One of the things we were intent upon when OneLife started was being a church that reproduced churches. We believe that can happen in a variety of ways. It can happen by assisting churches that are going to start in our city, as we’ve already done with one church plant and are now assisting another set to launch this fall. We’re also launching our own new church in the form of a second OneLife location in August. And now we are also turning our attention to intentionally developing future church planters.

Starting this week, JR Isham is serving as OneLife’s first ever Church Plant Resident. He comes to us after three months of interviewing, raising financial support, and moving his family from Durham, NC to Knoxville. For the next 1-2 years, he will be spending time at OneLife in an intentional training program – along with our future campus pastors – to prepare for one day starting a new church. This is just another way that we can intentionally be part of starting new churches all over East Tennessee to impact our region with the gospel.

Originally from Rockwood, JR and Lindsey also sense God calling them to be part of new churches starting in East Tennessee. So they are now immersing themselves into the day-to-day life of a two-year old church plant at OneLife. JR will be learning everything he can about making disciples, leading the different ministries of a church plant, planning sermons and services, and starting a church from scratch. Then at some point in the future we’ll get to send him and his family out to start a new work. Along with OneLife, this residency program is a partnership with the Ignite Church Planters Network in Knoxville, giving JR more opportunities for training and exposure to other churches.

It is my hope that JR will be the first of many future church planters that we get to help prepare for the future. You’ll be seeing him and his family around OneLife a lot in the coming weeks. Make sure you introduce yourself and welcome them to the OneLife Family!

Check out JR’s blog here and Lindsey’s blog here to learn more about this awesome family!

One of the greatest questions I get asked from time to time by our volunteers or other churches is, “Where are the volunteers at!?” In other words, “Where can I find more!?”

No matter what area of ministry you serve in, if there are volunteers you always feel like you need more. It can sometimes feel like a disparaging search for people to get involved in your specific area. The first time I felt the volunteer crunch was early on in our OneLife Kidz ministry. As Pastor Rodney and I discussed the need, he jokingly told me to “go outside and shake those bushes and see if you can find any.” In case you are wondering, there weren’t any in there. But without a sound strategy that could seem like our best bet!

At OneLife, however, we do have a strategy. We believe the answer is that new volunteers are coming in our doors every week camouflaged as a normal guest. They are moms, dads, and kids. They are friends, relatives, and co-workers. They park their cars here every week, they drop their kids off at OneLife Kidz, and they enjoy the service. They only attend the service, but they do want to know more people. Truthfully, they may want to be more involved, but just don’t know how to do that.

They all look different, but they are all waiting on one thing – an invitation. Not just an invitation from Pastor Rodney, though it certainly is a great start. They are waiting for an invite from someone they know or they may want to know. The easiest way to find more volunteers is for our current volunteers to talk to their friends and family who attend about volunteering or develop a new relationship and share what a life-changer it was for you to get involved. A relationship plus an invite will always equal at least an interest!

So that is where all our volunteers are! They are walking by us every Sunday looking to connect. They just need to be invited! So share your volunteer experience with someone and invite them to serve with you!

And if you get desperate, I can always go check the bushes.

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.