1. Still pumped about being able to find out the gender of our baby on Tuesday, October 27th.  The doctor said that Melissa and the baby are both healthy and doing well.  Knowing the gender will really help us prepare for what to get for the baby.  Please continue to pray that everything stays as smooth as it has been already.
2. I’ve been looking for these $10 shoes that Walmart sells.  I’ve gone to a bunch of Walmarts and they seem to be out of them.  This saddens me.  If I find some, I’m buying them all!
3. Sunday will be our 1 year anniversary as a church.  How cool is that?  God has done some incredible things already but we know there is more still to come.  How great is our God!
4. This really made me laugh hard yesterday.  Maybe you need a laugh too…  http://bit.ly/3UXTId
5. Question: What are you doing with your life, your family, or your career that needs to change in order to glorify God fully?

1. These last few months have been tough.  I lost 3 grandparents to cancer in the last 4 months.  And this past Monday we found out that Melissa’s grandma has pancreatic cancer.  Like I said in my last blog post…I hate cancer.  This is something that is consuming my mind 24/7.
2. This Sunday finishes up our Disciple series.  It’s been a great series that has really challenged our church in different areas.  Then, on October 4th, The Well turns 1 year old!  How cool is that!  Man, God has done some pretty amazing things in 1 year.  I can’t wait to see what He has in store next.
3. I’m 44 days away until I’m 25.  I should blog a birthday list like I always do.  Man, I feel old.  25, married, and a baby on the way.  God, I just pray that you use me with the rest of my life to glorify You and bring people to know You.
4. Life Groups at The Well are about to start up.  I’m pretty pumped about this for our church.  We sorta kinda had some bible studies going on before the summer started but they weren’t official.  Please be praying for us as Melissa and I are trying to figure out what age group to teach and what to teach them.  Although I have a feeling that no matter what or who we teach, we’ll be learning just as much if not more.
5. I’ve really enjoyed getting to spend some time with my buddy Joel.  We were in high school together and played in a band called Dead Man Walking together.  Then after my first year of college, he joined the Navy.  He went all over the country and served our country to the fullest.  He was able to come to our wedding this past December and something profound hit him: He was serving his country, but not fully serving God.  Since then, he is out of the Navy and searching for where God wants him right now.  I love this dude to death and am praying that the passion and fire he has for God will spread like the California wild fires.

Every church website should:

1. Have an easy to remember domain name. Your church website’s domain name should be simple and memorable.  When someone is interested in finding more information about your church, you want them to find that information easily without the use of search engines.  Keep it simple and make it easy to remember.  In promoting your web address, leave off the http://‘s and the www.‘s.  This makes your web address easier to remember and easier to say.
2. Be incredibly easy to navigate. People don’t spend a whole lot of time on a website.  They visit your site, search for what they are looking for, and then close the window.  Your church’s website should be designed so that people can find what they are looking for quickly and close out.
3. Have concise and current information. Again, people don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on a website.  No one wants to read a belief statement that they have to scroll down for hours just to read the whole thing.  Be short and concise.  Use the concept of Twitter.  Things should be simple, short, and to the point.  Also keep things current.  Too many times I go to a church’s website and the newest “Upcoming Event” was from 2 months ago.  Once I even saw one that was from 2 years ago.  That’s just insane.  If you are going to have a website that will not be maintained, then don’t integrate things like a calendar or a sermon mp3 player or photographs.  If your church doesn’t have someone to maintain your website and keep it up to date, then I suggest to make your website a simple information only type website.  It looks unprofessional to have old, out dated information on a website.
4. Be a tool to be used by the church. The people in your church are going to your website to find out something or use a tool on your website.  If someone is checking out your website before they visit your church, directions and service times should be easy to be used.  Church calendars should be clean looking and uncluttered for people within the church to keep in the know.  Every program or tool you use should be useABLE!
5. Be accessible on multiple platforms. Whether you’re excited about the change or not, Flash sites seem to be dying.  Flash sites take too long to load and they require a certain plugin to run and be view properly.  The art of CSS web design is taking shape and growing fast in popularity.  CSS  is also mobile friendly so your church members can access your website on the go.

(for examples of how I used this on our church website, check out discoverthewell.org)

I am the worship leader at The Well in Cartersville, GA.

1. My pastor, Andy Postell.  I have the best pastor, boss, mentor, friend in the world.  Andy and I have been working together and dreaming about what The Well would look like since January of 2008.  Very early on we realized that we were almost complete opposites and we teased that he was the old and I was the new.  But we also realized early on that this meshed together so perfectly and we were a great team together.  Not only is Andy a great communicator on Sunday mornings, but he is a great pastor to the church where he truly cares for its people and he is a great leader.  Andy is one of those people who have those deeply “in-tune” relationships with Jesus.  It is incredibly easy to follow him in leadership because I know that he is following Jesus in all that he does.
2. Our Staff.  Where the church is still less than a year and Andy and I are the only full time staff, we have the best volunteer staff in the planet.  Claire Postell, Andy’s wife heads up our kids area and does a phenomenal job.  On Sunday mornings, the kids have their own environment specifically created for them.  Claire is a master at creating a cool set design for the kids and they eat it  up.  Dee Dee Burson assists Claire and also heads up our nursery.  As soon as she came on board she up’ed the game.  She’s really been the key to taking our kids ministry to the next level.
3. The people who come on Sundays. The people who come on Sundays are the coolest people in Cartersville.  About 60-70% of the people who come to The Well haven’t stepped foot inside a church since they were kids.  That’s so awesome to me.  We advertise that we are “church done differently”.  For some reason these people give us a chance and they see that church doesn’t have to be about traditions with lost meanings or all about politics or full of hypocrites.  Church is about the body of Christ coming together to lift high the name of Jesus and recharge us so we can punch Satan in the throat Monday through Saturday.
4. Our Serve Teams.  These men and women are what makes The Well happen every Sunday.  These are the people who come in on Saturday afternoon and setup the building to create our environment for worship.  These are the people who get to church early to greet you at the door with a smile.  These are the people who serve you coffee and breakfast before the service starts.  These are the people who care for your kids in the back so you can worship freely.  These are the people who make The Well what it is.
5. Excel Christian Academy.  I wholeheartedly believe that we have the best portable facility for a church in Cartersville, Georgia.  When we first launched, we met at the Cartersville Library and we out grew it extremely fast.  God opened doors just at the right time and gave us Excel.  We went from a main worship room that could hold 100 standing room only, 1 kid’s room that we have to divide with curtains, and loading everything into trailers…to a building with a main worship room that could hold 500 easy, the possibility of 7 kid’s rooms that most of them we can leave set up, and a storage room that we no longer needed trailers.  This building is going to allow us to grow into multiple services and reach many more people for Jesus.
6. Our Band.  I have the best and most talented friends out there.  I have the pleasure of having my closest friends come and lead worship with me every Sunday morning.  From day 1 of our very first preview service we started with a phenomenal band.  We didn’t want to work up to excellence in our worship so from the start we’ve had the very best.  This was one of the best decisions we made early on as a church.
7. Our Tech Team.  Like my last post, excellence attracts excellence.  When we started off with a great band, people wanted to get involved.  God led some of the most talented people to The Well.  Jacob Burson produces most of our Sunday morning services and creates all of our videos.  From the very beginning stages of the church, our videos looked extremely professional and as if we were a church many years older.  Styx and Todd Green run sound for us on Sundays and we couldn’t ask for better sound engineers.  These 2 guys know their stuff and make us sound incredible.  Greg Henderson, Zakk Nunn, Courtney Smith, and my wife, Melissa, rotate on our lights and video systems.  These guys came to the table with zero experience in lighting or video but I would now rank them with anyone else out there.  They have taken this task and completely owned it.
8. Our Message Series.  We do some of the coolest series at The Well.  Andy and I meet pretty far in advance and look at a calendar and seek God on what kind of series to do make sure they are relevant to Cartersville, the time of the year, and the people that are coming to the church.  I really enjoy doing graphic design so this is where I get to be creative in that area.  I design all of our series graphics.  I also get to work with an awesome lady named Theresa Stevenson and come up with some really cool set designs.  We are slightly limited with the fact that we  have to set it up and break it down every Sunday, but we still do some neat stuff.  Check out our set design at VBS when we DIDN’T have to be limited.
9. LIFE Groups.  Technically LIFE Groups (small groups) haven’t launched at The Well yet, but Melissa and I were already involved in one.  Andy and Claire taught one at their house and Melissa and I taught one at ours.  Also during the summer we had bible studies by the pool called “Dive In”.  These will launch after our current series (Disciple) is over and it will change the church in a incredibly positive way.  LIFE Groups are where life happens.
10. Life Change.  This is the most exciting to me and why I love my job at The Well so much.  God is moving in incredible ways and blows our minds more and more each and every week.  This past Sunday we had 18 people baptized either reaffirming their baptism or as first time professions of faith.  WOW!  Life change is happening and in huge ways in the life of The Well.  I’m so excited to just be a part of it.

• Print bulletins on high gloss paper and in full color

• Change our set design every series

• Place our friendliest people at the doors

• Arrive for rehearsal long before the sun does

• Do a full service run-thru to make sure there are no distractions

• Pay our musicians

• Pray without ceasing

(got this blog idea from Josh Bayne)

1. Grow deeper and deeper in love with Christ.
2. Become a better husband.
3. Become a better leader/pastor.
4. Become a better worship leader, guitar player, and singer.
5. Focus on writing new worship songs that can change our world’s view of worship.
6. Raise up leaders within The Well and delegate different areas of my duties.
7. Continue reading at least 1 book a month.
8. Lose 30 pounds ASAP.
9. Develop closer relationships with other couples in the church.
10. Pay off Melissa’s car and my car and become debt free.

Friends I ran into (that I didn’t already see yesterday)
*Tony Nolan (great great great evangelist)
*Steve Whipple pastor of Church at the Ridge; went thry Church planting school together)

Creative Elements
*National Champion Cloggers
*Full gospel choir
*An elephant and a donkey
*Lots and lots of white ballons

Worship Leaders
*Aaron Keyes
*Steve Fee
*Kristian Stanfill 
*Lanny’s African Children’s Choir 
*Lifetime achievement award to Billy Graham 

Worship 
*God of Wonders
*Mighty to Save
*Glory to God
*Beautiful Jesus
*Broadcast
*Glorious One
*Blood of the Lamb
*Beautiful the Blood
*Thank you for the blood
*I didn’t catch all of them today…sorry 

Speakers (notes to come…when it lets me attach documents again…don’t know what’s up)
*Tim Sanders (Former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo) notes
*Dave Ramsey (best selling author and national radio and tv host) notes
*Franklin Graham (President and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse and son of Billy Graham) notes
*Jeff Foxworthy (comedian) notes
*Andy Crouch (author of “Culture Marketing”) notes
*Matt Chandler (lead pastor of The Village Church) notes
*Andy Stanley (lead pastor of North Point Community Church) notes

Friends I ran into:
*Gary Lamb (a great friend of mine rocking it out in Canton at Revolution Church)
*Adam Ellis (the creative arts pastor at Revolution)
*Lloyd Owens (a great friend of mine who’s currently interning at West Ridge as a church planter)
*Clay Willis (a Cartersville church planter friend.  I actually used to play drums at his church)
*Tim Samples (great friend who I went thru West Ridge church planting school with
*Doug Garvin (another guy I went thru church planting school with who’s planting in Savannah now)
 *Judd Wright (worship leading college friend of mine who’s rocking it in South Carolina
*Matt VanZant (childhood friend of mine who always leads worship)
*Jeremy Thompson (childhood friend of mine)
*Danny Echols (former boss and lead pastor of Cross View in Rockmart)
*Josh Kirby (friend of mine from Rockmart)
*Blake Goss (childhood friend who is worship pastor at Freedom Church)
*Matt Petty and Chip Paul (high school and middle school pastor at Burnt Hickory where I lead worship on Wednesday nights) 

Amazing Creative Elements
*the guys from stomp
*the winner from “so you think you can dance”
*dodgeball champion, mariachi band, banjo player, and a pig…on a bus
*giant floam creation from the 12,400 attendees
*chinese fingertraps
*extreme basketball slam dunks

Worship Leaders
*Steve Fee
*Eddie Kirkland
*Chrystina Fincher
*Kristian Stanfill
*Candi Pearson Shelton 
*Todd Fields 
*Jon Foreman of Switchfoot
*Others 

Worship
*We Shine
*All Because of Jesus
*Glory to God
*Breathe On Me
*When I Survey
*From the Inside Out
*Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone) 
*God of This City
*Lift High
*It is Well
*How Great Thou Art

Speakers (notes to come…it won’t let me attach right now)
*Andy Stanley (Pastor of North Point Community Church) notes
*William Paul Young (author of “The Shack”) notes
*Jim Collins (Author of “Good to Great”) notes
*Steven Furtick (pastor of Elevation Church) notes
*Brenda Salter McNeil (author of “A Credible Witness) notes
*Seth Godin (Marketing Expert) notes
*Craig Groeshel (pastor of LifeChurch.tv) notes 

Recording
-all instrument tracking is done
-i have to go back to resing a few parts i wasn’t happy with
-we started intial mixing…im not so happy about how its going, but it will get done
-im officially worried that its not going to sound good

Wedding
-melissa’s dad officially has booked and reserved us an entire honeymoon.  he’s awesome.
-melissa went to davids bridal the other day to “just look” with her mom and sister and they bought a dress.  wow.
-we’ve decided on a date and a time and a location and have all that in place
-we bought a domain name and have started a website.  all the info will be on that when it gets done.  for right now its just an image with the date, but you can check it out here

Work
-i officially work full time for The Well now.  we are still doing monthly preview services so im doing as much as i will or would like to be doing, but its a good feeling knowing im back in full time ministry.

Playing out
-i played at Crave in Douglasville sunday night.  i love that ministry.  everytime i lead worship i LOVE it because the people LOVE to worship.  its so much easier to actually lead worship when the people want to worship and its so nice to actually worship when leading worship.
-since a church cancelled like 3 dates on me i need to be playing more than i am currently.  so if you need anyone or know any churches needing someone to lead worship i have tons of sundays now open. 

Personal
-i have the best fiance in the world
-i have the best family in the world
-i have the best future family in law in the world
-i feel very lucky

Yesterday was the 4th preview service for The Well.  It went really smooth.  We had a great crowd and the band did awesome.  Anna Houston was our guest vocalist and she led on “See His Love”.  I will for sure have to have her back real soon.

Setlist
See His Love (Jesus Culture)
Famous One (Chris Tomlin)
Beautiful Jesus (Kristian Stanfill)
Amazing Because It Is (The Almost)

Oh ya…I have a couple new pictures from Revolution last week.  For those, click here.