Eric Taylor

Hanging with Church Planters

This week I got to hang out with some church planters that are doing it well in their churches.  Wednesday I went to Birmingham and spent the day at the Developing Churches Network roundtable.  We talked about family ministry and small groups.  Great stuff and lots of info shared.  Thursday, Andrew Kulp, our Growth Group Coordinator, and I went to Canton, GA to Ridgestone Church and hung out with Gary Lamb and his staff.  Those guys really rock.  We had a big time hanging out and hearing their story.  I also got to meet several other church planters and got connected with a new friend here in Alabama-- Dave Anderson.  Dave is at Crosspoint in Decatur, AL.  This guy is creative and funny and I want to hang out with him some more.  Hopefully we'll get to connect again after Easter.

Speaking of Easter... It's a week away.  We're sending 15,000 out all over Auburn/Opelika and our prayer is that over the next few weeks, lots of new folks will visit Journey.  Pray that the they will make their way into the hands of people who are disconnected from God and from Church and come to Journey on Easter.

I can't wait to see what great things God does on Easter!

Random Thoughts Running Through My Head

I feel like I've been living the last week at warp speed.  So, today, I'm just going to do a mind dump of all the stuff I've been thinking about as I lay awake at night.

1. I'm blessed and amazed that God called me to be a church planter.
2. Auburn is an incredible town and I'm glad God let us stay here and plant Journey.
3. Easter is RAPIDLY approaching... are we going to be ready?
4. We don't have anyone to lead worship THIS SUNDAY.  This puts me in a bit of panic mode.  It's the last week of Spring Break and there's not a lot of people around. (if you can read this and you know someone who can lead worship... give me a call.)
5. State Farm Claims service is GOOD... (I'm not saying that just because I used to work for them... they really are good).  We should be getting a check for the stolen computers by the end of this week.
6. We have 15,000 direct mail cards hitting the week before Easter.   I'm praying that people will get them and check us out on Easter. 
7. I've never gotten over "CPS"--Church Planter's Syndrome.  When we open the doors every week... will anyone come?
8. What if nobody comes on Easter?
9. What if LOTS of people come on Easter, will we be ready for them?
10. I feel like I need to pray for 24 hours before Easter.  Not sure what all that means, but early this morning, God prompted my heart with that number and that desire. 
12. I went to see Amazing Grace... I tried to like it, I really did... but I didn't.  Maybe it was because Wild Hogs was playing in the theater next to it and I secretly wanted to sneak in and watch it again.
     
13. This Wednesday and Thursday I'm going to get to be around other church planters.  Wednesday I'm going to our DCN roundtable.  Thursday, I'm extremely pumped about going to Ridgestone Church in Canton, GA for their roundtable.  Gary Lamb and his team are doing some radical stuff to reach disconnected people.  Can't wait to pick their brain and bring back some stuff that will help us here in Auburn.

Crazy Week!

This has been an incredibly wild week for our family and our church.  Someone broke into our house (that also doubles as the church office) on Thursday.  I came home from a lunch appointment and went to check my email and my laptop was gone... I looked around and another computer was missing and then I saw the door had been pried open.  Over next few minutes I experienced a flood of different type of emotions ... Fear...Anger...Confusion. But then, after a while,  I was incredibly thankful that my kids weren't home at the time.  After all, it's just stuff and our  insurance will cover it. 

With that said...after I began to think and pray and process through the fear and anger and hurt... I had to come to a hard realization--The person or people who broke into our house is someone who Jesus died for.  They are as much of a candidate for His grace as I am.  And strangely enough, they are the kind of folks we are trying to reach with the good news of the gospel. 

Wild Hogs

I went to see Wild Hogs this weekend with a couple of guys on our Navigation Team.  This was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time... I'd even pay to see it again!  Better than that, I had an incredible time with 2 of my best friends and we all laughed til our sides hurt. 3 guys doing life together going to see a movie about  4 guys doing life together... that's what made it very cool.  Kind of made me want to go out and buy a Harley. (Just kidding, Sonja!)

Working for the Weekend

I'm looking forward to this Sunday for a couple of reasons:
1.  I just love being with our people at Journey... they're my best friends, people I've chosen to do life with.
2.  We get to baptize a couple of people who have gone public with their faith.  As much as I love teaching and leading our church... I would have to say that baptizing folks who've committed their lives to following Christ ROCKS!  There's nothing else that even comes close!  The reason I love it so much is because I get to hear the stories of their faith journey... how Christ has transformed their lives...how their focus is shifting from serving themselves to serving the Lord.. how other people have helped them along the journey.  That gives me goosebumps!

We're seeing it all around us as people who have never even invited anyone to church before are now actively investing and inviting and bringing people with them on the weekend.  I believe we're on the brink of  something HUGE that God wants to do here at Journey.  That's why I can't wait until the weekends.

With that said.... Easter is a few weeks away and I want to encourage you to do whatever you can to get someone who's disconnected from God and the church to come with you that day.  We will have a special "Egg-stravaganza" for kids... You'll be able to have your picture made with the Easter Bunny (I'm sure other churches will think we're not very  spiritual because we have a "pagan" symbol at our place on Easter.  Truth is, we want a WHOLE BUNCH of Pagans at our place on Easter... who know's maybe the Easter bunny will get saved!).  There will be a moonwalk, an Easter Egg Hunt and refreshments and it all happens immediately after the service.

Begin NOW inviting your friends to come to Journey with you on Easter. 

Momentum

I usually get up early in the morning... 4:00 or 4:30am and have my personal worship time (before you think...'Man, this guy is SO Spiritual'... that's also the time our new puppy gets up and has to go outside... it's like having a baby in the house again).  So since I'm up, I take advantage of the quietness of the moment.  Besides reading my bible and praying, I usually head to some of my favorite church planters blogs and read a while and pray for the guys and their churches... Today I was reading Mark Batterson's Blog.  Mark planted National Community Church in Washington D.C. and has written a book called "In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day"  It's a GREAT book.  Everyone should read it.  No, I'm not getting paid to say that either, I just like the book that much!  Here's what he posted this past weekend:

"Just found out In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day is going to its fourth printing in six months. I was a little surprised because the third print run came off the press less than a month ago. Thrilled that the book continues to gain momentum--prayer creates and sustains momentum!"

That phrase CAPTURED ME!  "Prayer CREATES and SUSTAINS momentum!"  How true that is... I needed to hear that this morning because as Journey builds momentum toward Easter and beyond... we must be on our knees praying that God continues to place His Hand of Favor on our church. 

If you are reading this and you are a part of the Journey Family... let me encourage you to PRAY...PRAY... PRAY that God will continue to allow us to connect with disconnected families in the area.  If you are not a regular at Journey, we would love for you to pray for us as well.  James 5:16 says that the "earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results."

I would write more... but I think I'm going to pray.  Thanks, Mark, for the reminder.

I'm Pumped!

Yesterday was a great day at Journey.  We had LOTS of first time guests...Attendance was up, even with the time change... and the band ROCKED! As I left the church yesterday I was pumped about what's going on at our church.  You guys are so great at doing whatever it takes to reach disconnected people! 

I had an interesting conversation with one of our guests who had found out about Journey from our New Residents Mailer.  They had received a card in the mail about a month ago but then a week ago they got a hand written note from one of our folks who personally invited them.  This woman said she was so blown away that we would take the time to personally hand write invitations and she just had to check out the church that cared so much about people they didn't even know yet.  WOW!  What a great word! 

I hope we never lose that--- we want to be the church that cares about people we don't even know yet!  In fact, that's why we started Journey... for people who we don't even know -- people who are disconnected from Christ and the Church...

So, thanks to all of you guys who volunteered to hand write cards to people you didn't know... You are making an impact!

This morning I'm going to visit with a Joel Walker who planted NorthStar Community Church in Phenix City.  I love meeting with church planters who are tracking a little ahead of us because they remember what it's like to be where we are because they were there not too long ago.  Joel has been very encouraging to me in our journey and I'm looking forward to a great time with him.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Focus

In my personal worship time I've always tried to incorporate reading a Proverb a day.  Someone taught me that a long time ago... they said because there are 31 chapters, you can get a daily dose of wisdom if you read one a day.

Well, a few days ago I was reading Proverbs 4 and it really worked me over, especially the last few verses.  My takeaway from that included 5 things that I really needed to be reminded of in our church planting journey:

1.  Fix your eyes on what lies before you... VISION.

2.  Mark out a straight path for your feet... STRATEGY.

3.  Stick to the Path...RESOLVE.

4.  Don't get sidetracked... FOCUS.

5.  Keep your feet from following evil... INTEGRITY.   

This was such a great reminder of what God has called me to be and do as a church planter and pastor. 

Great Weekend

I've learned so much since planting this church.  Like, Sunday rolls around every 7 days and somebody's gotta teach. So you've got to prepare and prepare well.  Being at the church planters conference took me out of my rhythm and prep schedule... but it was so worth it!...So, we get to Sunday morning...we're finishing up a series called "24", based on the greatest show on TV today.  We've been talking about making the most of every opportunity and how we can leverage the time we've been given to have the greatest impact on the Kingdom.  And to be completely honest... I really believe I stunk up the place... I felt like I rambled, I didn't say things I meant to say and I said things that I probably shouldn't have said.  At the end of the service, I walked to the back of the room and expected people to leave and go find another church...but several people came by and told me how this series had impacted their lives...  How it helped push them out of their comfort zones and they are now investing and inviting...And here's the BIG deal... while we were loading out, I noticed a guy talking to a young lady and I found out later that she had committed her life to Christ that morning.

  The lesson that I learned as I went home that afternoon was this:

1.)  Rick Warren was right-- "It's not about ME".  I was so focused on me that I could've missed what God was doing in spite of me! 

 

2.)  I'm no Ed Young, Andy Stanley or (insert the name of your favorite communicator here)... But I'm learning my own communication style as I study these guys and others like Shawn Lovejoy, Rodney Anderson, Erwin McManus, and lots more.

3.)  While our leadership team will tell you I'm VERY ANAL about striving for excellence,  the bottom line is--God is excellent... even when I'm not, or when something in our church is not.  He can move and work and do incredible things in spite of me.

4.)  It's both exciting and humbling that I have the privilege to speak truth into the lives of people each weekend... That drives me to my knees so that I can be sure that what we're saying to people is connecting with their needs.  But even more exciting is that many of our people are "getting it" and are investing in the lives of disconnected people and bringing them to church with them. 

I can't wait to see what God will continue to do as I'm now driven to "make the most of every opportunity".

Why Blog?

As I get back into this blogging world... I had to ask myself, "what do I think I'm doing?... Do I have the time?  Do I even have anything to say?  Well, I talked with some bloggers at the churchplanters.com conference and realized that some would think I'm just jumping on the blogging bandwagon... but then I thought ... so what?... Here's what I plan to use this blog for: 

1.)  Communicating with my church.  We will most likely still send out our email newsletter, but it will simply be announcing upcoming events and giving general information.  My blog will allow me to speak personally with my church folks and those of you who want to "listen in" can do so. 
2.)  Document my spiritual and church planting journey.  This is a pretty personal thing... I've been journaling for about 16 years and I'm pretty open and honest in my journals... this will be a test of my authenticity.  plus... I won't have to buy any more journals so I can save money!
3.) Connecting with other church planters and people I know in ministry that can help us along our journey.

I welcome any thoughts and comments you might have to help make this blog a very cool place.

Enjoy the Journey,

Eric