“Doing Church” got ya down?

Then I would HIGHLY recommend a couple of books.  These 2 books by the same authors have really been challenging & encouraging me as I journey forward in the discovery of “What IS Church really all about?”.

I came across these 2 guys – Hugh Halter and Matt Smay, at a recent conference I attended in Florida.  I was intrigued by some of the things they had to share about

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The Tar Heel State???

After my post yesterday about feeling like “Dave Matthews Band” – I continue along the same lines in a musical quest to summarize the journey I am on.  Today (and for the last few weeks) I have been feeling

Headed to the Sunshine State!

Tomorrow (Sunday, April 18th) myself and some of our staff from Christ’s Church @ Cobb – (Jeff, Lisa, Chase, and Courtney) are heading to lovely Orlando Florida.  We will be there till Friday attending the awesome

The Numbers just don’t add up…

AND I LOVE IT!!!

I’ll be honest – I have written and re-written this post in my mind numerous times.  I have edited and re-edited and sometimes come to the point where I decided not to share, but was then convicted that this is TOO GOOD NOT TO SHARE.

Now I’ll put a small disclaimer on this post

Viva La VERVE!

Hey Everyone – I HAVE AN EXTREMELY EXCITING ADVENTURE TO INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME ON!

Some of you may be aware of this amazing journey of planting a new church on the LAS VEGAS STRIP that a friend of mine named Vince Antonucci is on.  The church is called Verve.  Vince started a very intriguing church in Virginia Beach called Forefront and just recently felt called by God to move out west for this new endeavor (got to read his story behind the reason he feels led to this).

They are attempting to do something that has NEVER been done successfully there in that setting before.  It is going to require first and foremost God’s MIGHTY HAND to be involved, but then also many of God’s servants such as you and I to PRAY – GIVE – SERVE & ENCOURAGE!  So I am asking you to consider doing some of those things but this specific post is about what I THINK is a CHALLENGING & EXCITING way to be involved in giving to this ministry!

Recently Vince shared about their ongoing attempts to find a meeting space near/on the STRIP that they could use 24/7 for their ministry venues – especially with the different nature of the way church will need to be done in that environment.  One of the biggest obstacles is the money that this will cost them.  He is thinking it will take about $2,000 a month more than what they had considered.  He is not sure what that money is going to come from, but is trusting God & His servants to see this take place.  So I thought how cool it might be to try and attempt to be part of God’s solution to this problem!  This is where you and I and our churches/friends/circles of influence can come into play!

So I want to share what our church is considering and hoping to get UP & RUNNING – with the hope that maybe some group you work with might try it as well.  Since the struggle for fundraising is always finding NEW AVENUES and being AS CREATIVE as possible – ESPECIALLY in a down economy in which we face right now – I think we have come up with something that already taps into something people are doing and just funnels that money into a new direction.

PART 1 – So we @ Christ’s Church at Cobb are trying to get a TEXAS HOLD’EM POKER GROUP up and running.  The idea is basically that we have a monthly “tournament style” gathering.  Participants would gather at someone’s home or some playing venue each month and pay a $25 “buy in” fee – some of this money will go toward refreshments & prizes for the top players each evening.  Our hope is that we could even work with Vince & Verve to get some Verve promo stuff like T-shirts etc to use as prizes so that it also builds awareness for them at the actual events.  Then $15 of that money will go toward the new church work @ VERVE!

PART 2 – The second part of our idea/plan is this.  We are planning on having this group meet for 6-9 months hopefully.  This way we could create approximately maybe $1,500 (about 12 participants giving $15 each night for average of 8 months).  We would take that $1,500 as “seed money” and use it to host a “Casino Night” for our people and our community.  We found a company called “A CASINO EVENT” that will host an entire evening for us – for up to 150 people, they will bring in all the people & equipment, run it for 3 hours, and do all setup and tear down.  All we do is promote the event, get the people there, and then set a “per person fee” for playing that night.  They even provide what they call “funny money” that people get in exchange for their real money to use at all the casino games for the evening.

The quote we got for this would be about $1,900 – so with the money we make off the Texas Hold’Em game nights – we have almost covered that cost so the “CASINO NIGHT” would be basically all profit!  We believe this could be an AWESOME night of FUN & FELLOWSHIP while raising AWARENESS and MORE IMPORTANTLY MUCH NEEDED FUNDS FOR VERVE!  (our thoughts are that if we can get 150 people there for $20-25 a person then we raise on one evening = $3,000-3,750)

So here is my challenge to you – decide to do PART 1 or PART 2 to combine both methods OR simply try and pull off a “CASINO NIGHT” by upfronting the cost to have the night and then get people to donate enough “per person” to cover the cost of the night and then raise enough funds to give a large donation to VERVE!

Also you could just decide to have the monthly Texas Hold’Em get-togethers because that could bring in some good money and use resources you already have & your people may already be playing games on a regular basis.  This is a great way to also reach into the community for people just looking for places to play Texas Hold’Em but may never come to church.  Cause you see when you “do the math” – if you get 15 participants on average each month @ $15 per person that equals $225 per month – which over a 10 month period turns into $2,250 and for an entire year comes to $2,700.

So here is the deal people – if we could get 20-25 Churches, Groups, Friend Circles, Communities or WHATEVER & WHOEVER YOU ARE to come together and commit to at least ONE FORM of the above mentioned things.  WE could as a TEAM/PARTNERSHIP come together FROM ALL REACHES OF THE NATION – to raise the $2,000 per month (or more) to give to Verve to help cover the cost of these facilities for a 2 year period as they get up and rolling.

SO WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK?  WHO IS WITH ME?  WHO IS WITH US?

If you are interested/willing but need more info on how to get this started and rolling for your group/organization – don’t hesitate to contact me – Neal Alligood via e-mail @  nalligood@cccobb.com

On an Island with Jesus??

So I mentioned that last week I got the great opportunity to go to a wonderful Church Planting Conference in Orlando called EXPONENTIAL.

At the last session I had the pleasure of hearing one of the all-time most powerful messages & challenges from one of my favorite preachers, Francis Chan (lead guy @ Cornerstone church in Simi Valley, CA), – there is no way to sum up all of what he talked about in this post, but if I come across the recording I’ll pass it on to everyone, but I would like to share a nugget that hit me & challenged me to take some “next steps” of my own.

In Francis’ message he talked about how people do so much “reading into” the Bible and not just allowing the Bible speak on it’s own.  He shared some times where he has challenged others (and even had to sort of take this challenge himself) to simply get away with God’s word and to read it as though they had never before.  The idea of – what if you were on an island and found this book the Bible, and just read it and applied it to your life.  What would that ultimately look like.

Now granted some would argue, that many people don’t even believe the Bible and it holds no standard of truth for them, and I would agree that there are many in this world like that.  But for me – I DO BELIEVE – I believe it is the authority of God and it holds the key to Truth & Light & Life for me, as well as the whole world, but all I can do is start with ME.

So I am sort of beginning on a new challenge:  Getting “On an Island with Jesus” – what I mean by that is I am taking the next couple months to read through the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) and as much as humanly possible to sit back as though I have not read them before.  To ask questions I have not asked before.  I am also not just going through each book on it’s own, I am going to read through them in Chronological Order.  (This is done through the fact that the LIVING BIBLE version I use has what is called the “Harmony of the Gospels” section in it.  This is where the 4 Gospels are broken down into 250 events that run in chronological order and so I will read through each event in Jesus’ life and jump back and forth between books to help read it in order, not simply just reading Matthew, then Mark, then Luke, then John – This online version is a little different from the one I have but is a good one to use) – hope that makes sense.

Also as much as possible I am planning on journaling my thoughts in a notebook and then trying as hard as I can to keep up with that on my blog here as well.  Maybe none of you really care but at least that will be some accountability for me & hopefully lead to some discussions and interesting interactions.  If anyone wants to do this along with me – either find this list on your own or let me know and I can send you the list of 250 events the same way I will be reading them.

I began yesterday and will continue – hopefully reading through about 3 events each day and taking about 3 months to go through the process.  My hope is to walk away with a new passion and understanding of who Jesus really is and how He has and will continue to affect my life!

So come join me “On an Island with Jesus”!

Back from Orlando!

Wow so I just realized that it has been like 9 days since I posted on here – sorry about that (like ya’ll care ha ha ha)  I was on the road all this week in a Conference in Orlando.  It is a Church Planting Conference called EXPONENTIAL and it was AWESOME.

I thought I might have a lil more time & also more access to internet but NO DICE – so now back to keeping it updated.  

So Lisa & Jeff (sister & brother in law) and I drove from Atlanta to Orlando last Sunday and were there till yesterday.  We got back to the ATL around 3:30 PM and were TOTALLY EXHAUSTED.  So today has been a day full of NOTHING but laying around and resting up.

Well that is pretty much it for now, but it feels good to be back up on the blog-train!