Francis Chan is the Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Community Church in Simi Valley, Callifornina.  He is an amazing communicator and passionate about calling the next generation to have a deeper love for Jesus.   

Here are some of the nuggets from his teaching today:

• Sometimes as a church we try to slow down or calm down people who are fired up and institutionalize their faith.
• I don’t like the Book of Acts because I never read it and say, “Wow, that’s just like us!”
• We have the power of the Holy Spirit yet we lack boldness to walk across the street and share Christ with our neighbors.
• Let’s not stifle and compartmentalize fired up people any more than we already do.
• People say you’re a radical and then you read the Word and you realize you’re not even close.
• It seems like we’re talking people out of living the kind of life Jesus calls us to live.
• What I’m doing is so stupid if there’s no Heaven.
• We never look more like Christ than when we’re rescuing!
• We’ve got to start praying for more boldness.  Aren’t there things God has called you to do and you’ve just been scared?

I meant to post something up last night, but I was too tired.  Here are my thoughts from Session 1

Reggie Joiner is the founder and CEO of The reThink Group.  We use their curriculum in our preschool and children’s environments every week.  He is also the genius behind the “Orange” philosophy of ministry which says that two combined influences (the church and the family) are better than just one. You can check out the Rethink and Orange Conference sites here and here. 

Reggie opened up The Orange Conference with a great message.  Here are some of the highlights:

• A lot of times we try to get families to conform to our image of what family should be.
• The church needs to meet families where they are and not where we want them to be.
• God is interested in using broken people to tell His story…just read the Bible and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
• Never buy into the myth that you have to be a perfect parent before God can use you to impact your children.
• A little change (in a parent’s life) can make a big difference.
• Our unrealistic portraits of the perfect family might just paralyze a generation of families.
• If you want your children to have a personal faith, it has to be in you first, and it has to be a faith that is happening every day.
• It’s not about how great you are as parents, but it’s about God showing up in your family and doing what only God can do.

I recently finished a series of messages on Wednesday nights about margin. I defined margin as “breathing room”, and argued throughout the series that must of us don’t have enough breathing room in our lives. We don’t have breathing room in our schedules, we don’t have breathing room in our finances, we don’t have breathing room in our lives anywhere.  

So, I thought this morning that I would give you just a handful of bullet points that I shared throughout the series. This isn’t comprehensive by any means, but just a sample platter of sorts. Hope they make you think! 

• When there’s not enough margin in your life, the urgent squeezes out the important.  
• If you’re too busy for God and you’re too busy for people, then you’re too busy!
• Jesus had margin.  He took naps.  He set aside time for little children.  He was never in a hurry.  He made alone time with His Father a priority.
• Run your own race at your own pace.  Don’t run someone else’s race and don’t run at someone else’s pace.
• God is not pro-exhaustion.  He calls us to live sustainable lives. 

I haven’t posted much on this site because I’ve been so busy with this other site.  Sorry!  I’m hoping I’ll figure out how to make both sites exist at the same time, but right now, most of my extra moments are spent on the other one.  However, with that said, I will share a couple of random thoughts on my mind.

• I’m recently finished “The Principle of the Path” by Andy Stanley and encourage you to navigate through this resource sometime in the not to distant future.  Over and over again, Andy reminds the reader that “your direction, not your intention, determines your destination”…good stuff!
• Church softball is in high gear!  I haven’t been to any games yet this year, but if you’re looking for something to do on a weeknight, I encourage you to get a schedule, find out where a Southside team is playing, and hang out at the ballpark with some of your brothers and sisters.
• The Men’s Golf Tournament scheduled this weekend is completely packed out!  We have over 100 golfers scheduled to play and there’s a waiting list!  I’m not going to play this year so someone else’s team  will get to be in last place this year.  

A few things from this past weekend services:

·         Each Easter we have a third service due to the large attendance, however this year we decided on a Saturday Night service as a service option…had no real idea how it would work…

o   LARGEST attended service of the weekend!

o   We were PACKED OUT!

o   The band was kicking, the place was alive and life change happened.

·         Sunday Morning services went well because of the ARMY of volunteers we had on hand.

o   You saw them…the 300+ people in Red Shirts…did an amazing job

o   Thank you to each person that spent the weekend with us serving…it was a blast.

·         FYI – Largest Attendance ever at Southside this past weekend…over 4,000.

·         FYI – We had over 400 more people this Easter than last year.

·         At the end of each service we had people raise their hand if they wanted to accept Christ and begin a new life…we got a quick count of over 60 people this weekend walked out of our church a new person, new hope, new purpose and have become connected with Jesus.

·         We ended our 21 Days of Reflection (online church devotional) on Easter.  This was a great time for our people to be in the “word” together…You know what they say – “takes 21 days for a habit to start.”

·         Before the third service started, I saw 3 guys talking to each other – one wearing a suit; one had shorts & tee-shirt on while another had about 5 piercing in his ears/lips.  I thought how interesting those 3 highly diverse men would all feel welcome coming to the same church and fellowshipping…Let us never forget that the heart is what matters.

o   For the record it was too nice to wear a suit that morning and I think getting anything pierced on me would result in passing out so I’m liking the idea of shorts during the spring time.

For those of you who might be wondering, I’m pleased to announce that our church is once again off to a fantastic start of a new year. In fact, for the first three months of 2009, we’ve seen…

• 143 people decide to make Southside their church home.
• 60 individuals give their lives to Christ.
• 49 new Christians follow the Lord in believer’s baptism.

I hope that you’ll not only celebrate these decisions with us, but that you’ll also help us make the next three months even better, by investing in the lives of people you know and inviting them to Southside.