CadillacZak » The Connection Church

So Hard to Say Goodbye

Zak White — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:49:53 +0000

Today was my last day on staff at The Connection Church. A lot of things are going through my mind. I think this song sums it up perfectly. I know its about a friend that passes away, but I literally feel like a part of me has died. Now its no secret. I’m not only a closet Mariah Carey fan, but I also LOVE Boys II Men…

How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.

I thought wed get to see forever
But forevers gone away
Its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

I dont know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where weve been
And what weve been through.

If we get to see tomorrow
I hope its worth all the wait
Its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And Ill take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
Its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

And Ill take with me the memories
To be my sunshine after the rain
Its so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

We Are Moving to Start a New Church

Zak White — Mon, 25 May 2009 12:44:58 +0000

I am sharing some big news today. Its a happy news slash sad news kind of thing. We talked about it in church yesterday. You can click here to watch a video of the entire service.

The Connection Church has always been all about reaching people far from God. Pastor Cole has had a vision to reach the I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin for a long time. I personally have been praying that our church would do this for years but had no idea what I was actually asking God to do.

So here it goes. The great news is that The Connection Church will be partnering to start a new church in Schertz, TX.

And the sad news? I am the one moving my family to lead this new church. That is one of the toughest lines I have ever blogged…

A short story version of what happened:
Over two years ago I was asked to start a new church and I immediately shot down the opportunity. I figured nobody would ever want to work with me again.

This past October, I started feeling like maybe it was time to start a new church. I didn’t share the info with a single person other than Amber and two weeks later I was asked to start a new church again. I’ll leave out all of the long details about how we decided on a place and time table.

Bottom line: Amber and I have decided that the only way we can be obedient to God is to move and start this new church.

Let me say this: this is not necessarily what we want to do. We absolutely LOVE The Connection Church. We love the people and I don’t think I’ll ever have such an incredible team to work with. All of our friends are in this area, Austin in my favorite place in the world, and we have only been here for just over 4 years. I’m not going to be making a penny more than I was here. We are going to have to sell our house fast…We have way more reasons to stay here than we do to leave.

Except for that BIG REASON that trumps all: God told us to go. We want to obey Him no matter what. We trust God and we know that someday we’ll look back and this whole thing will make much more sense.

This isn’t so much the White’s leaving forever as it is, The Connection Church is sending the White’s to start a new church. We’re still unsure about some things, but we are very excited.

This new church will be all about loving God, loving people, and starting a revolution. We plan on still working together in some different creative ways in the future with TCC. In a way we will be extending the ministry of The Connection Church.

As for The Connection Church I personally believe that God has His hands on you in an absolutely incredible, unexplainable way. The best is yet to come at The Connection Church…really, things in Kyle are just getting started. I have never seen such a move of God as The Connection Church.

I ask you to please stay faithful to The Connection Church. God is the one who has built TCC and though I might be leaving, God is never going to leave TCC. He is the reason you are a part of this amazing community.

I hope you were in our service Sunday to hear this in person. If not, now you are all caught up. Stay tuned to the blog. Much more to come!

Sunday Mind Dump

Zak White — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:30:54 +0000

DANG it feels good to finally get to share the BIG news with you Connection Church! If you missed church today you can go HERE to watch the full service and see what all the hype was. Or, just stay tuned right here at the blog. I’ll post something specific to the announcement shortly.
I can say honestly that Cole shared the absolute best vision message I have ever heard anywhere today. To be honest, it fired me up so much about TCC that I thought about walking out and retracting my announcement.
Seriously, hold on to your rears because God is just getting started changing lives through TCC!
I CANNOT believe that I didn’t cry on stage today. THAT alone was a move of God.
I did shed some tears when we showed this baptism video though. That ALWAYS gets me.
Something funny: I lost my notes five times this morning. That’s not me – I never lose things. Finally I gave in and took it as a sign that God wanted me to walk out with no notes. And right as I was about to walk out on stage to share, Bryan Geiger our ministry director came running to me with them in his hands. Thanks bro!
Even though I had my notes, I still have NO IDEA what I said on stage today. It must have been ok because everyone was pumped up afterwards.
Connectors, you were FIRED UP today!
The memorial day video and prayer that we had today were POWERFUL.
Someone told me that they got ripped off because we didn’t show a man-moment today. No worries…we’ll have one this week!
Hung out with some of the SURGE (middle school ministry) today at our pool. Lot’s of questions about what God is doing in my life from close friends. Love the conversation.

Man Moment: The Man-tage

Zak White — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:00:05 +0000

We did another man moment this week for all the men at The Connection Church. This week was the Man-tage. You’re welcome:

Sunday Mind Dump

Zak White — Mon, 18 May 2009 03:46:38 +0000

One of the longest weekends ever!
Started early Friday with a trip to the best dentist in the world and then to re-roof a friends house. Worked on the roof for almost 11 hours.
Woke up Saturday and re-roofed, then hooked up with my family in San Antonio.
Today was Church, Connection 201, some meetings, and then CRASH.
Tomorrow, I have to be at the office at 4:00am to head to Dallas for the day with about 20 team members for Catalyst One Day.
The Connection Church is absolutely amazing! Hands down an incredible place full of life change. In the end, THAT is what matters.
Got a HUGE week coming up. BIG stuff at TCC. I mean BIG.
Please pray for me and Pastor Cole this week. A lot.
I have to hit the sack now…short mind dump.

Take it Like a MAN

Zak White — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:51:23 +0000

Sunday Mind Dump

Zak White — Sun, 03 May 2009 21:46:18 +0000

This morning was CRAZY. I woke up, thinking I was late, rushing like crazy, only to realize I wasn’t late. I set off the alarm at the office. I didn’t recognize my Jeep (because I had washed it) and almost went to the wrong Jeep. Just crazy.
This morning was also INCREDIBLE. Lots of new faces, Baptisms, and life change!
Our lead pastor’s wife, Pam Phillips, spoke today. Her message was called “No Holds Barred: What Women Wish Men Knew.” Pam did an absolutely amazing job. When she got up to talk, people were cheering before she ever said a word. How often do people CHEER for the sermon at churches? She was funny. She was serious. She shared from God’s word. She knocked it out of the park. Tons of people were asking when she’d be speaking again. Awesome job Pam!
The guy that does the lighting at the PAC for us each week told me a few weeks back that he was building a light show for a dance rehearsal that was renting the facility. It was about 2.5 minutes long and took him 30 hours to build. I got to watch it today after church. SLAMMING. Click here to watch some poor quality video that I shot of it with the old iPhone.
We got to use some of those lights from the dance show this morning and the lighting was THE BEST it has ever been this morning. Just amazing!
One of our connectors, Ryan Hay, brought a super heater for the baptistry today. He said he could make the water 140 degrees if we wanted. The people who got baptized said it was like a stinking sauna. Awesome!
Couper paired with potty training paired with being super busy right now is wearing me out. Seriously, my wife is the most amazing woman in the world. I have no idea how she watches my kid all day.
I gotta give my tech team a shout out. They are just ON TOP OF THINGS on Sundays. Awesome.
www.planningcenteronline.com is the most vital tool we use for Sunday mornings at TCC. If you are in charge of programming Sundays at your church you need to check it out.
We did not have donuts today (because of the swine flu). I heard one kid say “man, now how am I supposed to eat my weekly five donuts.” Parents c’mon. If your kid is eating five donuts every Sunday you should be smacked.
I am over my swine flu. I have been drinking plenty of hand sanitizer…
I was thinking about families that have left TCC for whatever dumb reason today for some reason. Selfishness is a horrible sin because it causes people to miss out on movements of God.

Saturday Night Shots

Zak White — Sun, 03 May 2009 02:45:40 +0000

PUMPED that I got to have a blast all day long with my best bud in the world…Couper!
PUMPED about the final message of Ultimate Fighter tomorrow. We are trying something new that will stretch everyone. BE THERE.
PUMPED that I got to hold Nic’s baby boy, Hayden. DANG that kid is CUTE. He’s gonna be awesome to watch grow up!
PUMPED about some BIGGGGG stuff coming up at TCC. Nope, still can’t tell you…
BLOWN AWAY by the HUGE win today by Mine That Bird. 50:1 odds. Just insane. Watch it here if you missed it.
NOT PUMPED about how so many people are freaking out about the swine flu. The emails are hilarious. The people freaking out…even more hilarious. Watch out, next year I hear the giraffes are going to pass their flu to us…it makes your neck grow. AHHHHH!
NOT PUMPED that I’ve only got to see two Angels games. I love not having a cable bill and being able to give more, but not during baseball season.
NOT PUMPED about how behind I am in some work.

The Big Hunt 2009

Zak White — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:37:53 +0000

Crazy crazy crazy. Here are the stats and a short video re-cap of The Big Hunt 2009 at The Connection Church!

40,000 eggs!!!
over 100 volunteers
over 1,800 people from the community
tons of shouting our GOD’S LOVE

The Big Hunt 2009 Thank You The Connection Church from The Connection Church on Vimeo.

The Way is Difficult

Zak White — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:29:03 +0000

Goofy video we showed to kick off our new Ultimate Fighter message series…if you know our Lead Pastor, Cole Phillips, then its even better. Thanks to the pride and joy of TCC, Steve Etheridge for writing the script!

Ultimate Fighter. The Way is Difficult. from The Connection Church on Vimeo.

Easter Sunday Mind Dump

Zak White — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:56:29 +0000

Breaking today’s mind dump into sections:

Easter Sunday:

Today was absolutely off the chain! Love me some Easter! A great kickoff to Ultimate Fighter, our new message series.
We had over 800 people in church with tons of 1st timers. God is GOOOOODDDD.
I’m going to go ahead and brag and say that I picked the opener song “Give Him Praise” by Lincoln Brewster. INCREDIBLE. Had a choir on stage and everything. Wil and Micah sang it just like Israel and Lincoln do on the cd. MAN those guys know how to BRING IT.
Had a new set design up today. LOVE IT. No more packing, assembling, re-packing, etc. This one is all fabric. It flows, it changes colors, and it flies out into the fly space when church is over each week. NICE.
I met so many new people today that I can’t remember a single name. Good and bad.
We called in extra donuts anticipating the crowd this week and HEB just said “Ok, they’ll be here Sunday.” Then, when the cafe team went to pick them up HEB was closed for Easter. Whoops. We ended up going to the other 3 donut shops in town and buying them out. LOVE IT. MAYDAY MAYDAY The Connection Church is buying every donut in Kyle!!! HAHAHAHAH!
This was the least stressful Easter Weekend ever for my family. Feels good to be at a point where volunteers are rocking it out. We have more man (and woman) power than ever before and more giftedness than ever before. That’s how is should be!
Had some tech issues with kids check in and videos today, but we got it all covered quick.
I saw one mom walk in with 4 kids when we had about 10 minutes left in the 2nd service. I almost said “hey! come on in! enjoy the last song!” LOL.
If you liked the video today, say thanks to Steve Etheridge. That guy has written a lot of great videos for us here lately. Here is a link if you missed the infamous Karate Cole flick.
Or, you can watch the entire service right here.
Best of all today, I got to chill with my family, watch Back to the Future 3 with them, and hunt eggs with Couper.
Cleaned old birds nests out of our vent pipes on the house today and got stuff all in my mouth and eyes. BIRD FLU! AHHHH!

The Big Hunt:

If you took pics of the big hunt please email them to me. All of them. Now.
My brother came to the Big Hunt with his new puppy and his girlfriend. Love those two.
I got to watch Couper hunt eggs this year. THAT is how you know that our team did an incredible job of putting on the Big Hunt. Trey and Jennifer Williams are saints.
During the Big Hunt, I was out front greeting people before they ever got out of their cards and sending them to the parking guys. We counted right at 2,000 people coming in the gates.
Loved having the hunt at the racetrack. Best venue we’ve had yet!
I had tons of people saying how awesome the event was as they left. Made lots of connections!

Other:

Watch for two new websites to launch this week: Connectionfamily.com and a new version of theconnectionchurch.org!
Going to be a busy week!
Can’t wait to do it all again in 7 days!
Naps are still for wimps!
Seriously, I want someone to call me at 6:00am every day this week and yell at me to get out of bed and RUN. If you have my number do it.
My FPU class graduates tomorrow night. I wish it were a requirement for all High School Seniors to take this 13 week course. We wouldn’t be having such bad economic issues right now if that were the case.

Easter Weekend is HERE.

Zak White — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:20:11 +0000

Its Easter Weekend at The Connection Church! Yeah baby! There is a TON of stuff going on and you don’t want to miss any of it.

First, we are having our Good Friday service tomorrow night at Tobias Elementary School at 7:00pm. Burgundy Road will be leading worship for us and we’ll be having communion. Don’t miss this special night.

Second, The BIG HUNT will be at Thunderhill Raceway. If you are serving please show up at 8:00am and be prepared for an awesome day of service.

And finally, our new series starts on Sunday. Its called Ultimate Fighter and its all about beating men’s toughest battles. Since you stopped by the blog here is a quick blooper reel from the video you will be seeing on Sunday!

Karate Blooper Reel The Connection Church from The Connection Church on Vimeo.

Ink and Water

Zak White — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:30:15 +0000

Gotta love Easter! The office smells like the ink of 25,000 direct mail pieces already sorted and waiting to go out combined with thousands of bottles of water.

It makes for some tight hallways and cluttered space, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You can literally feel the momentum that is upon us.

Connection Church, get ready for God to do something B-I-G.

The BIG Challenge

Zak White — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:14:31 +0000

The BIG HUNT is coming fast! We’ve got some exciting stuff in store this year.

But the BIG STAR of the event is always the HUGE NUMBER of candy filled eggs that we gather for the kids in our community to hunt. Buying and filling the eggs is one of my favorite outreaches that we do each year.

This year, we are going for 30,000 eggs! And here is the deal: Pastor Cole has agreed to have The Connection Church blocks tattooed on him if the church can come up with the 30,000 eggs. Below you’ll see an artists rendering of what he might come out looking like.

On top of that, if we can gather 30,000 eggs AND 100 volunteers, I will also get the logo tattooed on me. So, bring it Connection Church. Yes, I’m talking smack to all of you…

Cole is praying that we get 29,999 eggs and I am praying for about 99 volunteers. I’m kind of looking forward to watching Cole pass out on video personally.

Be sure to bring your candy filled eggs to church with you on Sunday and stop by the big hunt table to sign up to serve at this event.

Sunday Mind Dump

Zak White — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:43:22 +0000

Today was amazing!
I can’t remember ever seeing such a huge response from people in a church service. It looked like every person in the room responded. The response time was straight up youth group style. Write your sins on a red sheet of paper. Be specific. Walk tot he front, fold it up, throw it in the trash and tell sin “you sin are NO LONGER my master. JESUS is!”
I got nervous about speaking this morning. Not sure why. I usually just get the adrenaline rush, but today it was different. Maybe because its been two months since I preached. As soon as I walked on stage the nervousness disappeard and turned into adrenaline. Booyah.
Starting off the sermon inside of a trashcan was a blast. And gross. But going back to the trashcan over and over throughout the sermon was a perfect illustration of what we do with our sin. See pics below…
Yes, I said the word “GAG-A-MAGGOT” in the sermon. Gag-a-maggot is what my dad and I say when something is just nasty.
There are stinking JUNE BUGS on my porch. Isn’t it march?
The band was ON today. They opened with my favorite song, Alive and Running by Kristian Stanfill. Check it out here. AMAZING.
Cole (yes, our lead pastor) had to step in on bass guitar today. He did an absolutely incredible job! And, I’m pretty sure he didn’t mind too much.
If you are an iPhone user, be careful. If you try to text your wife that she is a “hottie” iPhone won’t help you out much. It corrects it to “Hogtie.” Oops.
I went to Surge, our middle school ministry tonight. The girls in that ministry amaze me. They know more Scripture by heart than most pastors I know. Sad, and incredible at the same time!
I feel that God told me to do something crazy cool today. I don’t know how I can do it financially, but everytime I step out on faith, He is always FAITHFUL to me.
Glad that spring break is over. Everyone should be back in the office tomorrow. I won’t lie…it absolutely STUNK last week to be completely alone at the office. I especially can’t wait to see Nic. Miss that guy big time.
The buzz right now at The Connection Church and the anticipation that you can feel in the room are unreal. People are ready to see God do some crazy stuff at Easter.
We have a deaf woman coming named Kristine Waltman. She has brought at least 3 new friends with her every week now for as long as I can remember. All of these friends are other deaf people. God keeps blowing my mind with the ministry that is springing up at TCC for the deaf! WOW!