senior pastor | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Youth Pastor Gives Away Cars

The Jones County News has a news story about a youth pastor giving stuff away to attract students to their church. Here’s a clip:

What would it take to overshadow the attraction of alcohol and drugs for teenagers? How about a free car? Chris Dorrity has been the youth pastor of Real Life Church since April and recently gave away his second car.

The pastor is originally from Fitzgerald and was the senior pastor of a church in Columbus when he received a call from family friend, Bishop Wes Hardin of Real Life Church. Dorrity said he was prepared to take the youth pastor’s job because he knows Hardin is a visionary.

“He told me the sky is the limit,” Dorrity said.

The youth group led by Dorrity chose the name Relevant and has a mission statement: building champions for divine deployment.

JG

senior pastor

Add Comment September 7, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Highlights from Andy Stanley’s Talk

Tony again comes through with the highlights of Andy Stanley’s talk at the Willow Leadership Summit. Here’s a clip – GREAT stuff.

Andy Stanley, senior pastor from North Point Community Church, took the platform for session three. He talked about the best leadership decision he’s ever made. He made a deal with God. He explained it something like this:

God, I don’t have time to build a ministry and take care of my family. I’ll give you 45 hours per week as a church planter. If you can build a church on 45 hours, I’m your guy. I’ll let you build has big a church as you can with that 45 hours, and I’ll be satisfied with that. But I’m not going to cheat my family.

Andy decided to cheat the church before he cheated his family. With his wife, he decided to be at home by 4:30 every day. That meant he left work at 4:00.

Andy explained that God has never commanded him love the Church. He was commanded to love his wife. He was never commanded to build the Church. Jesus said he would do that. Instead, we get it backwards. We try to go build the church, and we pray that God will take care of our family.

Lots more there and in the coming days from Tony’s blog. Nice.

JG

Add Comment August 10, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Plagarizing Pastor

Interesting piece in the NY Times making the blog rounds this week. I’m all for people using other people’s learnings, but this guy was over the line. Still though, the key word is grace, and that’s what should be celebrated here in the end, don’t you think? Here’s a clip:

The Bible does not discuss plagiarism. But it does say that thou shalt not bear false witness and thou shalt not steal.

So what to do in the case of a disgraced former preacher who violated both commandments several years ago when he borrowed sermons, often whole-cloth, from other ministers and passed them off as his own?

For members of the Park Avenue Christian Church, a struggling congregation on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the proper response is to give him a second chance.

Members of the small church, which dates to 1810 but has dwindled to just 40 people on Sundays, voted this week to hire the former high-profile preacher, the Rev. Alvin O’Neal Jackson, 56, as their new senior pastor.

JG

Add Comment August 4, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Record of Rights and Wrongs

Just be glad your senior pastor or elders don’t keep track of all of your fouls as a youth pastor like they do in soccer. How would you like a newspaper article like this about you?

JG

senior pastor

Add Comment July 1, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Backstage at PDC

Just hanging out here at the Purpose Driven Church Conference here at Saddleback, doing the emcee/announcements at the end of each general session. Thought it would be fun to share a picture from the green room, bunch of staff working furiously behind the scenes to pull it off. Had a funny joke about senior pastors being old, which is always good times.

JG

senior pastor

Add Comment May 16, 2006

Josh GriffinMore Posts Emcee the PDC Conference

I’ll be gone most of tomorrow and Wednesday, handling the emcee duties for the Purpose Driven Church Conference. I’m most excited about hanging with a bunch of senior pastors and encouraging them not to kill their youth worker. What a great chance to talk with your boss!

I’m also excited about meeting some great guests on campus, too – like Tim Stevens, Tony Morgan, Kerry Shook and Kenny Luck. Good people!

JG