- Interesting day.
- Had all kinds of little problems getting ready for today.
- I hate the little fixable ones more than when the big unexpected ones hit.
- In the midst of all that I grabbed the wrong mic pack for me.
- Imagine my surprise when I wasn’t getting sound.
- Even more imagine my surprise when I feel Chris lifting up my shirt to check the pack in the midst of trying to speak.
- Once we got that all worked out, the rest of the first Experience and all of the second went really well.
- Fun having Aaron with us today!
- Andrea absolutely crushed it with the new song, “It’s Your Love”…awesome!
- I haven’t been feeling good all week, so the message today drained me big time.
- Especially since I was dropping the hammer hard.
- Again let me reiterate a few points:
- You don’t own anything, it all belongs to God.
- God wants you to prove to Him that you believe that by giving back 10% of your income to Him in what is called a tithe.
- If you don’t tithe, God says your stealing, robbing and embezzling money from Him.
- He says in fact that there is a curse on your money.
- So 90% of your income with God’s blessing on it is greater than 100% of your income with God’s curse on it.
- If you don’t tithe it’s not that you can’t afford it, but rather you choose to be disobedient to God. (listen to this section of the message for some thought provoking challenges).
- Last but not least…
- God doesn’t need your money…He owns it all anyway.
- We don’t need your money…giving has been up the last few years…we’re seeing a surplus each month…we’ve added staff in the midst of a terrible economic downturn in our country…
- This is all about vision…we want to reach as many people for Jesus as possible and that takes money…the more we have the more we’ll be able to reach.
- So Jesus said, “Where your money is at is where your heart (passion, attention) will be as well.
- So take the 90 day tithe challenge.
- This is the only thing in all of scripture that God said you can test Him in.
- He said to tithe and see if He doesn’t throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing on you that you don’t have enough room to contain it all.
- Sorry to re-preach this, but I’m sick and tired of seeing Christians devote their time and money to things that just don’t matter.
- Alright time for a nap…not feeling good at all…please pray.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Had a lot of fun today.
- Any time I get to share vision, I’m especially amped up.
- Things ran really smoothly today which is always a nice thing.
- The 9:45 crowd was rocking…love when I can hear you guys singing your hearts out.
- All the team did an exceptional job…great job guys and gals.
- Wow for the second week in a row, Gayle made me cry.
- We are so blessed to have some world class female singers in the church.
- I love how God takes the words I’ve been preparing with His help for weeks and then transforms them into something completely different on Sunday’s.
- I felt really good about both messages but they came out so different.
- Wasn’t sure which one to post, but finally went with the 9:45.
- My prayer is that this message will sink in and all of us, would see the lost and hurting in our community as our problem.
- For this week’s Reality Check video with Satan, click here.
- I’m taking the creative team away this afternoon through tomorrow so we can pray and brainstorm what the 2010 series schedule will look like…keep us in prayer.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Weird day only having one Experience.
- Weird things happened as well.
- We found a mouse nest in the tech room.
- And we had some lights doing some crazy things during the Experience.
- Hope the mice aren’t chewing the wires making that happen.
- In any case no one probably knew about the lighting problems because they were actually creating a neat effect.
- It’s hard not to sound biased since Gayle is one of my best friends, but her singing today was awesome.
- Love the new song “Revelation Song” which she led…wow…I couldn’t help but to just fall to my knees backstage and worship!
- As always we had a lot of fun shooting the videos fro this series.
- Brian does an incredible job as Satan and thanks to Scott McCurley for playing the role of Reality.
- To watch me get “Reality Checked”, you can watch the video here.
- Wasn’t really sure I was pleased with today’s message going into it, but I was pleased with what came out.
- Think it gave everyone a lot to think about.
- God is good in that way…in my weakness, He is strong.
- After United, it was a quick turnover to reset the room and get everyone ready for the capital campaign kick-off service in the sanctuary.
- Great job by Juanita Kauffman and her team in organizing everything.
- In my 3 years of being at the church, that’s probably the best combined service we’ve ever had.
- It’s so hard combining so many styles and have everyone be pleased with it, but I think today’s service was very respectful to everyone and was actually quite good.
- I was told my job was to get the crowd fired up…think it worked. :)
- The meal with everyone was also really cool…who knew we could put 550+ people in the gym and feed them all.
- Got to meet a lot of people during the meal, including a former classmate of mine.
- That now makes 3 other people from my graduating class that attend United.
- What’s amazing about that is we grew up 45 minutes away.
- All in all, a good day!
- Time for a quick nap then off to friend’s house for dinner.
Ministry Is Messy
This week I was reminded that ministry is and should be messy. In just the last few months I’ve met with people that are addicted to drugs and alcohol, with women involved as prostitutes and strippers, with people contemplating suicide and abortions, with couples involved in affairs and considering divorce. Then on top of that are the normal relational and financial dificulties that many are going through.
I relish the opportunity to speak with these people because what they really need is a relationship with Jesus. They come in looking for quick fixes, but often leave with something far deeper and more powerful…forgiveness of their sins and the Holy Spirit living in them wanting to change them on a daily basis into the image and likeness of Christ. Unfortunately, many times these people though want to continue figuring things out for themselves…they’re not yet ready to surrender to Jesus and I/we still need to love them and help them in the midst of their mess.
Honestly, sometimes that can be draining. Sometimes it’s tempting to want to quit and give up. Ever felt that way? What I remind myself of though is this…when ministry isn’t messy, you’re not really doing anything for God. Jesus has called the church not to be a sanctuary for the saints, but rather a hospital for sinners. If on Sunday’s everybody’s got it all together, that’s not a sign of a spiritually mature church, it’s the sign of an immature church because they’ve gotten off mission.
So pray with me that every week we’d smell smoke and alcohol on people, that people still coming off a high from Saturday night would stumble through the halls, that couple’s barely speaking to one another would sit in our chairs, and that others in the midst of destructive sin would show up. Remember, we can’t expect non-Christians to act like Christians until they become one. So one of our core values is, “No Perfect People Allowed”. So let’s accept them without neccisarily approving of their actions…let’s show them the love of Christ and then let’s pray that they will accept his offer of forgivenss and new life!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Another fun day!
- Any day where people are giving their lives to Christ though is a good day in my book!
- Both crowds today we’re really energetic…especially the 11:15 crowd.
- I loved the band’s version of the song, “Second Chance”.
- We had Andrea hold out the one note twice as long as it is in the original and in both Experiences I got goose bumps…she and they did awesome!
- It’s been great to add some new band members recently…today we added Steve on drums and Andrew on guitar.
- That’s in addition to recent additions of Brett, Dan and Cressa.
- All the new people are doing great and adding nice depth to the team.
- Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Brian, Adam, Andrea, Alex and Gayle for their years of hard work on the team.
- I really enjoyed this series…I always get as much out of them preaching as you probably do listening to them.
- Remember, “The clearer the vision, the fewer the options, the easier the decision”
- Also don’t forget, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down”.
- Next week we’ll only have the 9:45 Experience so make sure you’re there early to get a good seat and don’t forget to invite someone as we launch a new series called “Reality Check”.