Happy, Happy Birthday

This Sunday, February 13 at South Bay Church we celebrate our 2nd anniversary as a church. It's kind of hard to believe that we have been going for two years now. I remember the week leading up to our Grand Opening like it was yesterday. I remember hardly sleeping wondering if people would show up, ;-) praying my guts out asking God to move, working diligently with staff to get everything lined up, and then bang... On that day 225 people from our community showed up. By our great leadership over the next 6 weeks we grew the church down to 125 people in regular attendance. Since that point God has absolutely blown us away with the transformation of people's lives, growth of the church, responsiveness of our community and so so much more.

Last Sunday we had one of the best days in our history with 580 people in worship. God is changing so many individual lives and that's what it's all about! It's unbelievable to consider what God has accomplished in 2 years, and then in the same thought to consider what the next 5, 10, 20, 30 years will hold!!! I want to keep believing Him and serving faithfully with the people of South Bay and watch God use us to change this region with His love.

I'm more excited today than I have ever been about the future of our church. Let's keep pressing forward knowing that the best of what God has in store is ahead! Happy Birthday South Bay Church.

Hope you'll be there this Sunday, February 13 to celebrate with us!!

Write It Down!

Habakkuk 2:2

Then the LORD replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it."

I am constantly looking for ways to improve my efficiency and effectiveness in life. My desire is to be faithful, focused and fruitful. Some days I do way better than others. After Sundays when I preach, Monday is typically really bad for me. I catch my stride on Tuesday and have some systems that when executed increase my effectiveness by at least 80%. (72% of stats are made up on the spot).

One of the best tools I've found is to have a daily task list. I try to write out a list of my top 10-12 tasks each day and then label them based upon A, B, C priorities. I eliminate all tasks that can be delegated to someone else on our team and labeling them D for delegation. In addition to this, I have a master list that I work from each week. I print out this weekly list on Monday's and it has all that I'd like to get accomplished for the week. This weekly list I place inside of a black book that I carry with me, tearing off the front page each day and putting a fresh list for the day.

This is in conjunction with a moleskin that I carry around to capture thoughts, dreams, conversations, lessons, things I sense God speaking to me about, etc... I review this moleskine consistently to make sure I'm getting items to my weekly and daily task lists. This also is supported by an annual list of goals and a six week project list that all narrows into a daily focus on task execution.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds kind of anal doesn't it. Your personality may be different than mine, more artistic, less structured, etc... I would exhort you no matter what your personality is, find a system that works for you and make sure you are writing things down. The more consistent you become in writing thoughts and ideas down the more you will find your effectiveness increase. Make sure to prioritize. Figure out what only you can do, work towards a vision and watch God do more with your life in a day, week, month, year than you ever imagined.

PS, Now I can go cross off, "Write Blog" from my task list.