mattmehaffey

One Day Trip to the Keys

My parents came down a few weeks ago because their 10 day cruise departed from Ft. Lauderdale. They got back on Friday and have spent several days with us. Monday we drove down to the Keys but stopped in Florida City and the Everglades Alligator Farm. My parents have always wanted to do an airboat ride in the glades and we got to enjoy it with them. If you are going to be spending time in SoFla, you need to put this place on the itinerary.

After three hours at the alligator farm we continued our trip down South and stopped for dinner at Islamorada. There's nothing like having your dinner table in the sand, looking out over water and enjoying the sunset.

The Pursuit & the NewThing Network

Did you know?

The Pursuit Christian Church is affiliated with a network of churches across the U.S. and the world all focused on reaching 1 billion people with the good news of Jesus? When we were invited to be a part of NewThing, I knew this was the perfect partnership for The Pursuit.

Newthing currently has 16 churches in our network but it is continuing to grow as young godly leaders with a high capacity for leadership are identified and aligned with the core values of the network.

The mission of Newthing is: to be a catalyst for a movement of reproducing churches relentlessly dedicated to helping people find their way back to God.

The picture below is from a gathering of the network in Boston last year in December. Check out the NewThing website and the other great churches God is calling to be a part of His mission.

My Dog Rocks!

After our yard guy cleared out some of our bushes I found a baseball back behind one of them. To my disgust, it had a Red Sox logo on it. I gave it to our dog, Jeter, and within 10 minutes I had to throw it away because he destroyed it. Good boy!

I am on Twitter

I signed up earlier this week on Twitter. You can follow me by clicking here.

Sun-Sentinel Ad

Just 9 days until XXXChuch.com's founder, Craig Gross will be at The Pursuit to help get the word out about the dangers of pornography and the devastation it has on everyone that gets in its path.

This is too important for people to miss.

We put an ad with one of two major newspapers in South Florida, the Sun-Sentinel. After one day of running the ad we had the most traffic come to our website. I am praying God will do whatever it takes to get people there so they can hear about the full and satisfying life that can only come through Jesus.

If you live near Pembroke Pines, Miramar or anywhere within driving distance consider yourself invited!

god-Sized Expectations

A baby girl with two faces was born recently in India and apparently is doing well physically (click here for news story). Her father said people have begun worshipping her because they believe she is the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess.

I am glad I didn't grow up with those kind of expectations.

Older Siblings

I am certainly used to being the youngest. Having an older brother and two older sisters I got used to hearing the words, "You must be ____'s brother!" That never really bothered me because my brother and sisters are incredible people who I don't mind being associated with.

The Pursuit Christian Church is a brand new church we started January 27, 2008 and while we are not under any denominational head we are proud to be part of a great legacy of Christian Churches who are unified by our love for and obedience to Jesus. Because our movement is practically non-existent in South Florida (I can count the number on one hand) many people here are unfamiliar with us but drawn to us because we are identified as a "Christian Church."

The Christian Standard just released a list of "mega churches" in our movement. These are some of our older siblings in the U.S. we are proud to be associated with and of whom we have learned a lot from.

Gangs of Miami

The Pursuit staff is dealing with minor turf wars between a couple staff members. Things maybe getting out of hand. Both Alex and Bob got temporary tattoos as an initiation into the two gangs they have founded.

Alex Diaz, feeling the Arts Team gets no respect has gathered a few other artsy folk and started a gang they are calling The UniKorns. They aren't dangerous but very charming. They spell Unicorn with a "K" because they think it makes them sound more edgy.

Bob Smith, sensing the need to protect Century Village (a 55+ gated community in Pembroke Pines) has founded The Fuzzy Penguins. He is the only member at this time.

Here are close up pictures of their ink. You should have heard them scream like girls when their tattoos were applied. Ridiculous.

It's Time to Vote Again!

PlantingSpace.com has the 2nd round of the Blogging Challenge up on their website. Now there are only 8 bloggers left. My demise is to be expected.

The topic: “What is your (new church's) best marketing and/or outreach idea for under $500?” Read my post below and then read the other entries and vote away!

Here's my blog entry:

Even if we had a million dollars for marketing and could only do one event, The Pursuit would still have done this project, which cost $200.

Like every other church planter on earth, we keep up with Troy McMahon and loved the Replenish project their team did throughout Kansas City. It worked for those guys, so we’re smart, we’ll do it too, but with a few twists of our own.

In honor of NKOTB’s reunion tour, I’ll walk you through it “Step by Step.”

1. We partnered with a non-profit already doing great things in the community. Family Central helps underprivileged kids, and they needed baby food, formula and other baby items.

2. We designed and copied a simple flyer explaining, “We’re a new church in the area, and we want to help Family Central do what they do best. We need your help.”

3. We purchased cheap grocery bags at Costco.

4. We distributed the flyers & grocery bags in two ways: a. Our launch team took them door to door. The flyer told people to buy the needed items and leave them on their front porch for a designated collection date a week later. b. Wal-mart and Winn-Dixie allowed us to set up tables outside their stores on high traffic weekend times. Our team handed flyers to shoppers as they entered the store. Shoppers loved this because they could buy the stuff and give it right then. The stores loved this because they made a lot of money. GREAT community relations.

5. The next week we collected all the bags and filled a couple SUV’s full of items. When we dropped them off at Family Central, the director said, “You’re a church that hasn’t even started yet and you’re already helping? We could sure learn a few things from you.”

www.mattmehaffey.com

Jaime's Baptism

Awesome.