At Freedom Church our pastor is always casting the vision of being a church that has a huge impact on the community around it. In our case this community is a little suburb of Atlanta called Acworth. But why stop there? Can one church in one community have an affect on the whole country? Why not!

A few weeks ago we did a series called Debt Free Acworth. Today I read that in the last quarter the consumer debt level in the United States fell by 0.8%. Big deal right? When you consider that this has never happened in the 50 years since they started tracking consumer debt I would say it is a HUGE DEAL!

Can Freedom Church take credit? Not all of it. I am sure Dave Ramsey will need to take more than his fair share of the credit as well. But, it is fun to think that one church in one community could have such a profound affect on the whole nation.

There are many times that I drive by a church and just shake my head at the hokey saying they have put out there for the world to enjoy.  I have started a page on my blog listed under “Static Pages” that I will update from time-to-time when I see hokey church signs.  Enjoy!

Yesterday the band at church covered the Beatles and played “Can’t Buy Me Love” to end the Debt Free Acworth series.  I enjoy going to a church where they are willing to do different things and aren’t afraid to step outside of the box.  Pastor JR also gave a simple message on tithing that even a five year old could probably understand.  If you missed it you can get it off the podcast later this week.

Saturday I was able to go and buy the Garmin Forerunner 405 running watch that I have been wanting for the last several months.  I had told my wife that if I sold my drum set and r/c plane that I was going to get it.  I gave it a test run in a walk around my cul-de-sac on Saturday night and was impressed with the results.  It even located the satellites from inside the house.  Sunday evening I wore the watch to play soccer with a group of guys in the neighborhood.  Here is the result:

According to the watch I played for 1:20:00 and ran 3.48 miles.  Judging from the picture above, the data the watch creates is pretty accurate. I am looking forward to trying the watch out tonight on an actual run.

I passed a church the other day that had a sign that can be changed each week to make an announcement or display some cute message like, “What is missing in CH — RH… U R”. However, in this particular case the sign was blank. I couldn’t help but think this sign was screaming, “Keep driving… nothing going on here”. To make matters worse, this was the church that my family had recently left after attending for over 7 years. If you passed a church with a blank sign out front, what would the sign be saying to you?

I go to a “mobile church”. This is not a denomination like Baptist, Methodist, or PCA. Instead it means that we unload our church stuff from a truck each Sunday morning and pack it back in the truck at the end of the day. Kenny is our truck. Kenny decided to call in sick this past Sunday. I knew it was bad when I pulled up at 7:00 and they were unloading stuff from car trunks and any other vehicle that could be used. Despite Kenny church went smoothly and we were able to complete setup and be ready on-time for the 9:30 service.

I have to say though that I get the priviledge to work with some awesome people over at Freedom Church. Even with Kenny not showing up for the first time since the church started, everyone pulled together and got the job done. Even better… I did not hear a single complaint all day even though tear down took about an hour longer than normal. Great job everyone!!