Archives for July 2008
Inside Today’s Experiences
- As I shared in today’s message, today is my 15th year spiritual birthday!
- The devil did everything he could though to spoil it.
- As I mentioned earlier in the week, we had real issues on Thursday night with the sound system. This morning Andy came in early to fix it…when you hear him say, “Oh that’s not good” you know you have real problems.
- As he was working on that, I noticed that we had a major load being placed on our power throughout the church.
- It was causing one of our main spots to flicker on and off.
- Once Andy got things semi-working again, I reprogrammed all the light scenes to exclude the “bad” light.
- Lots of other minor things were happening so I was emotionally shot.
- Never really felt the Experience got into a groove today.
- I knew that my message was going to be long today, but it seemed to go in slow motion.
- I hope even in my sluggishness that the message came through loud and clear…God wants to use us to make a difference and He’s doing it in a very unique way.
- The CAYA picnic was a lot of fun, although I missed the hotdog eating contest.
- Congrats to Dirk Detweiler who won!
- When I got there I asked if anyone had thrown up…everyone just pointed to a pile of vomit on the ground.
- Ewww gross…and yep you guessed it…no one was in a hurry to clean it up so I walked back to the building to get the supplies to do it.
- Great lunch…great people…fun games and yes, I did win for weirdest picture on your cell phone and knowing the lyrics to an MC Hammer song.
- Uhh, just gotta say, “Can’t Touch This.”
- Dirk’s wife, Becky was the winner of the $100 gas card.
- Tonight is the normal CAYA meeting and then we’re officially on vacation.
- Looking forward to spending uninterrupted time with Lisa for a week and then getting back to kick-off the 2 Experiences and the God at the Box Office series.
- Don’t forget to keep inviting people!
15 Years
Just sitting here, reflecting on the past 15 years. It was 15 years ago tonight on a hot summer evening that my doorbell rang and 2 guys from Lisa’s church shared the Gospel with me. For the first time it all made sense. I had really been seeking after the truth since that February and that night it all came together.
Wow it’s amazing to think that God would save someone like me. Little did I realize that night as I prayed and asked Jesus for His forgiveness and surrendered control of my life over to Him, how much my life would change. In those 15 years God has blessed me with…
- Eternal life.
- An awesome wife and her family.
- Two great businesses.
- The privilege of being called into full-time vocational ministry.
- The opportunity to travel all across North America visiting and working with some of the best pastors in America.
- 1000’s of new relationships with people I would have never known otherwise.
- A handful of deep, rich friendships that help motivate me to stay the course.
- So many other things that are just too numerous to list.
On July 27, 1993, I was a full-time magician with big plans. If you would have told me that night all the things that would happen in the next 15 years, I would have told you were crazy.
What’s amazing is as you read this, you never know what the next 15 years may hold for you. As crazy as my story sounds…your’s may be crazier. Just keep obeying Him one day at a time and the Lord promises us that He will direct our steps.
Thank you Jesus for saving me…I didn’t deserve it 15 years ago, and I still don’t deserve it today…but yet you love me and you love each person reading this more than we can ever imagine. Use us to share that same good news with others. Help us to make our lives count for eternity.
Random Friday Thoughts
- We have a new printer/copier in the office and we got our training on it yesterday. This thing does everything but cook and clean for you.
- At one point the guy mentioned that it prints very realistic looking money, but that it put the machines serial number on top so that it’s easily spotted as a counterfeit.
- It then became the showdown at the OK Corral between Earl and myself to see how quickly we could unholster our wallets to give it a try…I won by the way, but that’s beside the point.
- The copier guy lays my $10 bill on the glass, hits the start button….and the machine quickly says “Illegal copies trying to be made” and locks down the copier. I mean seriously locked down…turned off and everything.
- It took him a good 5 minutes to figure out how to get it going again.
- Much to the laughter of us all.
- Of course we were joking that the FBI had already been called and when it did start back up it spit out some sort of test page, which when Earl asked what it was the copier guy said, “Your summons to appear in court.”
- Perhaps the funniest thing he said was, “Hmmm, never actually had someone who wanted to try that before.” Leave it to Earl and I!
- Last night’s practice (if you want to call it that) was terrible. Andy was gone and we couldn’t get the sound board to boot up to the proper settings so we had to go with an old setting that created basically nothing but feedback and bass from the bass guitar and kick drum.
- By 7:30…an hour in to when practice was supposed to begin…we gave up…went through each song once even though no one could hear and then went home.
- Pray that we can get things back in working order by Sunday.
- I told the waitress that we were in a hurry and that her tip would be directly proportional to how quickly we got out of there.
- Let’s just say I left her a big tip, because we were in and out in only 20 minutes.
- By the way if you haven’t seen the promo video, check it out here. Send your friends on-line as well to watch it…I think it’s good enough to inspire people to come.
- Still need another 25-40 of you to switch over to the 9:15am Experience.
- Remember this…the unchurched will most likely attend during the 10:45am time slot. This means that in order for them to have a seat so they can hear about Jesus…others of you who already have a relationship with Him need to sacrifice your preferred time so that seats are free so they can hear the good news.