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.  

I played a lot of sports as a kid and one phrase that I constantly remember hearing my different coaches say was, “Take one for the team.”

I especially remember this phrase being thrown around during baseball season. My coaches constantly encouraged me and my fellow teammates to “take one for the the team!”

Sometimes it meant staying in front of a hard grounder on defense. Sometimes it meant bunting when you wanted to swing for the fence. Sometimes it meant getting hit by a pitch when you wanted to get out of the way. Regardless, when all my years of baseball were said and done, I understood the concept of taking one for the team. I understood that baseball is a team sport and when an individual puts his wants and desires ahead of the team’s, then that hurts the team.

But while I understood the concept then, and understand it even better now that I’m older, I’m surprised to see so many people in the world today who don’t seem able to grasp this concept.

Let me apply it as simply as I can and then I’ll be done. Those of us who are active in local churches have to make sure that we take one for the team. We have to make sure that our plans and our agendas and the programs we love and the Bible studies we want to do, don’t get in the way of what God wants to do in our churches. We may even have to do something we don’t want to do for the sake of the rest of the team. I never wanted to get hit by a pitch or take a grounder to the chin, but I did both on multiple occasions because I loved my team and I wanted to win.

Anyway, don’t talk about your coach. Don’t bad mouth your teammates. Just take one for the team.

I just wanted to encourage you to encourage somebody in the next few days.

Write that note you’ve been meaning to write. Make that phone call to someone who needs to hear an encouraging word. Send a personal message to someone’s facebook inbox. Speak words of life into someone who’s not expecting it.

You have an opportunity every day to breath life into the people around you, so do it already!

Seriously, lose the excuses and encourage somebody!

It’s the end of the month and I just wanted to share with all of you what a great January we had here at Southside. I almost never share statistics on the blog because they don’t tell the whole story, but I had to share these numbers with you.

First of all, we had 82 people decide to join our church this month. I don’t know that we’ve ever had more people join our church in one month than this month, and we are so excited to get to know all of our new family members.

Secondly, we had 27 people give their lives to Christ this month, and have seen 21 of them already follow Him in baptism. We’ve definitely been celebrating life change this month!

Finally, we had over 2,300 people in worship this past Sunday! And more than that, all of our environments were packed and the spirit in these environments was unbelievable!

Anyway, we’re really excited around here about what happened this month, and I just wanted to remind all of you to keep investing in the lives of the people you know, and keep inviting them to our Sunday morning worship services.

I read a quote from Bill Cosby this week, and it was so profound I just had to share it with all of you. I don’t know the context of this particular quote, but at the same time, I know that if fits my current context as a leader in the kingdom of God.

Anyway, here’s the quote: “I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try and please everyone.”

Isn’t that good? Isn’t that so true?

Our mission as a church is not to please everyone. We couldn’t do it if we tried. It would be doomed from the start.

On the contrary, our mission is clear. Our mission here as Southside is to help people learn to love God, love people, and love the world, and we believe that when someone makes it their goal to pursue that mission, it will lead to a phenomenal change in their life and in the lives of others.

Just a thought.

I’m wrapping up my Wednesday sermon preparation and one of my takeaways tonight is that God sometimes allows things to get worse before they get better.

Isn’t that true?

Sometimes, instead of coming to our immediate rescue, God actually allows things to get worse.

And although we may want to figure out exactly what God is up to, the best response is simply to trust Him.

I’m not saying it will be easy to worship when circumstances are difficult, but I am saying it’s the best response.

What do you think?