SpinVox Rox!!!

Definitely a new record if I get this in in the next 15 minutes--three posts in one day!

This is just to say...SPINVOX is the coolest thing ever! Check it out here. If you want a free account, tell me in the comments and I'll send you a link. I sent myself a test message tonight, just to see how it works. This is the email I received:

You received a new voicemail from +1xxxxxxxxxx:
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Hey I'm hoping to get an update on the project that we've been working on, the boat. Do you have the right color, do you have the right materials? Is there enough money budgeted? Just let me know. This is Corbett. Talk to you later, bye.
- Powered by SpinVox.
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Message received at May 1, 2007 5:36:44 AM

I even spoke quickly and then slowly to see how it would handle it. Perfect. It even spelled my name right! So cool! I don't know if I've said this to many people, but I hate checking voicemail. I've always preferred just calling the person if I had a missed call. You've got to try SpinVox.

Big Day for the Reeves

Today was a very big day in our family. My 5 year-old, Katy learned how to ride her bicycle without training wheels. This is big news for the Reeves! Knowing that everyone will be as excited about this as I am, I'm providing pictures since ya'll couldn't be there...

"Let go, Dad...I can do it myself!!!"

"Ok, this is easy...don't let go, Dad!"

"Katy...slow down!"

"Uh...never mind...good job!"

"the Thrill of Victory"

Will is still comfortable with four wheels...

...or even none.

Good days! Good days! Enjoy 'em while you got'em, folks...they don't stay small long!

New Celebrity Blogger

So there's a new blogger in town and I'd like to think I was one influence, nudging him toward the blogosphere. Kevin Yandell, or PK as I often refer to him here has entered the building. There is a link as well.

So everybody go over, leave him a comment and welcome him to the neighborhood!

about last sunday...

So in reading my post from Monday, I realized I didn't even talk about why our weekend service seemed so awesome. It just all seemed to come together. To open the service, we played "Desire" by U2. Not as good as the original, but still...it rocked! ThreePete (Peter Vienne III) on the harmonica at the end just about brought the house down. Flat out awesome. I'm mostly just a worship leader, but there's that little bit of rock star in all of us that screams to get out occasionally and jamming with the band this past Sunday was flat out rock'n'roll!

Thanks for your hard work, guys and thank you Sean for making us sound so good!!

PK is tearing it up during the PureSex series. Very comfortable on stage...very into what he's teaching...it comes across totally convicting because you can tell it's coming from his heart. Very cool!

BTW... In case some of you reading this don't know me well, I'm a HUGE fan of the LSU Tigers. JaMarcus Russell (2006 QB) was just picked #1 in the NFL draft by the Oakland Raiders. I wish someone else had picked him, because I think the Raiders have a lot more holes to fill before they'll be able to contend for a title, but very cool to see him go #1. Three other Tigers went in the first round as well. It's the first time in history that LSU had 4 players go in the first round.

I was telling some friends today that I'm glad my neighborhood does not have an association, because I'm going to go nuts with LSU flags this year...its going to be a title run! GEAUX TIGERS!

Box Score for April 22, 2007

This Sunday was one of the best I've experience in many ways. I find myself saying that a lot, recently...especially since the formation of our Saturday morning planning team, but more on that later.

First the stats, then some comments. Attendance was 341 at our two Sunday morning services; a 43 person (14%) increase from the same weekend last year.

I'm finding out that some of our members are staying away from church due to the sermon series that we're doing: PureSex, which we got from Granger. That's really a shame. That shows me that too many people (Christians) think that church is all about them.

I can't get past the belief that there comes a point in a Christ-follower's faith journey when a weekend church experience should be less about them "being fed" and more about them seeking opportunities to "do some feeding." A major difference between young children and grown-ups is who does the feeding. Those who've grown up should not need to be fed, but should take responsibility to find their own sources of food.

The weekend service is the gateway to God, if you will, for many people who have no connection to the Lord. We need to come to church as cooks, hostesses and servers...the customers are the unconnected from our community.

Alright...enough mixing of metaphors.

Our Saturday morning planning team (I really need a better name) tackled a new strategy with some very good results. Thanks to the contributions of Mike Lanahan, who used to serve with the Willow Creek student ministry, we're trying out a corkboard method with index cards and pushpins and little colored dots...my wife who teaches elementary loves it, of course.

I have to say, it worked very well. We'll be growing into the system for a while and I'm sure we'll still adapt it to fit our groove, but I believe we achieved more in less time, and that's something I've been hoping for.

I love working with my team! We definitely need to get better at bringing in new team members, but we're heading in the right direction.

Granger Workshops

I am once again so impressed with the very high quality of WiredChurches.com. The folks at Granger are THE BEST in my opinion at teaching the in and outs of ministry. Going to their one day workshops and interacting with these people who've learned it in the trenches and now present it in the class room... its the next best thing to learning it yourself. (No workshop can teach you what one major failure can!).

So yesterday, I went with "the new Communications team" to the *duh* communications workshop. The amazing thing is that I won't be on the communications team, but everything I learned yesterday transfers to every other area of ministry. For example:

• Learning to understand the world view of those we wish to communicate to and then framing our message to connect with that world view...

tell me which ministry that does not speak to! And this...

• having the right people "on the bus" is more important than knowing ahead of time which way the bus will go.

Alright so that one is taken from "Good to Great," but still it rings true for every ministry and every team and it was completely evidenced by the Communications Team at GCC.

I did sneak out after lunch and attend the worship leaders breakout of the Maximizing the Arts workshop. It was led by Dan V and Jason M...excellent! Simply Excellent!

I need to be working...Lots to do still for tomorrow.

Buzz Conference

this is going to be very cool! I hate missing it. Maybe next year...

Box Score for April 15th and Easter

Ok, so I never got around to giving the stats for Easter weekend... shame on me.

Attendance was 451 at our two Sunday morning services; a 126 person (39%) increase from Easter weekend last year.

This past weekend, April 15th, attendance was 344 at our two Sunday morning services; a 76 person (28%) increase from the weekend of April 9th last year (I flip-flopped the two weeks because Easter can only really compare to Easter!).


Our church is developing a Communications Department. That's very exciting to me, because currently I'm it. This Friday, we're going to Granger CC for their Communications workshop. I'm going with the newly forming team even though I'll not be part of it. It's kinda like handing off the baton, of sorts...a baton wrapped with passion and vision. A little bit of commitment to excellence thrown in, as well.

I'm also taking two of my tech guys to the Maximizing the Arts Workshop. I've been before...it's excellent. We're lucky to be within easy driving distance of Granger. They do so many things well and they are driven to share what they've learned. I love it.

As Steve and I have talked about, there will be a day when church leaders will be coming to us to learn our secrets, only I guess they won't be secrets. In fact, when that day comes, we'll be passing on things that evolved from what we learned from Granger, Willow, National Community, et al. It's a progression of sorts, I suppose.

Death and Taxes

It was said that nothing is certain but death and taxes...I'm not even certain about taxes at this point. I'm supposed to be doing them as we speak (what, I've still got three days!) but I'm pretty bored by the whole process. I may not be bored when I find what we owe!

Speaking of procrastination, I still haven't posted the numbers from Easter. Oops. So it's Friday, so what? The attendence was a whoppin' 451. Pretty exciting. Definitely a new record as we should expect Easter to be, I suppose, but very cool. We actually had a bunch of people come to our first service, which is one of my frustrations if this is the first time you've read my blog. Frustrated that people don't come to first service, not that they do. Not even that they don't, but that those who do... oh just scroll down to the March 26 post. If I figure out how, I may even link to it...

So I splashed Mountain Dew on my laptop the other day. Very annoying. Now all of the East Coast keys (pg up, pg dn, Enter, rt shift, etc) stick. My techno-genius / geeky friend Steve is going to show me how to clean the keyboard tray, I believe. It could have been worse, I suppose.

This is truly one of those days when I don't have a lot to say, I just would rather blog than do what I should be doing. I hope my wife doesn't read this.

I could tell you about a book I'm reading, I suppose. Insightful. I took an online profile to discover my innate "talents" and it highlighted five "themes" that appear in my life. Tricia thought at least 4 of the 5 were right on. I think I skewed the results unintentionally. Even when I'm trying to be honest and real with myself, I think that the way I want to be creeps in. There is definitely one theme that did not show up in my list of 5 that should have...in fact, it may be the most dominant in reality. If you've read the book or taken the profile, you show me yours, and I'll show you mine.

Taxes, taxes, taxes...

Dave Ferguson and Tim Stevens have blogged today about a think-tank meeting they're participating in that touches on the role of facilities in the growth of the kingdom. As we'll be building in the next three years or so, I'll be particularly interested to see what conclusions they draw.

Easter and Good Friday

Getting ready for Good Friday and Easter was hard work!
Don't get me wrong...it was well worth the effort without a doubt. Attendance was way up, peoples lives were changed forever and I learned some very valuable lessons in the process.
Some thoughts from this weekend...

• If we are going to incorporate lots of self produced video, we must find/train more people able to shoot, edit and produce the media.
• Professional looking media requires at least some professional grade equipment.
• Never underestimate the emotional power of a huge cross hanging from the ceiling.
• To get to where we want to be as an Arts team, we will have to go to a full rehearsal.
• If we try to do every good idea, we won't be able to do any great ideas.
• God can provide the perfect boat!

I know there are more, it's just that my brain is not completely back to full speed yet from last week's lack of sleep.

A HUGE THANK YOU to all the Arts people who worked so incredibly hard to pull it all off. Thanks also to the folks outside of the Arts ministry that pitched it.

Weekend stats are still to come.

The "Box Score" of April 1st

My thanks to Tony Morgan for letting me steal this term for the weekend stats (he does not know who I am, nor do I believe he reads this blog, and I have in no way asked his permission for the use of his term...)

Anyway, the weekend stats: Attendance was 328 at our two Sunday morning services; a 97 person (42%) increase from the same weekend last year. I found it interesting that we had a "down week" as far as attendance goes, even though it was sort of expected as it was the weekend of most schools spring break. The cool thing was #1 that we think of 328 as a down week, and #2 that even in a "down week," our percentage of growth increased for the third week running.

I can't wait for Easter Sunday. It's gonna ROCK! If you're reading this and you're not already committed to some sort of Sunday AM ministry, think about coming to the 9:00 service and serving as a greeter or usher during the 10:45 service. The later service will probably be SLAMMED, so do what you can to make this an awesome weekend for someone who hasn't been to church in a while and may come into real contact with Jesus Christ this weekend.

I know you'll do this, because this is the type of people who are learning and growing and serving together with me at New Community. Thanks for making this the best church in the world!

Volleyball and Salvation

This past Saturday was the season ending tournament for the volleyball league that my wife, Tricia and I play in. Very fun. Very interesting! We play with a group of friends--mostly from our church--some of whom we knew well before the season and some we didn't know at all.

An all day competitive tournament is quite an opportunity to get to know people. It's one thing to show up, warm up and talk about strategy for 15 min, play for 40 minutes and then go home. It's quite another to spend 9 hours together: playing, waiting, sweating, resting, discussing, consoling, etc.

For the record, we won the regular season trophy outright, and finished third in the tournament.

One of the coolest things about this season is that a married couple played on our team that were not from our church...not from any church, in fact. Fantastic volleyball players and athletes in general, and very nice people...but not Christians. Well, they began attending on Sundays from time to time as a result of the team connection and yesterday, the day after the season ended, one of them gave her life to Jesus and will be baptized on the 22nd. VERY COOL!

I love seeing God "do his thing" in peoples lives!