Life's Healing Choices Update

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Get a brief overview of Life’s Healing Choices from Pastor Rick

Pastors’ Gatherings Churches around the nation are hosting pastors’ gatherings where we’ll learn from each other about what’s happening in our churches, get connected, and receive first-hand help with doing the fall campaign. We’d love for you to be our guest for breakfast or lunch at one of these gatherings: July 30: Highlands Community Church, Renton, WA August 5: Hill Country Bible Church NW, Austin, TX August 5: Crossover Church, Tampa, FL August 6: Watermark Church, Dallas, TX August 6: Christ Fellowship, Palm Beach Gardens, FL August 7: Second Baptist Church, Kingwood, TX August 7: Gateway Community Church, Houston, TX August 12: Radiant Church, Surprise, AZ August 14: Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA August 18: Trinity Baptist Church, Fairfield, CT August 20: Trinity Church, Lansing, MI Just RSVP HERE and we’ll have a plate ready for you!

On the Links

• Church Leader Insights
  On this site, Pastor Nelson Searcy focuses on effective leadership, church growth, evangelism, and more. It’s full of great resources for church planters and others, including a free biweekly newsletter.
• Can your church handle the truth?
  This article from Leadership Journal focuses on one minister’s journey in recovery ministry.
• Sessions from the 2009 Purpose Driven Network Summit
  The theme for the pastors’ summit at Saddleback Church this year was “The Jesus Model.” Download notes from each of Rick Warren’s plenary sessions and get details on ordering the DVD set of sessions and tracks by Kay Warren, Brad Powell, and others.
• Greg Laurie’s blog
  On the one-year anniversary of his son’s death, Greg Laurie wrote a very powerful blog entry about the truth that his son was still alive in heaven.
• Relevant Magazine online
  Get Relevant online for free through an innovative online interface.

Book Look

• Servolution
  Dino Rizzo (Zondervan, 2009) In this book, Dino Rizzo gives you an inside look into what he calls a revolution taking place throughout the body of Christ today – “an army of people giving hope to a hurting world through practical, personal acts of service.” The book gives you a glimpse at how Dino’s church (Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge) and other churches are doing this. It also provides hands-on, practical advice for unleashing a compassionate army of servants in your own ministry context. Pass it around to other pastors you know!

Saddleback Sayings

• “Plants need the right climate to grow and so do churches. The right climate for church growth is an atmosphere of acceptance and love.”  - Rick Warren

Bible Bytes

• “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:6-7 (NLT)
• “You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” – Isaiah 26:3 (NIV)

Ministry Library

• Mission is more than action by Brian Harper
• Ten thousand steps, ten thousand prayers by Diana Davis
• The importance of “sandpaper people” by Mary Southerland

Notes & Quotes

• Krispy Kreme produces enough donuts every week to line them up one after the other from New York City to Los Angeles. (Source: Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
• “Gifts from God are given freely – and strategically – and God expects us to handle what we’ve been given with the same strategic care.” – Nelson Searcy and Jennifer Henson in Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church
• “Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.” – Oscar Wilde
• “Everyone, at some time and in some areas, is a follower, and it is just as important to be discriminating in choosing whom to follow as it is to prepare to lead.” – from Servant Leadership by Robert K. Greenleaf
• “The great illusion of leadership is to think that man can be led out of the desert by someone who has never been there.”  – from The Wounded Healer by Henri J.M. Nouwen