- Hard to believe but today is our 1 year birthday as a church.
- What a year it’s been…to see for yourself here’s a recap music video we put together.
- The morning seemed earlier than normal since Chad and I spent the beginning of the week at a church conference out in Vegas and my body hasn’t adjusted back to Eastern Time…so 6:20am felt more like 3:20am…ughhh.
- The adrenaline though of a big day helped to make it better.
- Set-up went well but we had a few things happen that made for a longer than normal pre-Experience time.
- First the band had to practice an additional 4 songs that they were doing for their mini-concert and I had to create 30+ slides quickly for the comedy bit Bill was doing during the welcome time.
- We had tried it during the warm-up without slides but it fell a bit flat…but during the Experience it went well with the addition of the slides…and oh yeah the noise makers certainly helped!
- Today we had balloons and a huge birthday cake (pictured in this post) in the lobby in addition to party music.
- It was really a great atmosphere and something we’ll need to replicate in some way each week.
- One problem we’ve had is getting people from the lobby/cafe area into the Experience on time. This week at the conference I heard an idea and came home and made it happen.
- Essentially I wrote a song that encourages people to get out of the lobby and into the Experience.
- Big thanks to Matt Cassidy for helping me put the music to it and for recording it.
- Best thing is I’m told it actually worked.
- Lisa said at first people were laughing but then realized, “Oh I actually need to get moving” and they did!
- While the lobby was buzzing with energy the band was doing their mini-concert which was really cool.
- We then launched into the Experience with a cover of “Lies of the Beautiful People”.
- It was perhaps the best cover they’ve done…not an easy song yet they killed it!
- Bill followed with his 1 Year Birthday Quiz which went over well…again especially with people blowing noisemakers.
- The band then did a few of their and the crowds favorite worship songs from our first year.
- As always they did a great job…special shout-out to Gayle for coming in and playing/singing despite the fact she’s been really ill all week long.
- As I got up to speak it was great to look out to a big crowd…in fact we had our largest crowd ever!
- I knew I was in trouble though because we were already 10 minutes behind by the time I started speaking…but it all worked out.
- Today we started a new series called, “Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them”. Today’s first message was about how all of us should come with an “As Is” tag. You can listen to it here.
- The balloons from the lobby were brought in and placed on either side of the stage…113 in all…1 for every person that made a decision to become a follower of Jesus in our first year.
- One of them though got loose and went all the way to the ceiling of the theater…so when I referred to it during the Experience I said about the 112 here and the 1 up there.
- I didn’t think about it in the moment but afterwards the step-mom of JT Fox said it made perfect sense to her. Why? Because shortly after becoming a follower of Jesus at Exponential, JT passed away. Wow…only God!
- After the Experience everyone enjoyed the cupcakes provided by Cindy’s Sweets and Treats. Thanks Cindy…awesome as always!
- Afterwards it as great to talk with everyone…especially those who came in from out-of-town (some hours away) just to be with us on this special day.
- Thanks to all our leaders and apprentice leaders who serve so hard and well each week…it’s been a pleasure serving with you this past year…the best is yet to come!
- Next week we’ll continue the series by looking at Jesus plan for people to escape loneliness.
- Also as I mentioned, the greatest struggle we have right now is financially.
- If you believe in the vision of what we’re doing then please support us.
- If you attend Exponential that means a tithe…for others whatever you can give is certainly appreciated.
- In year 2 we want to live up to the Exponential name and see God do exponentially more than what we saw in year 1…thanks in advance for supporting us in that.
Inside Today’s Experience (Monday edition)
- Doing this a day later than normal.
- Not a whole lot to report from yesterday.
- Nothing too good or too bad happened.
- Which to me is a negative thing because I never want to get comfortable with a Sunday just being “average” and “we did our thing”.
- That’s where the negative side of religion can begin to creep in…doing the same things over and over without thought as to why.
- Now don’t get me wrong…we had some incredible things happen yesterday…3 more people prayed and asked for Jesus for His forgiveness and leadership in their lives!
- That alone makes for a great day!
- The only thing out of the ordinary was I did some filming in preparation for our 1 year birthday party coming up during the October 16th Experience.
- Don’t forget to mark your calendars for that. It’s going to be an incredible morning looking back at our 1st year and kicking off the “Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them” series.
- Oh wait there was one other out of the ordinary thing yesterday…the Cafe was serving soft pretzels…they looked really good.
- Had a decent sized crowd but nothing like the previous weekend…energy levels were way down as well…going to blame the weather…ughhh I hate cold weather.
- For those that might have missed it, I continued the Unveil series by sharing how we shouldn’t read God’s Word looking just for promises but rather for principles.
- You can listen to it here…many shared with me afterward that they enjoyed my opening story that further illustrates how much of an idiot I can sometimes be.
- Oh yeah…one last thing that happened…my best friends Andy and Gayle bought me a gift and gave it to me yesterday that I absolutely HATE.
- Yep you read that right…and they knew I’d hate it before they even gave it to me.
- They could have given me a satanic cat, wearing a Steelers jersey that sings country music and I’d have liked it better.
- And you know what…
- …I still love them both anyway.
- It’s great having friends that can joke with one another, know how to push each others buttons in a loving way and most of all will follow you to Harrisburg, PA to plant a church if you ask them.
- Thanks Krull family for your sacrifice…happy 1 year anniversary in Harrisburg….now I must go plot my revenge. :)
Inside Today’s Experience
- The ups and downs of being a church planter continued today…
- Unlike last week, today was an up.
- We had our 3rd highest attended day ever!
- More importantly yet another person came into a relationship with Jesus!
- The day started out not so good though when I realized I had left my bible at home.
- Luckily Lisa had not yet left the house so she was able to bring it.
- Although we only live 3 minutes away so it really wasn’t that big of a deal.
- It was foggy and chilly this morning as Mike and I put signs out. I told him it reminds me of last year the first couple of times we did it.
- Hard to believe we’re coming up on our 1 year anniversary.
- Speaking of…we’ll be celebrating it on October 16th and we’re asking everyone who has ever come (even if it was just once) to be with us that day.
- Also for those of you who have been meaning to come this would be a great day to come as well.
- We have some special things planned and expect it will be a great day.
- Ok back to today…set-up went extremely smooth although it was really warm because the theater wasn’t sure whether or not to turn on the AC.
- Glad they did because I was drenched by the time set-up and practice was done.
- I think because of the big crowd, the band had their best day yet.
- The energy was incredible and the band and the crowd seemed to feed off of each other.
- It was great seeing so many people engaged in worship and hearing them singing loud during some songs that have “crowd” parts.
- I continued with the Unveil series by talking about what you need to do when you need to know God’s will quickly or when your facing a deadline.
- You can listen to it here.
- I didn’t feel like it was one of my better messages, yet many have already told me they really liked it so I guess that’s a good thing.
- Loved meeting so many new people today out in the lobby.
- Especially great to see a number of people that we’ve helped through www.HarrisburgFloodRelief.com.
- So today was a good day…from the bad end however…
- I shared briefly that one of the greatest challenges for a church plant is financially.
- To be honest we’re not doing well right now.
- So two things…
- First please pray.
- Second, if you’re feeling lead, please continue or perhaps for the first time consider supporting us financially.
- In 11 1/2 months we’ve had 108 people come into a relationship with Jesus and we’ve been able to help so many people in all kinds of ways in the community both from a practical and spiritual level.
- What I’m saying is your financial support WILL make an eternal difference…but we can’t do it without you.
- Thanks in advance…and thanks for your continued prayers through both the ups and downs of getting a new church off the ground.
- Next week we’ll continue the Unveil series by looking at how to discover principles in God’s Word that will help us determine what God’s will is for us…hoping we can keep the momentum going!
Inside Today’s Experience (Thursday edition)
- Wanted to wait this week to post this until I was done speaking Sunday – Wednesday nights at the Greenvillage Church of God.
- I’ll start though with our Sunday morning at ExponentialChurch.tv.
- The morning went pretty smoothly however I was probably as discouraged afterwards as I have at any point in our almost 1 year of existence.
- We did a big mailer for our new series on how to discover God’s will for your life, plus I figured everyone would be done with vacations, etc.
- Guess not…we had 12 alone from our serving team gone and by the time the day was done we had even less people than we had the weekend before.
- It’s frustrating putting all the time, energy and resources into something and then not seeing the results you had hoped for.
- Oh well, God knows what He’s doing and our job is to continue to be faithful and plant seeds and He’ll bring the results.
- Speaking of…we had 2 more people pray to ask Jesus for His forgiveness and leadership on Sunday!
- Amazing how that puts everything into perspective.
- That makes 107 salvation’s now in 11 months!
- Even though I don’t understand it all and get frustrated, God continues to do amazing things so my I’m just trying not to hinder His work.
- Speaking of good work, it was great to have Greg Hench and George Jensen with us on Sunday.
- They are both pastors in our denomination doing a great job.
- The band as always did an amazing job on Sunday and it was cool having my niece Taylor help out in the tech area.
- She was so nervous that she was going to mess up but she, Mike and Cris did a great job in Andy’s absence.
- For those of you who might have missed the message, you can listen to it hear.
- As I mentioned earlier Sunday-Wednesday night I spoke at Greenvillage on relationships.
- It was a great 4 nights getting to know people and share God’s Word about marriage, dating, relationships and sex.
- I essentially used a lot of the content from the ONE series I did in February here at Exponential if you’re interested in hearing what I shared.
- The only exception was last night I did a message on communication instead of doing the Q&A like I did at ECTV.
- For those of you who were there, you can probably figure out why.
- I was surprised they wanted me to do the content for the 1st 3 nights much less what gets discussed in the Q&A.
- Monday night I left the house at 5:10pm for the 45-50 minute drive. This would still put me there with an hour to spare.
- By 6pm I had gone all of 11 miles. I knew right then and there I was in big trouble.
- Turns out they had closed I-81 because of a bad accident.
- I contacted the church and told them I’d get there ASAP.
- It was 7:35pm until I arrived but they were very gracious.
- In now 22 years of doing various types of public speaking, this is the first time I’ve ever been late.
- The only thing I kept thinking though was…”At least now I can use a joke I’ve always wanted to use in a situation like this”.
- I’m not sharing what it was in case you are ever at a place I’m late for, but let’s just say it got a roaring laugh!
- It was great seeing the crowd get younger and younger each night…young people definitely need to hear what I shared.
- Last night I guy shared a funny story with me that you’ll will get if you’ve ever heard me talk about sex (which I did on Tuesday night). He said he went home and started folding laundry. His wife looked at him funny and said, “What are you doing”? His response, “Starting the crock pot”! :)
- All in all it was a great 4 nights and many said how much they enjoyed it so hopefully I’ll be invited back someday.
- I also challenged them to be more evangelistic as a church so pray that those seeds I planted take root as well.
- Pray for their church as they are between pastors right now and seeking who and what God has for them next.
- I’m pretty exhausted but yet excited at the same time for what God has in store for us at ECTV this week as we continue the Unveil series.
- See you then…don’t forget to invite a friend.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Another great day!
- 5 more people became followers of Jesus!
- It was an odd day because we showed the film “The Cross and the Towers” which at 52 minutes took most of our normally allotted 1 hour, 10 minute Experience.
- Back though to the beginning of the day.
- Since it’s been a few weeks since I’ve been at ExponentialChurch.tv, I set my alarm for an hour later than I should have.
- Luckily I got up to go to the bathroom at about the time I should have gotten up and realized my mistake so everything was as it should have been.
- One of my friends laughs at me because I get up in the night to use the bathroom. He says it means I’m old. Well I guess today getting old paid off!
- We set-up quickly and easily today which is always good.
- Had a nice size crowd as we officially began our fall schedule and vacations start to wane.
- Really good energy from the crowd today even though we only did two quick songs.
- After I set-up the film, I headed up to the nursery/toddler area so my niece (who was serving in that area today) could go in and see the film.
- She lasted about 20 minutes before coming back in saying, “I’m crying too much that’s really sad”.
- She missed though the hope that came at the end of the film.
- After wrestling for awhile with what to do today for the anniversary of 9-11, I’m so glad I chose to go with the film instead of trying to preach it myself.
- Nothing I could have said would have said it any better than the testimonies of the 7 families in the film.
- A few people have asked if we’ll be posting it online.
- Unfortunately no. I bought the rights to show it this morning but not to rebroadcast it any other way.
- It was weird then getting called back in after having spent an hour with babies and then all of the sudden have to go up and talk about what people had just seen.
- Usually I can tailor the Gospel around what I just preached on and have a pretty good idea of the mood of the room.
- In this case I didn’t have that advantage.
- To make things worse, I was having mic issues which were creating feedback.
- I definitely felt out of synch, but that 5 people responded to the Gospel just goes to show how much God is in control of the process and not us. Our job is to be faithful to share and His job is to bring the harvest.
- Afterward we had a quick lunch with friends and then I meet 3 other guys from ECTV to do another house clean-up.
- If you haven’t yet visited our new web-site, www.HarrisburgFloodRelief.com please do.
- I thought yesterday’s house was bad but this was 10 times worse.
- It was amazing to look 3/4 up fully grown trees and see them caked with mud.
- This particular 2 story house was completely submerged.
- Our community is experiencing our own 9-11, I pray that you’ll do your part to help.
- Even if you don’t live in this area, please still visit our web-site because there are ways that you, your church or organization can help.
- For those in the area, Monday at 12pm we’ll be sending a team back to this same house to do more work.
- If you’re interested helping, please indicate so on the web-site or contact Chad directly through e-mail.
- Thanks for being the church…this 10 year anniversary of 9-11 is one I will never forget.