This is a big (short) week as I’m believing God to nail down a bunch of question marks this week.

One Big One: We still need a worship leader.  I got the message on Saturday from the second guy I thought was coming on board.  So I’m trusting God is going to take care of this need this week.

At this point, the church planting experience feels a lot like when you’re on an old school roller coaster heading up the hill right at the beginning.  You hear the chain that’s pulling you up clicking along each tooth on the sprocket and you can feel every little thing.   But soon you know you’ll be flying down the hill… 

Even with a bunch of unknowns on the horizon, I’m completely stoked that there are only 25 DAYS UNTIL OUR FIRST MONTHLY SERVICE.  Iron City Church – peaking the top of the roller coaster on May 20.

I’m still a green blogger, so I didn’t make any time on our whirlwind trip around the country to update.  So here goes:

We had a good trip.  Got to spend a couple of hours with my sister and brother in law and my nieces and nephews in Jersey on Wednesday and Thursday. 

As usual, the guys at The Journey did a great job with the evangelism and small groups seminars on Thursday in NYC.  I feel a lot better about what we’re doing and got some great ideas as to how to generate and maintain a culture of evangelism at Iron City Church from Day One.

Thursday night and Friday were pretty tough – straight driving through to the ATL.  Got to spend Friday night and some time on Saturday with our friends Jeff and Leslie Mousa in Douglasville.  Jeff and I are in the church planting school at West Ridge Church together.  We had class on Saturday and then Amber, TJ and I headed out to our old stomping ground near Savannah.

Its been 5 months since we came to Pittsburgh and there were some wierd emotions going on when we returned.  I left there pretty burned out (mostly of my own doing) and our return brought back a lot of memories – some good, some not so good.  We stayed with our friends the Jenkins.  I spoke at Crossroads Church Sunday morning for my friend George Pabst.  They really have something special going there — I’m waiting to hear the reports as God brings explosive growth to this church because they’re being faithful with what they’ve got.

Another 12 hours of driving (TJ is the best 8-month old traveler I’ve ever seen!) and we got home last night.  A good night’s sleep in my own bed and here we are. 

Its been a good week so far.  Not as productive as I would have hoped, but that is pretty normal most of the time.  I have a meeting in the morning with one of our local officials to share the Iron City dream with him.  I’m praying that this will be the start of a good relationship there.

After that – just after lunch Amber, TJ and I are heading to my sister’s house in New Jersey for the night.  I love getting to hang out with them (even if it is only for a few waking hours).  Cutting the distance in half to their house is definitely an added bonus of living in the ‘Burgh.

Thursday, we’ll be at The Journey church offices for a couple of seminars (one on evangelism, one on small groups).  This was a last minute addition to our schedule, but I’ve yet to attend anything led by Nelson Searcy and Kerrick Thomas that wasn’t well worth my time.  They are painfully practical.  I like that.  These guys are doing it and want to share what they’re learning — that is definitely a BIG part of my vision for Iron City.  They’re in Manhattan with over 1,000 attending on Sundays (maybe more now – they recently launched their 3rd location), but the stat that trips me out is that they have about 1,200 in small groups.  I have a lot to learn.

As soon as the seminars are done, we’re heading southward.  We’ll stay with some friends in Atlanta on Friday night and I’ve got class at West Ridge Church on Saturday.  I’m finishing up at their church planting school (May will be our last session).  That’s been a great experience.  When I started going last September I had ABSOLUTELY no idea that we’d be doing this so soon!

After class, we’re on the way to the Savannah area.  This will be our first trip to the area since we moved.  It’s amazing how much Pittsburgh has become home in a few short months, but we lived a lot of life in Savannah — I’m sure they’re will be some wierd emotions going on.  Should be interesting.  We’re staying with friends and we’ll be worshipping with my friend George Pabst and Crossroads Church on Sunday.  They are looking to partner with ICC for a few years — sharing the dream gets me pumped.

Hopefully we can hang out with some friends Sunday afternoon and part of the day Monday, then we’ll hit the road heading back north.  We’ll get home some time Tuesday and be full tilt ramping up to our first monthly service on May 20!

Please pray that we’ll be safe as we travel the eastern seaboard all in a few days.

PS – There is one other reason I’m excited to be making this trip (I’m picking up my baby):

I had the opportunity to meet Steven Furtick a few months ago in between services at Elevation Church in Charlotte (on their 1 Year Anniversary, where there were 1,500 people present).  He is the real deal, has a great family and solid staff around him, and God is BLOWING THE DOORS OFF of that church.  On Easter Sunday, they launched a 3rd service AND a 2nd location simultaneously.

Seeing the way God is moving there gets me even more stoked about what God is beginning to do in Pittsburgh.  One of the reasons I love Steven is that he’s REAL.  He put up a great (and TRUE) post today:

 Pastor Steven Furtick » A lot of the time we’re scared

I have heard A LOT of people use absolutes – regardless of their particular area or setting – like “door to door doesn’t work anymore” or “we’ve never had any success with door to door”.  That may actually be true in some places, but most often its a case of misguided expectations.

I think a more appropriate statement would be “door to door is not the home run, save our church, launch with 500 people method of marketing that we were hoping it was”.  In other words, I think we (especially church planters) tend to try to imagine the killer app – that ONE THING that will blow the doors off.

Most of us are visionary, dreamer-type guys, but in 99% of all cases, marketing (ESPECIALLY church marketing) is not about that one thing.  It’s about raising an awareness in the community.  It’s about (at least in our case) trying to begin the process of getting those who are disconnected to reconsider – or consider for the first time – giving church a try.

One thing I learned in running my web design business for about 6 years is that no marketing venture is EVER a stand-alone activity, nor can it be viewed as such.  It always has to build.  Momentum is built within a church or organization like a snowball.  Marketing is the same way.  This event builds on the memory of that creative mailer they got a few months ago, which built on the personal invitation from that acquaintance a while back, which built on the eye-catching billboard, etc.  It’s about RAISING THE AWARENESS to gain the opportunity to introduce people to Jesus.

One way we are trying to do this is by giving people something.  This is nothing new, but we worked with a local drive-thru coffee stand (Island Bean) to put a coupon on each of our door hangers.  It was very liberating when folks were hesitant about accepting the church info to tell them about the coupon (which they can use whether or not they ever come to Iron City Church).  There was a visible lowering of the defenses when people realized that we were trying to GIVE them something.  What a novel concept!

UPDATE: RESOURCE ALERT – Ed Stetzer’s Research on Door-to-Door

OVERWHELMED:
When I laid my head down last night I was asking God to bring out about 12-15 people to join us today for hanging door hangers in the neighborhood here. 

God is so good that He decided today would be a good day to remind me that He is bigger than my best reasoning!

All told, we had 27 people show up (counting the kids) and leg it out, scattering seeds to raise the community consciousness about Iron City Church – all on 3 or 4 days notice.  All told, we placed info on the doors of between 2,000 and 2,500 homes today!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED TODAY AND THANK YOU GOD FOR THE REMINDER OF WHO’S IN CHARGE!!!

EXHAUSTED:
This area is known as the North Hills.  Driving around every day, I tend to think of that as an attractive, convenient name to identify where I live and where we’re planting a new church.  Today however, walking the 2-3 miles that I did, reminded me that its not just a clever name.  It’s called the North Hills because it’s in the HILLS!  My feet, ankles, calves, knees, quads and hips hurt like the 3rd day of football camp.  God please forgive me for my sedentary lifestyle….

The fine folks at FedEx delivered 5,000 door hangers yesterday!  We designed them in-house and got the peeps at Printing For Less to print them for us (If you can do the design work, I highly recommend them – amazing customer service). 

I’m a computer guy and tend to do well conceptualizing, designing, imagining things on-screen, but it there really is something to the tangible aspect of matter.  Just having these pieces of paper in my hand makes things feel more “real”.  I am stoked! 

We’ve got a few folks from this church, this church and this church (and a few others) coming out in the morning to help hang some of these puppies. 

If you’re in the Pittsburgh area and interested in helping, meet us at McIntyre Elementary School (click for directions) at 9:30 tomorrow (Saturday) morning.  Bring a smiling face and some walking shoes!

Either way, pray that God will guide our steps, words and actions and that He’ll help us make some connections in this community.

These are advertising the series we’re doing for our monthly services (May – August) and our launch date (September 16).  Here’s the piece:

Great post by Perry Noble this morning. 

 It is SO easy to forget who we’re trying to please in ministry.  I spent a couple of years trying to be what I thought other people wanted me to be.  It is only in the last few months that I have really taken some time to seek God’s face and do a thorough self-inventory.

I think the reason guys who are aiming to please the Audience of One are unique in our current American church landscape is because they know who God made them to be.  Their identity is not wrapped up in what this person or that person or that group thinks about them.  If me being the pastor that God made me to be offends a Pharisee or two along the way, so be it.  I say keep rocking the upstate of South Carolina for the glory of God, Perry! 

Link: Perry Noble dot com » Playing For An Audience Of One

I love the Bible.  It’s like a well-built, bottomless ice cream sundae.  Its good if you just scrape across the top, reading occasionally and taking everything at first taste.  But the deeper you dig, the more you find that ribbon of chocolate, that hidden quarry of goodies, that new application of timeless truth.

In my reading from the book of Ezra today I was reflecting on the sovereignty of God and how He repeatedly uses powerful leaders who were not part of the holy nation of Israel to accomplish His purposes.  I love how God uses kings from the same nation to first judge the Israelites by taking them into captivity and then to send them back to rebuild and repopulate Jerusalem.

The story reflected in Ezra and Nehemiah is one of my favorites for a number of reasons, but today it really served as encouragement.  I’ve got some meetings coming up in the next couple of weeks with officials in this community to share with them the vision of Iron City Church.  I enjoy talking (especially about ICC) to just about anyone, but I’ve been suffering from a case of the doubtsies lately.  Today’s reading reminds me that God has already orchestrated the connections that He will use to fulfill the vision for ICC that He has given me.

Who knows who will be the Cyruses, Artaxerxes’, or Lydias that God uses to help us rock the Pittsburgh metro area for the sake of His Kingdom and His Glory?

Amber and I are trying to do a better job of dating.  We never really dated much, even pre-marriage.  We were more of a “hang out with everybody” kind of couple.  So, 7-1/2 years after I first took a liking to the girl, we’re FINALLY doing some dating.  That being said, we’re having a “kind-of” date night tonight. 

It’s the first home night game for the Pirates and we’re heading out to PNC Park in just a few minutes.  It’s only a “kind-of” date night because we’re meeting some folks there (but they’re the hook-up for the tickets, so…). 

Anyhoo, take me out to the ballgame Babe!