First of all, creativescribble.com will start serving its orginial purpose. That is to be a site where churches all across the country can share creative thoughts and ideas about sermon series, production, graphic design, and more.

It will also give me (Rodney) the chance to have a personal blog where I can share thoughts about what I am learning throughout the process of launching a new church and watching it grow. What theological, leadership, family, and other life lessons am I learning in the process? Those will be shared on the new personal blog that will launch later in 2010.

So thanks for your support of creativescribble.com over the past 14 months or so. We hope you'll continue following us at http://blog.onelifeknox.com.

• Kicked off a new series yesterday called New Thru 30. Trying to go through the entire New Testament as a church in 30 days!
• The first sermon was about the central issue of the Gospels: who is Jesus?
• We learned that getting close on this answer isn’t close enough.
• The only answer that cuts it is that He is the Christ – the one way to God.
• Worship was once again the best it has been yet. The band was incredible and the choir (aka the congregation!) was phenomenal.
• At one point Dillan backed off his mic during “Glory to God” and listening to the congregation sing the line “Take my life and let it be all for you and for your glory” had me balling like baby on the front row.
• I love worshipping with the OneLifers!!!
• There were lots of them yesterday too. It was our biggest “normal” attendance yet with 212 (normal meaning no special event to attract out of towners like baptism, etc.).
• If someone told me when we launched that we would have more than 200 people in less than four months I would have checked for narcotics. But God is bigger than my plans!
• What’s even crazier is that was with lots of roads still snow covered and temperatures below 20 when the morning began. Knoxvillians don’t like that! But they came anyway.
• Better than that, two people decided they wanted to do more than just get close and gave their lives to Christ!
• So I left church pumped up and went to THE game. Tennessee vs. #1 Kansas in basketball.
• Of course, the Vols pulled the shocker of the 2009-2010 season and beat up the Jayhawks!
• I couldn’t believe it. I was starting to think maybe there was something to the whole health, wealth, and prosperity message you can see from the TV preachers.
• But then I woke up this morning. Sick and horse. No voice at all. Not even close.
• Oh well, back to the reality of the...umm...what's it called? oh yeah, Bible!
• But it was still a dang good day! Can’t WAIT for next week. We get our college students back and have our first ever baby dedication. Going to be AWESOME!!!

10. I will lose weight, getting back to pre-marriage shape so I can wear skinny jeans like the OneLife Band.
9. We will start a second service, expanding our reach to more people and more families who don’t go to church already.
8. Our volunteer teams will continue doing an incredible job creating a place on Sundays that people wake up and look forward to coming to. As a result, we’ll have more and more volunteers plugging in.
7. The high school girls will quit turning the stalls in the girls’ bathroom into an X-rated comic strip and graffiti display so we can stop painting (and repainting…) the stalls every Sunday!
6. After our next baptism service, I will return the baptistery without the lid flying off and landing in the middle of I-40.
5. Our staff will get to start being full-time so we can focus on what God has called us to give our lives to.
4. Our staff will grow as God raises up volunteers who want to commit to giving their lives to children’s ministry, administrative ministry, and more.
3. OneLife will start making a difference on a global level, getting involved in world-wide missions – spreading the Gospel to the world – and world-wide social justice – doing our part to stop sex-trafficking, hunger, AIDS, and more.
2. Small Groups will begin, giving OneLifers a chance to go even deeper in their love, discipleship, and accountability of each other.
1. Hundreds of people in Powell and beyond who may know about Jesus will finally KNOW Jesus as we rock this community for Him!

• Part 3 of "Do You Hear" was about hearing from God when life seems normal.
• The Wise Men (aka Magi) were just doing their jobs when they heard from God.
• But it wasn't a booming voice. No angels. No supernatural, hard to understand experience.
• Their everyday lives (watching the stars) intersected with God's word (a star would rise out of Jacob - a prophesy of the Messiah) and they knew what God wanted them to do.
• We were missing our college students and lots of young families this week because of Christmas so it seemed a little down in the auditorium.
• But when I got the communication cards, we still had four first time families! Not a Sunday has gone by without first-time guests being with us.
• I am extremely excited about our Christmas Eve service tomorrow at 4 p.m. Really praying for lots of people who wouldn't usually go to church to show up and hear the Gospel!
• The music is going to be incredible. A great blend of modern Christmas worship from the OneLife band with a traditional accoustic candlelight set thrown in.
• We're giving our volunteers time with families and friends and not having a service next Sunday.
• We resume on January 3 with a New Year's Party! If you are a OneLifer or want to know more about what's in store for OneLife, don't miss this Sunday!

What He Does: Kydon works part-time for OneLife and part-time for the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at UT. For the BCM, Kydon oversees the ministry to new students and for OneLife he oversees our volunteer ministry. That means he is responsible for plugging people in to various areas of ministry and making sure that all of our areas are covered on Sunday mornings. This is a huge role because at this point, Volunteer Ministry acts as our small groups and our main strategy for assimilating new people into our church.

Sunday Responsibilities: Kydon’s day starts by overseeing pretty much all of our setup in terms of making sure we have people in the right places to get it all done. Under his leadership our setup has gone from an hour and a half to an hour at the most and some days as little as 45 minutes. He then makes sure that each volunteer knows where they need to be and helps new volunteers plug in to different ministry teams as they try to discover their role. At the end of each service, Kydon hosts “The Tour” which is a behind-the-scenes look at OneLife for new volunteers to see all of the many opportunities we have for them to serve. Then he probably goes home and crashes after a long but fun-filled day at OneLife.

• Lots of returning guests that came last week for baptisms. Second time guests excite me!
• Part two of the series talked about Joseph.
• I believe he broke it off with Mary when he found out Mary was pregnant. Being a guy, I can read between the lines and only imagine that when it says "he had in mind to divorce her" that he wasn't kidding!
• But as we learned, when Joseph's plans failed he heard from God.
• Many times, God waits until our plans fail so he can speak to us.
• But the best thing Joseph did was obey when he did hear from God. And he went back to Mary and made things right...he married her!
• Lots of OneLifers are hearing from God during this series.
• One person heard from God for the first time and gave their life to Christ!
• Several others have been sending in stories about how they are hearing from God. Some awesome stuff is happening.
• Angel Tree gifts were due and it was UNBELIEVABLE to see OneLife's generosity at work!
• 36 foster kids will have an awesome Christmas because of the generous giving of OneLifers. There were bicycles, baby dolls, clothes, shoes, and tons more.
• Our Christmas Offering has also been great. So far nearly $3,000 has been given above and beyond our normal tithes.
• The entire offering at our Christmas Eve service will be given away! Can't wait to see how OneLife can impact our community and world.
• Invite someone to the last Sunday of "Do You Hear" and to the Christmas Eve Service! powellchristmas.com.