BLeach

I checked my blog stats this morning and noticed that at some point last week this blog received visitor number 100,000.  That's 100,000 reasons for me to be grateful.

When I started this blog as a personal experiment, I wasn't even sure that I'd keep it going.  I was originally inspired by two friends and pastors, Mark Batterson and Chilly Chilton.  I loved the way their blogs drew me into their lives and ministries.

Now there are so many things I appreciate about my blogging journey.

I feel honored by everyone who has taken time to visit my blog, share comments, and join my journey.  And I can't wait for 200,000!

It seems like the internet has decided to crash all at once!  Where's Al Gore when you need him?

The Future AG blog has been locked all day.  The explanation that Blogger posted to the author page is that the blog has been targeted by the spam prevention robots.  I really hope it's not as serious as it sounds.  I've never been attacked by a spam robot before:)

After a steady stream of phone calls and emails asking what was wrong with future AG blog I decided to post an explanation on this blog, only to find that the whole Typepad application was down.  At that point I realized that I was being targeted by an entire spam squadron. 

Anyway, we are hoping the Future AG blog will be back up any minute.  We filed our response with Blogger this morning and are just waiting on them to manually reinstate the blog as spam-free.

Until then, remember this.  Nobody's perfect...not even Google.

UPDATE:

Blogger has been unable to give us any idea as to how long it will take them to unlock the site so we decided to move it over to Typepad.  Come on over and rejoin the conversation!

Okay, so I'm still sixteen months away from turning thirty.  But I'm realizing more and more that I'm not the youngest guy on the block anymore.  Here's a shout out to a few of the younger guys who challenge me.

Steven Furtick: His passion and raw energy might remind you he's still 27.  But that's about it.  This guy's turning Charlotte upside down.

Tony Sebastian: Tony's one of my best friends from Bible College.  He was a year behind me.  He's the best youth pastor I've ever been around.  And he's been recently commissioned to move to Greece as a missionary.  Can't wait to visit him in Thessalonica:)

Nick Poole: Nick's really a thoughtful writer.  He's just accepted a position working with Jeff Leake to create a church planting movement in Pittsburgh.  Looking forward to watching how God uses him.

Tory Farina: Tory started Highpoint Church near Minneapolis less than two years ago.  He's reaching a ton of unchurched people (including most of his own neighbors)!  Everytime I talk with him he challenges my thinking.

Josh Karrer: Josh is launching Crossings Church in Glen Allen, VA.  They worked out a deal with Chipotle to give burritos to their first time guests.  Josh is a goldmine for creative outreach ideas.

Paul Stewart: Paul serves as the adult ministries pastor at Oak Hills Church.  Everytime he posts to his blog I say "why didn't I think of that!"  Paul's really a great thinker.

George Washington: Oops, wait a minute; wrong list:)

These are just a few of the young guys who stretch me.  The list is so much longer.  And if you're reading my blog and I haven't met you yet, introduce yourself!  And to those of you who haven't started your blog yet, what are you waiting for?  You know who you are.  Jerome...

Don't forget to pray for all these guys.  They're just kids:)

I started blogging eighteen months ago when two leaders inspired me to begin doing the hard work of turning thoughts and dreams into words.  One of them, Chilly Chilton, started blogging on Xanga in the early days of the blogosphere.  After 100,000 hits he's moved to Typepad.

Check out Insomnia Chronicles.

Chilly makes me laugh and cry.  And think.  And that's good:)

Not to mention we're working the same region.  So glad Chilly chose Hamtramck to plant Real Church.  God is stacking the Metro Detroit dream team for city transformation!

So glad to announce that two of my favorite people are now blogging.  Eddie and JT (Jen) serve on staff with me at Church of the King.  Eddie has been a friend since high school.  He keeps the engine of our church running by leading our prayer ministries.  You might remember him from the dancing elf post at Christmas.  Unfortunately, he's not as good of a dancer without the elf costume on.

JT and I attended CBC together.  She's been with us since the beginning and leads our children's and worship ministry. 

As a side note, although the blog is named for both of them, I'd probably expect more posts from JT:)  That is unless there's a reason to post about this guy.  The Ninja might call Eddie out.

This month marks the ten year anniversary of a special move of God that my friend Jeff Leake experienced at the church he leads.  To celebrate and remember what God did, he just finished a series of posts sharing some of his memories from the experience. 

Warning: Do not read what Jeff writes unless you want to be stretched by Jesus:)

One of my 21 day goals was to simplify this blog with maintenance and readability in mind.  So here's the New Year version:)

I eliminated several things from the sidebar; hopefully nothing you'll miss too much.  If you feel compelled to surprise me with a gift I can still email you a link to my Amazon wish list!

And just to dispel any potential rumors, I am still a Michigan fan.  The color change from yellow and blue was not a result of our collapse in the Rose Bowl.

Not directly at least:)

The slurpee saga continues. 

It started when I stopped into 7-eleven on July 11 (7-eleven's birthday), only to discover that my local 7-eleven had discontinued their slurpee giveaways.  How does that happen on July 11? 

A few days later one of my friends informed me that David Letterman had made a deal with 7-eleven.  With renewed hope I decided to give the story by my house another shot.  Apparently these particular employees don't watch David Letterman.

I haven't seen the show in awhile, but I'm guessing that Letterman must have talked about the slurpee deal again last night (can anyone who saw the show confirm this)? 

All I know is that my blog is currently the number one google hit for anyone searching "7-eleven letterman."  This morning from midnight until 3.00 am hits were off the charts:)

So this is an official welcome to all you slurpee lovers out there!  Has anyone found a store that's actually doing this thing?

I came across a thought tonight from Scott Hagan that's worth repeating.

The discipline of putting thoughts into words is grueling, but powerful and clarifying.  Only 10 percent of what you say has the possibility of coming true.  80 percent of what you write down has the chance of coming true.  A true difference maker realizes its worth the sweat and temporary isolation to turn thoughts into words.

Read that last sentence again.

Turning thoughts into words is why I teach from a manuscript.  Ocassionally time doesn't permit me to write my message out.  When that happens I usually find myself saying things to our church that I haven't even processed yet.  I don't like that for a few reasons. 

First, I want to make sure that I'm doing my best to live the things I preach.  I don't bat 1.000 on this but it's my goal.  When I write my messages out before teaching them, the work of turning thoughts into words forces me to reflect personally on what I'm going to say.

The second reason may surprise some of you.  Sometimes I have thoughts that don't actually make sense:)  Turning them into words is a good checkpoint for me to realize that before I subject others to the confusing neurosphere of Brad Leach.  For example, I just realized that I either:

A)  Just made up that word neurosphere...or

B)  Stumbled on an ingenius new concept.

For what it's worth, turning thoughts into words is also why I blog.  Blogging is digital discipleship.  It's an opportunity for me to process what the Holy Spirit is doing in my head and heart.  Blogging is also spiritual autobiography.  It is a way to cyber-share my thoughts.  If we're going to be history-makers, we've got to first of all be history recorders. 

Today I have a limited view of the story God is writing with my life, but someday I'll look back and notice a variety of experiences, including some that seemed small and insignificant at the time, and see some faith threads.  I'll notice how God used them to shape HIS-story for me. 

Blog on:)

One more thought on this past week of youth camp.

One of the highlights of the week for me was the relationship connections.  Tony Sebastian is the youth pastor at Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill, PA.  He and his wife Jamie also happen to be two of my best friends from college.  Spending time with them was energizing.  I also got to hang with Josh Willeford who came in for the week to lead the worship band.  He's got the church planting bug so I loved spending time dreaming with him.  Hanging with these guys made for some long nights, but they were a breath of fresh air for me.

Incidentally, I also got to have breakfast on Thursday morning with Jonathan Herron.  I've gotten to know him some through his blog.  He's planting a new church in Kent, which was only about an hour from the camp I was at.  We got to do one of my favorite things; talk church planting.  This guy is living on the edge.  Pray for him as he gets ready to launch Catalyst Church on September 10.  I think you're going to hear alot of great things coming from his ministry.