- 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 (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 (vacation edition)
- First here is Bill’s message from today. 168-Hour Energy.
- Had a great week in Williamsburg, VA on vacation.
- Kind of weird though since the city was without power for much of the week.
- Thankfully our resort had power all week long.
- Guess you see where priorities are. :)
- Saturday we drove to WV to spend the night with our friends Bill and Nicole.
- Andy and Gayle came down as well and we celebrated Andy’s birthday.
- Really it was just an excuse to eat Gayle’s mom’s cupcakes!
- Today we went to church at New Life Christian Ministries.
- I got saved at New Life, discipled there, went on staff there and eventually became a pastor there.
- They were one of the 30+ churches that supported us as we launched 10 1/2 months ago and they have a part in the now 100 salivations that have taken place. Thanks NLCM.
- It’s been 8+ years since I left staff so there are now far more people there that I don’t know than I do.
- It’s always good though to see some familiar faces.
- Especially good to see the founding and Senior Pastor of New Life, Ken Harris.
- PK next to my wife Lisa has probably been the greatest spiritual influence in my life.
- When it comes to my love for Jesus and His Word, you can look no further than him.
- Through the years our ministry styles have greatly differed but even in that, he helped influence one of our core values which is, “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”.
- It was great to be back in their new facility they moved into last year and see the growth they’re experiencing even with it being a holiday weekend.
- Pastor Ken apologized when we walked in that they were doing a retro day music wise.
- However, I liked it because it meant all songs I knew so it was nice to be able to worship without having to look at the screens.
- New Life likes to worship and after 40+ minutes of music and their extended greeting time, PK began his message on persecution.
- As always it was a good message…here are a couple of quotes I wrote down in my notes.
- “People point out the wrong in you so they feel better about the wrong in themselves”.
- “It’s hard to grow a garden but it’s easy to grow weeds”. This was said in the context of it’s easy to do the wrong thing but often hard to do the right thing.
- “One of the best ways you can witness to people is to clean up your dirty mouth”.
- After this quote, PK told a story of how he recently posted a scripture on Facebook (can’t remember which one) about watching your language. He said he put it as a witness to unbelievers but had about a dozen Christians comment saying they were guilty. This doesn’t read funny but it was when he told it. Regardless, hope people take it seriously…and as I’ve said recently myself, abbreviating it Facebook is just as wrong.
- “It’s more important to win someone to Christ than it is to win an argument with them”. That’s good preaching.
- Ok now for the funny part…or at least the part I found funny.
- PK likes to preach…I mean an hour+.
- He himself used to joke that the week after vacation was the worst because he had 2 weeks of talking to get out. :)
- In any case, his outline today was 4 points. Point 3 had 4 subpoints.
- The funny thing was I preached an entire 30+ minute message on just 2 of those sub-points just a 2 weeks ago.
- I kept thinking…”Kenny you’ve got an entire series in just today’s message…save it man, save it”. :)
- Again though our styles are really different and for that I’m grateful. As the old saying goes, “If two people are exactly alike then one of them is not necessary”.
- The really funny part was in my message I actually told a story of his about how he used to get raises at work when nobody else did. Then today he tells the same story. Weird.
- In any case, the message was really practical. New Life’s motto is, “Learning Real Christianity in a Real World”.
- Persecution is definitely a real thing and PK gave some great advice on how to deal with it from a biblical perspective.
- Afterward we stuck around and talked to as many people as we could…until finally getting kicked out.
- So I got kicked out of church today…how about you?
- Wait is that persecution for being friendly? :)
- Double wait…did I just use myself and the word friendly in the same sentence? What is this world coming to?
- Ok seriously, I can’t wait to get back to work this week.
- Next Sunday for 9-11 we’ll be doing a special look at the hope that was found in the tragedy through a film called, “The Cross and the Towers”.
- Invite as many people as you can to take part in this special event unlike anything we’ve ever done.
- I’ve created a Facebook invite for you to share on your wall.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Kicked off the new “God at the Box Office” series today.
- The day got off to a rough start when one of my contacts ripped on the way to the theater this morning.
- So I had to turn around and go back home…not a big deal but it did put me a bit behind.
- Set-up today went fairly smooth considering a new set needed to be assembled for the first time.
- Bill did an awesome job creating a film strip look that covered the entirety of the stage.
- Andy did a great job lighting it all up and creating some new effects we’ve never had before.
- I guess one of the limitations of being in a portable situation is the not being able to see if things will work until you actually get there.
- In my previous church when a series was finished, the set got torn down that Sunday afternoon and the framework of the new set was erected.
- That gave all week to work on getting it just right before Thursday night’s practice where the final bugs would be worked out in preparation for Sunday morning.
- Here there’s a lot more hoping and praying! :)
- All thing considered though the team does an awesome job with the limited amount of time we’ve got.
- Bill Hybels once said that “Excellence is doing the best you can with what you’ve got”.
- I think we’re doing that.
- Big thank to the Regal for donating popcorn for all 4 weeks of the series to us.
- Nothing like doing a movie series and being able to give away free movie popcorn!
- Attendance was way down today.
- I knew this going in because I had 12 of our adults who normally serve on a Sunday morning let me know they wouldn’t be there.
- Add in all their children and right there you’re missing 25-30 people even before you start.
- Most frustrating though was the lack of first time guests for the new series.
- We did heavy video promotion and provided everyone with a minimum of 5 invite cards.
- Hopefully it will pick up in future weeks.
- The band did a good job despite the lack of energy in the room.
- Here’s the video of their cover of “Iridescent” by Linkin Park which is the main song from the Transformers movie we talked about today.
- The video will also give you a chance to see what Bill created for the set.
- I was a bit windy today but it’s something every Christian should listen to and take seriously.
- Hoping people take the 5X5X5 challenge seriously.
- We recognized the 13 who got baptized last week with their custom made baptism certificates…everyone loved them and were telling me where they were going to put it.
- Hope the visual reminder impacts them for the rest of their lives.
- Love hanging out in the lobby afterward talking with people…we’ve got a great group of people that are building the foundation of what we’ll be for years to come.
- Got a really busy week including a conference that 8 of us from ECTV will be going to…hope we’re inspired to go to new levels for God personally and corporately.
Inside Today’s Experience (vacation edition)
- First, I know this is a day late, but I’m on vacation, give me a break!
- Second, I wasn’t at ExponentialChurch.tv on Sunday so I don’t have much to comment on other than from what I hear you had a good day.
- Missed everyone in Harrisburg…but with an off Sunday Lisa and I decided to visit our former church in Chambersburg.
- The day actually started out in WV after having spent the night at our friends, Bill and Nicole’s, house. Had a great time catching up with them.
- Still holding out hope that they will one day join Lisa, Andy, Gayle and myself here in Harrisburg.
- Any way, back to CFCOG…it was great seeing so many people and of course getting the “What are you doing here” questions.
- It’s funny how many people think that pastors never get to get away or are nervous to get away.
- First, Lisa and I make it a priority to vacation ever year and second, we have such a great staff and team that I wasn’t worried at all.
- I was actually surprised how many people got emotional seeing me there. It is nice to be missed, but I know that God has us right where He wants us and I know that things have continued well since I’ve been gone and God has even bigger things in store for CFCOG.
- Many years ago I realized that no one person is bigger than a church if it’s on mission.
- We decided to go to the early United Worship Experience (the two Experiences I led when I was there) but was disappointed that my replacement Kevin was also on vacation.
- Instead it was a recap of the VBS like activities that had happened over the previous week.
- Sounds like Kristy and her team had a tremendous week and 22 kids prayed to receive Jesus!
- I really liked this alternate way of doing VBS and if and when we’re ready to do something at ECTV, this style is something I’ll definitely recommend to Chelsea.
- As for the music and tech for the day, lots has changed.
- Some things I liked, others not so much but I’m glad they are still as passionate as ever to lead people in worship of Jesus!
- To file under Murphy’s Law, all 3 projection screens went dead for 3 of the 4 songs they did.
- However, Brian did a great job of reminding people that we didn’t come to worship technology but Jesus.
- The crowd seemed to know most of the songs because I could hear people singing…so that was cool that people still could sing along.
- I can hear an older person now going, “We never lost the lyrics in a hymnal”. :)
- The other surprise was getting to hear Chrissy Miller speak as a part of the sermon.
- For someone who doesn’t get an opportunity to do much public speaking, she did a phenomenal job…very poised and articulate.
- After a quick 15 minute break, we ended up going over to the sanctuary for the Encounter service.
- Other than music it was basically the same presentation as in United.
- Considering they were using the same people to do all 5 services, they did a great job of shuttling people back and forth and the appropriate times.
- I also got to thinking this means that Earl preached the same sermon (albeit abbreviated) 5 times in the span of about 2 1/2 hours.
- That’s hardcore…just one sermon is a taxing thing physically and emotionally but to do 5 that close together earns him an iron man award for the day.
- It was interesting as well seeing the same thing but in two different venues (multi-purpose room & sanctuary).
- Never realized how much more color “pops” in the sanctuary than it does in the MPR.
- Also, I’m going to have to get on Earl about starting to wear some make-up to cut down on the glisten when they have close-ups of him on IMAG.
- Bet that conversation is going to go over well. :) Earl + make-up= sign of the End of Times.
- The highlight of Encounter for me was seeing Karl lead worship.
- He is one of the coolest young guys you’d want to meet and has such a heart for Jesus. Add on top of that the incredible talent he has and it made for a very cool moment seeing him shine as Jesus shone through him.
- Afterward Kris and Jenny Shifler were kind enough to host a picnic for the old United team.
- It was great catching up with everyone, eating, joking, reminiscing and playing corn hole.
- After that we stopped by my sister and brother-in-laws house for yet another picnic.
- By the time we got there we were stuffed and wore out but we had a good time eating crabs, hanging out and again playing corn-hole.
- Sunday was a great way to wrap-up the first week of vacation…looking forward to 1 more week of relaxing and then it’s back to an all out assault on depopulating hell.