- Getting ready to head out to WV to spend New Years with my long-time Life Group peeps so I’ll make this short and sweet.
- Today was crazy.
- We attempted (and ultimately pulled off) recapping everything we did in 2011 in just 75 minutes.
- Turned out to be about 83 minutes which made tear down that much more stressful as people were coming in to watch a movie in our theater.
- Set-up was as equally not fun since we pulled back out 5 different series sets and reassembled them as one big jumbo set.
- Need…more…extension cords…
- The entire team again this week came in early in order to pull this all off.
- They as usual did a great job with only a few minor speed bumps along the way.
- You can hear the entirety of today’s Experience here.
- I shot some video and may post it tomorrow or Monday if it came out alright.
- In the meantime here are the links to the various videos we showed as a part of today’s Experience.
- Seriously I don’t know what to say about today other than crazy…it’s such an unusual format but from what I heard people really appreciated it.
- God has been so good to us this year and it was fun looking back on everything and evaluating how much we’ve grown individually and as a church.
- All of the application questions are attached to the message audio above so please make sure to review each one and challenge yourself to grow even more in 2012.
- Afterward Lisa and I did lunch with many members of my former team in Chambersburg…they were all impressed at the level of excellence we’re able to do things considering our portable environment.
- Good also to see at least 5 other churches represented in attendance today.
- Doing the Experiences these past 2 weeks on Saturday instead of Sunday seemed to really work out well…glad we did it.
- Ok gotta get on the road…praying everyone is safe tonight and that 2012 is your best year yet!
- I know at Exponential we truly do believe that the best is yet to come…can’t wait to partner with you in making a difference!
Archives for December 2011
Top 10 Sermons of 2011
Between online listens and downloads, our average sermon is heard again beyond Sunday morning slightly over 100 times. Here are the top 10 most listened to and downloaded messages from 2011.
- “Finding the One“- The first four messages on this list all come from the “One” series on marriage, dating, relationships and sex. This message was about making sure Jesus is first in your life.
- “Q & A“- People submitted their questions about anything to do with relationships and I answered.
- “Lets Talk About Sex“- Duh…what do you think it’s about. :)
- “Finding the Two“- Once Jesus is first in your life, how do you find and then keep a spouse until death do you part.
- “The Biggest Lie You Tell Yourself“- The conclusion to the “ME*TRADE” series. In it I discussed how each morning we wake up on a quest for happiness instead of a quest for truth…which leads to…the biggest lie you tell yourself.
- “Renewing Your Mind“- The opening message in the ME*TRADE series where we learned that if you’re not happy with the outcomes of your life, it’s not about going back and making different decisions, but rather changing your thinking which leads to better decision-making.
- “The Truth About Obedience“- My wife Lisa’s message on 6 steps to being obedient to God which was a part of the “Jonah” series.
- “Generation Next or Now“- The opening message in the “I Believe In You” series speaking to the Millennial Generation to not put off making a difference with their lives now!
- “The Jonah in All of Us“- The opening message in the “Jonah” series about how when God speaks to us there always seems to be an easier option to get out of it, but beware because if you choose that path storm clouds and perhaps worse are about to come.
- (TIE) “The Two People Everyone Needs in Their Life“- Part 3 of the “I Believe in You” series about the value of having a mentor and being a mentor to someone else.
“One Simple Truth“- Conclusion of the ME*TRADE series where I challenged everyone to realize God knows better what’s best for our lives than what we do.
Inside Today’s Experience (Christmas Eve Morning Edition)
- What an awesome day!
- We had 15 people make professions of faith in Jesus!
- We also broke our attendance record.
- Not bad for having our Christmas Experience on Saturday instead of Sunday.
- Honestly I had no idea going into this morning whether switching to Saturday morning was a good idea or not.
- For multiple reasons it seemed to be the right decision but I figured it would either be a hit or a complete flop.
- Thanking God this evening that He honored our efforts and that we in turn were able to honor Him through our efforts.
- Just like last year’s Christmas Eve Experience, set-up was a bit stressful because of all that we were trying to pull off.
- So thankful for the entire team. They came in at 7am this morning and we finally finished up getting ready at 9:47.
- Considering I had told everyone last week to be in their seats at 9:50, we were cutting it real close.
- Special thanks to Andy, Mike and Cris for the extra work they accomplished from the tech side. Your hard work paid off…thanks!
- As always the band…Bill, Gayle, Jeff, Mike, Steve and Aaron did a fantastic job.
- They put in a lot of work Thursday night and this morning to get ready and the results were fantastic.
- This week they were also joined for one song by Jake Sellers on drums…he did awesome for his first time with us and considering how young he is…thanks Jake!
- Here’s the opener we did called, “Let There Be“…I put together a video for it and Gayle as usual killed it!
- The other special we did was our rockin version of “O Come O Come Emmanuel“.
- And yes for the 2nd year in a row we used trash cans.
- Who says we’re not traditional? :)
- I actually had an “older” guy stop me in the lobby who was disappointed we didn’t do “The Little Drummer Boy” again.
- Funny thing is he was being serious.
- Again couldn’t be prouder of my team…from the parking lot to the “pew” our people serve with all of their hearts and with excellence!
- My message focused on how King Herod missed out on what should have been so obvious…the birth of God Himself just a few miles away.
- Of course the application was not to miss out on Jesus in the midst of the busyness of the Christmas season.
- You can listen to the entire message here.
- Or you can watch the Experience from start…to almost finish here. (Note: it is uploading as of 6:30pm. It should be live by 9-10pm).
- Unfortunately the camera battery died a few minutes before we ended.
- What you miss in the video is me leading the 15 through a prayer to receive Jesus and then everyone standing to sing along to the remainder of “It is Well”.
- Yep…that’s right the hymn…done as a hymn not Exponential style.
- A couple of brief announcements followed and then we closed with the “Party” song which you can see the band perform from last week’s Experience.
- FYI…on of the announcements I gave was the results of our Contagious Christmas Challenge…you/we gave enough that we were able to help 50 needy families have a Christmas that wouldn’t have otherwise! Way to go Exponential!
- Again it was an incredible day…what’s weird is coming home and the NFL was on anyway…feels just like a Sunday except it wasn’t.
- So glad we decided to worship and celebrate today!
- In fact…we’re going to do it again next Saturday at 10am to avoid New Years Day.
- Hope to see you then for the conclusion of the “Party” series.
- As I announced it’s called “The After Party” and will be a recap of every series we did in 2011.
- Going to be an awesome time looking back on God’s faithfulness.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Another great day!
- Had 2 more people start a relationship with Jesus!
- As I mentioned last week we’re ramping up our set each week throughout the Christmas season so it made for another long yet productive set-up time this morning.
- Instead of trying to explain it all, I’ll show you through video.
- Thanks to Cris Cramer for videotaping the opener song and worship set.
- Not bad for a Flip cam.
- Not a huge crowd today but those that were there were pretty energetic.
- I continued the Party series today with a message entitled, “Bust a Move”
- You can watch the first few minutes of it here…
- …or listen to the entire thing here.
- We’ll call it a day of rants…can’t really say I left anything unsaid.
- Also said some things…”peachy keen”…that I’m not sure where it came from.
- As I said, you never know why the Spirit may have you say something…gotta trust “peachy keen” really needed to be heard by someone…at least that’s what I’m telling myself. :)
- Seriously I think it’s a message that many people need/needed to hear.
- Had a bunch of cool conversations afterward…great questions…love that people are seeking the truth and how to live it out.
- As a reminder, we’ll be meeting on Saturday morning for the next 2 weeks.
Saturday December 24, 10am
Saturday December 31, 10am
Inside Today’s Experience
- Great day!
- Had to start the morning out scrapping the ice of the windshield and wearing my beanie…definitely the coldest Sunday morning we’ve had so far this “winter”.
- Had to use the quotes because I know some of you would correct me and say it’s not yet winter…ok but did you really expect me to say it was the crispest fall morning so far. Yeah right.
- Oh wait I did just say it…
- OK here’s the deal…it was cold this morning.
- Anytime we start a new series it’s always an adventure since we have no way to have tested the new stage design up until that time.
- With this one Bill built 4 “candy cane” looking contraptions with multiple color Christmas lights strung between them.
- What’s cool is we can control each color independently…which is harder than it sounds.
- In fact it required 8 extra extension cords since you can’t put them into a power strip and then to the lighting control…each one needs to run separate.
- All that to say…we had to send Gayle out on an extension cord run since we were short a few.
- Amazingly we were short even with taking 6 of our normal lights out of the equation altogether.
- We’ll add them in over the coming weeks.
- So set-up and practice were longer than normal this morning.
- Another factor was that Steve our drummer missed practice on Thursday night…something about getting engaged or something. :)
- Congrats Steve & Kelsey!
- In any case, the band did a great job pulling it altogether.
- However, the crowed energy was down today…not sure why.
- Again using a however…on this day last year we had one of our worst days we’ve ever had…so today was light years better.
- Chad did a great job preaching the first message in the Party series.
- His message was about getting an invitation and not being left out.
- You can listen to it here.
- Since he preached that allowed me a chance to walk around a see some other things I normally don’t get to.
- I twice stopped by and watched Chelsea and the kids in the theater next door.
- Awesome to see them worshiping, having fun and learning about Jesus.
- Also spent some time in the nursery/toddler area where one of our normal toddlers was crying hysterically.
- I tried picking her up and holding her but to no avail.
- So I put her down and quietly slipped away before anyone noticed I had left. :)
- It’s always good to have days like today where I can walk around evaluating things without the “pressure” of knowing I have to preach.
- Got some things we need to work on but for the most part we’re light years ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point in our now slightly over 1 year of existence.
- God has and is so good to us!
- Lisa has been out-of-town all week-long so afterward my mom, dad, sister and I went to lunch together.
- To the best of our recollection it was the first time in about 20 years since it was just the 4 of us together to eat.
- Not sure why but I took a longer nap this afternoon than a typical Sunday.
- That shouldn’t have been…I didn’t really do anything today.
- Lisa flies back tomorrow…can’t wait to see her!
- Next week we’ll continue the Party series with a message I’m doing called, “Bust a Move”.
- Once you’re at the party, it does you no good to stand against the wall…time to get out on the dance floor.
- What’s that have to do with the Bible and your life?
- You’ll have to join us to find out.
- Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, December 24 & 31 at 10am which will take the place of our normal Sunday morning Worship Experiences.