That’s just fine with me.

Whoever comes, I believe the answer to my question is this: Community. Once a student steps inside the doors at Rocketown, my prayer is that they will experience that “Everyone is welcome, nobody is perfect and anything is possible.”  A campus cannot launch without being intentional about community. That’s our goal. Acts gives us an account of the first church and Act 2:44-47 lays out how we can launch successfully.

⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

I pray we sacrifice to give to those in need together. I pray we meet together regularly. I pray we eat and laugh together. I pray we worship together. I pray we see many saved together.

August 14th at 8:00PM at Rocketown. It begins. Let’s do this.

As most of you know, I am now a student pastor at LifePoint Church.  I get to walk beside middle school kids as they enter the most awkward, trying, and clueless time of their life.  Believe it or not, it’s a lot of fun.  The first thing most people say when I tell them what I do is, “Ewww…middle schoolers.”  It’s like this age group has a disease that you can catch and most people want to stay as far away as possible. Well, I guess I got the disease because I can’t wait to see my students on Wed night.

I love hearing that they are mad at their boyfriend because their square dancing partner in gym class is a girl that is pretty.  I just wish that was the extent of the issues that they are dealing with.  They run much deeper than you can imagine. There is a LOT of pain and hurting.  I now respond to the question of “Why middle school?” with “Everyone Needs Healing.”

Anyway, that 150 word introduction has now lead me to the point of this post. Tonight we start our moral boundaries series.  The big series of the year!  The one that causes parents to cringe and small group leaders to suddenly get sick. This year we called it “fLee”.  An obvious rip from one of my favorite shows, “Glee.” It’s not a series to slam the show, although that would be pretty easy, it’s a creative decision.

We filmed 4 glee-style music videos a while back. Complete with rewording the songs and recording audio tracks. It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun and the students are really excited to see what we came up with.

Week 1 is “Shady” set to the song “Baby.” We are talking about the type of person you date and give them 5 signs that they should flee a relationship. I will post the video and update of the specific message points this weekend.

Here are the lyrics:

Wow.  It’s been a while.  I could give you all the reasons in the world why there hasn’t been a blog post since before my wedding. After all, I started a new job, settled in a new home and got married.  That means I am very busy, right?  Well yes, but there were plenty of chances for me to write.  I actually sat down and started to a few times only to be distracted by what was on TV or chasing my wife around the house, just because I can.

The real reason why there hasn’t been a post in quite a while is, honestly, a lack of discipline.  You know discipline, the word that sent shivers down your spine as your kid.  Well, as an adult it doesn’t quite mean the same thing but it still causes hairs to stand up on end.  Discipline is tough to get.  It seems that some people just have it and while sometimes I do “just have it”, there are also times that I “just don’t”.

My friend Grant Jenkins, who will be upset with me that I didn’t just link his name, has encouraged me to do a #OneWord2011 post.  After initially saying “yeah, maybe” but in my head really saying, “no chance” I reconsidered.  So without further adieu my one word for 2011 is…..

Discipline

Discipline in taking my wife out for a weekly date.
Discipline in reading the books on my list.
Discipline in exercising.
Discipline in writing creatively on this blog more.
Discipline in serving.
Discipline in learning all of the kids in my ministries names.
Discipline in engaging my kids more on their level in their environments.

Discipline in writing messages in advance and showering them in prayer.

But if I somehow failed in becoming better in all of those and improved my discipline in this one area, it will still be a win. Discipline in spending meaningful time with the creator of the universe and savior of the world.  I used a qualifying word in that sentence.  ”Meaningful.”  No more sitting down with only 10 minutes to spare to speed read a passage and say, “thanks for the day.”

Meaningful time spent in prayer and study.  Conversations with God on a deeper level more consistently.  If I accomplish that, then I am a firm believer that most of the other things I desire discipline in will come.  I also believe that the more consistent I become in meaningful prayer and study, the less it looks like “discipline.”  The discipline becomes more of a passion and the hairs on my arm will remain laying peacefully down.

That’s my #OneWord for 2011.

Jose Bautista is a Major League Baseball player.  He has been playing in the majors since 2004, but you most likely had never heard of him.  In his first 6 seasons as a big league ballplayer he never hit over 16 homeruns in one season.  This year he hit 54. He had a monstrous year that included 124 runs batted in.  Almost double his previous career high.  He had a very successful season.

Most of you know that on October 16th, I will be marrying the love of my life.  I can’t wait, but I am not under the illusion that our story ends there.  On our programs we entitled our special day, “Storybook Beginning.”  While a little cheesy, I believe it’s perfect. Here’s why.

Think of your favorite romantic comedy and then think of how it ended. Most likely it ended with a wedding.  That was the end of the story.  We are left to assume that they lived “happily ever after.”  We wanted to make the statement that our real story is just beginning.  The wedding starts the real hard work and we are committed to making it work.  We don’t want 1 successful season or even 2 successful seasons.  We want to be a dynasty.

Jose Bautista had a monster year.  An amazing season, but it’s been his only one so far.  The rest were mediocre.  When Amy and I look back at our “stats” we want to have more monster seasons than mediocre ones.  We want to set the records each year and more importantly we will never become free agents or be traded to another team.

We are ready for this beginning.  I can’t wait to call her my wife.  Batter up.

“I just want to be friends.”

“I don’t want to mess up our friendship with a relationship.”

“I see you more of just as a friend.”

I have heard every one of those lines during my time on earth.  More than once.  Pretty sure more than twice as well.  I wish I would have known then what I know now.  And that is that guys and girls just can’t be friends. [..]