All Bright and Beautiful » Josh Bayne’s Weblog

For God so loved He gave.
To give is to love.
It’s what lovers do.

If I love my wife I’ll give her my attention; I’ll give her a new dress; I’ll give her affirmation of a job well done around the house.

If we love our church we’ll give a tenth (or more) of our income to it.

If you love the way you look you’ll give yourself an expensive haircut or a new pair of True Religion’s.

If I love the poor I’ll give to them, not blow them off.

Jesus said it like this: “wherever your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

Whatever you give to is what you love.

And everybody gives something.

Attention.
Affection.
Money.
Time.
Gifts.
Looks.
Clicks.
Worship.

It’s just what lovers do.

1) My pastor Sean. People often ask why I think Athens Church has been as successful as we have in our 4 years of existence. I’m quick to attribute it to two things: Sean’s amazing leadership (and the team he’s built) and our steadfast dedication to “do less for more.” Sean is a remarkable manager of people and a very gifted communicator, and the way he loves God and loves his family is an example to a youngin like me trying to give this ministry thing all I’ve got but not let it consume me at the same time.

2) Our staff team as a whole. One of the things we pray for all the time is that God would bring us world class staff to accomplish his purposes in the city of Athens. The two guys I report directly to, Mike & Charles, are about as opposite of guys you could meet, but both great examples of that world class leadership that we desire. I would go to war for either of them! I was thinking the other day, there is not another SPD or student minister that I know of, period, that I would rather work for than these guys. They’re simply the best!

3) College students. Athens Church is very unique in the sense that, on a given Sunday, 40-50% (my unofficial estimation) of those in the room are college students. Athens is the home of a certain small university you may have heard of, and the students it’s attracting these days are high capacity, high character, incredible young leaders! You fill a room up with their energy and the place is alive. There’s just a certain freshness they bring that I really love.

4) LDP (Leadership Development Program). This could be a whole blog post or blog series in itself so I won’t bore you with details (you can read more here), but Bryson, our mind-blowing admin guy and all around leadership stud, has developed a leadership development program for college students in our church. They work on staff (think interns, but better), but also get invaluable leadership coaching and training along the way. It’s amazing and something that every church within an hour of a college town should be doing. Immediately.

5) The Classic Center. We’re just flat out fortunate to have a venue to meet in as spectacular about the Classic Center. Pictures speak for themselves as to how beautiful it is; what I love most, though, is that it’s a place almost everyone in Athens has (a) been to before, and (b) had a positive experience at. This makes them so much more open to attending our church for the first time, even if they don’t typically “do” church. They know what it’s like to park there; they know what it looks like on the inside. It’s familiar and attractive and a definite win for us.

6) We know how to have fun! We just do. Be it the “Coldplay lazers”- as I call them- that we used yesterday, this video we made to kick off our groups series last week, the 3000 ping pong balls we dropped from the ceiling during an illustration the week before that, or the 30+ beach balls bouncing to the tune of Summer of ’69 the week before that, we know how to have fun! Fun, excellent, and helpful are what we desire our services be. Lately, I feel like we’re winning in that first area.

7) The strides we’re making in worship. We talk all the time in our SPD meetings about how to continue to teach our people what it means worship to worship through music/singing and how to engage them further in it. We definitely don’t have all the answers, but the progress I’ve seen over the last 3 or 4 months has been phenomenal! We’re currently in the beta testing phase of a new role on our music team called Worship Catalysts. Might sink or it might swim, but you can bet I’ll share about this new band position at some point in time on here.

8) Our relationship with North Point. One of the inherently great things about being at Athens Church is our relationship with North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, GA. As a strategic partner of North Point we have access to so many resources that most ministry peeps would kill for, and Ryan and his team in the NP campus expansion offices do a great job of going above and beyond for us. I’d be willing to bet, too, that a healthy percentage of our attenders first found us because of our relationship with North Point.

9) Andy’s messages. One obvious perk of that relationship with North Point is the fact that we get to show Andy Stanley messages 70 some odd percentage of the time. If you’re reading my blog, there’s a pretty overwhelming chance you’re familiar with Andy. I think we’re going to look back in church history one day and see just how influential he really has been. Obviously one of the best communicators in the country, church or otherwise, he may also be one of the best organizational leaders in Atlanta. There’s not much else I could say about Andy that hasn’t been said before.

10) Life change. This is probably the thing I love most about what God is doing at Athens Church. To get a feel for what I’m talking about just check out this video; it’s stories like this that we hear week after week that really fuel what we’re doing. Our mission is to lead the people of Athens into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. To win in that account is the most satisfying thing about my job.