- Day got off to a little later of a start than normal because our signs have taken a beating this winter so we didn’t put any out today.
- Next week we’ll have them all back.
- Been amazing how many people I’ve talked to who came because of seeing our signs…who knew?
- Not that having extra time today made life easier. A bunch of went into the theater on Saturday morning to work on some projects that can’t be handled on a Sunday morning.
- A lot of this involved rewiring much of our sound equipment. The problem was the theater had a “Scrapbooking Conference” going on Saturday morning in the theater next to us so even they we were able to re-route everything we weren’t able to actually do much testing because our volume would have disrupted whatever it is that you do at a scrapbooking conference. :)
- So this morning meant going through with each of the band members and re-doing the mix in their in-ear monitors.
- Rumor has it that if you listen to Jeff’s mix, your ears will bleed.
- Considering everything that could have gone wrong today with a complete re-wiring of the system, everything went off great and without a hitch.
- Unfortunately we had 7 of our normal 43 people it takes to serve on a Sunday morning call, text or email from late Saturday through early Sunday morning with various things that were preventing them from attending and thus serving.
- I love though that because of our apprentice model and the flexibility of our team that everything continued on as if though we still had the full crew.
- We were also fortunate that 4 new people were serving today for the first time so they were a tremendous help as well…thanks Debbie, Deby, Patrick and Brooke!
- Everything else today was pretty standard. Nothing spectacular but nothing too surprising either.
- Oh the team did get a new confidence monitor which is big enough they can see the current slide, the next slide a huge clock and a message board only we can see.
- Imagine my surprise when I went up to do the opening remarks and Andy flashed up in the message section something like, “Do good sucker”.
- Some times having your best friend on the team isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. :)
- Really liked the energy the crowd had on “Rise and Sing”.
- As of even this morning I wasn’t totally comfortable with the delivery of today’s message.
- However, the Spirit came through and I felt good about it once it was done.
- You can listen to the concluding message of the ME*TRADE series, “The Biggest Lie You Tell Yourself” at this link.
- Next week we begin a new series called, “Winning”.
- In it we’ll look at how God speaks to us through pop culture.
- It’s going to be an awesome series as we teach you through practical examples of things that have been popular this month how God wants us to redeem the songs, tv shows, movies and other things in pop culture that we are continuously inundated with.
- Next week will also include a special interview that I was able to do this past week with a very famous celebrity…trust me you’re not going to want to miss it.
- Invite people to come out and be a part of all the awesome things happening here at ExponentialChurch.tv.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Don’t know if I’ll do this every week, but we’ll call this one, “The Time Change Edition”.
- This is actually the first time in the past 4 years that the time change has affected me.
- Why you ask?
- At my old church I convinced them not to observe the time change until after we were done on Sunday mornings.
- In other words, everyone got up at the normal time, came to church and then once we were done, everyone moved their clocks forward.
- It was awesome…you didn’t lose sleep and we even got a write up in the paper about it.
- The only people it affected were people who had to work around noon, but better to affect a few than affect everyone.
- Problem is this only works when you have your own building.
- At the theater we couldn’t do this because it would affect movies.
- So the morning got started earlier than normal but I felt good because I went to bed earlier last night to try to make up for it.
- Today was a big day because Andy and Gayle were away for the first time since we launched.
- For those that don’t know Andy, he’s a tech wiz and designed our system.
- This is the 3rd church now that Andy and I have been together and not only are we best friends but he gives me a high degree of comfort on Sunday mornings because I know he can handle just about anything thrown at him.
- However, we’ve assembled a great tech crew at ExponentialChurch.tv and so I wasn’t too concerned unless something completely out of the ordinary happened.
- When you’re doing portable church that’s not completely out of the question, but today we got lucky…or prayer really does work. :)
- We ran into a few minor problems but the team of Mike, Cris, and Benji were able to handle it.
- Great job guys and gal!
- All in all the entire day went very smoothly. The band did great as usual…the flow of the day went well…our volunteers are world class…I felt good about today’s message…just one problem…
- Hardly anyone was there.
- I’m talking we just barely had half the normal size crowd.
- Had a few of those tell me that unless they had gotten my email reminder they would have forgotten as well.
- My feeling is two things were at play…
- First, many people just forgot the time change…already gotten some messages to that regard.
- Second, we’re doing a pretty good job of reaching people who either have no church background or little church background.
- While they’re making good spiritual process either as now baby Christians or investigating the claims of Jesus…church attendance still isn’t high on their list and even the slightest little thing (like the time change) can get them out of rhythm.
- That’s one of the challenges of doing “church for people that don’t like church” but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
- Regardless of the small crowd, we still had 2 more people today pray to become followers of Jesus!
- My first pastor used to say that if you don’t preach the same regardless of the crowd size then you’re probably doing it for the wrong reason.
- I’ve always remembered that and so whether it’s a small crowd like today or 13000+, I always try to preach, speak and teach to individuals in the crowd so it doesn’t matter how many total are in attendance.
- That philosophy has served me well not to get discouraged by small crowds and too nervous for big ones.
- Again today was excellent…sorry so many missed it.
- Jump online to listen to the message about the “One Simple Truth” that will transform your life.
- And don’t forget we’re still in the midst of reading the Book of John together as a church. Today is John 7, tomorrow John 8 and so on.
- Then go to the Exponential Facebook Discussion page to share your thoughts via the SOAP method. Not sure what that is? It’s all explained online.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Think we’ll call this the “Water and Fire” edition.
- First the water…more specifically, the rain.
- Amazingly in the 4+ months we’ve been meeting, this is the first Sunday we’ve had rain or snow on a Sunday morning as we set-up.
- Needless to say, putting out signs was not fun…although it was better than the mornings doing it in the bitter cold.
- We had the team come in earlier than normal for set-up to try to fix some of the sound issues from the previous week.
- Andy was pretty sure he knew what it was, but it turned out not to be the case.
- Thankfully within a few minutes he thought of something else and that ended up fixing it.
- As always after set-up, the band did a warm-up, then a full run through of the mornings music.
- When we do this, we use all the video’s, transitions, lights, music, welcome remarks, etc. Basically the only thing that doesn’t get practiced in the run through is my sermon. So in a lot of ways it feels like the real thing.
- Our opener for the day was B.o.B.’s song “Airplanes”. Instead of having me rap again, we brought in a real rapper.
- After the run-through was over, everyone was wondering what happened to him…
- Turns out he was in his car on his way home…he thought the run through was the real thing and he was done.
- When he got back he said he thought it was weird that only a few people had shown up!
- In any case he did a great job when we did it for real…click this link to watch he and the band cover the song. Great job Mark!
- The theater was really hot today…guess as the weather is starting to change we’ll have to adjust…my solution today was to take off the long sleeve shirt I had on and just going with my ECTV t-shirt I had on.
- A friend of mine once said he thinks it’s weird to see a pastor wearing his own churches t-shirt during an Experience because it’s almost like watching a rock band wear their own t-shirt during a concert.
- Not sure I agree fully with him, but I think of it anytime I wear one during the Experience.
- As if though there aren’t other things to think about. :)
- The Experience itself went well.
- Great to see Pastor Pat and Beth Kelly from Caring Community Church with us today. They and their church were a big part of helping us get launched….thank you , thank you, thank you! Enjoy your vacation.
- Also had Justin and Laura Beth Meier with us today as well for what will probably be the final time for awhile.
- The entire Meier family travels the country in an RV helping churches get launched...they soon move to Nashville to help Ed Stetzer with his new plant.
- Really excited about the new series we began today called ME*TRADE.
- Today we talked about how beliefs lead to the decisions we make and how decisions impact the outcomes of our life.
- Here’s the link to today’s message called, Renewing Your Mind.
- As as reminder, everyday starting tomorrow we’ll be reading through the book of John together as a church.
- Once you read that days chapter then go to our Facebook page to share your SOAP for the day.
- Just click the discussions link on the left side of the page then click that days chapter/date.
- If you don’t know how to use SOAP for your devotions, click the message link above and you can download the insert which explains what to do.
- Briefly, SOAP stands for… Scripture Observations Application Prayer
- Ok, so I started this post by saying today was about water and fire…so what’s the fire part?
- Well after the Experience was done, I’m in the lobby talking when…the fire alarm goes off.
- It was a false alarm but the fire trucks and firemen still showed up regardless.
- Made for an exciting end to the day.
- Here’s the scary part though, along with a spiritual application.
- Most people even though the alarm was going off just continued in their normal conversations as if everything was ok. This was before we knew it was a false alarm.
- Unfortunately that’s the state of America and modern day Christianity. The alarm bells are going off but most of us just keep on keeping on.
- In other words people are lost and going to hell but either they don’t respond to Jesus offer of forgiveness or if they are already a follower of Jesus, they seem to care less that other are in the same predicament that they themselves used to be in.
- That’s why every week we encourage you to “Show and tell” your faith. Show it by getting involved with our You Matter ministry.
- Tell is by inviting someone every single week to come to church with you on Sunday.
- Here’s the link to the promo video we showed today that can help you do that.
- Ok, this has been a long post so I’ll stop…looking forward to hearing everyone’s SOAP tomorrow about John Chapter 1.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Fun day…fun series!
- Day started out a little different than normal. I drove south and picked up a young guy who wanted to help with set-up today…love his heart to serve!
- For the first time since we launched I had moment once we were at the theater were I realized I had left something at home…so I turned back around and got it.
- Love that I only live 1.7 miles away…I was home and back for the second time before most of the crew even arrived.
- Easy set-up today…love my team…they do such an awesome job.
- For various reasons we again had many of our normal people gone (think I counted 8) so it was interesting having people in roles they normally don’t fill.
- Everyone did great though!
- Please pray for our Children’s Director, Chelsea Miller who went to the ER on Thursday for pain and is still not doing well. She tried to come in but left to rest because it hit her again. Tests are supposed to come back early this week.
- Big thanks to Larry Evans for stepping up and leading today!
- Great to see many of our guests from last week return again this week.
- We also found out that many of our mailers never hit mailboxes until this past Monday so we had a second wave of new people come in which led to a pretty good attendance day.
- The Top 10 things never to say on a Valentine’s Date went over much better than I thought…might have to do some more of those sometime.
- Band as always did a great job and it was awesome to hear the crowd still singing loud when the instruments drop out in “How He Loves”.
- Today we talked about “Finding the Two“.
- Let’s just say I didn’t hold anything back…I laid out a pretty clear plan for singles based on God’s Word that in the moment doesn’t seem popular, yet I had many people (both singles and married) thank me for having the boldness to tell the truth.
- Andy and Mike were joking afterward whether our attendance will break 10 people next week since I about offended everyone. My response…”I’m an equal opportunity offender”.
- Seriously though…to me the worst thing a pastor can hear after a message is “Great message pastor”…the reason being is it means you agreed with everything I said and weren’t challenged by God’s Word.
- I know a lot of people were squirming today, but that’s because the Spirit was convicting people of sin. My prayer is that they’ll do something about it.
- Had a lot of interesting conversations afterward…most were very positive, but one lady was upset about the housekeeper joke. I thought it was funny, she didn’t…guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
- At least she had the guts though to say something to me about it…I hate when people talk behind your back…so I respect that she said something. She did say she thought the rest of the message was what people needed to hear so I don’t think my attempt at humor will keep her away.
- Next week we’ll talk about sex.
- Again as a warning…this will not be a message for elementary aged kids so make sure they are over in the kids theater.
- As for those of you with middle school aged kids…I’d rather your kids hear about sex from their pastor than kids at school, so I’d encourage you to be there and then use the message to have an honest conversation.
- Listen…they’re hearing it all any way so don’t delay or there will be a new word to describe you in a couple of years…Grandparent.
- Ok see you next week…in the meantime if you haven’t seen our new promo video, you can view it here.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Amazing that today ended up going as smoothly as it did.
- Yesterday our computer which runs lights and had everything lighting wise saved on it crashed.
- So this morning we had to start from scratch.
- Unfortunately the first computer Andy brought in didn’t work either.
- So he ran home and got another.
- May not sound like a big deal but it is. Each light then needs to be assigned to communicate with the computer through what’s called a DMX universe. Once that happens then each lighting scene needs to be written.
- Good thing my message today was on how to handle stress. :)
- With all that said, by the time the Experience started, it was hard to tell that things were any different than normal. Wasn’t elaborate but it did the trick.
- Wow it was cold this morning as Mike and I put the signs out but I’m finding the exercise both warms and wakes me up.
- I already told you our lighting dilemma…the other thing we had going against us was the amount of people away because of sickness.
- However, we have an awesome team and they still got everything set-up on time.
- You might be asking what the picture for this post is all about?
- As we began the “I Hate the Holidays” series, Bill and the band put on the most hideous looking Christmas sweaters and sweatshirts you can imagine and sang accapella “Deck the Halls”. I then interrupted and we went right into the bumper video for this series of me putting a beat down on a Christmas tree.
- If you want to hear how it all went down, you can listen to it and the message here.
- For the video click here.
- I filmed that a few years back…it was fun although I got hurt during the dive part and afterward we found out the Christmas tree we thought was a spare was actually something our Children’s Pastor needed the same night we filmed this. Needless to say a quick trip was made to Wal-Mart for a replacement. :)
- Saw quite a few tears at the end of the message…either it was that bad or people really were giving up their “Bethlehem” to God.
- Confused by that last statement…you’ll just have to listen to the message.
- We had 4 more people make professions of faith in Jesus…that never gets old!
- One nice thing about being within an hour and 40 minutes of two of the previous churches I pastored at is you never know who might show up. Today a couple from my first church, that I haven’t seen for awhile, showed up for a visit since they needed to be in the area. Cool to see them.
- Love getting to meet with people afterward and hear how excited they are about what we’re doing.
- One woman shared with me, “I gave up on organized religion years ago but someone kept inviting to check you out. I loved it and I’ll be back”.
- That’s what we mean when we say we’re a “church for people who don’t like church”.
- Whether it be people who are unchurched or dechurched we want to provide an Experience for them with God that is relevant to their lives but most of all life-changing.
- Her story also illustrates why it’s so important to keep inviting and inviting and inviting.
- So who will you invite this week?
- Remember people are more open to invites at Christmas time than any other time of the year.
- We’re doing our part to help with name recognition…here’s the 4 radio ads we began running this week.
- Next week, Chad will be preaching for the first time and will talk about how many times we have unrealistic or unfulfilled expectations during the holidays that cause us to hate them.
- Later this afternoon I’m meeting with a great friend, Fred Kress who is the National Director for Evangelism Explosion. It was through 2 guys using the EE presentation of the Gospel that I became a follower of Jesus back in 1993.
- Fred and I met in 1997 after I became a certified trainer and have tried to keep up with each other whenever we can.
- It’s been a few years so I’m looking forward to catching up face-to-face.
- Have a great week…don’t forget to show restraint, be thankful and reflect this holiday season so you can reduce stress.