Here is what I want to encourage you to do each day as we get closer to our new series. Open up the Bible and read through Philippians 2:1-11. Read it every day and then pray these two specific things:

Jesus, let me see the areas I fall short in serving my spouse.

Jesus, let me see my spouse through your eyes.

See you Sunday for Man VS. Wife at 9:30am, 11:00am or 1:00pm!!!

Thanks to Kevin Foster and Stephanie Megosh for great pics as usual!

Some things you need to know:

1. This Wednesday night we will have a Night of Worship and communion. Full kids ministry will be happening for your kiddos. See you there at 6:30pm. I’ll be sharing some BIG stuff that God has put on my heart.
2. Superbowl Sunday…that is this coming Sunday, Feb. 5th, come to church completely DECKED OUT in your favorite football fan gear. Put on a jersey and paint your face. Any kids team, high school team, college team or pro team is allowed…just no Texas Tech stuff (kidding…sort of!)
3. Starting February 12th, we will be changing to new service times. The new times will be 9:30am, 11:00am and 1:00pm.
4. I mean number two that you just read. Seriously. See the guys below? Come to church dressed like them (with a shirt on!) We will be giving a Revolution Church superbowl party pack away to the best dressed fan in each service.

One thing we like to do at Revolution Church is celebrate. God has been way too good to us not to stop and give Him glory for all that we have seen Him do. So this Sunday we are throwing a party!

I hope you will join us for worship at 8:30, 10:00 or 11:30am…then, you need to join us for our two year birthday and baptism tailgate party at 12:30 – 2:00pm. We will be at the Revolution Church campus eating, playing games, partying and celebrating life change!

Here are just a few highlights that we have seen over the last two years:

• We have seen 495 people make decisions to follow Jesus!
• 74 people have been baptized – and many more will be baptized this Sunday.
• We opened our first location.
• We helped plant our first two churches in other parts of Texas.
• We saw radical generosity as the people of this church stepped up and gave in crazy ways to our Illuminate initiative.

The list goes on and on…see what I mean? GOD is GREAT!

Celebrating what God has done gives us the faith to dream in an even more revolutionary way about what He wants to do in the future. Pausing to reflect propels us forward with greater vision and greater intensity.

Revolution Church, let’s move ahead into year three knowing that the best is yet to come!

Here is a summary:

We live life in high definition all the time. We surround ourselves with 1080P, LCD, Plasma, and other such devices. We focus in on the things we place around ourselves so we can feel we are right in the midst of the action coming from the screen. What if we were to see Christ that way? Meet Bluray Jesus!

Bluray Jesus is a modern approach to bringing the Gospel into real life, especially in our modern culture. We are surrounded by media & technology all the time and we spend a lot of cash on devices that help us “upgrade” to the newest and best thing out there. This cultural phenomena is what spurred the creation of Bluray Jesus. We have already embraced technology, so let’s allow technology to teach us a thing or two about Christ.

Excerpt: “I believe there is a higher definition Jesus out there. It is not the perfect picture of Him, but it is so much closer than anything we have ever encountered before. I do not believe that Jesus is summed up in just a few short books concerning Him in the New Testament, but that there is an ongoing high definition, clear picture, depth of color Jesus that needs to be discovered and played out in our lives–Bluray Jesus. If you caught a glimpse of Bluray Jesus you would be captivated. You would not be able to move from your position in the aisle of life because you would be fixed on the highly tuned definition of love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness that shines from His unimaginably bright screen.”

No matter where you are in your faith this book can help you hone in your experience of Christ in a personal way. Whether you have been thinking about your relationship with Christ or if you don’t have one yet, Bluray Jesus discusses things that every modern person should wrestle with.

Take a look at the website by visiting www.tinyurl.com/meetblurayjesus or snag it here on amazon. It is currently available for download for Kindle only. If you don’t have a Kindle that is no problem. All you need is an amazon account and to download Kindle for Computers (PC or Mac) which is free. The book will be automatically transferred to your device or computer. It also works great on the iPhone or other smartphones.

I began this process in 6th grade. The picture shown is of the first goal list I ever wrote out in 6th grade. Its grown a lot and developed a lot, but essentially, its the same thing. Each new year brings a sense of a fresh start.

Here are my 2012 goals. These are the ones I feel comfortable sharing about. I seem to have a lot of more “private” goals this year than ever before:

1. Beat my best half marathon time ever
2. Bike 150 miles in a race
3. Spend less money on junk food (starbucks, lunches, etc) and bring healthy lunches to the office. This will also help me accomplish more in each work day because lunch won’t take so long.
4. Complete a 30 day Daniel Fast. Yikes.
5. Read 15 books. I have a partial list. Any suggestions?
6. Lead Revolution Church to love God and love people like never before. Make Revolution the place that LOVES GOD, LOVES PEOPLE and PROVES IT!
7. Keep God’s bigness in my heart and expand our reach. Check out this message.
8. Add a kiddo to our family and not die from the loss of sleep (baby white is due in July!)
9. Pay cash for said baby.
10. Date my wife and love her like Ephesians 5 commands husbands to do.
11. Speak LIFE into every relationship and every interaction.
12. Serve people like never before.
13. Work HARD and rest HARD.
14. Push. The. Envelope.
15. Look further than 2012. Set goals for 10 years, 20 years and beyond.

I think goals are important for everyone. I just refuse to drift through life. Most people spend more time planning a 3 day summer vacation than they do planning their life out.

I think that’s a tragedy.

These are not resolutions. Resolutions stink. These are GOALS. These are not all of my 2011 goals, I am not including all of the details, and they are not in any order. I did pretty good knocking out most of my 2010 goals. Here is my 2011 goal list scorecard, followed by my comments in red as to how I did. These are just the goals I felt comfortable sharing about:

Take Amber out every week! This is a goal EVERY week! Took her out almost every week. We love switching off every other week with our friends and sneaking in a mini lunch date every other week while Couper is in school!

Spend good, quality time with Couper every day. Some days it might be 10 minutes; others it could be 10 hours. I refuse to miss my son grow up. I spent a lot of time building stuff in the garage with my little Pard. Loved it!

Be more focused and work harder than I ever have in my life but also REST harder than I ever have! We worked HARD in 2011. I mean HARD. But we rested HARD too. I took 10 days off in the summer to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary. I took a week off to go to Montana. I had lots of guest speakers come in. It was a great year of hard work and hard rest!

Memorize an entire chapter of the Bible and mucho other Scripture. I memorized a lot of Scripture this year, but not an entire chapter of the Bible.

Read 20 books. I never reach my reading goals!

Continue to pray a LOT. My knees are sore.

Visit an orphanage in Haiti that I’d like to see Revolution adopt or a place in Belize that I am interested in. I want to begin the process of having a regular place for us to minister and pour in to. We are going global baby! I did not get to do this, but Amber did! And, we took our first step towards this by providing Christmas for over 300 orphans in 5 different orphanages in Haiti through C3 Global.

Take my wife on a crazy cool trip to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary! EPIC! Check! We hit Miami and the Keys for 10 days.

Send more personal, handwritten notes to people. Check. My handwriting has gotten better!

Lead our church to an average weekly attendance of 1,000 people…this goal has a HUGE sub-list of smaller goals. We did not average 1,000 people, but we saw TONS of people accept Christ and get baptized and the church doubled in size.

Lead our church to be financially strong. I feel like we are financially strong, but this goal is ALWAYS being worked!

Throw an OFF the HOOK one year Birthday party for Revolution! We had a blast at our one year birthday…balloons galore!

Knock out some more marathons and my first triathalon or bike race. Did lots of races, but no triathalons or biking.

Wakeboard more and / or save up to buy a dirtbike. I want to learn to JUMP like PASTRANA. I wakeboarded more, but did not save a penny for a dirtbike. I did get a cool X-games hat…

Get in the gym for weight training 3 days a week (only did 2 days a week in 2010). Check.

3 words: DAILY. DANCE. PARTY. Ashamed and happy to say, check!

Convince a total stranger to make a goal list of their own. Check. Fun. Happened at Starbucks.

Hang my hammock in the backyard and chill for once in my life. Well, I never hung up the hammock, so…

Start some new family traditions. Check.

Buy an old rusted pickup for Couper and I to work on and drive on man day. Fail. We gave more money than we ever thought we could to Revolution this year, especially for Illuminate, that the pickup went to the backburner. And we don’t regret it one bit.

Here is what I came up with: goals are nothing more than words. And a LOT of people set goals. I mean, anyone can SET a goal.

Accomplished goals, however, are a process…a set of steps. When I decide to accomplish something this is how I attack it. Maybe it will help you:

SET A GOAL: Establish a big hairy audacious goal.

LEARN: Be humble. Find people who have accomplished the same or similar goals and be willing to learn from them. Know-it-alls don’t accomplish anything. You need to learn all that you can about your goal to succeed.

PLAN: Plan out all incremental steps that it will take for you to accomplish your BHAG.

UNDERSTAND: Know what you are getting in to. Research it. Heed the warnings from the experts, but don’t dwell on negative info.

VISUALIZE: Hammer your plan into your brain repeatedly. You should know it like the back of your hand.

SACRIFICE: There aren’t any goals in life that don’t require you to make a sacrifice. Decide if you are willing to sacrifice to accomplish your goal. If you’re not, then don’t even start.

RALLY: Get some troops around you that will encourage you. Keep away from negative people.

PARTY: When you reach your goal, celebrate!

This week’s message is called Don’t Put Jesus First in 2012. We sent out an E-Update today about it and people are going nuts sending me emails of disapproval typed out in all caps.

Before you label me or Revolution Church as heretics, settle down for a second. Why don’t you show up and listen to the message. I’ll give you a short preview right now:

Putting Jesus first is a flawed paradigm. Jesus doesn’t want to be first on your list. He insists on being the center of your life.

When you put Him first, you sort of segregate Him from all other priorities. But if Jesus is at the center, he becomes vital to every single area of life. Put Jesus at the center of it all and for many of us, He will actually be first for the first time ever.

I hope you will join us this Sunday at 8:30, 10:00 or 11:30 at Revolution Church as we look at why maybe it shouldn’t be Jesus first.

Get ready Revolution! Its time to get God’s BIGNESS into our hearts!

(Using an RSS Reader and can’t see the video? Click here for a direct video link)

Back in December we went on location and shot a lot of video! I can’t wait to share with you this Sunday what God has put on my heart for Revolution Church in 2012.

The vision of Revolution Church is to love God, love people and start a revolution in one life at a time. If we really are ALL about loving God and loving people, then EVERYTHING we do will be FOR HIM AND FOR THEM.

I hope that you will join us for this special on location video message. We will be having two services this Sunday – 10:00 and 11:30am only. Don’t miss it!

As 2011 comes to a close, it’s time to finish the year well!  There are still 3 days left to make a major impact for God before 2012 begins. Here are few suggestions about finishing well:

Invite Someone to Church!

Can you think of a better way to celebrate than introducing someone to the gift of eternal life found in Jesus?  People are making resolutions and setting goals for 2012 right now and many are thinking about getting back in church. Grab some invite cards when you are at church on Sunday and BE A BRANGER by inviting people!  I encourage you to identify at least one person right now that you can pray for and invite to join you for worship all through 2012. It might change his/her life forever!

Give Generously!

There are a number reasons to give generously during these last 3 days of 2011.  First, we are close to reaching our goal for “The Gift” our special Christmas offering. We set a goal of $30,000 and have brought in $28,200. That is incredible!

Your gift could put us over-the-top. Second, Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, not our birthday. There might not be a better way to say, “Happy Birthday, Jesus” than by giving to Jesus’ body, the church.

Also, you have 3 days left to receive tax credit for 2011. All gifts must be received at the church office before January 1, 2012 or post-marked by December 31, 2011 for the contribution to show up on your 2011 charitable contribution statement.

The best way to give is by visiting our website. Go to RevYourLife.com/GIVE to make your online donation.  It’s fast and simple, and it makes a big difference.

God bless and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us all in 2012!