River Park Blogs

This week Damon, John and myself (James) spent 6 intense days learning the simple strategy of North Point (www.northpoint.org).

Their strategy is exactly the same as RPCCs strategy; "Leading people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ by creating irresistible environments that encourage intimacy with God, community with insiders and influence with outsiders."

A snapshot of our last week:
Sunday: Met the N.P. (North Point) staffer guiding us through this internship and also met the Lead Pastor of another new partner church from Jacksonville, Fl. We all met at the crack of dawn and drove two hours to visit Rock Point Church in Chatanooga, TN. This is one of 13 N.P. strategic partner churches. We helped them set up and generally hung out to observe and learn from them. Our job at these partner churches is also to critically evaluate them with our 'fresh eyes' and give feedback to their staff. We spent lunch debriefing and learning from  their Lead Pastor. Very cool portable church!
Monday: Drilled down on Small Groups, lunch with a key N.P. staffer, then more Small Groups.
Tuesday: Wrapped up Small Groups and jumped into "Starting Point". Lunch with the N.P. staffer who heads up Starting Point. Wrapped up Starting Point in the afternoon and met the owner of the company we'll be outsourcing our accounting to. This company understands the unique needs of churches. I'm personally excited about this company as it will allow our accounting and administrative practices to be top notch and will free us up to focus more on our mission.
Wednesday: Studied "Foyer to Kitchen" strategy. Lunch with a Lead Pastor from a Strategic Partner Church. Spent the rest of the afternoon at Brownsbridge Community Church.
Thursday: Listened to the message "Everybody" and discussed. Lunch with Andy Stanley's administrative assistant. We gave her a gift from us to give to Andy as a "Welcome to California" gift. The gift? A pair of flip flops. Spent the afternoon in two different meetings. One with a staffer in the Strategic Partner department and the other with the CFO of N.P.
Friday: Began overview or "7 Practices" and had a great time of reflection and prayer.
Saturday: Our 2nd day off in two weeks! Yaay!!! John flew to Northern California for a week-long speaking engagement. He's had this camp and the following three Sundays of preaching in a church just north of San Francisco booked since last year. He plans to fly back and join us for four days next week. (Pray that their house will sell soon!) The Laings and the Delillos spent the morning at the Georgia Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world. It was fun and very crowded!!! We got up close and personal with some whale sharks. I took my family to lunch at the largest drive-in fast food joint called The Varsity. The food tasted good but my gut is still churning 5 hours later. :) (I prefer The Habit!) That probably has to do with the fact that we ate breakfast at another classic southern 'greasy spoon' called The Waffle House. The Delillos spent the afternoon at Stone Mountain. This amusement park and laser light show will entertain them for the evening.

Wow, full week! Two great resources we are studying and encourage you to check out: "Creating Community" and "7 Practices".


Tomorrow starts another six-day week with a 2.5 hour drive to another partner church in Auburn, Alabama. We look forward to getting back on the ground with our team in Oxnard around the second week of July. We appreciate your prayers!