Here are some of our amazing volunteers (there had to be hundreds of green shirts running around!)

Ladies and gentlemen…Starfield!  These Canadian guys can really rock!

Chris Tomlin, up close and personal. 

My kids loved Freedom Fest.  The inflatable games, Chris Tomlin, and of course, the fireworks!

Check out these cool firework pictures.

I thought I’d give everyone a ”behind the scenes” look into what we’re doing to get ready for Freedom Fest 2007.  We’ve had an amazing team of men absolutely working their tails off today and they have been the most amazing servants you’ve ever seen.  Really, they have!!  Anyway, I thought I’d share a few pics and thoughts. 

This dude’s name is Brad and he brought the giant stage with him.  We did whatever he told us to. 

That’s me on the right (Matt).  I actually did a little work.  And no, I’m not wearing gloves.  Real men don’t wear gloves!

The man in the orange hat is Carl Runyon.  He’s the guy who makes Freedom Fest happen.  And he’s a volunteer!  He’s amazing and we’re glad he’s on our team!

Here are some of our amazing volunteers making it happen under the stage. 

Here are some of the guys unloading the stage out of the truck.  I’ve never seen so much crammed into one truck!!

This is the field where we expect 10,000 people tomorrow to hear Starfield and Chris Tomlin.

This is Pastor Jerry.  He’s one of the supervisors, of course!

It’s been a beautiful day today at Southside.  We are setting up for Freedom Fest 07.  There are hundreds of volunteers that took the day off so they could be a part of something amazing.  Its fun being around adults who simply love ministry and willing to alter their work schedule to make it happen.

We are expecting over 10,000 people tomorrow on our campus for this event.  I’m excited because it is my first Freedom Fest.  I’m also excited to see Chris Tomlin!  How amazing it will be for our people to worship with Tomlin and the songs he has written…many will realize that those are all the songs are the same ones we sing each Sunday.  I can’t wait to watch thousands worship together.

We will be posting pictures all weekend but here is what Freedom Fest looked like last year

The fun continued with Session 2 of our Leadership Conference.      

We introduced Session 2 with this amusing video.  (I love how he hums the Spider-Man theme at the end!)

Immediately after that introductory video, Matt talked about our church’s core values, or in other words, the things that we feel are unique about us as a church.  Here they are, as well as a couple of comments Matt made about each of the values.

Value #1 – Communicating Truth  

We teach people how to live out the principles and truths of the Bible.  We don’t just want to teach the Bible.  Anybody can do that.  We’re committed to teaching the Bible with the goal of application and transformation, not simply information. We want to teach the Bible in a way that helps people.

Value #2 - Celebrating Life Change

We rejoice when people’s hearts and lives are transformed by God.  The opposite is true as well.  We are unhappy when people’s lives are not being changed.

*To drive this point home, Matt asked the band to play “Celebrate” (yes, the song by Kool and the Gang!), and then asked everyone to sing it out loud as if they’d just witnessed 50 people make the decision to follow Christ.    

Value #3 - Challenging  Status Quo

We risk the ordinary to experience the extraordinary.  We believe that playing it safe is risky.  We would rather do what is most effective than do what is most popular.

Value #4 - Creating  Community

We connect insiders and outsiders to our church and each other.  We really believe that the best place to find accountability, belonging, and care, is in the context of a small group.  As such, we refuse to let people “do church” in isolation.

*To reinforce this point, Matt asked the band to play another short piece of music, but this time as the band played (“Lean on Me”), he invited everyone to greet the people around them like they were a part of their family and not just fellow members of the church (in other words, no handshakes allowed!) 

Value #5 - Compelling Environments

We conduct our cause with fun and passion.  If it’s boring, we don’t want to be a part of it, and God certainly doesn’t want His name on it!  We make laughter and celebration a priority in all our ministry environments. 

Value #6 - Choosing Love

We love and accept all people.  Anyone ought to be able to walk through any of these church doors and be loved and accepted by us. We need to receive people right where they’re at and not expect them to act a certain way first, remembering that all people are valuable to God and should therefore be valuable to us.

I could say a lot more, but this is a blog, not a book, so I’ll stop.   We’ll be posting our thoughts from the Saturday morning sessions soon!

If you missed it, I’m sorry.  Perhaps the greatest weekend in the history of our church took place on August 24^th and 25^th. 

And although, we’ve already mentioned some of the highlights in this blog, we thought it might be nice to comment on each individual session from our 2007 Leadership Conference.   So today, I’m going to break down Session 1.  I’m not going to give you all the details (you should have been there!), but I do want to give you some insight into the sessions themselves, and how great they went!

Anyway, we introduced the first session with this hilarious video.

Immediately after that introductory video, our pastor shared a message entitled, “The Future is Now”, in which he communicated the mission and vision of Southside Baptist Church.  The following statements were the ones that stuck out to me the most from Session 1.

• “Over the last five months, our staff has sat down and hammered out a path that we want to follow.  It begins with our mission statement, and is followed by our values, strategy, and our mission measures.   Our mission defines the church.  Our values drive the church.  Our strategy designs the church.  Our mission measures are the direct result of how we do church.”
• “It has been said, that the local church is the hope of the world, yet most churches are either in decline or staying the same!”
• “We have a mission statement that is clear, concise, and compelling, as well as biblical.  It is a mission statement that defines what we are trying to accomplish!”
• “God wants us to connect to Himself, connect to other believers, and connect to unbelievers.”
• “God intended for the church to be alive and not dead, authentic and not hypocritical, and relevant, not irrelevant.”
• “We are not here to guard our traditions, but to teach truth that brings about transformation.”

Anyway, if you missed it, you have no idea how great a weekend it was.  I can’t emphasize enough how incredible it really was. 

And don’t forget to tune in tomorrow when we’ll break down Session 2 for you, and share with you some of the highlights from the rest of Friday night.