This Sunday we celebrate 100 services at OneLife Church and announce some big changes that will take us to the next level. I thought it would be fun to take a trip back in time and highlight some of the more memorable days and weeks of the 100 we’ve had together so far (and what I was thinking along the way).

• September 13, 2009 – OneLife launched with 158 people and more importantly one person gave their life to Jesus! A true testament to our incredible launch team that had grown to around 30 by this time. (“Are any of these people gonna come back next week?!”)
• September 20, 2009 – The first “real” week after launch. So-called experts say only 50% of launch people will come back. They were wrong. 77% came back.
• October 18, 2009 – Lowest attendance ever at 114. (“Maybe the experts were right?! Nobody is ever going to come back now.”)
• November 3, 2009 – Staff meeting in my kitchen gave birth to two new ideas. One, we have great services and put on a great event each week but we aren’t yet a church. We care too much about the wrong things! (see previous thoughts all about attendance) As a result, volunteer teams began functioning as small groups leading toward our current VIP structure. And second, we realized a huge need for an office space! We found one and moved in three weeks later.
• December 6, 2009 – HUGE day. Our first ever baptism service with six baptisms, 250 people attended the worship service, and more than 80 volunteers came to the Volunteer Appreciation Christmas Party that night. (“In just three months?! God, this is CRAZY! THANK YOU!!!”)
• January 31, 2010 – Snow and high temperatures in the 20s led to an ice-covered parking lot at our storage unit so our trailer wouldn’t budge! That forced us to do something I hope we NEVER do again…cancel a service. But we had to, and it led to our first ever live streaming service from my living room. About 100 people connected to the service live online.
• April 3, 2010 – The Egg Drop. More than 3,000 people showed up, but only around 2,300 could fit! (“What were we smokin’?!”)
• April 4, 2010 – Our first Easter and launch of second service.
• June 6, 2010 – Student Ministry Kick-Off with tons of students showing up to worship Jesus and get involved with a small group.
• September 12, 2010 – An unbelievable day. Our one year anniversary, 20 baptisms, a packed-out auditorium for one service and small groups called “Communities” kicked off that night.
• November 16, 2010 – Staff meeting was about me sharing my burden and vision to do more for current OneLifers to see them grow in discipleship and leadership. (“I feel God so strong saying we need to develop people, but how? All the traditional methods don’t seem to work.”)
• December 24, 2010 – The most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced as an attender. The Powell Community Christmas Eve hosted by OneLife attracted nearly 400 people, mostly from the community! Our creative, tech, and band teams blew this one out of the water.
• January 16, 2011 – The Overflow Church, the first church plant sponsored by OneLife, launched in South Knoxville.
• March 8, 2011 – Our staff met with Dan Grider, a pastor on our oversight team, who I had been meeting and praying with for months. Dan helped us develop a plan for Xcellerate, God’s answer to our prayer from November to develop better disciples and leaders. This is not a program, but a way to change what we care about! Xcellerate launched a month later, and we are still seeing people grow like crazy and become better equipped to lead the multitudes to Jesus.
• April 24, 2011 – Our second Easter was more than I could have ever dreamed. 440 people attended and 23 prayed to receive Christ. (“God, it feels like you are answering my prayer that you do something so big only you can get the credit. This is far more than I ever imagined, and in only 18 months. Wow.”)
• June 27, 2011 – A meeting was held with key leaders at OneLife to share the vision of our next big step. An awesome time of prayer led to two weeks of seeking God’s direction for this step.
• July 13, 2011 – A follow-up meeting confirmed this is God’s plan for our church. The wheels were set in motion to begin the process of this move that will be announced on August 21.
• August 21, 2011 – 100th Sunday morning at OneLife. One HUGE service at 10 a.m. will celebrate all that God has done and IS doing as we move forward! (“I CAN’T WAIT!!!!”)

It’s been quiet around here on my blog, twitter, and facebook for the past week. That’s because our church has been dealing with a pretty tough tragedy that – on top of a staff retreat this week – has had my mind and emotions pretty much occupied.

My wife’s most recent blog post sums it all up better than I could, so as I break my week-long silence I’ll just defer to her.

InsideMyFishbowl.com – Cloudy with a Chance of Yuckiness

A few years ago I heard a quote at a leadership conference that changed me. It was something like this…

“If you were to die or retire and someone came into your organization to take over as the head leader, what would be the first things they would change?”

Wow. What a question! I’ve been part of a lot of organizations that roasted the key leader. Everyone had their opinion about what the guy or girl at the top did wrong. And if they would just do a few things differently, we’d be much better off!

In that conference I realized that the person who would be roasted at OneLife if I didn’t continually ask this question would be – *gulp* – me!

So routinely we look at where we are and ask a similar question. Currently, I’ve posed this question to our staff guys and key leaders:

“If we could start all over again, what would we do differently?”

And guess what. Whatever the answers to that question may be, that’s exactly what we’re going to do! Because if we find ourselves talking more about how great it USED to be back in the past rather than how great it WILL be going forward, we have lost our vision and will soon perish (Proverbs 29:18).

Then it hit me. The same is true in everyday life. If I died and my wife got a better husband, what would he be like? If my daughter got a better dad, what would change? If my employees had a better boss, how would he treat them? If our church got a better pastor, what would he do differently? If someone could come in and be a more devout Christ follower, what would they give to Jesus?

That thought process is a game changer, because reality about Jesus is this: HE is our chance to start all over! It’s not about what we do or how hard we try to be better or do more. So give it up to him. And ask HIM, if I could start all over, what would be different? Then don’t just sit there. Go do it. Go start all over.

In the church world, anonymous notes are far too common. And they’re usually mean. It’s the avenue that cowardly people use to make themselves feel better as they trash the beliefs, ideas, education, looks, family, and anything else about a pastor or church that you can imagine!

Over the years I’ve seen some nasty ones. I’ve seen a pastor told that he was the reason his wife had a miscarriage. I’ve seen a pastor threatened to have lawyers come remove him from his church. Personally, I’ve been called uneducated and told I didn’t know what I was talking about in certain theological or scientific areas. Our church has been classified as a cult. It’s always interesting, and always by people who are too scared to put their name to their empty threats and hateful claims.

Because these notes hold as much value as a stale biscuit, our staff knows that if one surfaces in the offering, an email inbox, or our post office box, that it immediately gets thrown into the trash. If you don’t care enough to put your name on it, we don’t care enough to read it. But I guess there can always be exceptions.

I accidentally ran across one that got put in my mail tray in the office because it was a letter addressed to me and had not yet been opened. As I read it, I didn’t realize it was anonymous because something was different about this letter. It was nice. It was respectful. It addressed a legitimate concern about something that happened on a Sunday I was absent. It was short and to the point. It didn’t slam me or our church but built me and our church up in encouragement. And to be honest, I was glad I read it! I got to the end and was surprised to see that it wasn’t signed. But for a change, that was ok.

This person was apparently new to our church and didn’t realize that we have an honest, open, and transparent culture at OneLife. If they had signed this letter, I would have responded with such gratitude and appreciation because it helped us fix a problem and because it was done with love and respect.

That’s how you write an anonymous note…as if you aren’t anonymous! Otherwise, you’re just a coward saying things you would never say in “real life” and your opinion holds no value.

This week I heard about Bill Maher’s closing monologue from a couple months ago and had to look it up. In between expletives, crass comments, and his political rhetoric came (drumroll please) – truth.

At the very end of his four-minute tirade about the hypocrisy of Christians he makes two comments that hit me like a ton of bricks. First was…

“I’m just saying logically: if you ignore every single thing that Jesus commanded you to do, you’re not Christian!…You’re not Christ’s followers, you’re just fans.”

Woah! That last part was a zinger and it…well…it kind of hurt! I began to think about my own life. Do I follow Jesus? Do I really do everything that he commanded me to do? Or am I just a fan? Am I someone that just goes to church and claims to be a Christian because I don’t want to go to hell? And then came my big question: what about our church? Are we followers or merely fans?

A follower will leave everything to follow. A fan will stay at home, leave nothing, and just stay in touch about what goes on.
A follower will get uncomfortable and go wherever it is that is needed to go. A fan will watch on TV from the comfort of a lazy-boy.
A follower will stick by through the thick and thin. A fan will run at the first sign of difficulty.
A follower will sacrifice everything. A fan will sacrifice nothing.

Then he threw in one other zinger that made me remember why OneLife Church exists.

“I’m a non-Christian. Just like most Christians!”

Such is the state of American Christianity. A lot of people who go to church but ignore what Jesus commanded. A lot of fans who aren’t true followers. And a lot of “Christians” who aren’t, well, Christians.