Filed under: Celebration Church
This is a sample graph comparing linear growth to exponential. Notice the Linear growth happens steady and starts above the exponential, but there is a tipping point where the Exponential not only overtakes the Linear, but climbs at a rate that can only be described as Exponential.
The idea behind Extension Gatherings is to remove some of the bottlenecks that slow the rapid spread of God’s kingdom and house. Often, those bottlenecks are people. By releasing people to be leaders, not just followers, EG’s have shot in every direction all over the globe, and continue to grow by scores daily.
Craig Groeschel said it last month, and it’s worth repeating here:
There is weakness in simply ‘utilizing the giftedness’ of volunteers. The bottom line is we’ve been recruiting volunteers in American churches. Delegating tasks. The challenge with this is we create followers. Instead delegate authority. Let a volunteer Create something great. This develops leaders.
Extension Gatherings provide believers to take church services to people who cannot normally attend one. People in nursing homes, rehabs, jails, orphanages. Also to people in other cities and countries who want to stay connected to their local church which is hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The Exponential Potential is not adding to your 100%. That will be linear growth. It will not happen. If you are a leader, the exponential is moving beyond addition and multiplication…. adding something to the 2nd or 3rd power. This is where the growth is beyond your control (aka, limitations). If you are looking for story and impact in your life, consider taking you and your family on such an adventure…. to reach 10-50 people weekly who would not normally make it to a service. You will not believe the impact it will have on you.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion | Tags: bartram trail, bths, jessy pitts, sr13 accident, taylor brennan
We lost so much more than flesh and bone….and on Wednesday night, over 250 people met up at our weekly high school youth gathering to remember Taylor and Jessy, 2 uniquely unselfish souls. This spiritual anguish is real… but somehow it was a chance for the students of Celebration Church to show their love not only for these 2 that we lost, but also for their family &friends.
Our students, volunteers, and staff were so blessed to be able to host both students’ families. Students were on the campus from 6-9. From 6-7, they wrote cards, cried together, and shared stories. From 7-8, we had a short time of worship, remembrance, and encouragement. From 8-9, they poured their love onto the families of our 2 we lost.
One of our bands led us in 2 songs…”You Deserve” and “From the Inside Out”, both by Hillsong. Lori Schumaker sang, “Hear You Me” by Jimmy Eat World. The lyrics are at the bottom of this post. Pastor James Price gave a word of encouragement as a representative of our 8 other campuses of Celebration Church, and students put together a slideshow of photos that we watched. My wife Rachel shared some words of encouragement from our other youth pastors, John Wyatt and Josh Turner.
I had the chance as our Element Pastor to speak a few words and say a prayer with the friends and family in attendance. I was blessed to share some memories of both students, and spoke from Mark 12:28-31. When asked what 1 thing we should do as Christians, Jesus replied simply that we should love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and our neighbors as ourselves. I spoke about how Jesus doesn’t ask us for us to love God with as much heart as Dr. Billy Graham…or with a whole untainted heart…whatever pieces are left of our heart, whatever clarity is left in our minds, whatever vibrancy is left in our souls, whatever is left of our strength….to love Him with all we have left. Many right now have so little heart, soul, mind, and strength left…yet a majority there concluded the service by responding to Jesus by committing to love God with all that we have.
Funeral Services will be this weekend for both students . . .
Filed under: Celebration Church, Prison Ministry, Religion | Tags: christmas in jail, incarnation
Today Rachel and I went to the jail where we do weekly ministry with juveniles and college age inmates. Several of the guards were irritated at our presence…not sure why. In the elevator, it kind of all came out… one of the higher ranking officers asked me a question I won’t soon forget
“Couldn’t find anything better to do on Christmas day?”
My answer was what most of my friends would say…. “No.”
That was a couple hours ago. I wonder why no human never asked Jesus that question. Hey Messiah…couldn’t you find anything better to do today than come down to this nasty place with these people who not only dont deserve you, but aren’t even looking for you and probably won’t receive you?
I’m glad Jesus answer was no…there was nothing better to do that day in His mind. Many people don’t see the point in reaching out to the outcasts, forgiving sinners, healing the sick. Simply put, many people don’t love humanity that much.
When 5 teenage boys committed their lives to Christ this morning in the Christmas Day service, it really hit me that there’s no place He would have rather been than glorifying His Father through His incarnation to and for humankind. Humankind just like those guys today. Humankind like me and you.
Merry Christmas -big John
My 34th birthday was this weekend…what a great time! It kicked off with me speaking live at our St. Johns Campus as we kicked off our “Sent” series with a message about grace. Later on, we had a children’s workers party, and I got this shot of the last sunset of my 33rd year. I’d like to stay in my 30’s 4ever if that’s ok…
I slept WAYYY late (9:30 a.m.) on Monday, played a game of Madden as the Lions, ate cake and icecream, popped in at BTHS to visit some of our students…then later went to see the new marvel movie, “the Punisher”. I love having a wife that likes action movies!All in all it was a fantastic day. John ..the final tally of electronic birthday love…facebook 31. text 19. myspace 7. twitter 2. Thanks everyone for being the most incredible friends a guy could have!
Filed under: Celebration Church, Youth Ministry | Tags: nashville, national youth workers convention, youth specialties
It’s been 3 years since I last attended the NYWC put on by Youth Specialties. It was a neat time that brought our youth team together as our youth ministry was taking on a multi-site look. I can point to that trip as a passing of the torch to middle school pastor Josh Turner and myself, as it was the biggest youth thing we’d ever been to.
This Friday, we take that trip again. This time, with our current youth staff… John Wyatt, Sean Kelly, Josh T., and myself. We’re at a unique point in our youth ministry history. Last time we went, we had 2 youth groups that totaled around 200 people. Now, we have 7 distinct youth ministries, with separate middle and high school groups at 3 separate campuses, and a thriving college group of 150+ at our Midtown Campus. I’d dare say there are 700 active students amongst those 7 groups. We currently have 3 more Florida campuses who will very likely launch youth ministries in the next 12 months. God is clearly entrusting a lot within us 4 leaders during this time.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to at NYWC, my first conference since Fermi Project’s Q Conference last April.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Youth Ministry | Tags: dreams come true, miracle offering, student ownership, year of a million dreams
What’s the value of our dreams coming to life if they die with us?
Or how about the dreams we give nothing towards receiving?
The first post I had in “do youth work” was advice for those who aspire to do youth ministry. In this post, let’s shift the perspective. What kind of ‘work’ should the youth do?
This week, I had the opportunity to speak with 3 of the most dynamic Christian leaders I know….
- Cristine Caine from Hillsong Australia- Intrnl speaker who also speaks at Joyce Meyer Conferences
- Spencer Boulter(6:8 Mnstrs-Costa Rica)in 12 months they’ve grown fr/ hosting 8 to 28 teams a year
- and Pastor Stovall Weems of Celebration Church-grown our church fr/ 7 to 10,000+ in 10 years
This is what they all said one way or another about this generation of teenagers.
- Cristine said youth ministry should-like Hillsongs United- be the leadership factory of the church.
- Spencer said if students can be trusted to minister abroad, we must trust them to minister here too.
- Pastor Stovall unveiled our global mandate to unleash the church planters and missionaries of tomorrow from within our ministries.
Students, in every nook and cranny of the world, must have ownership in ministry, otherwise they will simply be spectators that someday stop ‘getting their season tickets’….either when their ’season’ as a teen is over, or when some other ‘dream’ is presented to them that they believe they can achieve.
Many of those competing dreams are so small. Popular culture has dumbed down dream beyond belief.
Every night at Disney’s Epcot in Orlando, tens of thousands of dollars of fireworks go off for upwards of 30-45 minutes. As I watched this spectacle this past winter, I wondered…what’s the big message. Then it became clear, “Believe in your dreams”. This was such a theme that for the year of 2008, Disney has been running a promotion called, “Year of a Million Dreams”, where they’re giving away 1 million ‘dreams come true’ prizes.
910,000 of those dreams are worth between $4.76 and $16.75. Get a free dessert buffet. Stay late, or get a fastpass! And of course, a big dream come true for us all, free Mickey Mouse ears ($16.75 value). Is that the stuff dreams are made of?
This generation must invest in, strive for, and own a God-given dream. A dream that won’t die with us, but will continue for generations to come. That’s another reason I believe this miracle offering Nov. 15-16 for our Celebration Arena is for teens as well as adults. We must build this ‘Launchpad’ together…with our treasure, time, and talents. We believe from Celebration Church, God will launch thousands of future Christian leaders who will plant hundreds of churches and missions projects. I know so many of the hundreds of teens within our 8 different youth ministries at Celebration Church…at every campus from Hardee to Midtown. I really believe you teens will make millions of God dreams come true for people.
Students, give to God’s dreams for not just you, but the generations that follow you. In this way, you can truly make 2008 the ‘Year of a Million Dreams’.
-Big John
Filed under: Celebration Church, Family, Youth Ministry | Tags: dreams come true, giving, miracle offering
The weekend of Nov. 15 culminates in our Imagine Miracle Offering. Today, during our fasting and praying, I really was struck that every day has been a miracle offering from God to me. And that the church Rachel and I call home is a big part of His miracle offering to us.
We both grew up in small churches with very small youth groups. We really didn’t have anyone modeling to us what a good marriage looked like for a young Christian couple. I had big dreams in my heart to be the youth worker God had called me to be. I stood in a stadium in 1995 in Tampa FL at a Promisekeepers event, and there I heard God tell me that I’d be a man for Him, and that I’d make a difference.
It didn’t feel like I was making much of a difference 5 years ago when we first got married. After moving to Jax, Rachel and I began looking for a church. We visited a couple of churches, but no door opened even for me to be a youth volunteer…much less in a leadership position. At one chuch a guy told me I needed to help with stacking tables for 2 years, and then, maybe, maybe then i could become a youth volunteer. I was an 9 year vet of youth ministry, and sitting on my porch while a hurricane was swelling off the Florida coast in 2004, I wrote in my journal that maybe my time as a youth pastor was over.
then God’s miracle offering came to me.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Youth Ministry | Tags: Element High School Ministry, st johns county florida, Youth Ministry
Since my last update, we’ve had unprecedented growth at St. Johns Element for High School students. The last parent connect update I gave said this…
“We have a large number of influencers entrusted to us” and “A majority of our students in this mobile environment want to make this ministry much larger.” At that time, St. Johns Element’s record high school student crowd had been 85 students (May 2008 at the Blameless concert). Since that blog on September 12, we’ve broken that number 3 times, with 2 nights over 100 students.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion, Youth Ministry | Tags: celebration st johns campus, mobile youth ministry, st johns county florida
As more and more parents are visiting this site to get info on the heart and soul of our youth ministry, I wanted to offer this blog as a quick update on how our summer went for our high school students, and where we’re headed for them this all.
Our summer was basically divided in 3 parts: 1 prayer, Camp and Costa, and Rush Week/Fay
1 Prayer: For 4 consecutive weeks, our high school students got to chill in an ‘element unplugged’ atmosphere, and were treated with hearing from all of our Celebration youth pastors. Sean Kelly came out in first to share his paryer, ‘Lord make us desperate’- an appeal to worship God as our lives depended on it. Pastor Josh Turner came out with his prayer, “Lord make us trusting”, sharing his unique experience as a father to 2 children. Pastor John Wyatt came and shared, “Lord make us participators”, urging students from the seats to the fields of play in the ministry. I finished up with “Lord make us Multipliers”, urging our students to be part of a movement of God focused outwardly, even to the extent of praying about being part of ARC’s vision to plant 2000 churches by 2020.
Costa and Camp: You can check out stories from Costa here. We took 10 teens from St. Johns Campus. Rachel and I both went on this trip to build upon the foundational work that 6:8 ministries has been doing in the poorest areas of San Jose, Costa Rica for a few years now. Camp was a special time with Healing Place Church, especially with messages from our youth pastors along with Jason Laird and Tyler Tullos from HPC.
Rush Week was 4 nights in August ushering in the new year. Every Celebration Youth Pastor shared, as we tackled the ‘Deadly Viper Character Assassins’ in our Rush Series, “Guard Your Heart”. It was a kung fu inspired look at the weapons the enemy uses to dismantle us, with the main focus being our offensive and defensive postures in this carnage known as adolescence in the 21st century. Rush was followed by Tropical Storm Fay, which put off school for a day or 2, and also had Element’s Cunningham location shut down by the school board due to the uncertainties.
All in all, these 3 distinct seasons left me with a huge task and vision for week to week operations of Element St. Johns….
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion | Tags: junior high youth ministry zen master, pastor josh turner, riley turner
usually I’ll post a blog in this category about someone that made a big difference in my past that I don’t see any more…. Josh is the first in this series of blogs that is about someone present in my life now..day by day.
Josh is the middle school pastor at Celebration Church here in Jacksonville, Florida. I say he’s one of the top 5 middle school pastors in America. His students may not know it….but he regularly speaks into the lives of numerous christian artists and bands, and also is called on by many of the top youth pastors in the nation for ideas and counsel. He’s had the most challenging year of almost anyone I know, as in February, his wife Becca gave birth to their baby girl Riley, who barely survived the birth and the days thereafter. Drs originally only gave her a few short months to live….but she’s battled the odds and things are looking better every single day…
Through all of this, Josh continues to the be the goofball most amazing friend pretty much any of his friends have ever had. Josh and I both started attending here in 2004. We both plugged in as youth counselors at our Midtown Campus, and quickly got assigned to do middle school ministry together. Rachel and I moved to the St. Johns Campus at its launch in March 2005, and Josh increased his role. We both worked full time jobs by day and growing youth ministries at night, and would call each other every morning on the way in to the daily grind of those ‘tentmaking’ jobs. Eventually, we were both hired full time, and even were ordained as pastors on the same day.
If you asked Josh’s circle of friends, 90% would probably say he’s their best friend outside of Jesus. They guy just has no limit to his love and heart for people. Teenagers, college kids, christian superstars, smallchurch pastors, megapastors…there’s no limit to the people he loves on daily. He has amazing stories, which he needs to blog on more often... but this is the place where I thank him for his impact on my life. I have way too many memories of him to share here. From riding down A1A with the top down late one night this summer reminiscing on life to making him eat half his weight at rainforest cafe nashville….Since I know one day he’ll read this when he gets a google blog alert, here goes a personal shout out.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion | Tags: baptisms, celebration church birthday, church should be fun
Our church is 10 years old, and we celebrated it all weekend- capping it off with a party and land dedication at the site of the upcoming Celebration Arena. We baptized some 120+ people, had cake, worship, and had a pastoral cannonball contest in the baptismal pool! Only at Celebration Church! i was the first to spash!
Church should be fun. Pastor Chris Brooks once told me there are 2 options…we can freak out and hurt people, or we can just have fun – seeing and expressing the joy of the Lord, which is our strength. Freaking out makes me feel weak. Having fun really does churn the inner strength and joy of the Lord.
I thank God for a senior pastor who lives out the vision of being ‘Celebration Church’. Sure we can focus on excellence (which we do), but when it comes to what we value, church really should be the funnest place on earth. When we take that mindset, watch out for the splash!
Filed under: Celebration Church, Youth Ministry | Tags: bartram trail, cr 210, creekside, high school, julington creek, mandarin, nease, roberts road, st johns county youth ministry, st. augustine
After tropical storm fay and her whackiness, our school calendar finally began this week. i can’t express how relieved, excited, nervous, anticipaitious (is that a word?) I am.
We begin our ‘Urban Legends’ series tonight at St. Johns Element, our high school youth ministry reaching the Bartram Trail and Creekside High Schools (and a few students from Nease High and Mandarin too!). If you haven’t checked out our weekly ministry, here are a couple fast facts
-Celebration Church is 10 years old, and has a weekly attendance of 6000-7000 on average
-We have 6 youth services on Wednesday nights, scattered across Northeast Florida. There are some 450-550 students attending these services.
-The idea behind a localized ‘campus’ youth ministry like St. Johns is that our students who love God and their friends can find a local expression of the worship, messages, fellowship, fun, food, etc that is geographically easier to bring their friends to….and also helps keep students from getting ‘lost in the shuffle’.
We meet in 3 counties on Wednesday nights. Duval county- at our Midtown Campus near the town center. Clay Count- at our O.P. Campus on Kingsley, and St. Johns Campus, at Cunningham Elementary School at 7pm. You can find more information at www.element633.com.
Lookin forward to speaking tonight. Schools in for fall! (cue Alice Cooper sequel song to school’s out for summer)….
Filed under: Celebration Church, Youth Ministry | Tags: florida, tropical storm faye
Tropical Storm Fay is headed into my backyard (St. Augustine, FL) in a couple days it will sit 60 miles our coast for 12-30 hours…then come back in Thursday a.m. somewhere along our coast. it only caps off the craziest 24 days of my young life! and now they say it may be category 1. my bravado and gusto is fading….
Let’s work backwards…
Monday Aug 18- a full day at the spa, look below to see why i needed
Sunday Aug 17- First day as official campus pastors at St. Johns after 3.5 years as youth directors/associate pastors.
Aug 15-16: Flex Mens’ conference at our church…800 men, with the second day containing a 5.5 hour service project painting, mulching, and planting at Webster Elementary School in St. Augustine.
Aug 11-14: Rush Week- 4 days of events with over 450 middle, high school, and college students attending our “Guard your heart” series based on ‘Deadly Viper Character Assassins’.
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion | Tags: blameless, flex men's conference, men's ministry, st. augustine, webster school
Our annual men’s conference, FLEX, hits Florida this weekend with monsoon force!
I’m especially excited this year as along with kickin masculine worship with some r and b flow from my guys from Blameless, we’ll have exciting speakers…..and a huge opportunity to change the community in one day on Saturday.
We’re taking over a hundred men from the conference on service outreach projects—i’ll be going to St. Augustine to the Webster Elementary School for a 2 hours blitzkrieg of brotherhood- we’re painting, pouring mulch, clearing fences, and planting potted plants in the county’s poorest neighborhood at its most desperate school. I have several buddies who’ve agreed to come on for the ride, and we expect to put some smiles on kids faces with the ‘marines’ of Celebration Church landing on the beachhead there in full force. (there’s also an outreach in Springfield near downtown Jax for the guys from the Northside at Eugene Butler Middle School!)
So let the testosterone flow, the chicken wings fly, and the enemy flee this weekend! bring on the men! You can still register at www.celebration.org.
There will be tons of food and fun, guys 11-18 come free! Those over 18, it’s $20 for a weekend of band of brother bonding! Look forward to seeing you men there!
Filed under: Celebration Church, Religion | Tags: deadly viper character assassins, mobile church, multi-site ministry, video venue
Fresh on the heels of our return from Costa Rica (Rachel’s pictured with 3 girls she played with at a playground renovation there)…..Yesterday Pastor Chris Brooks announced to our campus that Rachel and I would be the new campus pastors at St. Johns Campus of Celebration Church.
Its another step on a winding road we’ve taken in church ministry. The campus opened in March 2005, less than a year after we got married, and we began day 1 as middle school directors with 5 kids in our class. Eventually, we became high school and middle school directors at the campus, then later, youth pastors as the group grew over 100 students. Last year, ‘youth and church life pastors’ was the expanded role. What a crazy ride!
Rachel and I are excited beyond belief for this opportunity given to us by Pastor Stovall and the church leadership. We will continue to lead the youth ministry at St. Johns as we continue to expand our team of volunteers to inspire and equip students to live a God first life. CareForce Leader training will resume in September for adults who want to become group and extension gathering leaders. Many of our key mens, womens, childrens, and serving team leaders also cross train as youth workers, so we have a distinctly networked relationship with them.
The training we’ve received by Pastor Darren Sullivan and Pastor Chris Brooks has been life altering. Each brought his own leadership style/anointing and shared it with us over these past 3.5 years. I count them as trusted and true friends who have invested countless hours in me.
Now it’s time to get back to work! Rush Week for our Middle and High School Students takes off tonight, where we employ the disciplines of Deadly Viper Character Assassins to the issue of “Guarding your heart” in a weeklong event with the students. Flex, our men’s event, lands Friday, with an amazing slate for the 800-1000 men who should be in attendance.
Stoked for a huge week-and year! -big John
