- Just waking up from a 2+ hour nap!
- Very tiring yet productive day.
- Had 5 more people make professions of faith in Jesus!
- That now puts us over 150 since we launched 15 moths ago…amazing…thank you Jesus for allowing us to be a part of building your kingdom!
- For some odd reason I was wide awake this morning at 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep.
- It was weird having so much extra time this morning to get ready…sort of cool…but thus the 2 hour nap!
- After a couple of nice warm weather days, I almost left the house with only a hoodie on but then thought better and put my winter jacket on.
- Glad I did…it was freezing setting out signs this morning.
- The technology gremlins were out in full force this morning during set-up.
- Nothing too major but just a lot of little things that were annoying.
- Grateful for Andy, Mike and Cris and their willingness to keep troubleshooting until everything worked perfectly.
- Had a lot of people email/text/call in sick so we were short-staffed for serving but was able to get all the serving roles filled.
- Despite a lot of sick people out, we had a pretty decent size crowd today and they came fired up.
- Love when the crowd is engaged fully in worship!
- I wrapped up the “Little Faither” series by looking at the story of Elijah worrying after Jezebel threatens his life.
- You can listen to today’s message here.
- I really enjoyed preaching this series…in fact one of my favorites since we launched.
- Had so many people say how helpful it’s been.
- Even if for no one else, it’s been helpful to me during some stressful times both personally and professionally the past few months as I prepared for it and now finally delivered it.
- Next week we begin a new series and I couldn’t be more excited for what’s going to happen next week…as a reminder…DO NOT INVITE ANYONE NEXT WEEK!!!!
- That’s right you didn’t read that wrong…do not invite anyone…this will make a lot more sense once you’re there and see the special surprise we have in store for everyone.
- Trust me you’ll be talking about this for a long time.
- So if you’ve ever been to ExponentialChurch.tv, do whatever it takes to be there next week.
- If you’ve never been with us, then hold off until February 12th.
- Speaking of February 12th, don’t forget to mark your calendars that we will be sharing communion together in the lobby at 9:10am that morning and then everyone going out to Infinito’s for lunch at 12pm.
- Should be a great day of sharing life together.
- Hope everyone has a great week…see you Sunday for our special surprise.
Archives for January 2012
Why We’re Named ExponentialChurch.tv
I just got an e-mail this morning saying that our domain name, www.ExponentialChurch.tv had automatically renewed as per my contract with the hosting company. What this simply means is that it’s been 2 years to the day since I officially decided on what the church name was going to be.
It was in October of 2009 that God gave me the vision for Exponential. The next few months consisted of making sure this was God’s will for our lives and not just a bad reaction to the pepperoni pizza I had eaten the night before. A part of this process took Lisa and I out to San Diego for a week-long church planter’s assessment. It was a grueling week of assessments, psychological testing, team exercises, quizzes, presentations and constantly having 25+ people evaluate your every move.
Although we had previously discussed names for the potential church, God didn’t confirm any until Lisa and I were back in our hotel room after yet another intense day of evaluation. That was two years ago today and of course the name chosen was Exponential Church.
The reason for this was quite simple. During my years working for Purpose Driven Ministries, part of the teaching I did for pastors was about Exponential Faith Thinking. Essentially this means that you must have a vision, goals and dreams SO BIG that if God doesn’t show up and do something miraculous, those dreams and goals will never come true.
By thinking this big, it does two things for you. First, it will drive you to your knees in prayer begging God to do something great on your behalf. Since you know you can’t do it without Him, this big vision will force you to be utterly and totally dependent on Him. Second, when your dreams and goals are fulfilled, you won’t possibly be able to receive the credit for it…all the praise will go to how great God is, not how smart you are.
This whole line of thinking fit perfectly with the vision God had given me. What I was experiencing in San Diego was only confirming that. It’s a huge vision that I’m not nearly smart enough to accomplish without God doing something great in and on my behalf. The name Exponential also described the type of impact I know God is calling us to have. Yes, we are starting in Harrisburg and that is our primary place God has called us to reach, but I truly believe that we’re going to do things that will make an eternal difference in our state, nation and world.
Now you might be saying, “That’s awesome but what about the .tv part?” Glad you asked. So 2 years ago today as God confirmed the name, I immediately decided to go ahead and buy the domain name. One problem… .com, .org, .net, .info and many of the other common extensions are owned by others. Immediately God reminded me of that a couple of churches that I greatly admire have the .tv extension…in fact some of them even made it a part of their name since it’s still uncommon here in the US. A quick search and sure enough www.ExponentialChurch.tv was available. A month later when we filled out all of our legal paperwork, I included the .tv in the name so people won’t have to guess how to find us on the web.
So now you know. Two challenges for you: First, are you thinking Exponentially in your own life and ministry? Life is too short to waste it on small dreams. Second, if you’re a part of ExponentialChurch.tv are you serving in some way? The vision is too big and the stakes too high for you to simply sit on the sidelines as a spectator. Discover what it is that God is calling you to do to help make this Exponential vision a reality!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Very happy with today!
- 3 more people started a relationship with Jesus.
- Many people commented how much they needed to hear and now apply the message I did on having proper priorities when it comes to how to spend our time.
- As Chad said earlier in the week, today was reset day as far as attendance goes since the last two weeks were holiday weekends.
- We had a really great sized crowd…hope to keep it going.
- Alright as for the other details of the day…
- Nice to be back on a normal schedule and without a lot of extra stuff.
- Band was done set-up and warm-up early (actually normal time) but after the past few weeks it seemed way early.
- During set-up, Lisa called me and said her car broke down so I had to run out to get her.
- Once I got there though it started working again…it’s been acting weird the last few weeks so we’ll have to take it in this week for “repairs”.
- The band started today with a cover of Coldplay’s song “Paradise”. As always they did awesome but I know Bill was glad to not have to do any more Wooooo’s…especially that high.
- Speaking of, he said something awesome during his prayer that Spirit spoke to me about. He said that “today was going to be a day where people go God’s way full-heartedly”. It hit me in the moment that yes as a result of each message people either go FULL-heartedly or FOOL-heartedly.
- Aren’t you glad we have a choice!
- Speaking of choices, the message today was about making sure as we start a New Year that we don’t misuse our time chasing our things but instead prioritize our relationship with God and family.
- The gist of the message was that someone is going to feel cheated, but we get to choose who or what that will be.
- For the first time ever, I accidentally forgot to put my phone on vibrate and it went off during the sermon.
- You’ll just have to listen to the message to see how I handled it. 🙂
- Love hanging out in the lobby and hearing people’s stories afterwards…God is doing some amazing stuff in our midst!
- Next week we start the “Little Faither” series on how to overcome worry.
- Here’s a Facebook invite you can share.
- Also as I mentioned today the invite cards got delayed in shipping.
- If you want some when they come in this week (and you haven’t already let us know), email me and I’ll make sure they get to you.
- One of our core values at Exponential is that we must all become World-Class inviters.
- Please help to do your part to make sure your family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers come out for this series!
- This is such an easy series to invite people to since everyone wants to overcome worry…don’t waste this golden opportunity.