Books

I like to keep track of what I read in a given year. To me, it's like going back and seeing the path I've walked and the ways in which I've grown. I'm so thankful for the things God has taught me this year. My goal was 24 books - 2 a month. I didn't quite make it, but I got close. Here's my list from 2010:Church Planting Landmines - Nebel and RohrmayerDerailed - IrwinPrimal - Mark BattersonLost and Found - StetzerFailure - The back door to success - LutzerPlan B - Pete WilsonTHE ENTIRE FREAKING BIBLE!! (In a 90 day sprint!)Death by Meeting - Patrick LencioniOutliers - Malcolm GladwellChoosing to Cheat - Andy StanleyLinchpin - Seth Godin21 Irrefutable laws of Leadership - John MaxwellEveryone communicates, few connect - John MaxwellFunded and Free - Graham/SanglWild at Heart - John EldredgeWooden...

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How STORYCHURCH changed the world

I love my church. Seriously. We've been working our way through the Advent season, speaking of hope, of peace, of joy, and of love. All throughout we've looked inward and forward. Inward to acknowledge the ways we've grown cold throughout the year, and forward with hope and anticipation that Christmas can still change the world.And throughout this season the anticipation has built. The light has grown stronger. Sunday was one of the most incredible mornings we have ever had as a church. I don't know that I have ever been more proud to be a pastor. All month long we have been talking about the Advent Conspiracy and challenging our people to give more, and spend less. Give more of themselves, spend less money on meaningless stuff. And instead to take that extra money and turn it into something...

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Wild at Heart by John Eldredge: A review

The first time I read Wild at Heart I believe was just after college. Recently I received a copy of a revised and expanded version that was released on the ten year anniversary of the book. Wild at Heart is a classic. The book deals with the heart of a man. John Eldredge contends that there are three desires in the heart of a man: A battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. And yet at the same time there is a question that haunts every man - "Do I have what it takes?" At the heart of every man is a fear that he won't have what it takes to come through when he needs to. It's a fear that he'll be exposed as an impostor, that...

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Adventures in missing the catch

Yesterday, Bills wide receiver Stevie Johnson dropped a pass - a game winning, wide open, overtime pass that would have won the game. That's a bad day no matter what. But then, he tweeted this: p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 20.0px; font: 13.0px Times} I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO...The bad day just got worse. Here are just a few thoughts on life and leadership I have after hearing the story (and reading Romans 11 this morning). 1. Watch out for entitlement creep.It's real easy to confuse God's blessing with...

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God wants me to fail

It's true. And it's something I've been learning lately but is really difficult for me. I'm actually a bit of a perfectionist, if I'm honest. Let me give you a few examples. I don't play games for the fun of it. I play to win. If I don't win, it drives me crazy. I want to quickly figure out a better strategy and play again. Which means I can be pretty competitive at just about anything. It's not that I don't like you, it's just that I want to crush you in competition. Games like "Angry Birds" for example, drive me crazy. It's addictive to me because I must beat it. I can't let those little pigs win. A few years ago I picked up woodworking as a hobby. I've built a few things, but to be honest, it too drives me crazy. I want to build things with precision and yet my skills aren't there. I notice...

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Hey Story Church - help us out!

If you attend Story Church would you do us a favor? We believe that what God has been doing in us and through us is something amazing. We believe that the life that we are experiencing as a result is something that should be shared with others as well. There are lots of people out there looking for a life-giving church. So would you do us a favor? Here are a few ways you can help us to get the word out:Write up a great review on Yelp.If you blog, put a link to Story Church on your blog."Like" us on Facebook.Follow us on Twitter and retweet us every chance you get.Most importantly? Live an authentic, loving, generous, Jesus-centered life. There is no greater invitation than that!Thanks for helping us get the word o...

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Numbers

The number 100. It's a good number. A nice, round number. It's the first number that is three digits instead of two. And up until recently it was a number we had never reached at STORYCHURCH. That is, until yesterday. Yesterday, on my birthday, we had 101 in attendance!! It was exciting, not just for me, but I think for most of the people in the church who have been with us for a while. It's feeling fuller all the time and it's fun to be part of something that is growing and picking up momentum. And I think God calls us to celebrate. We SHOULD stop and take notice and party and rejoice over cool moments like this one. I was personally on cloud nine all day yesterday and woke up today feeling about as good as any Monday morning I can remember.Numbers are important. They tell a story - not THE...

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Sparky

About ten years ago I had the privilege to play a round of golf with Sparky Anderson, a hall of fame baseball manager who passed away yesterday at the age of 76. Some of you may know I'm a baseball fanatic. I played baseball in college at Biola University. It was as an alumni when I went to play in a fundraiser tournament that I got paired up with this legend. As a fan, I knew him as a manager who had won the World Series in both the American league with the Tigers, and the National league with the Reds. But I didn't know what to expect that day. Sparky was a small man as you can probably tell by the picture. But he was a man with a huge heart....

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Story Church lately...

We're almost 10 months old. I can't even believe it at times. And yet, in other respects I can't hardly remember life apart from this church that I love so much. I seriously can't believe I get to do this. Here are some of the things that have been happening lately:Growth. We've experienced a really fun season lately where we are seeing more and more people each week and more and more who are excited about making Story Church home. We think we'll crack the 100 mark sometime soon!A couple of weeks ago we had some visitors who came because one year ago our launch team (the group that helped get Story Church started) washed their car for free one day. Wow.Baby boom. More like explosion. Not that babies are exploding, but you understand. At some point I will try and count all the babies from this...

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Catalyst 2010 Recap

Catalyst is a leadership conference put on every year in the Atlanta area. 13,000 people descend on an arena to hear from some of the best leaders in business and the church. This year's theme was "Tension is good." Each talk had to do with the tension leaders face in many different aspects of leading. It was a really great theme. My goal for this blog post is to give you the twitterized version of each speaker - 140 characters or less. In the following days I'll probably follow this post up with some more depth on one or two of the things God showed me during these few days. So here goes:Andy Stanley (@andystanley) - Pastor of Northpoint in...

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On the other side

Have you ever experienced one of those situations where you are suddenly reliving something you've done before - but this time you have a completely different perspective? Last week I got to be part of a church planter's assessment in the Philadelphia area with Converge. About two and a half years ago, Kimi and I went through this process as we began to explore whether or not God was calling us to plant a church. It's an intense week to say the least. Long days, high stress. We were there with a handful of other potential church planters. The days are filled with personality profiles, psychiatric evaluations, group based problem solving, projects, preaching, interviews, presentations, and more. There's pretty much never a moment when you aren't being assessed by a group of people with clipboards.So...

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I know you are, but what am I?

My daughter loves to dress up as a princess. In fact, when she dresses up, she assumes the identity of whatever princess dress she is wearing. So when I say "Joy, you look so beautiful!", her response is a matter-of-fact "I'm not Joy, I'm Sleeping Beauty." It's really quite cute. But what if when Joy turns 20 she's still dressing up as a princess and assuming that identity. What if she never embraces her true identity as my daughter? I'd be crushed.This Sunday we talked about our true identity. Too many of us have continued to play dress up. We have refused to accept our identity as "Child of God". The Bible is quite clear that this is how God sees us - as his children (see 1 John 3:1, Ephesians 1:4-8). The truth is though, that it's much easier to believe that about someone else than it is...

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Childlike Faith

This Sunday at Story Church we kick off a brand new series called "Childlike Faith". It's a series I've been thinking through in my head for three or four months now and I'm really excited about it. In Luke 18:16-17 Jesus says this:Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.So here's a question for you - what do you think Jesus meant by that? What does it mean to receive the kingdom of God like a child? What are the child like qualities that you think Jesus wants us to ...

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California

I recently spent about a week in my hometown of Yucaipa, CA touching base with old friends, family, and those that pray for and support me and my family. It was a pretty incredible trip. Here's a recap:First of all, I got to meet with many individuals over coffee or lunch and tell stories about Story Church. That was a huge highlight. Only a year ago, there were no stories to tell! Now I could go on talking forever about the people, the life change, and the growth and excitement we are experiencing.One night I got to hang out with some friends who were former students in my youth group. There's about 8-10 of them that gather every week just to pray together and talk about Jesus. They are about 20 years old. How cool is that? Blows me away. Anyway, I shared with them a bit about what God has...

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Happy Courage Day

August 1 is Courage Day. At least in my house it is. Two years ago on August 1, 2008 I climbed into a truck with all my earthly belongings and drove away from a comfortable life in southern CA to plant a church in Durham, NC. Yesterday morning I was busy setting up preparing for the weekly services of that church when my daughter came running in with a card yelling "Happy Courage Day." Apparently my wife has turned this day into a family holiday - a day to celebrate a step of courage that our family took together. How awesome is that? So yesterday was a day of celebration in our house. And every year now on August 1 we will celebrate together.Do you know what is strange about courage though? When you take one step of courage, you want to take another. It's as if the first one is the hardest....

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Radical Generosity - Part 3

The third and final reality I see in Luke 16 is this: Money promises what only God can deliver. Luke 16:13 says "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."I know that no one sets out to literally worship money, but the fact is that if you organize your whole life around acquiring it and pursuing it - you are serving it! The truth is that it owns you, not the other way around.Somewhere along the line we begin believing that if we just have enough of it, we'll be not only happy, but we'll have peace, contentment, fulfillment, joy, stability, security, and hope. All things that we should be finding in our relationship with God. This is why some of the happiest,...

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Radical Generosity - Part 2

There's a lesson I learned several years ago that was game changing for how I think about my finances. That is this: I'm a manager, not an owner. Everything I have belongs to God. Everything. My money, my house, my car, and all of my stuff. It's all His. Luke 16:12 says "If you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?"Psalm 24:1 says "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it."Imagine what it would be like if you and I lived as if this were true. We would spend money differently. We would treat stuff differently. And if we are serious about having a radical impact on those around us, then suddenly radical generosity becomes much easier. After all, it's not ours. It belongs to God. So giving it away,...

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I fired my wife

It just wasn't working out. I know she was doing the best she could, but the fact is that there was just too much on her plate. One of the hardest lessons I've been learning in the church planting process is how to balance my ministry and my family. And part of that balancing act is making sure my wife isn't trying to do more than she should do either. Yesterday it became pretty clear that her desire to help me and take some things off of my plate was resulting in nothing but stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. So I fired her. I fired her from kids ministry. I fired her from feeling the need to pick things up that don't need to be picked up, and from trying to do everything all at the same time. Maybe being fired is a bit harsh, but she thanked me in the end. As a leader one of the most...

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Radical Generosity

Radical generosity leads to radical impact. I believe that more than almost anything. Generosity opens the doors to allow us to impact, influence, and ultimately shape our culture and the people around us. I was studying Luke 16:10-13 recently and came across three realities that I think shape us in how we think about our finances. Over the next couple of days I'll unpack them here.Luke 16:10 says "Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?"Reality #1 - Money is a test for what matters most.A lot of times we hear people say things like "If I had their money, I'd be a lot more generous." It's...

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Community

This week marks six months since we launched Story Church. I'm thrilled at where we find ourselves today. In many ways, it's completely different than I thought it would be, but I couldn't be happier with our progress. Yesterday I had the opportunity to reflect with our church on what God has done these first six months, and to begin to dream about the kind of community we can still become.In just six months, we've seen incredible impact on people's lives. Many of the people in our church were completely detached from God just six months ago. Today they find themselves not only regularly attending our services, but more importantly they are finding a community where they belong. They are connecting relationally with others who are seeking to live like Jesus. Together, we've been able to serve...

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Plan B by Pete Wilson

What do you do when your dreams are shattered? What do you do when your life isn't turning out the way you thought? What to do you do when you have to turn to Plan B? Those are the questions posed on the jacket of Pete Wilson's new book "Plan B".Pete Wilson is the pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville. All his years of experience counseling people, walking with them through their darkest moments, and trying to answer questions about why God allows certain things to happen have led him to write this book. A Plan B life is the life that isn't working out according to our plans. It's the life where cancer shows up, where we lose our job, where...

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Sunday reflections

I just got back from a gathering of Story Church folks we call our "Dream Team." These amazing people are the ones that serve in so many ways in order to make the vision of Story Church a reality. It's kind of hard for me to explain what is happening in our community. What was once a vision in my head and heart is beginning to become much bigger. The thing with vision is that the more you give it away, the more it grows. Our people are getting it. And the excitement is contagious. Tonight we heard stories from multiple people that have found hope and life in Story Church after years of doing life apart from God. Today they are not only regularly attending, but are now serving and helping others to experience the hope that they are finding. I'm just really proud tonight. I'm proud of who we...

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The power of Story

It's been 10 days now since the LOST finale, and I'm still thinking about it. Chances are, if you watched it, you are too. Whether you loved it, hated it, or didn't watch it but are tired of everyone else talking about it, one simple fact is hard to deny - Stories are powerful. If it weren't true, we wouldn't still be talking about it right? Those that are disappointed with the ending are disappointed because their beloved story didn't end the way they wanted to. Those that liked the ending feel a sense of satisfaction that a good story ended well. I think that deep inside each of us is a desire for a great story. We love to hear them, love to tell them, and I think ultimately want to live one.We love stories of courage, of bravery, of love, of beauty, of sacrifice, of hope, of generosity,...

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A Pair of Jacks

This week, two long standing shows came to an end. For several seasons now my wife and I have been watching both LOST and 24. At the center of each show was a character named Jack. In LOST, we had Jack Shepherd. In 24, Jack Bauer. As each show came to an end, I had very different feelings about both. As LOST came to an end, there was a sadness, and yet a sense of satisfaction for me. And as 24 came to end, there was a sense of relief - that this show was finally over.I've been thinking about why I grew to love LOST, and grew to loathe 24. For me, it was all about the characters. First, Jack Bauer. 24 used to be one of my favorite shows. I was...

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Story Church - 4 months old

I've realized that if I don't stop to reflect every so often on the life of our young church it would be easy to forget the things we are learning and seeing take place. So here's a quick update on what we're seeing four months in.People keep showing up. That's a win. I know it doesn't sound like much but when you start something like this you aren't sure that's going to happen.New people keep showing up. So not only are people coming back, but we continue to see new faces just about every week.Community is happening. This is one of the highlights for me. I keep hearing about families that are hanging out, couples getting coffee together or playing tennis, play dates happening, and friendships forming. It's exciting to see people forming relationships as a result of Story Church.Continued...

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Reading

For the last 30 days I've been attempting to follow a 90 day reading plan that will have me reading the entire Bible in those 90 days. It's been crazy. As of today, I am completely on pace - but I've been playing some serious catch up over the last couple of weeks. The thing is, the plan has me reading about 10-11 pages a day (roughly 15 chapters). So when you miss a day, or two, or three you suddenly find yourself 40 chapters behind. Anyway, here are a couple of things I've been learning.#1 - Scripture is amazing. I mean the whole story is just amazing. And I think when we read it in bite sized pieces we lose out on that fact. Reading huge chunks at a time has helped me to really appreciate the story.#2 - There's a definite story line. God is clearly seeking a relationship with his people...

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One of those days

Well, today was the day I always heard about. It's the day when everything that could have gone wrong in church planting did. I started off the day tired already. It was a late night, getting back late from a long drive from Virginia. One of the Sunday morning rituals for me is to move the van out of the driveway to make room for the truck that comes in and pulls our trailer out of the garage. And so it began - a dead car battery. We were able to get it jumped pretty quickly, so disaster averted. Once we got to the school, things continued to go south. We had sound issues, a broken guitar that led to a weird mic situation and feedback. Then it was the computer's turn to go haywire. For some reason all of a sudden the display on my computer went crazy. Every slide for every song and every announcement...

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Up the Middle

I have a friend named Matt. He wrote a book called Up the Middle Church. Though Matt's a diehard baseball fan, for some reason he wrote a book with a football analogy - but we'll forgive him for that. Anyway, here's the deal. Planting a church is hard. I hear stories about churches that just explode in growth, and I learn about leaders who seem to never make mistakes and everything they touch seems to turn to gold. But you know why we hear those stories? Because they are the exception - not the rule. Stories get told about things that stand out, that are different than the norm. The fact is that the norm for church planting is one yard at a time,...

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Easter Recap

At the risk of being way behind here, I didn't want to let Easter squeak by without saying a couple things about how things went at STORYCHURCH. First of all, I couldn't be more proud of our team. Many people worked very hard in order to make it a really special morning. We had a really great celebration of Resurrection. We kicked off a brand new series on Easter, called EPIC. It's basically an exploration of the story of God and our role in it. Easter Sunday proved to be like one of those movies that starts with the pinnacle scene of the story, and then the rest of the movie is spent showing the build up to that moment. Resurrection is the pinnacle scene of the Story. It changes everything, and it's the filter through which we interpret everything else in the Story.We promoted the heck out...

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Resurrection

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vim...

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Living Water International

View Larger MapAt Christmas last year, Story Church participated in the Advent Conspiracy. Many of us decided to spend less at Christmas on stuff we didn't need, and instead to give toward clean water wells for people that really needed it most. This week I was notified by Living Water International that the well we helped to build has been built. The well is in Bozoubolo in the Central African Republic (see the map above of the exact location of the well). It serves more than 600 people. I can't tell you how excited that makes me! The fact that as a church, before we even officially launched, we had helped to build a well that provides clean water for 600 people is amazing to me. And I think this news came at a great time. For me, its a reminder that what happened at Christmas matters most...

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Isaiah James

Today my son entered the world, but it wasn't an easy ride. At 8 lbs. and 10 oz. he's a big little guy. We had praying and planning all week to get through the weekend, past my wife's baby shower on Saturday, and past church on Sunday morning. So when Kimi began having contractions Sunday afternoon, all I can say is the timing couldn't have been more perfect. After a couple of hours at the house, we decided to head into the hospital. Once we got checked in and Kimi got checked out, we realized that her contractions were between two and three minutes apart. It seemed that this baby wasn't going to wait long. But once Kimi got hydrated a bit things...

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Distractions

Here's some thoughts from today's message at STORYCHURCH. You can find it online here if you'd like to listen.What happens when following Jesus leads down a path you weren’t expecting? John 21 starts out with the disciples deciding to go back to fishing. These are men who spent three years with Jesus, with a certain sense of where this whole thing was leading. They didn’t know when, but at some point Jesus was going to establish a kingdom and they were going to be a big part of that. But then Jesus is crucified. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in their version of the story. By the time we get to John 21, Jesus has risen from the dead and...

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OK Go does it again

OK Go is one of those bands that I learned about first from their treadmill video. Then it was the marching band in a field. Today I saw this. Wow. Their videos must take weeks or even months to set up and choreograph. I'm impress...

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The blog that wasn't...

Yesterday I posted a blog, that I then immediately deleted. Here's why - it wasn't anything controversial really, I wasn't calling anyone out, and I wasn't going on a theological rant or anything like that. Actually, it was quite the opposite - it was a short video from the Office, previewing this week's episode. This week Pam and Jim are having their baby, and there was a funny scene where Jim is freaking out. I resonated with his emotions - as my wife is probably going to have a baby in the next two weeks. Of course, in the middle of this clip was some pretty typical Office humor, which by the way I laughed at. However, the reason for deleting it was not out of a legalism that this was somehow bad or evil (in fact I posted the link above), but that it suddenly occurred to me that not everyone...

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Six weeks in

This last Sunday was our sixth Sunday together at Story Church. Today seems like a good day to give a quick recap and assessment of where we're at as a church. The reality is that we are beginning to see the dust settle from our launch. It's been an incredible beginning - but it's just a beginning. Our first six weeks were kind of strange. We launched with a series called GROW. But in week 2 the earthquake in Haiti hit, and we set our series aside to tackle head on the issue of suffering. We had our biggest offering that day - which we gave away to Haiti relief. Week 4 was snowed out, so our original 4-week series ended up lasting six. Since...

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A new look

I revamped the blog a bit today. Mostly just a style change, and added a twitter feed. I'm hoping it inspires me to use it more. I'd like for it to be more interactive, so if you read it let me know you're he...

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Laughing until it hurts

Every once in a while my kids want to sit on my lap and watch YouTube clips of puppies or kitties or monkeys or whatever. That was getting a little old so last night we broke out Photobooth. We had one of the funnest nights I can remember. We were all crying laughing. (Well, not all of us - my youngest looks concerned about what is happening to her face - which made all of us laugh even harder.) I love my family....

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GROW

We're in the middle of a series called GROW at STORYCHURCH. In week one, we talked about a principle that Andy Stanley describes in his recent book "The Principle of the Path." It basically says "Direction, not intentions, determines your destination." In that first week, we set a vision for our church and the direction we want to go. We described what we believe is the abundant life Jesus is offering in the kingdom - available here and now, not just someday when we die. This week, we tackled what I think is one of the most important things to consider if one wants to grow. That is, where you are planted matters more than anything else. Or, as...

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