Doug’s Foggiest Ideas

Spent some time last night with many of the incredible people that make up our leadership team at Plum Creek.  There is no way to really express my appreciation for all they do.

I really love each and every one of them and when I think about their lives I really am passionate that they are growing in their relationships with God, that their marriages and families are in the place of priority that they need to be and that they are fired up about being part of God’s plan to bring as many people as possible along on this journey with us.

I can’t imagine doing what we do without each of them.  God has been so good in providing people that are excited to invest their time, talents and energy with us at Plum Creek.

I’m praying for each of you!!

A couple of weeks ago we had the privilege of having two awesome guests with us at Plum Creek.  These men were Paul Tedesco and Jim Ladd.  Paul is the previous pastor at Grace Community (our mother church) and Jim is the current pastor.

Both of these men are responsible for helping Plum Creek be where it is today.  They are great men.  Paul was the one who initiated the idea of planting a church in Castle Rock.  What a great vision.  I trust that his time with us a couple of weeks ago was a blessing.  We are honored as a church to have the history that we have.

Long story short he sent me an email and asked me a great question, “If you have time, would you mind dropping me an email and telling me, in your opinion, the top 5 key factors as to why Plum Creek has progressed so rapidly in such a short time.”

I have spent some time thinking and praying about this and I wanted to share the answer that I emailed to him.  Here is my answer:

Your question is a tough one.  Truthfully I don’t know if I have the absolute answers but I will do my best:

1~ I have to start by acknowledging that this has been a TOTAL GOD THING!!

Lots of prayer and effort to follow God’s lead! (From the vision you got started, to Jim’s influence, to the partnership with Grace & Timberline, to the timing and the receptivity in C.R. it has been a God thing)

2~ Jim Ladd and the Grace family.

We couldn’t have done what we have done without Jim, his leadership and our relationship with Grace!!

3~ An undisputed, totally confident call of God on my, Beth and the kids’ lives to head to C.R. and start this church.

I couldn’t have done this without absolute certainty that my baby was behind me!!  Castle Rock fits Beth & I to a “T”.  We know we are supposed to be here!!

4~ Opportunities along the way in my ministry career that prepared me in my walk with God, my leadership, my experience, my gifts, my relationships, my marriage, my family and just about in every other way to prepare me for this, “such a time as this” season that we have been living out in C.R.

5~ God’s favor & amazing people that God had provided for us!!

We have an incredible team that are as fired up and committed to Plum Creek as much as we are!!  We could never have done this without the team that God has blessed us with!  My gifts, talents and abilities pale in comparison to the collective energy and efforts of our team!

I’m sure there is much more but these are the things that I would say in response to your question.

Thanks again for blessing us as you have!!

On The Journey Together

I have been slowly reading through Acts for my devotions in the mornings. I thought I would share a couple of thoughts from my reading today.

In Acts chapter 5 we learn about some opposition that the apostles have met as they have worked diligently to communicate the gospel message. They are brought before an angry high council.  These guys are ticked with the apostles for talking about Jesus. In Acts 5:33 we learn that this council had decided to kill them.  Right before they are to make their final death sentence decision there is a Pharisee named Gameliel who stands up, provides a history lesson and ultimately gives all of us a challenge.

You can read the first part of what he says in Acts 5:35-37.

He basically shares that there have been many individuals that have prioritized making themselves great rather than making God great. According to his history lesson the results are always the same. These individuals ended up dead and all of their followers scatter.

Here is what the Lord challenged me with today.

It really doesn’t matter what you are doing for a living, or what platform of leadership God has given you.

If you make it about you it will not last.

If you make it about God, it will last forever.

Most of you that know me know how passionate I am about the local church and church planting.  I would like to challenge all the pastors and church planters that read this blog to think about how important it is to calibrate all we do with the goal of making God great.

I want to include verses 38-39 of this passage of scripture to conclude my thoughts,

“So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go.  If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!”

So for all of us today let’s make sure that what we do, what we lead, and what we dream about are not about making anything other than God great!!  How awesome it would be that our opposition would find themselves not resisting or attempting to thwart us, but rather “fighting against God”!

Have a wonderful day, know that I’m praying for you and and counting on you to be praying for me.

Well it is Wednesday morning and I have had a chance to rest and process all that happened this weekend.  It was absolutely incredible.  This past Easter weekend was one that I will never forget.

I have to start with the amazing turnout for what I am sure will become an annual Plum Creek, Good Friday tradition.  We met at the “rock” here in Castle Rock and hiked up to the top.

I wasn’t sure how many people would attend that early in the morning but we had nearly 100 people show up at 6:30am to hike the rock and spend a few minutes praying over the Plum Creek Valley.

It was a wonderful way to kick off our Good Friday.

On Saturday we kicked off the day with our Egg Drop.  It was incredible and you can see pictures below in a previous post.  I am so impressed with the way the Egg Drop went.  There were about 2000 people in attendance and it went well.  The helicopter was amazing.  I so appreciate all of the volunteers that helped make this a special event for our community.

Then on Saturday night a crew of nearly 40 people showed up at the theater to begin our “set-up” for Easter Sunday services.  Unbelievable!! What I love is that we ask for help and Plum Creekers show up in mass to get the job done!  There were many that stayed until 1:00am and several that were there until 3:00am.  What dedication and passion for what we are doing!  It is exciting to be part of a team like we have!  I am blessed!!

Next of course was our Easter Sunday service extravaganza!  It started off as a crazy idea months ago as we were trying to figure out how to accommodate all the people that we knew would be coming.  We decided to try something we had never done before.  We held 5 services that were staggered starting interval.  Each service was 60min. long and had the exact same elements lead by the same worship team and communicators.  IT WAS CRAZY!!

So there was an 8:00, 8:30, 9:15, 9:45 & 10:30.  I didn’t realize that this meant that Pastor Stephen, the worship team, Emilie, Gary and I would be rolling for nearly 4 hours straight without a break.  I have never done anything like this before and right now am not sure that we ever need to do this again.  Here is the even crazier thing, we ended up needing to add an additional service.  So we ended up doing 6 (60min.) services from 8:00 to about 12:30 or so.  UNBELIEVABLE.  That has to be some kind of record.  We also blew our previous Easter Sunday attendance record away by over 400 people.  God is good.

What must be said is this.  As I reflect on the weekend, as awesome as it was to have that many people attending Easter Sunday services at Plum Creek, I am even more proud of the Plum Creek faithful that provided the volunteer force that we needed to do all that we did.  It is literally an ARMY of Volunteers.  I get emotional when I think about the sheer number of hours that were given this past weekend.  There is no way that I could ever express my gratitude to each of you for all you have done!  I have been praying that God would bless you as much as you have blessed me.  God is so good and it is an honor to serve with each of you!! As exhausted as we all were it was a very fulfilled exhaustion.

I love what I do and am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to lead such an amazing church.  So from the bottom of my heart THANKS to my amazing staff, it is an honor to serve with you! I can’t imagine doing this without you.  And THANKS to all of our amazing volunteers that were the force behind everything that we did.  You guys have all blessed me more than I can express.

I would love to read some of your thoughts from this historical weekend.  Post a comment!

I close with this:

Ephesians 3:20-21

Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. 21 May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.

I have mentioned here that I am part of a team of pastors that have been trained and prepared to participate in what is called NEXTnetworks.  It is a network that provides coaching for pastors all over the country.  One of the guys that I met at the training is a pastor, Hal Mayer, From  Tampa, FL.  He is a blast to hang out with and is doing a great job leading his church, Church at the Bay.

I have read his blog regularly and am going to post a link on my blogroll.  If you are a pastor you should get to know Hal!

Last week Rob Cowles called and invited Beth & I to head up to Timberline Church to speak at their midweek service.  I haven’t been back to a service at Timberline in a couple of years.  I was on staff there for eight amazing years.  We have a ton of great friends in Fort Collins.  It was a lot of fun to be able to share some of what God has been doing at Plum Creek.

I also briefly shared a challenge from Philippians 1:6.

“And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you,

will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.”

Everyone is looking for a “sure thing” in their life.  This verse communicates that we can be “sure” that God is at work within each of us.  Pretty exciting!  I am praying that each of us will see this “good work” in ourselves and also in those that we are praying for.

This week I had the opportunity to write a brief article about our church’s trip to Africa with an organization we have partnered with.

World Orphans is doing an incredible job working with orphans all over the world.  Last year when a small contingent of Plum Creekers went to Kenya and Uganda God did a work in my heart.

Here is a link to my brief thoughts for the weekly newsletter we sent out.

I would challenge every pastor and every individual to read James 1:27 and think about what God may be calling you to do to help care for the orphans of the world.  We need to care about the things God cares about!

It has been a week of training for me.  I am in Florida being trained to “coach” pastors.  I am honored to have been asked to participate and excited about the opportunity to invest in the lives of pastors.

If you are a pastor and are looking for a way to tune up and lead yourself in creative ways this might be for you.  We will begin the coaching sessions soon.  I did this when we were first beginning Plum Creek.  It was SO HELPFUL!!

We have just opened up the registration and I am sure that it will fill quickly.  If you are a pastor and want to get more info you can check us out at our site NEXTNetworks.

I will be home tonight.

Just thought I would ask…do you use this time of year to set some goals for the year ahead?

You may not call them a resolution, but do you evaluate and take the time to put together an action plan for the New Year?

Here are a few of my personal goals:

PERSONAL
-Well-balanced Spiritual diet.
-Quarterly Personal Spiritual Retreats
-Balanced Regular Reading Plan (diversified topics)
-Work out at least 3 times a week
-Work on golf game

FAMILY
-Weekly date night with Beth
-Weekly family night / devotions
-Rotate taking the kids out for breakfast
-Take the kids on a fun U.S. vacation
-Finish basement debt free

What are some of your goals for 2009?

Wow, I can’t believe how quickly the New Year came and the Holiday Season passed.  I can remember as a kid that it took forever for Christmas Day to arrive.  Now it seems like you have to intentionally slow down and make time for Christmas or it will blow right by.

This Holiday Season has been a special one because Beth’s parents have been with us.  They arrived a few days before Christmas and will leave on Sunday after church.  I love having them with us.  They are amazing people and their love for my family and I is evident in everything they do.  God has blessed me with incredible family.

Another reason this Christmas was special had to do with the fact that we decided to do things a little different.  This year Beth and I decided to scale back our gift buying and giving so we could make a contribution to the “Christmas Offering” at Plum Creek.

The idea for this offering started with my trip to Africa in October.  This trip changed my life.  The needs that I saw there were overwhelming.  Once we landed back in Denver my mind started rolling because I knew that I needed to be proactive in “doing something”.

I didn’t know what that was at first until I got an email from a mentor.  Nelson doesn’t know me personally, but his speaking and writing have impacted me.  The idea and plan for the “Christmas Offering” were his.  I am sure that many other churches and leaders have done similar things but he wrote about how they do it at Journey Church in New York.

We decided as a leadership team to do this at Plum Creek with 100% of the funds coming in heading back out to assist in a couple of ways.  80% of the offering is going directly through an organization called World Orphans to help a church we have partnered with build a new facility to house their kids.  The other 20% is going to help local organizations and ministries here in Castle Rock and Douglas County.

I will give more details after our State of the Church address on January 11th.  Lets just say that our Plum Creekers have BLOWN ME AWAY AGAIN!!

It was good for Beth, the kids and I to be invovled in this as well.  It is amazing to see how God can use us if we will follow His lead and care about what He cares about!

Thanks to all of you who participated!!