Coming at you after a BIG Bills win!

Can you believe the last five minutes of the game... good for coach Perry... I like that dude I hope he gets the job!

Enough about the Bills...

We had a great day at Renovation!

I could tell a difference without tables... we were not talking as much as we have been with the tables... us humans are creatures of habit.

We are so ingrained in our behavior...  that when we walk into an environment that has rows of chairs - facing a stage our natural bent is to go sit in the chairs... keep your attention fixed onto an empty stage waiting for the "show" to start...occasionally whispering to the person we came with.

When we walk into an environment that has tables and specifically round ones... our focus is not on an empty stage but the people sitting at the table... you see each others face not the back of their head. For those who are not as out-going the table is like a security blanket which allows us to engage in conversations that we might not typically have.

We did not have tables today because we had a concert last night in our auditorium and we did not have time to set everything back up.

Tables or no tables is not a right or wrong issue it's just a preference issue based upon outcomes... how do we get all of us to get to know each other... talk to each other... pray with each other... it seems at least in our context that gathering around tables helps us accomplish that at a faster rate and in a more effective way than rows... so for this season tables will probably be more the norm... I am sure this to will change.

Loved the more laid back worship set that Nick led today... some really powerful songs we sang today... loved it!

I am always listening... reading.. watching  things that which will help me grow in my walk with Christ... in leadership... in relationships... I tell our crew that "Leaders are Readers" I have been downloading some great stuff right now in the areas of community development... I will try to post some of those books this week.

I also listen to messages online... there are so many resources now available to all of us via podcast, itunes, youtube! I need to be fed myself... I need to hear the preaching of the Word of God myself our my spirit and soul will run dry. It is those messages that stir me... wow me... convict me that I end up passing on to Renovation. Such was the case today... I love to hear a new truth or hear something that helps me "get it" and then pass it on... I figure if it can help a dude like me it can help most other dudes or dudetts!

We had some great wins today... one lady after the 11.00 gathering came up afterwards and took the final step of Faith into a new relationship with Christ... then Joshua told me that we had 8 kids do the same in Renovation Station!

Caleb and Canon were telling me about some of their friends who accepted Christ today... you got to LOVE that!! They were excited for them... Canon was trying to explain to Gloria and I who everybody was... They were our kids... renovation families who we partnered with and helped facilitate the most important decision of their young lives... thanks Renovation Team Members you guys rock!

A great day today Renovation... love seeing and hearing what God is doing in us and through us!

Let's be great ambassadors of reconciliation this week! For His glory and His fame!

Wow! We got a ton done today... 

Always great to have the guys from Teen Challenge come over and give us a hand. They are a fantastic group of guys and they flat-out work! They have been helping us all fall and we have really grown to appreciate the guys. Joshua and I are going to go down and see 4 of them graduate out of the program tomorrow.

We also had some extra hands helping us get ready for our first Thanksgiving Community Dinner... my mother came over with a group of ladies from Whitehaven and helped get the basement decorated and the auditorium. 

It was an all day work day... have to take advantage of these mild days cause it can change fast here in   B-Lo!!

So cool to see the basement almost completed and ready to be used... our Love Revolution resources have heledp cover  a majority of the renovation cost but we have had some really significant partners... one man has donated all of the paint... another donated the the electrical work... a lot of volunteer labor... which when you put it all together makes it much more meaningful than just contracting it all out... we could not afford it even if we wanted to but when you allow others to join in the effort it makes the finished product more significant because it was partnership instead of simply a business transaction.

We should have an awesome time tomorrow night... just a reminder that unfortunately the basement is NOT handicap accessible.

We will pray that God will provide the needed resources to allow that to happen over the next year!

Well i had an incredible opportunity last night that kept me from being able to post last night.. more of that later.

Yesterday morning was fun for me. 

I am loving having the tables in place for several reasons...

I like watching people getting to know other people... talking...laughing

I love watching 27 tables full of people who are praying for and with each other.

I love the energy that sitting at tables has created both while I am speaking and while we are singing!

It seems to really be a great way to gather together in our context at Renovation.

Community is a growing value for us at Renovation... building community with those who are gathering together every week and building relationships with other churches, organizations, institutions within our NW community... 

Of course it's easy to say community is a high value but unless you take steps to create opportunities to develop community then it never really gets any significant traction.

I also want to say that Nick and I have noticed that being at tables has allowed us collectively to be more engaged when we are singing!

How cool was it yesterday to sing in spanish! Nick is such a talented young man... he just keeps blowing me away with his heart and talent! I also love his humble spirit!

Being on a church staff is not easy... let me just say that! 

Anytime that I have brought somebody onto a ministry team in a full time position... without fail they cannot believe the amount of work that has to go on behind the scenes. 

I believe that there needs to be a sense that God has placed a calling on a person's life... sometimes that is a life-long calling and sometimes it is for a season. I believe Nick has that calling on his life.

When we launched Elmwood Nick had just graduated from High School for crying out loud!

He was going to work part time to help us run sound and maybe sing occasionally... well that changed pretty quickly as Nick's talent and hard work began to have an immediate impact at Elmwood. He also is our graphic artist which he had never done before... 

He was not even dating and now he has a wonderful helpmate in Bethany who is a godly young lady in her own right! 

I am blessed... as are we all at Renovation that God has Nick and Bethany assigned to us for this season of our lives. He is doing a great job of leading and developing a greater appetite for worshipping our King.

Can't wait for our first Thanksgiving Community Dinner... we have about 250 signed up not counting those from our community that will just walk up! 

Oh about last night... I got a chance to go see the Boss. I have to admit I have never been a big Bruce fan... until I saw him in concert last night and now I "get it" unfortunately it could have been their last show together. They are getting old but boy what a show... 3 1/2 hours of straight hard kicking music. I have never heard a band so tight or so good. 

I did feel a little weird... 19,000 people all singing (except me... I only knew a few songs) every word to every song for 3 1/2 hours... the most impressive worship environment I have yet to experience... all of these people not only sang the songs with great passion they had hand motions with many of the songs... I felt like the dude who has never been to "church" who walks in and sees and hears all of these people singing and lifting their hands... a good reminder to give people a chance to "get it" before we expect them to engage!

Didn't realize I skipped posting last week... where was I? oh maybe outside because of the incredible week of sunshine we had last week!

For those who don't live in B-lo we had Ty Pennington and the Extreme Makeover Team come to town this past week... they started by rebuilding a house but it turned into a 50 house project not far from us on the WestSide! It was really incredible to see all that they did with thousands of people volunteering on one of the toughest streets in the city. They said it was the best city they had ever visited as regarding the way people just jumped in and started helping... that's what I love most about living in Buffalo... the people!

Speaking of incredible... our Gatherings today was incredible!

It was awesome having Oral and Jeanine joining Nick and the band leading us in worship... Island flavor! 

So thankful for the quality and the heart of the worship that we get to experience at Renovation... we are blessed indeed!

I gotta say I am loving the tables... I love seeing people engage in conversation... worship... prayer and it happens so much more gathered around tables instead of sitting in rows. For those who can't hang out with us... we set up tables last week for a little experiment... we have 8 chairs around each table and so far it has been a lot of fun for everybody (almost) of course there are a few who were a little distraught when they came in and could not find their "favorite" seat... very funny to see the panic on faces!

We started talking last week about what would happen if we (renovation) actually did more than just gather at a particular place and time every week.. what if we harnessed the collective muscle of the diversity of talent, passions, perspectives... that God is gathering at Renovation for the specific purpose of impacting, empowering, revitalizing NW Buffalo... bringing the full Gospel to our community.

We continued that discussion today and it was exciting. 

We have adopted CCDA as our blueprint to actually see this begin to happen. There is a growing CCDA presence and movement in the city. 

CCDA is based upon the 3 R'S

RELOCATION... What God did for us through His Son by relocating... might we do for others?

RECONCILIATION... reconciling every man, woman and child back to the Father... loving God, loving others and proving it!

REDISTRIBUTION... just distribution of time, talents, treasures... begin living with the philosophy of "ENOUGH" we have enough for ourselves how can we begin to redistribute our resources individually and collectively.

We did something new today... Potluck with Brek and Gloria. We went old school today. We have had a lot of people ask over the last few months if we could "get together" as much as I would like to, there isn't enough time so we thought we would try to accomplish this by having people signup to hang with us and the staff and eat together after Church. So that's what we did and WOW what a great time!

We got to meet and spend some time getting to know some folks and to answer some general questions. 

We also ate some really good food!

We had a real strong Hispanic presence so that meant... Spanish food which I love! Double blessing for sure!

I am so grateful for the diversity that we are experiencing at Renovation... God is doing some amazing things!

Wednesday's are always early morning wake-ups for me and those who come to Men's Fraternity. Last week I mussed it with the swine flu but i was back today. It never fails to see friendships really start to develop in this environment. 

The first few weeks is always about breaking some "ice" with new guys but around week 6 or 7 a break through always start to happen... real friendships begin to take root. It is always awesome to see that happen. Guys getting each others email... asking each other about getting lunch... are you in a small group... and so it is with this crew. 

You see there are very few environments where men can go and hear about how to become a better man, dad, husband, boss, worker... without feeling threatened, exposed to who we really are. It is hard to find a place where guys are strategically having conversations that call each other "UP" that's what I love about MF. We had two new guys join us today...

One dude gave his life to CHrist on Sunday and was here today... telling his story of redemption...now that's worth getting up early for!

Join us if you can... every Wednesday morning @ 6.00 am till 7.30 in the Big House!

What a week it has been. It started off really well... Monday was great especially after getting back from Cincinnati and knowing we had a ton to do. I went to bed feeling just fine... I woke up wondering how a mack truck ran over me during the night. Any of you (which is many) that have had the swine flu...you know the feeling! I was flat on my back the rest of the week. I started feeling a little better Friday evening. It's been up and down but the worst is behind me (i trust)!

We had already planned on having a day of mostly worship/prayer/reflection after the seriousness of Leaving Lust Vegas so it worked out good today because had very little in the tank today. 

Today was really special though... I loved hearing all of our voices reading God's Word together... praying together. We walked through a very simple process that my dad has taught for years... A.C.T.S. For many of us we struggle with how to "fill out" our prayer life. We basically fall into a rut or routine in our conversations with our heavenly Father and this is a simple but effective way to expand our our thoughts and heart towards God.

A is for Adoration... praise for who God is

C is for confession... keeping small accounts with God is important

T is for thanksgiving... having an attitude of gratitude is key to growing in our relationship with Jesus Christ

S is for supplication... these are our petitions our request taken to the Lord

It was great to have an extended time of worship through song 

It was very cool to have CJ come forward after the 9.19 gathering... heart broken before the Lord saying "I need to give my life to Christ" He told me he had been coming for about a year bringing his 6 yr old daughter to Renovation Station. That he had stiff armed God most of his life and had tried to do it his way but over the course of this year had realized he wanted to be a different man...dad. He was tired of his life and trying to fix it on his own so he wanted to turn it all over today to the One who can fix it... now that is a great day!

We had a ton of guest at the 11.00 gathering today... never get tired of that!

So proud of the Renovation Station Team... we have had some new volunteers come onto the team over the past few weeks which allows us to offer child care for children 4 yrs old on down at the 11.00 gathering! We have been working toward that for a while now and so today we were able to offer that which is great!

We had to make a tough call yesterday when we cancelled the Trunk or Treat. We had to make the call around noon so we could try to tell everybody that we could not to come. With what we were going to try to do in the parking lot... grill out, tents, music, along with the decorated cars... we looked at the forecast and with the combination of 30-40 mph winds mixed with rain we decided to cancel. We really appreciate everybody that went to the effort to make it happen... sorry for those who didn't get the word in time...

You can be praying for the staff this week... always a very busy week when we put on a MarriedLife Live. I love them but they are a ton of work. If you have some time and you want to help call the office this week and talk to Michelle. We are also trying to finish up the basement renovations... electricians are coming in the morning and the flooring should get done this week so we are getting close. 

We have to have it ready for our first Thanksgiving Community Dinner on the 25th of this month... that is going to be an awesome evening!

Just want to say how much I appreciate all of the encouraging notes, emails, calls that I have received over the past few weeks from many of you... pastor appreciation month is always a little weird for me... but I really appreciate your kind words and thoughts!

That's it for now... finish watching the Yankees beat up on the Phillies! Bills looked awefull :(