I was praying with my three year old last week and it struck me how much I could learn from how he prays. When he prays he begins by saying “dear Jesus,” and follows it up with, “thank you Jesus for,” and then begins thanking Jesus for everything no matter how small it seems.

We try not to laugh when he prays because it’s so cute, but we always smile because he thanks Jesus for his pizza, his french fries, his toys, his friends, his Dash shirt, his Thomas jammies, his Thomas trains (there are many to be thankful for), his new shoes that are really hand me downs but he doesn’t care because they’re his now, and on and on.

For some reason a prayer last week hit me differently. I found myself not laughing but feeling a little shameful because I wonder if I’m as thankful for every single thing in my life like Caleb is. Why do we as adults take so many things for granted? Why don’t I thank God more often for the shirt on my back, for my french fries and my pizza? Sure we pray at meal time but the difference is, little Caleb is truly thankful for those things, and if I’m completely honest, I often take the small things for granted.

More and more I have begun to understand why Jesus so loved the little children. Instead of growing up and acting like adults, I sometimes wonder if Jesus would really rather us act more like our kids.

John

In that time I realized that I belong in the church, it’s not what I do, it’s who I am. Every minute of my time focusing on building a company, my heart was telling me I should be building the church. I’m actively looking for an opportunity in leadership. I spent all 11 1/2 years in a Sr Leadership role at BAF leading up to nine ministries at one time. If you’re a church leader looking for someone with leadership experience, shoot me an email at jccatkinson@gmail.com I would love to talk about opportunities.

In the meantime I’ve had some amazing opportunities to do some consulting, which I really enjoy doing because I love pastors, and getting to help them is a true blessing. I had an opportunity to spend five days with Pastor Chris Pinion at Life Quest Church in Kansas City MO looking at all their systems and talking about ways to take the church to the next level. Chris is a great guy with a great staff and I enjoyed my time with them.

I also got an opportunity to spend four days with Pastor Joe Boyd at Aviator Church in Derby Kansas which is about ten miles south of Wichita KS. We talked strategy, staffing, leadership development, and small groups. Joe is a great leader and this church plant is growing and making a difference in their community.

During this time I am looking for my next staff opportunity, but I will also continue with the consulting. My fee has always been what ever you feel God leading you to pay, plus travel expenses. If you’re interested you can reach me at jccatkinson@gmail.com

In the coming days I will be posting on my blog again about all things leadership and multi site. I had gotten so busy launching campuses at BAF that I quit blogging, I’m ready to start it up again. I look forward to re-connecting with many of you across the country.

John

I showed up at service that day to visit because a friend had taken me, and I never left. God used Bay Area Fellowship, and Pastor Bil’s leadership, to rock my spiritual world, and to challenge me to become the leader I am today.

My life was completely changed at BAF, and that life change was the catalyst for the next 13 years of my life. The blessings that have come from my time at BAF are immeasurable. I met my wife in the first singles Hometeam I ever led, my three sons were all saved and baptized there, and the two oldest have grown into amazing godly young men who are living out their faith in everything they do, one is preparing to become a church planter one day! My life change has been a catalyst God has used to change so many people in my family including my Mom and Dad. God used BAF to send my life down a path I could never have imagined.

Over the years I had the opportunity to lead in almost every ministry in the church at one time or another. I came on staff to lead a Hometeam Ministry that had 15 groups and I grew it to 8 in the first six months, what a start!, But over the next three years I was able to build a team that took those 8 groups to 180 groups with thousands of people living in community each week. I led the Men’s Ministry, the Counseling Ministry, The Children’s Ministry, twice, and believe it or not, I even led the Women’s Ministry. I was asked often how I led the women, I responded by saying, “I simply said yes to everything,.” No future in having all the ladies at church mad at you

But my life really changed radically eight years ago when Pastor Bil asked me to take over our first campus that was struggling and was on the verge of shutting down, that was the beginning of something I could never have imagined! Over the next eight years I had the opportunity to build a team of amazing leaders who helped me start seven more campuses all over S Texas. I’ve been so blessed to have had a front row seat watching these amazing people step out on faith and become true leaders in the Kingdom, and lead campuses where well over 2000 people have come to know Christ in the last eight years. And the final blessing is watching one of my best friends, Pastor Dave Cotham, who has been by my side for ten years, take over the Multi Site Ministry that we built together as I step down!

I am truly thankful for the opportunities I’ve been given during my time at BAF, opportunities most pastors would not have given me because they would not have been able to get past the man I had been, long enough to see me become the man I am. I’m truly thankful to Pastor Bil and Jessica Cornelius, and Pastor Paul Schulz for seeing in me what I didn’t see in myself, and for giving me an opportunity to find the leader God had built in me. The leader I have become, that one that now needs to move on, was birthed at Bay Area Fellowship! That is a direct result of the seed Pastor Bil planted in me, and Pastor Paul watered to maturity. Not many people get to call their bosses friends, I am so blessed that I am one of those people!

I have been so blessed to have had the opportunity to serve along side an amazing staff of people who truly love God, and give everything they have day in and day out to the vision of BAF. A staff full of amazing people with huge hearts and mad gifts that are affecting lives each week.

I move on to the next stage of my journey with so many fond memories, and a bit of a broken heart, as I leave behind some amazing friends and co-workers at a church I love with every ounce of my heart. But God has been teaching me so much about leadership, and it’s time to spread my leadership wings and step in to the next stage of my life. I have taken on the role of the CEO of the G Ice Cream Co, which is start up company owned by one of my best friends, and the parent company of Camille’s Ice Cream, a new ice cream concept, and were going to build a company whose vision is to fund God’s house! It’s a job that is way bigger than me, something that truly excites me!

I often like to tell leaders this, “there is no better place on earth than to be so far out on the faith edge, that if God doesn’t show up you’re going look like and idiot!” That small voice of the Holy Spirit keeps reminding me of my words and said, “time practice what you preach pastor!”

God bless you BAF, I will always love you!

If your a pastor, church staffer, or faithful member of a growing healthy church, you have probably at one time or another, had to listen to someone criticize your church because they feel it’s spending too much money on, fill in the blank, that could better be used for, fill in the blank? If you serve at, or are committed to a growing healthy church like the one I just mentioned, you have probably heard people criticize your building, your grounds, your walls, your floors, or what ever else they perceive as being a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

I ran across a quote today from “A Treasury of Bible Illustrations.” It was one of the most profound answers I’ve ever heard for those who criticize how much is spent to keep a church growing, healthy, and life changing.

Is The Church Costing Too Much

On June 2, 1980 a little girl was born. She cost money from the moment she was born. As she grew from babyhood to girlhood, she cost even more. Her dresses and shoes were more expensive as well as the doctors for all those childhood diseases. She was even more expensive during her school and teen years. She needed long dresses to go to parties. When she went to college, it was discovered that all college expenses are not listed in the catalog. Then after graduation she fell in love and married. She had a church wedding, and that too, cost a lot of money. Then, five months after her marriage she suddenly sickened and within a week she was dead. She has not cost a penny since the day the parents walked away from her grave.

As long as the church is alive she will cost money, and the more alive a church is, the more money she will cost. Only a dead church is no longer expensive!

Think about this next time you criticize a church who you think is spending too much on, fill in the blank.

Pastor John

Let’s be honest, no matter how many times you do it, saying no is tough, but not learning to say no when no is the right answer, will be ultimately be even tougher.

Why is it so hard to say no?

1. Because it often means saying no to good people you love and respect.

2. Because sometimes it means saying no to good ideas, because while the idea may be good, it does not fit the vision God has given you.

3. Because the people you say no to will probably be angry or critical, or maybe both!

4. Because no one wants people mad at them, or criticizing them.

5. But the real reason most leaders never learn to say no is, saying yes is easier!

Here’s a tough question leaders need to ask themselves; if the right answer is no, do any of the above actually change it to a yes? I believe one of the laws of the lid in leadership is the inability to say no because of the fear of the relational mess it might cause. But just because an idea might be a good idea, and was brought to you by good people, doesn’t mean you should automatically say yes to it. The vision of every organization is unique, and if you’re clear on what that vision is, then anything, good or bad, that takes you away from that vision, is not something you should say yes to.

After years of having to clean up self induced messes caused by my inability to say no, I think I’ve finally come to understand this:

I have never once regretted saying no when the right answer was no, but I have ALWAYS regretted saying yes, when I knew I should have said NO!

John Atkinson

Here is the last construction video of BAF Beeville. Were close and should launch in the next few weeks. Next video will probably be on launch day!

John

Well its been a while since I’ve posted a video on our newest campus start up but thats mostly because the work that was being done didn’t show much in a video. However, things are moving along so here’s the newest video.

John

Here is the newest video from the series I’ve been doing called: Starting a Multi Site Campus from vision to launch. Its not the only way, just our way. Hope it helps someone. Not a great video but the best I can do until we get all the lighting in. The project will be changing big time from now as we start the finish work so stay tuned.

John

Thats exactly what almost happened to me this last weekend. Three of our pastors at the original CC campus were out last weekend, so Pastor Paul (Exec Pastor) asked me if I would come in and be the campus pastor, of course I was glad to do it. My day to day role is the Director of Multi Site, but recently we moved the Padre Island Campus Pastor (Dave Cotham) back to the Corpus Christi Broadcast campus and promoted him to run all the small groups in the church. This happened fairly quickly so because we needed someone to fill his role at the campus, I took over the interim leadership on top of my other duties, and I pulled my son Cody (Multi Site Intern) out with me to help with day to day stuff and to cover for me when I’m out like last weekend!

So Sunday morning I’m headed to the CC campus and my son calls and says, “Dad, we have a melt down, projectors aren’t working.” So now I’m facing having to not go to the CC campus where I’m supposed to be, and going back to the Padre Island Campus and preaching on five minutes notice. To help you understand the full emotion I’m feeling at that moment, you have to know I’ve been doing nothing but starting seven campuses for the last five years. I haven’t preached in over four years because leading all those campuses and starting new ones has taken all my time. So I run home, open my computer to get an old sermon, and I mean old, and the file where they are supposed to be in, is gone! Seriously its gone, like not there, missing in action, disappeared, unaccounted for, well you get the point. Pastor Joey (MS Worship Pastor) and I recently switched computers, guess it got lost in the transition. So I go to my blog, print out the my last post, and head to the campus to preach on five minutes notice, not having preached in four years, with nothing but a blog post! :):)lol

Seriously you can’t make this stuff up!!!

Its way funny now, but Sunday morning,  well not so much Thankfully I got five minutes from the campus and the team figured out the problem and we played the video, but the reason I’m writing about this is to let you know that Multi Site is crazy stuff and things will go wrong! We are starting our 9th campus right now and we still have problems all the time, I suspect we always will no matter how long we do this. Technology is great, but sometimes like everything else, it breaks! What we’ve learned to do is just laugh about this stuff and move on, because if you don’t it will drive you crazy. It’s also important when doing Multi Site to remember, God is bigger than any melt down or failure that could happen at a campus, and you just have to move on, fix the problem, and try to keep it from happening again.

Years ago when we started our second campus (BAF 5 Points) Pastor Jason and I had worked our tails off for four months getting ready for our launch Sunday, but we were very new at this and things didn’t go exactly as planned. We realized, on our big launch weekend, that we didn’t have enough AC in the worship area so it was 92 degrees in both services, and beyond miserable. The lead singers microphone quit in the middle of the first song, and the right speaker just decided to quit right along with it. Jason and I were devastated, sick to our stomachs! After the abysmal failure of a start, at least in our eyes, we went through the information cards and realized that 8 people had prayed to receive Jesus Christi into their lives! In spite of all that had happened, God blessed the effort we had put into His new Church over the last four moths and peoples lives were changed.

So heres the cliff notes if you will. Yes, there will be tons of melt downs if you do Multi Site, but there will also be tons of amazing life change, and what that has taught me is, God is big enough to handle any problems you will have, so He doesn’t need us to be perfect, He just needs us to be willing!

John

To continue the posts on a start up from vision to launch, we went over to Beeville to the new building to shoot some video of the inside of the building before we start tearing it down. When looking at this building, or any building you might be considering, be sure to look at its potential, not at its current condition. If you get a place thats beautiful and ready to go, and I hope you do, you’ll probably have to pay an arm and a leg for it! We were able to buy a 7000 sq ft building in a small town for $125,000, so seeing a buildings potential is critical. I actually think you’ll be blown away by how different it looks when its done.

Hope this helps some folks, but please feel free to leave comments or questions and I’ll do my best to get back to you!

John