My family and I moved to Apex NC to plant FOCUS Church as of January 2nd 2012. We have fully integrated ourselves in the community by meeting our neighbors and choosing to be very intentional in where we do life at. So every place we eat, every park we take the kids to, and every starbucks I pay 5 dollars for a drink at is on purpose. The purpose being to meet as many people as possible and tell them about FOCUS Church.

From the start, we decided to do everything we can to keep the overhead cost of operating the church as low as possible. This means that I will not take a salary from the church until it is ultimately not possible to operate as a healthy church without it. So I hit the ground running and picked up a job at the Panera Bread Cafe that was located about 100 feet from our town home. I have been walking to work for the past 90 days and it has completely changed my life.

The people I have met and the connections I have made have been so great that I know my time spent at panera was for a specific purpose. I was able to meet several people who will be helping us launch FOCUS on September 9th of this year.

With Ashton staying at home with the kids, I am sure you have been wondering how in the world we could live off of the $8.25 an hour. Well God is Faithful. He’s leads and guides and provides in ways we never will understand. We have been able to continue to live with zero credit card debt almost 4 months with Panera Bread and some side media work as our sole source of income. What I have learned in this season is that trusting God comes in short phases. The job at panera sustained us until now, but God is good and He knows what our family needs.

So, after 90 days of slicing onions and making sandwiches, I have hung up my apron and put my non-slip shoes in the closet and accepted a bi-lingual teller position at Bank of America. This position will provide for my family the health benefits that we have gone without for the past 3 months along with allow a little more margin in our personal budget.

I honored my two weeks notice and worked my last day as a Panera Bread Associate on Friday. I begin working at Bank of America on Wednesday morning.

Please continue to pray for me as I learn new skills in the secular marketplace that I never dreamed of. I love preaching, leading and spreading the message of Jesus, now instead of a pulpit I do that behind a bullet proof glass wall..

You can support the vision of this new church by giving safely and securely online at www.givetofocus.com 

Thanks for reading, praying and supporting.

Mike

But right now I work at Panera Bread Company.

I’m out of my element.

What I am finding out is that God takes us out of our element so we can get into His will.

This season of 5am – 2pm salad, soup and sandwich making is making me appreciate and value people more than anything I have ever done.

I may be out of my element. I may struggle getting the sandwich made in under 2 minutes. I may forget to put the dressing on the side of the salad. But every day I meet another person. I hear another story. I get asked more questions.

Today you might be out of your element but you are probably in His will.

I would much rather be in His will than in my element.

I blogged this on my break in the bathroom with my opposing thumbs..

I was able watch the grammys. But I didn’t watch them on tv. I watched them on twitter. I know about how talent always proves itself and Adel won the awards she deserved. I know that Nicki Minaj was demon possessed and many christians equated her performance with what was the opposite of a human video.

I was able to experience the magic vs bucks basketball game in real time as I sat on my couch refreshing my twitter timeline when there was only seconds to go..

There aren’t many things that I miss because of not having TV. But the things I do miss, I don’t really miss because anything and everything can be found on twitter.

And that is why Twitter is the new TV.

Mike

Its the things that no one sees, that get the results everyone wants…

Keep pushing. Keep pursuing.

Readers are leaders. There is no such thing as reading only re-reading.

I have some serious reading A.D.D.

Depending on the setting and the mood I am in you can find me reading a very widespread buffet of material. I normally always read three books at a time… I just finished Tribes by Seth Godin. Now I have a trifecta of material that I am currently flying through as I prepare to pastor a church for the first time.

Here are my current three books:

How To Preach WIthout Notes – Charles W. Koller

Made To Stick – Chip Heath & Dan Heath

Missional Communities – Reggie McNeal

What books are you reading?

twitter hair cut

it’s when I realize that I’m following people who either never tweet or add little to no value to my life… There are many strategies out there on how to use twitter and how to gain followers but I just got tired of spending so much time combing through great tweets and tweets about useless garbage. Some people just make list of people they want to follow, other users create private accounts but I’m tired of
making it look like I follow you if I honestly don’t. So I’m sure only three people read my blog but you may or may not have made the cut.. If I’m friends with you on Facebook and twitter and you link your updates, I probably unfollowed you. I you tweet about how awesome your cat is every 5 minutes I probably unfollowed you.

I used to follow 600+ people.. I have currently nailed it down to 120ish…

I would love to hear your thoughts on twitter and how many followers a user should be following.. How many people can you really follow without it being twitter overload?

Mike

Let’s face it… As Christians we can many times make our lives seem more spiritual than they really are…

If I’m honest with myself and with you.. I play more temple run sometimes in a day than I spend time in prayer… I spend more time watching Netflix than I do reading the bible… But you will never see me post on twitter or Facebook that “I just spent 3 hours online and I haven’t read my bible in the past 24 hours” I don’t ever tell anyone about how I check my twitter feed more times a day than I check my spirit in prayer..

Something has to change.

I need to stop running away from demon monkeys and start running into the arms of grace by spending more time in the presence of Jesus…

Even before technology, Jesus understood the importance of a quiet, undistracted, unplugged environment. He also knew that as his influence grew, it would become more difficult to find time to hear His Father’s voice. Christ was so intentional in being alone with God that he got lost. Because its only when you are lost that God can truly be found. Jesus’ disciples had to look for him. He didn’t tell them where he would be if they needed him, he didn’t send them a text or update his status about where he was doing his devotions. He left quietly and got lost. That’s what it took two thousand years ago and that’s what it takes today. The irony is that you have to get lost in this world in order to be found in the Kingdom.
My encouragement to you today is to get lost, be found and then get lost again. Jesus got lost just so he could be found. The disciples found Christ getting lost…How do people find you? Do they find you easily? or do you get lost so much that your closest friends have to go find you? Get lost today…

Thanks

Mike

Mike