Multi Site Video

Are you a multi-site campus pastor or a church thinking of becoming multi-site?

Here is an interview by Tony Steward with Scott Hitzel and Randy Craft. These two guys actually implement the hands-on efforts at Saddleback Church's multi-site location in San Clemente.

In this spontaneous 16-minute interview, you'll hear the first-hand report of nuts & bolts involved at a remote campus. Enjoy!

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

One Wild Weekend

This weekend was the Fourth of July holiday and what a wild one it was for me.

Thursday Detective Curlee
Thursday, it started out with us driving home to visit my parents at their farm. As we were driving down the highway I noticed some suspicious activity as we passed a car on the side of the road. I pulled over to let the car catch us and then sped up to re-catch them to make sure it was the right car. I then called my brother who is a Texas State Trooper to let him know what I saw.

He then put me in touch with the Sheriff's Department in the County we live in. I then kept myself in front of them to make sure they didn't pull off.

When we got close to my home town a Deputy Sheriff began following the car. Then another. Then another. Then my brother in a DPS car. Their plan was to stop them in an un-populated area in case they jumped out of the car and ran. Since we had gone this far we decided to follow and see what happened.

While we were following though I started worrying if it was the right car. I could just see a whole family being pulled over by 5 or 6 different officers. Then I thought my brother would never let me live it down if I was wrong.

All of the sudden we see all the officer's put their lights on...one problem though...the car isn't stopping. Then it cuts through the median to the other side of the highway. Across the highway into the ditch...of course at this time I figure I was right. Once they hit the other ditch everyone bailed out of the car, over the fence and hit the woods.

In all, only one of the guys was caught. And thus my day as a detective were over.

Friday Jason Curlee "Snake Hunter"
Friday evening my daughter and I drove out to the pond on my parents farm. As we were driving by the pond I saw something move on the ground. It was a poisonous Copperhead snake. I stayed to make sure it didn't slither off while my daughter went to get my Dad with a gun. He came out and shot it. Of course the rest of the family wanted to come see it. Here is a picture.

While we were all there looking at it. Another Copperhead, even bigger, came out right by us. I guess it was coming to help the other. My dad, with his gun, shot at it and missed. It began to slither off towards the woods when I sprang into action and began to strike it with a cattle prod, thus killing it.

And so my day as a "snake hunter ended". It really was quite a humorous sight of me trying to kill the snake I was told by my family. Here are some pics of the second snake with me in action:



Saturday Spin Out
Saturday as we were driving home it proceeded to pour down rain. We were following about 100 yards behind a car when all of the sudden that car began to hydro-plane and then did a full 360 and started to slide into the ditch. I immediately hit my brakes and slowed to not get into an accident myself. That car came to a stop and we checked on the driver. She was ok and was able to drive out of the ditch and waited for someone to check on her.

We found out in the next town when we saw the lady at a store that the car spun out a second time and ended up getting stuck in a ditch. Everyone was safe and we got home safely.

Somewhere in all of that we shot off fireworks and I smoked some mean ribs and "Coke Can" Chicken. And with that our weekend of excitement came to an end.

How was your weekend????

Do You....Comment

I usually like to leave comments on other peoples blogs. It is the whole thing about community in blogging. That's probably why I like following guys like 'los versus the big time blogging pastors who don't have comments on their blogs.

Why do you leave or not leave comments on other people's blogs?

[photo credit by flickr.com]

Fourth of July

Just a quick "Happy Fourth of July" to everyone.

Hope you are safe and that you are thankful as I am that we live in one of the greatest countries in the world.

[photo credit flickr.com]

We're Having Fun

Question is....Who's having more fun????

Pastor John Atkinson or my wife and I. I got my money on my wife and I.

You have to read John's post to know what we are talking about. I do have to add that we have an awesome team. Guy's like Ken, Daniel, Lance, Tom, Chris, Mike, Jimmy, Tim, and their families and so many others that are unnamed here, have made it so easy to bring our campus to reality.

What is awesome is that in all the work we are doing it has built some relationships that are going to make our campus rock solid.

Thanks team if you read this....we love all of you.

Post Number 1,000

"Amazing" is really all I have to say about this post.

This is post number 1,000 for Making Difference Makers. It has been quite a journey.

REFLECTION
I actually started this blog in 2006 as I was transitioning from one ministry place to another. I thought it would be a great way where those people that knew me could keep up with what I was doing.

Little did I know that two years later this blog would be where it is. Through this blog, and the blog's of others, I have met and made some great friends. I have also improved myself in so many ways. I'm not there yet...this blog isn't there yet either. That's why it's a journey.

DESIRE
In the end, I don't know that there is a specific destination in mind for what I'm doing through this. It is a journey that I'm on and who knows where it will take me. God is doing so many things through my family and personal life and I'm growing so much. Most of this is to share what I'm learning as well as the lessons learned.

There are two things I do know about my blog:

I want to make the greatest Kingdom impact for God that I can. I'm going to use as many methods as possible. That is one of the reasons for the things I write here. I write a lot of leadership and organizational management posts. I believe there are a lot of pastors who have the faith, the scripture, the prayer....but no one has ever showed them the organizational side of things. I hope to be a resource in that.

I want to get back to a little more of sharing my journey. In December of 2007, I decided to start another blog for that. I was going to take this blog and make it all about leadership. With the time frame I'm constrained with now, this blog will stay in these two areas.

So it is post 1,000...I'm excited to hit this milestone. Have I arrived? Nope!!! Only feel I'm just getting started.

THE STATS
Thought I would give you a quick rundown of stats. Even though I started my blog in March of 2006, I didn't know you could even track blog stats until October of 2006. So here are some stats since Oct. 20, 2006.

15,363 Visits
24,484 Pageviews
Over 80 Subscribers
Blog has been viewed in every state and in 97 countries

THANKS to all you readers, my family, and the people who are seeing my potential in ministry.

[photo credit flickr.com]

Green Grass

They say "The grass is always greenest on the other side"

I say "The grass is always greenest over the septic tank"

Have you ever found that to be true like I have?

[photo credit flickr.com]

Questions Answered 1

I asked people to ask me a questions they would want the answer too.

First question is by Texas Ron Linebarger whose blog link is kindlytalk.com

"Why is Jesus not mentioned in the Core of MDM page?"

What he's talking about is here. Great question by the way. The reason I don't have it in there is that I feel that I shouldn't have to preference "Jesus" on everything I do. I don't spend a lot of time on this blog putting out or proving my theological stance. I don't spend time interpreting scriptures even though I way put some in there.

What I do do...(hmm that didn't sound so good...do do)...is try to help pastors or ministry leaders be more effective. I feel there is enough written about how you should be praying, reading the word, trusting, walking by faith, etc, etc, etc.....I want to write in areas that can help people practically.

Well done TEX....great question again.

Answers Coming Soon

Left a challenge to everyone to ask me questions....it was open ended which was scary cause I didn't know what kind of questions I would get.

Would they be hard? Would they be on topics I didn't know? Would they be too personal?

Well the questions are in and I'll be answering them this week and next week. And I was relieved that no one asked me anything to hard or personal and that I am going to be able to answer them all.

FYI - Post number 1,000 will be hitting this week. So be on the lookout.

[photo credit flickr.com]

Who Do You Listen Too

Do any of you listen to any other pastors other than your own through the week? If so, who and how?

For an example...Craig Groeschel at LifeChurch.tv via podcast or Joel Osteen via TV. I hope you get the picture...

Let me hear from you....my answer will be added into the comments.