I spent Monday and Tuesday with the staff at the churchplanters.com church growth conference.  It was great as usual.  All of us were challenged in a variety of ways.  I want to share a few things that God said to me.

1.  My vision to reach this community through men works.
During the conference they had what was called break out sessions.  These consisted of speakers discussing a bunch of different church related things.  The first I attended was led by one of my pastor friends.  Gary Lamb, pastor of Revolution Church in Canton, Ga.  They are four years old and running over 1,000 and his primary target is men.  The one statement I left with was,
"everything we do, we do through the eyes of a man."  I challenge our staff on a regular basis to think like a lost man.

2. The second break out session was with the lead pastor and worship leader of the church we attended (Mountain Lake).
I say this with a very humble and thankful heart.  Tim and I could have led the session.  Please take this with the right attitude, our church has outgrown this conference.  It is geared at people planting a church.  We're four years old and going stong.  We need to attend the conference that addresses how to handle 1,000 people in attendance.  I am so thankful for the relationship Tim and I have and what God has done at our church.

3. I want to finish with how I was really challenged, to the point of getting on my knees in tears and begging forgiveness.  In fact, I'm praying through not starting PMS next week but the week after and talking about risk.  Bob Roberts (pastor in Texas) asked the question, "what have you risked for Jesus lately?"  This hit me between the eyes.  What have I risked lately for Jesus.  Yeah I know,
* I put my house up so we could remodel the Colony theater.
* I took a HUGE cut in pay and trusted Jesus to take care of us in starting this church.
As these things came to my mind I think I was trying to justify that I've not really done anything RISKY for Jesus.  Pastor Bob talked about going into other countries and literally putting his life at risk for Jesus.  As he talked I was overwhelmed at how safe I have become.  I'm constantly preparing.  Preparing Sunday mornings, Sunday night marriage stuff, meetings, reading, blogging, answering e-mails and the list could go on.  I'm doing what I've been called to do but how much risk is there?

I told Debbie on the way out that things were going to change with me.  I was going to begin doing A LOT more RISKY stuff for the cause of Jesus.  Her response, "Oh no!" 

I just hung up the phone with PAstor Bob's secretary.  I have a phone conversation lined up with him and I'm getting ready to shoot him an e-mail.  I want to hang out with this guy.  I want to go into other countries and make a difference for Jesus.  I want to be used radically for Jesus.

Church, lets get radical and start taking some risk for our Savior.