Jason Stewart Online | discovering life & leadership

Grammys

Recap of the Grammys from some of my favorite tweets I followed during the evening:

@tonymorganlive That's exactly what we need. Let's make the govt bigger and put them in charge of the arts.

@loswhit Brothers head + a cotton hat = better than velcro #grammys

@timastevens I'm a little late to the pop culture game. Just noticed Paul McCartney wears his guitar backwards.

@tonymorganlive At least stevie doesn't have to watch them. Sometimes it pays to be blind.

@loswhit I have to pee. But would it be disrespectful if I do it while they are doing the dead people montage? #grammys

@eddiemosley sweet...Go Neil Go. Probably 40 years since i saw him. (this so reminds me of Eddie)

in the Hub

We are starting a new worship venue this Sunday that I am pumped about. We define a worship venue as any gathering we have on one of our campuses for worship. So, our current services are 'Worship in the Auditorium' on Sundays at 9:00am and 10:45am and we launch our new 'Worship in the Hub' this Sunday that will be, you guessed it...in the Hub, at 10:45am.

Worship in the Hub will appeal to those of you guys who enjoy a little more driving worship experience. The environment will be a little more coffee house feel and smaller, too. Micah will be leading in there primarily as we get this going. For those you who might be interested, you can help make the Hub happen each Sunday in a couple of ways and you can sign up online.

I am excited about the Hub for many reasons:

• It gives LifePoint attenders another compelling worship environment to invite friends to so they can hear about Christ.
• It will open up seats in our second hour of worship in the Auditorium which is close to be completely full. And, with our church growth strategy of i2i, leveraging our people to invest and invite others to our environments, having seats available is crucial.
• It is something new and I like new stuff and many other people do, too...so, another great reason to invite someone.
• We will have more opportunities for people to volunteer and grow in leadership in tons of areas including artists, staff, First Impressions, Production, and more.
• We will get to continue to test and use technology and innovative practices to reach people and grow the Kingdom of God.

I hope you are excited, too. We will see you Sunday and bring a friend!

SuperBowlin'

I am pregame mode for the big game...who will show the best commercial tonight? No really, I will enjoy the game and the commercials! Which reminds another reason I love being at LifePoint Church, I don't have to do some church gig tonight and can enjoy the game and the commercials.

Without the Titans in the game, hard to figure out who to rout for. I like Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. I was a Steelers fan as a little kid during the Steel Curtain days. So, when the game kick-offs I will probably end up rooting for the black and gold. The are a dominate franchise. Plus, I love Mike Tomlin as a leader and a coach.

I remember a couple of things he said just as he became Steelers head coach two years ago. One was when asked how his relationship will be with QB Ben Roethlisberger, "I will relationship will grow and be fine as we have shared experiences and build trust." Pretty simple way to break down relationships. Then Tomlin said on why he feels he got the Steelers' job, "I am a fundamentalist compared to schemes. It is a violent game and the most violent team wins. I believe in running the ball and stopping the run." Good reminder for leaders to be focused, true to who they are, and be great at the most important things for your organization to be great.

So, my prediction Steelers 23, Cardinals 20.

Who are you rooting for? What is your prediction?

Web Traffic

For many organizations today, the web and their little piece of the internet world is of huge importance. At LifePoint, that is true for us. Here are stats for fbcsmyrna.org / lifepointchurch.org and the traffic that has navigated there over the last 30 days:

• 6094 Visits
• 25,226 Pageviews
• 4.14 Pages per Visit
• 3:32 Average time on site
• 53% New Visits

Our Visits have been up 31% over the last month. I am sure our move to LifePoint has helped along with this article and this article from local newspapers.

Thanks to Google Analytics this information and much, much more is easy to access and drill down. We will be looking at how we increase our Visits, Pageviews, Time on Site, etc. as we begin the redesign of lifepointchurch.org with Speak Creative this week.

Another interesting stat: 70% of Visits use Internet Explorer, 2nd is Firefox at 23%. The Firefox percentage is growing but needs to go way up, Firefox is by far the best browser to use on Windows or Macs. If you don't have Firefox as your default browser, download and begin using it today. It is free and easy to do, even for those technically challenged.

It is Here...LifePoint

Huge day at FBCSmyrna...now LifePoint Church. Today, Pat gave a great picture and vision of the story God is writing through our church. As we are in the process of becoming a multi-site church, we took a key step today by adopting what we have called a "glocal identity." Meaning a name that will allow us to be as effective as possible connecting people to God locally in Middle Tennessee and globally through our global-i partnerships.

I had the privilege of walking through several steps of the process that led to today. Throughout what has been a 6+ month journey, interacting with almost 600 people to discover our glocal identity, I am blown away by the unity of our church, the focus on the mission of reaching those outside the faith by our attenders, and the blessing of God on our staff and faith community.

In the coming days, I hope to share many of the steps and insight that has gotten our church to this point and many of the lessons I discovered. Also, read some blog posts of other staff members and friends like Pat, Sully, Micah, Lloyd, Kyle, Chris, Kelly (the wifey), David, and Ryan.

You can join our new Facebook Group for LifePoint Church and follow Lifepoint on Twitter.

The video below was created by Sully as was used in our services for the unveiling:

LifePoint Church on Vimeo.

Let's Meet

Most people I come across say they hate meetings. I must be weird, because I actually like them...well most of them. I'm like you, I have been in some snoozers and time-wasters with the best of them.

I value teamwork and collaboration! Good meetings allow for teams to be built, tasks to be accomplished, great ideas to be implemented, and dreams to be dreamed. And it is a good thing I like meetings because I found myself in a ton of them. Thankfully, I am a hands on with this and this great team and surrounded by a staff full of great friends and great thinkers who are passionate about our mission. I am fortunate to be at place that leverages the ability of each team member and encourages cohesion and not silos in our organization. At former stops, this was not valued and those former organization were filled with apathy, little creativity, and marginal unity.

Over and over again, I walk out of a regular weekly meeting or special meeting I facilitate for a new strategy, event, etc. and I am blown away by the creativity, synergy, and building upon one idea to another that creates some real momentum and action.

Just today:

• I was a part of our regular weekly meeting with my Worship Programming team where we finalized plans for some incredible Sunday services this Sunday.
• Then, we had our monthly all staff meeting. Each month we celebrate what God is doing in our church, communicate huge items that are coming, pray together, and listen to Pat share vision and leadership wisdom.
• This afternoon, I was a part of an incredible planning and brainstorming session for our first conference that we will host and lead as a church called 'The Sending Church Conference' which will be April 25. We are incredibly excited about the opportunity to equip our church and other churches on how we can 'send the whole church to be the church where there is no church.' The website will launch in two weeks, check back for updates!
• Then, I was in an impromptu meeting with our senior management team plus Sully to put the final touches on our new church logo that will be unveiled this Sunday with our new glocal identity.

Wow, what a day!
...and yes, things can acutally be accomplished in meetings (be looking for some key principles to come)

Weekend Recap

We had a great weekend around FBCSmyrna! The Imagine Christmas Productions drew great crowds with dozens of stories of people connecting to our church for the first time and desiring to get involved.

Our Sunday services were compelling. Pat had a great message called Revolutionary Mary looking at how a young teenage girl was a key part of a bold revolution in our world. We are leveraging the momentum of the Production for our Christmas Series. Micah led a great worship set! Attendance continues to trend 20% up compared to last year with this past week seeing growth of 431 people (23%).

The best part of the weekend for me was the privilege of baptizing 3 adults in the first service. I got to hear two of their stories in detail. Incredibly encouraging! One lady told the story of her and her 7 year-old attending on and off for over a year without the husband. About two months ago, the 7 year old asked the dad to come to church with them the next day. He did and has loved and been inviting people ever since.

Another story is of a guy who was baptized this past Sunday and come to realize that Kelly and I had sat with he and his wife at the last Real Marriage event this fall. He told me that they had started attending just a little bit before that and were at that time separated. There marriage has been healed, he has embraced Christ, and is loving what God is doing in his life. Yes!

Here are some pics from this past Sunday thanks to Crutch:

 

 

Big Day in the Stew Family

December 7 is a big day in the Stew Family household. My #1 woman and my #1 child both have birthdays on this day. We have had a full weekend celebrating this milestone for Kelly and Parker. We did little girl birthday party for Parker with her church and school friends earlier in the week. Then Kelly and I played a little "While You Were Out" with Parker by redoing her room this week to make a hip, princess room. A lot of work but big pay off because she loved it, Kelly has probably posted pictures.

Today, we had several festivities focused on Kelly which was great. Church was great today, then we headed to Cool Springs and had lunch at one of our favorite places, Sportsman's Lodge, and ate with Kel's sister, brother-in-law, and niece. Then we headed back to SmyrnaTown to eat dinner and catch a movie with some of great friends. Then back home and I showered Kelly with gifts and we got to reminisce about family, Parker's birth 7 years ago, and about the future ahead for our great family.

Another signficant reason that this is a big day for a family is because a beautiful young lady, Marta Urgie, birthday is today. Marta turns 18 today and lives in Ethopia. Kelly and I have supported her for 12 years now through Compassion International. We are privileged to have been able to make an impact for so long in someone's life who is in great need. I began supporting Marta as a surprise bday gift to Kelly when we were dating and chose a (at that time) young girl who shared a birthday with Kelly. Amazing to think that twelve years later we are still supporting Marta, we celebrating another incredible year of Kelly's life, and a daugther with the same birthday. Great day for three great ladies. Happy Birthday Ladies!

Brighter

In light of the Christmas season, recession, etc. watch this commercial, incredibly interesting message. As someone who is constantly looking at how to communicate, the importance of message, inspiration, life-change, and more, this ad made me do a double-take. It comes across as very genuine and compelling. They communicate they care about you and your financial situation. Do they really, or is it an 'angle' to help themselves? What does this say about our human nature, materialistic society, and drive to 'keep up with the Jones.'

December All Staff Meeting

Today was our monthly gathering (first Tue of each month) for our staff team. Each month we gather together to share stories of life-change, build community with our team, pray together, and here a leadership talk from Pat to keep vision from leaking. Today's highlights:

Life-Change Stories

• A couple that stumbled in a few of months ago during services was helped by our Guest Services team, helped connect their 4 children, and a couple of weeks ago attended CWM, embraced Christ and will be baptized soon.
• A high school senior contacted David a couple weeks ago sharing how she desired to connect to small group and biblical community after watching another high school student be baptized while their small group was surrounding them.
• A couple in financial trouble reached out and sought financial counseling and now is has their marriage and finances on the right track. As one of our staff shared, "they are here on Sundays with a big smile on their face because they have a plan to get out of debt and they are communicating in their marriage."
• Some of our middle school and high school students who are going through a leadership trac with our student ministry staff is taking leadership and ownership in a project to gather donated food for our food bank.
• An 8th grade student who feels called to ministry communicated during our middle school environment this past Sunday and hit a home run.

Pat's Leadership Challenge

• Passage: Luke 1:46-52
• Mary was a young teenage girl who with great courage and boldness committed to the calling God placed on her life, embraced the hardship that was before her, and was mindful of God's faithfulness in her life
• the Point = Have Courage
• Patism = "If we are stressed at Christmas, then we have a wrong view of Christmas."