- 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.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Well this is going to be short and sweet.
- The reason…I can’t remember much of today.
- The last thing I said to Lisa before I went to sleep last night was, “My stomach doesn’t feel right”.
- I’ll spare you all the details…but let’s just say I was right.
- Apparently the milk I had with my cereal last night must have been bad.
- It smelt ok but Lisa this afternoon saw that it was about a week expired.
- So with my energy drained and feeling extremely nnauseous, I made my way to the theater this morning.
- To be honest everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
- Big thanks to the entire team for picking up the slack.
- Basically I sat around the whole time, got up and preached and then went home.
- I’m told the message came out ok.
- I was really excited about this one and can’t imagine it came out nearly the way I had hoped.
- What I do know is that God’s Spirit gave me supernatural strength that I didn’t have.
- Thank you Jesus!
- You can listen to the message here.
- This was the end of the “Just Walk Across the Room” series.
- Today’s message was about how God personally has a vision for your life.
- Hope everyone grasps it and lives it out.
- Next week we start the “Party” series as we celebrate the Christmas season.
- Make sure you’re there and make sure you bring along a bunch of people because we’re going to party hard!
- Also don’t forget to mark your calendars…Christmas and New Year’s weekend we’ll be meeting on Saturday morning at 10am instead of Sunday.
- Let me say that again. Mark your calendar to come to church on Saturday, December 24th and 31st at 10am.
- Sorry I missed out on joining everyone at Infinito’s this afternoon for lunch but I heard another big crowd showed up.
- I got a nap in and I’m keeping food in and down…in fact, I’m really hungry and keep eating which is a good sign!
- Hope everyone has a great week…see you Sunday for the “Party”!
Writing Your Personal Testimony
On Sunday at ExponentialChurch.tv I shared a message called, “The Two Stories of a Difference Maker“. One of those is knowing how to tell God’s story in a clear and passionate way. The other story is your story of how you either came into a relationship with Jesus or how a certain aspect of your life has changed as a result of your relationship with Him. I challenged everyone to write out their personal testimony and then email it to me so I could review it and make suggestions.
It’s been awesome over the past 2+ days now to have received so many stories of life change. All but one of them so far though have needed to be tweaked for various reasons. I fault myself for some of this so I wanted to do this post to help those of you who are still working on the assignment. So here are a couple of things that either I failed to say or a reminder of what we’re trying to accomplish.
- Remember who you’re doing this for- This is probably my fault for not making it clear enough but remember not to write it as how you would tell it to me. Think about a neighbor or friend who is far from God…how would you tell it to them.
- Write it conversationally- This is my big regret from Sunday. I should have made it clear that even though you’re writing it down so it will ultimately be easier to memorize, you need to write it the way you talk. So my suggestion is try saying some things out loud and then write down what felt most natural.
- Reminder: Keep it under 3 minutes- Most have done a pretty good job of keeping it short but some have gotten a bit too detailed. Usually where this happens is giving extra travelogue that doesn’t really add to the story for the listener. For example, a few people have mentioned specific people by name and exact locations down to the street address. All this will do is get your listener thinking about “do I know that person” or “do I know where that is” instead of concentrating on the real story, which is how much Jesus has changed your life.
- On the flip side…give some details- Now you’re really confused right? A couple of the emails I have gotten were only bullet points. Again keep in mind the purpose of this exercise is to have written out your full story in the way that you would say it. So for example if I just point the bullet point of “anxious” as one of my before Jesus problems, I still don’t know what I’m going to say in the moment. For each “problem” you should have a 1-2 sentence example of that. Let me give you an example from my own life showing you both the wrong way to do it (#3 above) and the right way to do it (#4 here).
In our hypothetical situation lets say your friend mentions how stressed out and anxious they are. Here’s the wrong way
to do it. “You know before I became a Christian I used to be the same way. I remember back to the spring of 1993. I was
a sophomore in college at Hagerstown Community College. I was in Mr. Baker’s accounting class getting ready to take my
final and was so nervous about it that I literally threw up I was so nervous and anxious about it. But then later that
summer Keith Skidmore and Marvin Bower shared with me…”
Notice all the extra travelogue that doesn’t really help advance the story. I could say the exact same thing this way. “You
know before I became a Christian I used to be the same way. In fact, I remember once being so nervous about taking a
test in school that I threw up beforehand. But then two men shared with me…”
What I’m trying to get you to see is that there is a big difference between the written word, where you want a lot of details,
and the spoken word where you want just enough details to not distract from your main theme.
5. Avoid the Christianese- Think about how you would communicate to someone who has never stepped foot in a church or ever
opened up a bible. Despite my warnings on Sunday about avoiding these, this has been the biggest thing that I keep seeing over
and over. Here are some examples of words and phrases that people have included that I’ve told to go back and fix.
- My repentance prayer
- Watered the seeds my parents had planted
- Jesus lives in my heart
- Asked Jesus into my life
- Been redeemed
- Got saved
- Made Jesus Lord and Savior
- Received salvation
As I said Sunday…all of the above things are true…but just not the best way to say them in a way a person far from God will understand. As a game, try to come up with the better way to say each of the above.If I think of anything else, I’ll put it in another post. In the meantime…happy writing. Can’t wait to hear the stories of how God makes opportunities available for you to share your 3 minute story in a humble, interesting, and clear way!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Good news, bad news kind of day.
- The bad news is I thought my sermon was one of my worst ever.
- I just never got into a good flow.
- Usually when I’m not really feeling a message, God takes over and it all seems to click.
- Not today though.
- However, just because I wasn’t feeling it doesn’t mean that God didn’t still use it.
- Had a few people tell me this was one of their favorite messages they’ve ever heard me do.
- And now for the good news…
- 4 more professions of faith today!
- Like last week i find this slightly amusing since today’s message was on how to verbally share your faith with other people.
- Ironic huh? Taught on how to share your faith and 4 people realized that they first need to have faith.
- You can listen to the message here if you’re interested.
- As a reminder…practice the Bridge Illustration (can be downloaded at the above link under the documents section) and don’t forget to email me your 3 minute testimony so I can review it and make suggestions.
- As for the rest of the day, it was kind of weird as well.
- Normally we have 40-43 people serve on a Sunday to make everything happen.
- Today so many people were gone because of the holiday that we only had about half of that number.
- Considering half of those are in the band or tech area, it made for a very short staff.
- However, everyone stepped up and did what they could where they could and we didn’t seem to skip a beat.
- Love my team! What an awesome group of servants.
- Surprisingly, attendance was actually really good today even with a lot of our regulars away.
- That’s a good sign that perhaps we’re going to get some good momentum going.
- The rest of the day was pretty much as normal…
- Set-up and tear-down both went quickly and smoothly.
- The band as always did a great job.
- It was great to have George and Rebecca Spangler with us today.
- George is the current pastor at the Camp Hill Church of God and will be planting Turning Point Church next fall.
- We’ll be sharing with you in the coming months ways that we can partner with George to help him as he starts from scratch just like we did in the fall of 2010.
- One of our core values is that, “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”. We’re honored to be able to help another church here in the local area reach the 425000 that currently don’t have a relationship with Jesus.
- Next week we wrap-up the “Just Walk Across the Room” series by looking at having a personal vision for your life that includes being an eternal difference maker.
Thanksgiving 2011
Hard to believe but this is now my 5th year doing these posts ( 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010). As always here are the things I’m thankful for in this past year.
- Jesus- Well who else did you expect at #1? As every year passes, I realize more and more how ugly, sinful and broken I am inside. Yet Jesus loved me enough not to just be my friend, but to die for me so that my relationship to Him could be even greater. I don’t deserve a love like that and so my only acceptable response is to offer a life of sacrifice back to Him.
- Lisa- Again who were you expecting? Before each of my bi-monthly calls with my church planting coach (thankful for Vince’s friendship as well), I have to fill out a form reporting on various areas of my life and ministry. One of the questions is, “How is your marriage”? Recently during a time when I was feeling a bit down and depressed, I wrote for this question, “No matter what else is going on, this is the one area that I can count on to be great”. Trust me, Lisa has far more to do with that than I do. Every year I can’t imagine our marriage getting any better but yet it does…wow I’m such a lucky man that God gave me such a Godly wife. Her passion, hunger for growth and servant spirit are truly an inspiration to me.
- My immediate family- I’ve seen my mom, dad, sister and niece as much in the past year as I probably did in the 10 years prior to that. The irony is I had to move further away from them for it to happen. Regardless, one of the highlights of my week is knowing that I’ll get to see them on Sunday mornings. I’ll see them again today and tomorrow and I’m sure there will be times that we pick-on each other but underneath it all is a love and a bond with and for one another that can not be broken no matter how many miles the highway may now separate us.
- My cousins- This year has also given me a few times to reconnect with my cousins that I grew up with. Life and circumstances have kept us a part for many years but I’m looking forward to hopefully more opportunities to hang-out and reconnect.
- My long-term friends- Andy, Gayle, Bill and Nicole. It’s been an interesting year and not at all how I had envisioned it but yet these 4 at multiple times and in many ways continue to be there for and with me. Words can’t describe how grateful I am for the 10+ years they’ve put up with me.
- My new friends I’m developing- Some of these are at church but many of them are from the community. As I mentioned in our current series, one of the problems many pastors have is waking up one day and realizing you don’t have any significant relationships with people who are far from God. So this year I have been intentionally going out and building new friendships. Not only have I been having fun meeting new people and hanging out, but a few I can see as becoming close friends. Most significantly I can already see the difference I’ve been able to make in people’s lives.
- My staff- Chad, Bill and Chelsea. To be quite honest, I’m in way over my head with this whole church planting thing, but these 3 make me look a lot better than I am. I’m so grateful God has brought us together as a team and can’t wait to see how God will use us to further His Kingdom. It’s an honor to be able to lead them and I pray I do it well.
- That ExponentialChurch.tv survived it’s first year- I wish this were hyperbole but it’s not. Most church plants die within their first 3 years. We’ve got one of those under our belts but we’re not out of the woods quite yet. However, as I already mentioned we have a great staff that’s sold out to seeing God’s Kingdom advance. More importantly we have many others who serve week end and week out because they realize that life is not about them but in helping people far from God come back into a relationship with Him and then grow to become more like Him. Thanks to all for an incredible year where we’ve now seen over 120 people come into a relationship with Jesus…but remember…the best is yet to come!
- Lisa’s business/God’s blessing- In order to start ExponentialChurch.tv, we had to sacrifice a lot to move here to Harrisburg. One such sacrifice was I voluntarily took a 23% reduction in salary. This meant the possibility that Lisa might have had to get a job (which would have been a huge sacrifice on her part because of health issues). However, despite it all we continued to tithe and trust that you can’t out give God. Sure enough He began to bless her business ,which for years had pretty much always made the same amount of money. All of the sudden…through no real effort of her own, she has been swamped with work which has allowed her to stay at home!
- Chuck Frank- Chuck is a long-time friend and more recently became the Director of Church Planting for the Eastern Regional Conference of the Churches of God General Conference (catchy isn’t it). It was Chuck’s email that spurred on the vision I had for Exponential originally. Over the past year he and his team have been incredibly helpful and generous in numerous ways in helping us launch. Chuck is a great cheerleader for planting and evangelism and his support this past year has been invaluable.
- Technology- It can be both a blessing and a curse but for the most part I am very thankful for all that technology allows us to do. Especially this past year I am grateful for two tools that make my life so much easier. The first is www.audible.com. Audio books have been around along time, but now with the ability to download them to my smart phone and then play back through blue-tooth on my car stereo, life is so much easier. Literally I turn my car into a mobile classroom and can usually get through 3-4 books per month just during my normal driving time. The second tool I’m thankful for is the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In Tool. One of the audio books I listened to this past year was Getting Things Done by David Allen. His system is tremendous and when I found out there was an add-in for Outlook, it was an easy decision to spend the $70+. My life, tasks and schedule have never been more organized and de-cluttered and for that I am very thankful!