Community Christian Church

Today we stopped by Wheaton College one of the premiere Christian colleges in the nation.  We got there after Saturday visiting hours but we drove around their beautiful campus. We followed that up by watching the new Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz movie Knight and Day.  It was much better than the last time they teamed up together in a movie, but probably worth waiting until it gets released on DVD.

The highlight of the day was attending the 4PM service at the YellowBox campus of Community Christian Church.  I got to know their senior pastor Dave Ferguson (author The Big Idea & Exponential) a bit through the years and was hoping to meet up again but his schedule wouldn’t permit it.  Some of the things they do and have done are similar to parts of the vision that God has given me for ExponentialChurch.tv.  We did get to meet their campus pastor briefly before the service and he seemed like a great guy.  We we’re going to try to catch up with him at the end of their 2nd service of the night but since we had another 2 1/2 hour drive yet tonight we didn’t want to wait any longer.

CCC currently has 11 locations and we were at one of the originals.  Even though they are multi-site, most of the the time their campus pastors preach live a message that the entire team has co-written together.  Tonight they were wrapping up a series on being transformed and so it was a combination of Dave Ferguson via pre-recorded message and then the campus pastor Shawn finishing up live.  The band did a great job covering some really familiar songs and even a couple of hymns.  Lisa and I both commented that both male singers were two of the best we’ve ever heard.

One interesting thing is the people of CCC take communion every week.  I did notice that a lot of people seemed to be taking it  sort of non-nonchalantly.  I think there is a fine line between not taking it so often that it just becomes something we do and then taking it often enough that it is honored in the way Jesus wants it.  Not saying they’re doing anything wrong…just my observations.

The picture  is of people coming on stage at the end of the message showing how they’ve been transformed.  They would hold the poster board one way showing how they used to be and then flip it showing the difference Jesus has made in their lives.  My favorite was the couple who walked on with the sign saying, “28 years in a destructive marriage”.  They then flipped it and it read, “1st anniversary of marriage in Christ”.  I’ve seen this kind of thing done before and it never fails to have an impact on me…not sure why I haven’t stolen the idea yet.

All in all it was a good service and the building was easy to find and easy to navigate.  On the way out I picked up a copy of the Exponential book for obvious reasons.  Hopefully I can read it soon and pass along my thoughts.