- 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.
Inside Today’s Experience
- 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!
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