Archive for February, 2008

The Right Reverand Joe Rocket

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 27 February 2008
in InDependence Church and My Life
. 3 Comments

So I have a new nickname at work. My boss gives out nicknames to most all of his employees and even though it sounds a little corny it is great having a boss that takes enough time to know who you are, at least well enough, to come up with a legitimate nickname. The Architectural firm I previously worked for was about the size of my current one when I started. I remember playing basketball with the President (now Chairman) and even going to a Gator game with him. He used to really go out of his way to be one of the guys.

As the business grew along with the responsibilities it just wasn’t possible to have that level of relationship. Here they still have that family environment and even though I am not fully adopted yet getting assigned a nickname was a good start to getting the paperwork completed.

As many of you know I commute 75 miles everyday to work on my motorcycle. Why, you ask? 1. Because they pay me to come to work. 2. Because we only have one car and I don’t make quite enough for two. 3. Because it beats walking. 45. The miles/gallon on my bike. So my nickname last Friday became “Joe Rocket”. I have a Joe Rocket riding jacket so that became “my” brand.

I don’t know if any pastor’s out there got a name tag that says pastor which you put on everyday but I didn’t. I do have a license but I am still waiting for my discount card. So I don’t advertise because it didn’t take me long to realize that the title has a huge impact on the way your life is received. I get the whole microscope thing and that is fine because I am pretty transparent but what I don’t want is for people to stop being real. When people aren’t real it lessons the ability for the pattern of my life as a Christ Follower to contrast their life. Plus they think that I have to do certain things just to keep my Pastor Card so they don’t view the love of Christ as genuine.

So anyways…word got out to my boss this weekend. I don’t know if it was the article in the paper or the sticker on the back of my wife’s car that I had to drive one day because it was raining. Regardless he had visited www.TheInChurch.org and now knows which side of the platform I sit on every Sunday.

So my new nickname is “The Right Reverend Joe Rocket”. I wish I was right a little more and my reverence levels are not up to snuff by a lot of standards but I lived up to the nickname this past weekend.

We closed out our Launch Series in Ephesians Chapter 6 and we spent a majority of the time on the armor of God. I tried to bring some new imagery to the verses by exchanging some Roman soldier gear for Suzuki riding gear. So with riding gear and motorcycle in church with us…yes I said motorcycle…we learned some great lessons on preparing for spiritual warfare and responsible motorcycle riding. The National Safety Council would have been proud. So the Joe Rocket Jacket became my breatplate of righteousness.

The more important lesson that I learned is no matter how good your digital camera is or it is only as good as the inexpensive little memory card. So I don’t have any pictures but it was a lot of fun, almost as much fun as the topic of Legalism which we are tackling this week.

Bible in Action

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 21 February 2008
in My Life and Parenting
. 2 Comments

Ephesians 6:4

Ephesians 6:4 (MSG) “Fathers, don’t exasperate your children by coming down hard on them. Take them by the hand and lead them in the way of the Master.”

It wasn’t my fault (for once)

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 18 February 2008
in InDependence Church and My Wife
. 2 Comments

So I am going to go on the record and say that my wife was the first person to run somebody off from our church. I always anticipated that it would be my big mouth that would cause the first dissention. That it would be my good intentions wrapped in a package of stupidity that would offend someone. But no…

Since we have started we have had some people come one time and not return. Since we have no information we are unable to contact them and see what was the cause, so in theory it could have been me but there is no way to prove or disprove. In about 3 minutes my wife managed to chase a great perspective couple off.

Here is the story…So yesterday the band is finishing up sound check about 9:55 and an older couple walks to where we are finishing set-up. We don’t have our greeting volunteers in place until 10:00 but my wife happened to be standing at the door to the sanctuary. Seeing potential first time guests my wife begins to converse with them and they ask if this is the __________ church? (I have purposefully ommitted the more traditional church that previously met at the school we rent from)

My wife explained that they had stop meeting there about 6 months ago (maybe the reason they haven’t been in church for 6+ months is because they are snow birds) and told them a little bit about our church. I won’t bore you with the details of the story but something about us having a band…no choir…two 10’ screens…and a full color program must have triggered them into a very fast paced walk the other direction. One of our regulars tried to establish a conversation with them in the parking lot but they wouldn’t even make eye contact as they made a bee-line to their car.

I would love to tell you that they laid rubber on their way out but that wouldn’t be the truth. The rest of the story is and as my wife shared the story with me I couldn’t help but laugh. Laugh at the thought that stepping a little bit outside of the traditional church methods could strike fear into the hearts of grown men and women. I really don’t know what they thought would happen if they made eye contact with somebody who attended a church without a robed choir.

I just wish we could have at least blessed them with some coffee and a donut to go if they weren’t going to stay. Then again seeing that stuff in the sanctuary might have been too much.

Sun Sentinel snuck this out…

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 13 February 2008
in City of Weston Florida and InDependence Church
. 1 Comment

Click here for the story…

Eye of the Tiger

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 11 February 2008
in My Life and Random Ramblings
. 2 Comments

How are you at reading eyes? I am pretty good at reading when people have been crying, sleeping, even doing drugs. But other than those remotely obvious things I am trying to learn how to look for the “eye of the tiger”. Being that we have a new (old) Rambo coming out I am reminded of the Rocky glory days and by now you are all singing the song…dun, dun-dunt, dun, dun-dunt, duunnnn… I’ll go ahead and apologize for that being in your head for the rest of the day.

As I looked in the mirror this morning at my blood shot eyes all that came to mind was I really need to lay off the drugs. Just kidding, it could be described in one word, “tired”. God asked me to look again at what I saw in those eyes. You know there have been times throughout this process of planting a church in Weston where I have considered quitting and to be honest yesterday was one of those moments.

The details aren’t important because a self induced pity party isn’t the moral of this blog. As my wife and I talked I told her that even if I wanted to quit I didn’t know how. She assumed I was talking about how we would handle the trailer, the lease, the insurance, the bank accounts, where we would go to church, my secular job, would we stay here or go back to Orlando, etc. Could we believe with confidence that quitting was of God or would we find ourselves wandering in the desert after being in our promised land. I said no it isn’t all that, I don’t know how to quit.

I was trying to think of things in my life that I have quit. I am sure that there has been something but I honestly could not think of it. I quit my last job to come here but only after working there for 12 years. I feel comfortable in saying that I had completed that season of life and the same holds true for the Domino’s pizza job before that which I had for almost 3 years.

I remembered playing high school football. At 5’8” and 175 lbs I was undersized for pretty much every position on the field but it was lack of fear, lack of intelligence, and lack of quit (and a lack of bigger, more talented players) that made me a varsity starter from half way through my sophomore year through graduation. I always played with reckless abandoned. Not playing to my physical level but playing bigger, faster and stronger than that.

So as I looked in the mirror God reminded me of all the times I heard “you can’t”, “you won’t”, “you shouldn’t” in life. He than reminded me of the “you did anyways”. Even though He didn’t sing the song, He reminded of the importance of having the eye of the tiger. We have to see the victory in the war through the losses in the battles. So the moral of the story is “my quitter is broken and I don’t intend to get it fixed any time soon”.

Why I live in Florida

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 8 February 2008
in Random Ramblings
. 1 Comment

Why I live in Florida

questions?

SUPER SUNDAY

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 4 February 2008
in InDependence Church and Random Ramblings
. 0 Comments

This last Sunday we talked about the Power of Purpose from Ephesians 3:10-13. As I watched the Super Bowl I saw the Power of Purpose in action. I know that we have some Patriot’s fans in our church but I couldn’t help but think that they looked like they were a little short on purpose. Maybe they had bought into the “greatest dynasty” talk that everyone had been doing.

The Giants came out hungry and the MVPs of that game were not listed in the options you could vote for. That game was certainly won in the trenches. The Giants offensive & defensive lines played incredible. Maybe they are not the popular, “flashy” guys on the field but they came with purpose. One side purposed to protect Manning and the other side to get Brady. Both accomplished their mission and won the battle. I am not saying Manning looked bad I am just saying it is a lot easier to look good standing up. He certainly peaked at the right time in the season.

So it was a SUPER Sunday at InDependence as well. We had fun setting up and it was the fastest we have ever done it. Everybody seemed physically, emotionally and spiritually ready for the day. The band was awesome and I really enjoyed speaking about not only God’s purpose but also how that relates to our purpose at InDependence. We had some new faces in the crowd that seemed to really enjoy themselves and said they looked forward to coming back. I even had a gentlemen volunteer to help us out with any technology needs we may have. So all just SUPER stuff!

Web Traffic Update

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 1 February 2008
in InDependence Church
. 2 Comments

Last month was are biggest month yet on the world wide web, thanks in large part to Google images but also to some incoming links from Y100, Miami Herald and some blogging friends, Travis and Chris. It is fun to look and see how people get to us and where they go when they leave but one of the things that I find amazing is where they live. In the last 100 visitors to my blog the winner for furthest distance away was from Derby, England. So thanks for finding us and I hoped you enjoyed your visit.

Anyways… here are the stats for January ‘08:

www.TheInChurch.org

Visits: 630 (382 were first timers)

www.NathanGriffis.com (Don’t click it…you are reading it)

Visits: 1,442

www.HarmonyGriffis.blogspot.com

Visits: 330 (in the first 27 days!)

Google is taking notice and InDependence is bouncing back and forth between first and second page for searches on “churches in Weston FL” and “Weston FL churches”. This is important because many people today will decide to visit a church based on the impression you give on the web. Statistically people trust Google’s rankings and visit websites based on their position. If I remember the statistics given in a seminar I attended taught by Drew Goodmanson, 53% of people never make it past the “fold” (the bottom of the screen listing your search responses).

So as we work on our web presence in an effort to get people to InDependence and try to allow people to know us better by bearing our humanity on our blogs there is one not so hidden agenda that I am also pushing toward. I can’t wait for the day that somebody comes through the how to find God section and we can testify that Jesus used us on the web to directly increase the size of His Kingdom.

It is going to happen and I am looking forward to bragging on Jesus.