jayhardwick.com

Dustin Willis & Midtown Fellowship

Lara Beth and I had the privilege of being the oldest people in the room among 225 people last Sunday night. No, we didn't eat at Chuck E. Cheese. We visited the most happening church in downtown Columbia, Midtown Fellowship.

The music was off the chain. I was a little sketchy about their location...the State Museum...but it actually was an awesome venue - sort of movie theater-like. Lead Pastor Dustin Willis and his creative team did something they've never done before. The message was on video, sort of Nooma-like, with small worship sets weaved in between segments. The crowd was big-time engaged and passionate in singing. Oh, it was stinkin' loud...not Elevation loud...but it was loud. And really, really good. They've doubled their attendance this summer when most of their "regulars" are gone. They'll easily blow past 400 when Carolina students are back.

Dustin is a new blogger, too. And, even though he's a Tater fan, I like him a lot and his blog is way sexier than mine. I love Dustin's heart for reaching Columbia - he's been praying for years for someone to start something in Northeast Columbia, which is where we are going.

Dustin and Midtown team...keep it up! I'm honored to come alongside you to turn Columbia on its ear. And, I bet we'll be LOUDER! :-)

FINALLY!

I knew it wouldn't be long...

Jake Miller, our FEARLESS Stewardship Director and Groups Director at Catalyst has joined the blogosphere!

I love this guy and I know I'm going to love his blog, too! You will too, so give him a peek and add him to your feeds...seriously!

How'd That Happen?

So this is cool...

Joseph Michelli, author of The Starbucks Experience, commented on my blog tonight.

Dr. Michelli, thanks for stopping by...come back anytime!

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Casey

As of today, Casey Ross, our Strategic Director at Catalyst, is blogging on his own. For the past few months, Casey has led the blogging effort of our family ministry blog, familynoise. Casey is a master strategist and is one of those weird people that love drawing out flow charts and step-by-step processes on dry erase boards. :-) His blog will be a must read, so add him to your feed readers.

New Things

Look around and notice two new additons...

For CC'ers and church planters looking for the best resources to help you process and apply the North Point model, check out the North Point Model Resources in the left column. More "model helps" will be coming soon.

Also, notice the links to the other North Point Strategic Partner churches. If you live in one of the cities represented or know someone who does, click the link to check out the website. From most sites, you can send an evite to a friend in the area.

Ch Ch Ch Ch Changes

With the changing of the year comes the need for some changes to jayhardwick.com. Some will be subtle. Some will be big. God has given some clarity on where this thing needs to go and I'm going to follow Him there.

Just like figuring out the target audience for Catalyst Church is a challenge, figuring out the target audience for this blog is a challenge. I've been amazed at how many people have stopped by over the first 6 months...and even more amazed that many decided to keep coming back. In return, I've been able to learn from and get to know so many of you. I love how the blogosphere shrinks the world.

Regardless of what arena you come from, I think you're still going to be able to connect with the content of this blog. But it will have a different feel...or at least I think and hope it will. The audience that I need to focus on is clear and that's what I am going to do. It would be easy to get wrapped up in ratings and counters and visits and page views and all that, yet this is a vehicle God is using and has called me to use for a specific purpose that lines up with the purpose He has given my life.

So, I'm excited about what's ahead and I hope you'll keep coming around. Oh, and forgive me for my sporadic posting of late. A regular posting schedule will resume on Monday after I make some changes this week.

Do You Care Enough?

Over the past several months, our leadership team has been talking a lot about helping people care enough about the right things. For many of us, we grew up in church environments where we were subliminally taught to care about the wrong things. The result is church people who care more about where they sit than investing in unchurched people. That's just one example.

Casey hit a home run with this post and this post over on our family ministry blog, familynoise.

Do you care enough about the right things? Your kids are watching. Your staff is watching. Your volunteers are watching. Your assistant is watching. The world is watching.

Ben Arment

Hooked up with another blogging friend, Ben Arment, in between sessions this morning. Ben is Lead Pastor of History Church in Reston, VA. He is one of my favorite bloggers because he always has great thoughts/insights and I envy his brevity.

I love connecting with guys who are in the trenches of church planting. It's a different world. Ben has such a great spirit about him. Very humble, kingdom-focused, loves the local church. And, he was wearing a really cool shirt!

Ben said something that is dead on. He said it amazes him that more pastors are not blogging. Through his blog, he communicates with more people every day than he would in three weeks at his church. In the short time I've been in this, I can almost say the same thing. Talk about stewardship of time and ideas! Amazing.

Thanks for the time, Ben, It's good to know you're real!

Subscription Special

Scott Hodge, one of my blogging friends in Chicago, posted a step-by-step process for subscribing to a blog through Bloglines. It came just in time as many of you have been emailing me asking how to subscribe. Being the "cool web stuff"-illiterate guy, I'm going to copy Scott's stuff over here. Hope it works!

If you don't already follow jayhardwick.com through some sort of RSS reader, you need to!

The best place to start is Bloglines (link is in the top right corner) which is a free blog reading tool that allows you to subscribe to your favorite blogs and view new posts without having to actually go to the blogs themselves. You can set it up to only show newly updated blogs. Saves a lot of time running around to a gazillion blogs.

Here's what you need to do:

1. Go to Bloglines and set up a free user account.
2. Once it is set up, go to "My Feeds" and click on "Add."
3. In the box that asks for the Blog or feed URL, type in: "http://feeds.feedburner.com/jayhardwickcom" and click subscribe.
4. Add in any other blogs that you regularly read and you're done! If you're looking for some new blogs to track, check out the list on the right side of my blog.

Happy subscribing!

family-noise.com

If you're looking for clarity and strategy for your family or just want some family ministry leaders to connect with, www.family-noise.com is live. Subscribe, bookmark it, and pass it on to others!