- Just now getting home after a full day of church and family activities.
- Amazed by today’s Experiences…so awesome.
- Won’t have the final count until tomorrow but we know of at least 12 people who made decisions to follow Jesus today!
- Makes all the hard work and spiritual warfare I mentioned earlier this week worth it!
- Big props to the entire team for working nearly around the clock to make all the elements today so successful.
- Special thanks to Brian and Thom for the two huge 20 foot truss crosses.
- Leave it to United…if we’re going to have crosses they will be big and they will have all kinds of cool things they do.
- Basically loved everything about today…
- Brian had an idea to do a live countdown with video and light show and it definitely had the crowd pumped more so than the normal countdowns.
- Thought the roof was going to blow off the place during the first two songs at the 9:45 Experience. Man you guys were loud and rowdy…just the way we like it. :)
- Good laugh playing the Here Comes Peter Cottontail song during the fill out connection card time…hilarious.
- Loved the Desperate People song…it started the whole tear down the walls theme if you were listening to the lyrics carefully.
- The Slam Poet definitely kicked things into another gear. Jesse Fisher is the guy who did it and he is amazing. I included it on the beginning of the message recording if you’re interested in hearing him do his thing.
- About 6 weeks ago as the guys pitched me the idea of doing a series called Absolution, all I could think of was someone going into a confessional booth and the wall that separates them. This led to me having the idea to make Easter all about walls.
- A few weeks back as I was ready to write the message, the idea then came to put a wall on stage that I could put graffiti on represent my sin. Then last week I had the idea to tear down the wall and then Thursday night as we were practicing it, God spoke to me that we needed a cross to be the only thing left standing.
- Brian had the idea to do the song Tear Down the Walls a few weeks back and the rest as they say is history…from what I’ve heard it was one of the most memorable and touching moments we’ve ever created.
- I know it was for me. Seeing my sins written on that wall and then getting to tear it down was very emotional. At the first Experience I couldn’t help but break down and cry. At the 2nd Experience I got more physical with the wall and took out my frustration on the wall like it was Satan himself.
- Long story short…between both Experiences, kicking, punching and tearing down a wall, has left me hands and arms scraped and cut up.
- But I don’t regret a moment up it…in the moment I didn’t feel a thing.
- As I reflected on that this afternoon, it made me think of Jesus. It was because of His great love for us that He endured the pain of the cross.
- Certainly a few cuts on my arms pale in comparison to what He endured so I’m not going to complain.
- Ok funny story. Thursday night we did a full walk through of Sunday morning like we normally do. When it came time to tear down the wall, Andrea said, “This isn’t going to be dangerous is it”? I assured her no, but then as I began to destroy it, the prototype that had been built completely feel apart, framework and all. It went toppling towards Andrea…she dodged out of the way…and it barely missed crashing into the keyboard. The guys then set out to build the mother of all walls…which they did…that frame today wasn’t going anywhere!
- Also funny is that in the first Experience as I was tearing the wall apart, I wasn’t thinking about how forceful I throwing pieces of drywall. Imagine my surprise when I turn around and there are pieces lying at the feet of people in the front rows. Oops.
- So much to say about today and so many people to thank…what an incredible day.
- Overall we had 1211 people in attendance today at all services and Experiences…so awesome to see everyone invite like crazy to make sure as many people as possible could hear the good news about Jesus.
- Hopefully later this week I can post some other stuff about today, but for now I’m whupped and ready for some sleep. Thanks again for celebrating Easter with us…have a great week!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Honestly I wasn’t all that excited about today until I actually got in.
- As a part of the transition, I’m coming in a little later than normal which is nice…I like…no I love sleep!
- Brian and the team are doing a great job…I’m leaving you in great hands.
- Nice size crowd at the early Experience…2nd one is still down in size, although there was great energy at the 2nd today. Loved it.
- Have really enjoyed the music the last two weeks…nice selection of some older and newer stuff, along with faster and slower.
- Loved Andrea on the new song…great job!
- Had quite a few out of town guests with us today that are friends of mine.
- Had another big group from Harrisburg down checking us out and eagerly awaiting our arrival this fall.
- Had another church planter in attendance who I met in San Diego last month. He’ll be planting in Reading this fall. Great to reconnect and meet some of his friends he brought along. Including a young man from Indonesia who is in the US for a year. He couldn’t stop smiling he was so excited about everything!
- Had a couple attending who used to attend the church I pastored at in Maryland. Love them…we were in a small group together for about 2 years and they are a great couple.
- Today’s message came out alright I guess. Always amazes me that in the moment God always takes stuff and makes it better. Wasn’t really liking it until after I gave it in the first Experience.
- When I was sharing stuff with the creative team a few months ago about this series, they said I always got excited whenever I said Littlefaithers so that why we called the series that. To hear what that name means, you’ll have to listen to today’s message.
- I am looking forward to next week…will be sharing a cool story from the bible about a man who allowed worry to overcome him until God knocked some sense into him.
- Gave some tours of the building today and then took some of the Harrisburg crew out to Moe’s. Mmmmm…good.
- Time for a nap as soon as the MD game is over and then back to church tonight for the informational meeting.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- First I love that we don’t change clocks until after the Experiences.
- So nice to get a regular nights sleep.
- Except that I woke up early anyway.
- Because of some unexpected events this past week we weren’t able to do a normal run through on Thursday night so I was bit nervous that everything would be working/look right today.
- Luckily since I’m preaching a series on worry right now, it wasn’t as worried as I might have normally been. :)
- Loved all the music today…good blend of high energy stuff and passionate worship.
- Andrea and Gayle also did awesome with Scars by Allison Iraheta.
- Heard her perform it on Idol the other week and knew it would fit well.
- Love the new stage set that Brian came up with.
- Looks completely different than anything we’ve done before.
- Crowds were sparse today…hope the rain didn’t keep people away.
- Had a lot of fun sharing today’s message.
- As I said, The bible is not hard to understand”.
- Just keep reminding yourself that since God loves me more than a bird, I don’t have to worry.
- Fun singing “Don’t Worry Be Happy” with everyone.
- Forgot how bad I really sing, until I listened back to it on the recording.
- We had a breaker keep blowing during the 2nd Experience putting half the stage in the dark.
- ARRGGGGG!!!!
- Hate that stuff.
- Had a group of 6 people from Harrisburg visiting today to get a feel for what’s to come this fall when we move there.
- I have mixed emotions…sad to be leaving but excited as well to be meeting with people who will be a part of the next phase of our lives.
- If you haven’t seen it yet, we started a Facebook page for the new church which I’d love for you to join.
- Wow I’m tired…time for a nap.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- I am loving this series!
- So many awesome stories already from people on how they are seeing changes in their marriages and relationships!
- After having been in San Diego all week, getting to church a little after 8am seemed like 5…ughhh I hate mornings enough as it is.
- The building was drawing a lot of power during the morning run-through and the light fixtures were pulsating. I re-set the breakers and everything seemed fine.
- As we started the 2nd Experience though, we had no lights on the singers at all and I thought for sure that the breakers had tripped.
- I sprinted as hard as I could all around the perimeter of the gym, through the backstage area, climbed the ladder, sprinted to the breakers and…nothing. Everything looked fine.
- I repeated the sprint but now in reverse, got back to rear of United and…everything was working.
- Tim said, “Oops my bad I fixed it right after you left”.
- Oh well at least I got some good exercise. :)
- Other than that and some sound issues, we had a pretty routine day.
- It was great to have Cressa lead the worship team today.
- She did a great job!
- It’s amazing how many talented people we have on the worship team and to realize that every one of them have done music professionally in one way or another over the years.
- So awesome to see them use their talents for God instead of just to make a dollar.
- For anyone interested, here is the Wikipedia page for Howard Thurston that I mentioned during the message.
- Andrea did a great job of transporting both the Thurston books off-stage for me. :)
- As I mentioned today…there are so many people who need to hear what we’re talking about in this series. Why not send them over to our site (www.UnitedWorshipExperience.org) to hear what’s happened so far and then invite them to come back with you next week.
- Time for a nap and then off to meet with some of our small group peeps for dinner.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- That was weird.
- I was just telling someone yesterday that we do a good job of covering everything that we know to do, but occasionally the unexpected happens.
- Today the unexpected happened multiple times.
- It started this morning with breakers blowing in the gym.
- Guessing as cold as it we were using extra juice.
- Speaking of cold, I was making the long walk in from the furthest parts of the parking lot this morning and my hand froze to my water bottle…wish I was kidding.
- More to come on the water bottle later.
- At the end of the 1st Experience the band was singing and then all the sudden you could hear Brian singing another song…What?!
- Our sound board has a USB port to plug a thumb drive into. We record everything directly to it, but it filled up and apparently the default is to automatically start playing the files on it.
- So you we hearing not only Brian live but also from a few weeks back.
- Memo to self: Check the space on the thumb drive each week.
- The next weird thing happened after I came off the stage from doing the announcements in the 2nd Experience.
- I grabbed my water bottle from backstage and was walking down the hallway so I could watch the rest of the music from the back of the gym before then heading back to the stage to preach the message.
- As I was walking I took a big swig and swallow of water….one problem…it wasn’t my water bottle…in fact it wasn’t anybody’s water bottle from today.
- Very rancid water that burned all the way down.
- Immediately my throat was burning which made it hard to preach then…also as the sermon kept going on I felt my stomach getting more and more upset.
- Needless to say I’ve spent some quality time this afternoon catching up on some reading. :)
- Oh but we’re not done…one more weird thing happened.
- After the bumper video in the 2nd Experience I walked out on stage and…nothing…no lights…waiting…waiting….I think it was probably no more than 20 seconds but it seemed like forever.
- Our light operator accidentally hit a quick launch key that starts a DVD player on the laptop.
- Apparently it’s not so quick and froze our lighting program until it opened.
- In the words of the great theologian Bart Simpson….”Aye Carumba”.
- Some weeks I don’t have much to report from behind the scenes…today…too much.
- Other than those blips though, I was happy with both of the Experiences.
- I think the chairs on stage were a cool visual.
- Brian brought in a lawn chair from home that was hilarious…it was about 2 inches off the ground.
- I asked him if was custom built for Vern Troyer.
- Andrea kept saying she was going to sit on one for the whole Experience and I’d never know, but she chickened out.
- Looking forward to next week…get to do the same message again 3 more times in the sanctuary.
- Have a great week and don’t forget to invite someone to come with you!