Daryl Strickland

It’s Friday and all kind of good things are in my head, so here they are:

1. I would rather be kicked in the groin by a kangaroo or donkey than deal with the bulk mail office in Wilmington.
2. If you live in Wilmington, there is a pretty good chance that you will celebrate a birthday at the corner of Oleander and College.
3. Kids are cool (especially mine).
4. Jeff told me that Michelle’s drivers license had expired and I thought, how does that happen, then I looked at mine (oops!).
5. Details matter in everything.
6. Trying to save a buck usually cost you.
7. Starting a church is like having a baby, when it’s an infant, it is very vulnerable and you have to protect it and as it grows you have to teach it responsibility and trust it.
8. Friday’s are a lot like Thursday’s except that Saturday is tomorrow.

Here is another Braswell quote. This one was from last Friday night before we played the number 9 team in the state:

“All we are asking for is all that you’ve got”

If your wondering, we won 39-13. Go Vik’s

Many of you know that I am coaching again. I love the intensity of this new endevor. Here is a quote from coach Braswell after we took one on the chin in a scrimage two weeks ago;

“As a team we have to admit that we got our tales whipped. We have to then admit that we must get better. Lastly, we have to say, it starts with me, IT STARTS WITH ME !”

I love that last line. So often we want to point fingers. Let’s point them at the only person that we can control, ourselves and let’s make the whole team better by getting better ourselves.

Significance and Security - Guest Speaker Mac Lake

Attendance: 408 (New Lifepoint High) - same week last year 150 (172% increase)

Songs:

• No One Like You
• One Way
• Holy Is The Lord

Moment/s to remember:

• Seeing new Dream Team members serving EVERYWHERE!!
• Four more people praying to receive Christ!!!
• Tons of new faces.
• Hearing Mac speak life into our peeps.

Thanks Mac for making the drive up and pouring into Lifepoint!

Week two of “Red Rover” - A Place To Serve

Attendance: 344 - same week last year 155 (122% increase)

“If my bullet fits your gun, shoot it”

From Steven Furtick when someone told him that they were going to rip off one of his sermons.

Here is a bonus quote from the same blog - “Steal the stuff you suck at“

More lessons from the gridiron this week. This week the words “Mental Toughness” are ringing out all over the field. We are teaching these kids how to execute plays, how to use proper techniques, how to have a good stance that helps you succeed, how to defeat a block, how to make a block and much more. While we are going through the drills, they are perfect (well most of them) but during live scrimmages, a very different story.

The kids face obstacles when they are in the middle of the battle like heat, pain, fatigue, frustration and then what they had very clearly learned and executed is abandon. Mistakes start to happen because of lack of focus or focusing on the obstacles, the adversity, the distraction. Coach calls it being mentally weak.

Does anybody see the parallels in life? We have read or been taught the correct way to do things, to act, to be, however when adversity comes our way we choose to focus in on the distraction and abandon what we have learned and know to be true. We have to become “Mentally Tough”! We have to have laser beam focus with our lives, our families and when distractions or discouragement comes, we have to have the mental toughness to focus through the obstacle and on what we know to be correct.

As a Christian this even bumps up a notch. Not only should I not focus on the obstacles but I need to capture these negative thoughts and give them to God immediately!

Check this verse out:

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

3 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. 4 ^[a]We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 5 We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.

What are you focusing on right now? Is it pain, is it fatigue, is it yourself?

How can you get tougher mentally this week?

More on discouragement tomorrow.

Week one of “Red Rover” - A Passion For Jesus

Attendance: 393 - same week last year 185 (112% increase)

Songs:

• No One Like You - Crowder
• All Because Of Jesus - Fee
• Burn For You - Fee
• Inside Out - United

Moment/s to remember:

• What an awesome week! Mucho opposition to overcome (computers not working, leaving stuff at the office, backdrops falling and more) but a never say quit team, an awesome message, 393 people showing up in August on our 18month anniversary, and 12 more people starting a relationship with Christ!!! What a weekend!
• Just a side note, this same weekend last year there was much opposition (the Sunday with no lobby, no cafeteria and no air conditioning ) and it was the biggest and best Sunday of the summer. I am already looking forward to the first Sunday in August next year.
• Jeff brought the lumber today. You have to listen to the podcast tomorrow!!.

Bottom Line: A PASSION for Jesus has to be the primary focus of your church and your life.

I love it when people see a need and meet it. They don’t wonder if someone will help, they don’t wonder what could be done. They just jump right in and do something!

Here is a good example. There was big need reported by the local news this week (you can read about it here) .

One of our friends, Rebekah King, saw the story and was compeled to act. Notice, that I didn’t say that she saw the article and called the church to meet the need, she just met the need.

You can read about it here.

Jesus is recieved a whole lot better when you show people who he is rather than when you just talk about Him.

Thanks Rebekah and everyone else who helped!

This is a pretty awesome week for me. I started coaching football again and if that wasn’t enough, we are making some pretty big announcements at Lifepoint that affect the fall tremendously.

The thing that has stood out to me the most this week is that there is probably 1000 times more commitment in high school athletics than in 90% of churches out there. I try not to write negative post but this one bothers me a lot. Why can we tell a kid, “That effort stinks” or “That’s not going to get it done” or “That’s not Hoggard football” but we are scared to death to hurt someones feeling in the church, so we just avoid getting better or we avoid making changes that will make us more effective.

We take the most serious task on the planet and we reduce it to some kind of ya-ya sister hood and fail to make hard decisions because we don’t want to ruffle feathers or deal with carnage.

This is one of the biggest mistakes that I have made as a leader and I regret it big time. You do no one justice by avoiding these conversations. You make no one better by dodging the truth.

I heard coach tonight tell a group of kids that so far, they are the disappointment of the team and for us to be a winner that have to put forth better effort. And if they don’t put forth the effort, he will have to find someone else on the team that can. You know what, none of them started crying, or quit and I can almost guarantee you that they will come out tomorrow with a little more fire in their gut and their assignments a little more prepared for.

I promise to take my task more seriously tomorrow and think less of myself and more of the team. I challenge you to do the same.