Archive for April, 2009

The autopsy of a church planter

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 30 April 2009
in Church Planting, Church of God, City of Weston Florida, Health, InDependence Church, My Life, My Wife, Parenting, Random Ramblings and The Word
. 7 Comments

Somebody asked me yesterday what it was like to not have to prepare for Sunday. Well I wrote this blog a while back titled 6 days till Sunday which has been the story of my life for the past 16 months straight. Even though I recently have switched over to Facebook to spout off random thoughts, this blog still remains the behind the scenes look at the life of a husband, father, and church planter. I just have been busy with the stuff below and haven’t had time to blog much. (And outsourcing my blog didn’t work)

 

So I wanted to journal my thoughts as I close the chapter of my life at InDependence Church. As many of you know this past Sunday was my last official Sunday at InDependence. Over the next week or so I will be working on transferring over all of the other “stuff” that goes along with this job like, banking, taxes, facilities, marketing, leadership, staff info, etc. etc. etc.

 

Many of my pastoral friends have called to check up on me to see how I am doing. My wife asked me yesterday if it feels to me like we are offering our kid up for adoption after you have brought it into this world and raised it for two years… In a sense yes but God has given me incredible peace and confidence that I am doing what is best for me, my family and InDependence.

 

To not so quickly recap:

Continue reading ‘The autopsy of a church planter’

O N E T R I L L I O N D O L L A R S

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 3 April 2009
in Random Ramblings
. 1 Comment

All this talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”…

A billion dollars…

A hundred billion dollars…

Eight hundred billion dollars…

One TRILLION dollars…

What does that look like? I mean, these various numbers are tossed around like so many doggie treats, so lets get a sense of what exactly a trillion dollars looks like.

We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them, slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

A packet of one hundred $100 bills is less than 1/2″ thick and contains $10,000. Fits in your pocket easily and is more than enough for week or two of shamefully decadent fun.

Believe it or not, this next little pile is $1 million dollars (100 packets of $10,000). You could stuff that into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

While a measly $1 million looked a little unimpressive, $100 million is a little more respectable. It fits neatly on a standard pallet…

And $1 BILLION dollars… now we’re really getting somewhere…

Next we’ll look at ONE TRILLION dollars. This is that number we’ve been hearing so much about. What is a trillion dollars? Well, it’s a million million. It’s a thousand billion. It’s a one followed by 12 zeros.

You ready for this?

It’s pretty surprising.

Ladies and gentlemen… I give you $1 trillion dollars…

 

Notice those pallets are double stacked.
…and remember those are $100 bills.

So the next time you hear someone toss around the phrase “trillion dollars”… that’s what they’re talking about. (notice the guy in the red shirt in the lower left corner)

Quitting Church

Published
by
Nathan Griffis
on 2 April 2009
in Church Planting, City of Weston Florida, InDependence Church and Random Ramblings
. 1 Comment

I am half way through a book titled “Quitting Church” by Julia Duin and it has made me sad. I can recognize so many of the things that she describes the church to be and not be. She talks about the types of people that once experienced Jesus but were driven away by the “church”. This is not a book about people who wer never reached by “church” but were reached and rejected or reached and turned off by what it has become. Check out this blog article with some Q&A with the author.

I am encouraged to think that InDependence Church is doing something with its’ Jeopardy Series to combat her concern of the “church” being disconnected with the questions and needs of its’ community. So far our church has reached more disgruntled than lost. In the past I have found that discouraging but today I have a little different perspective. Whether it was the world or the church that turned people away from God is irrelevant. We were still called to reach so “God give us the wisdom and the knowledge to reach those that once knew you but were driven away by the methods man used to represent you.”