- Mixed emotions about today.
- It was a fun and impactful weekend, but with the holiday, attendance was way down.
- Pretty hard to get pumped up, especially during the second Experience.
- However, still got to keep the perspective of even on our “off” weeks, God is still doing something amazing amongst us so we an never take that for granted.
- After being away last week, it was nice to be back preaching again.
- I’m so excited about what God is going to do in people’s lives…can’t wait for next week!
- Love the stage set Brian designed for the series…very clever!
- I just realized that for the first time in weeks, I didn’t have to wear a costume to church!
- While REWIND was fun, glad to be back to “normal”.
- Although I have been having some difficulty with my mic (thanks Brian :) and Andy between Experiences decided to tape it to my head…I’m sure pictures of that will show up eventually online.
- I bit the inside of my lip pretty hard between Experiences as well…ouch that hurt.
- I liked the new song the team introduced today…and the way they introduced it, with Brian teaching you guys what to do.
- We came up with the idea this morning during warm-ups. Wish you could have seen that. Brian and Gayle were like Abbott and Costello doing “Who’s on First”…hilarious.
- The special music song “Unveil” was weird…at the end of it at the first Experience the crowd roared…at the second they sat there in complete silence.
- In any case, it’s a great theme song for the series and we’ll give you chances to sing along in future weeks.
- I felt good about the message…think if we’ll all apply the tips I’ll be sharing, we’ll all hear clearly from God about what His will for our lives is.
- Can you tell I’m writing this after a long nap…I’m all over the place.
- Time to go…dinner with friends!
3 year anniversary!
3 years ago today I began a 4 month consulting agreement with the Chambersburg First Church of God. Part of that time was also to determine whether CFCOG was where God was calling Lisa and I to next on a more permanent basis. Now here we are 3 years later and the answer was obviously yes!
And what a 3 years it has been. The church has tripled in size…United which I was asked to lead has exploded with growth…hundreds of people have come to Christ…stories of life change are everywhere. It hasn’t all been fun and games though…I’ve experienced some really down times…but through it all God has been faithful and I’m a better follower of Christ and pastor as a result.
So happy anniversary…can’t wait to see what the next 3 years and beyond hold!
Inside Today’s Experiences (Vacation Edition)
- Gotten a couple of reports and it sounds like you guys had a decent day.
- Lisa and I visited Lancaster County Bible Church’s Harrisburg campus.
- Got to catch up with their campus pastor, Mike Albon.
I got to know Mike when I worked for Purpose Driven. He is a great guy and doing
an awesome job leading the Harrisburg site.
- Mapquest sent us to the wrong place to start with but once we were there, their worship time was very similar to ours.
- Their worship leader was incredible…one of the best male voices I’ve ever heard.
- Since they are a satellite campus, the teaching time is done via video.
- To help make it seem like the speaker is actually there, a huge screen comes down and projects the speaker at life size.
- This picture hopefully explains it better…
- Interestingly enough, I still ended up watching the side screens with the tighter shot of the speaker most of the time.
- Hoping we can add live video on our side screens soon.
- In any case, LCBC Harrisburg had great music, a great convicting message and other creative elements that made the service…an Experience!
- Afterward Lisa and I went to City Island and walked around for awhile before eventually heading to Red Robin.
- Vacation was a blast, but I can’t wait to be back next weekend as we start the Unveil series.
- If you or someone you know is trying to figure out God’s will, this will be the series for you.
- Even if you have no big decisions to make right now, I will be sharing the process you need to go through any time you need to make decisions, so this series is for everyone!
- So with that said…Invite, Invite, Invite…and then go out and invite some more!
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Another great day!
- What a lot of fun this series has been and today was no exception.
- From a behind the scenes perspective, we couldn’t have asked for a smoother day.
- I really love the new song the team did today called, “Arms Open Wide”…a good mix of slow worshipful reflection and driving rock.
- Brian is doing an awesome job with the stage sets and this particular one has made his lighting go to another level.
- So cool to have Dustin Swartz as our guest guitarist for “Don’t Stop Believing”…only 14 years old…wow!
- For those that missed the story, he played it as his audition song for Aaron just a matter of minutes after the creative team meeting in which we decided to use it as a part of this series.
- There’s coincidence and then there is God…we definitely thought this was a God thing and so we used him.
- Awesome job Dustin…keep using your gift to glorify God!
- Even after the wild outfits the last few weeks, today’s made me feel incredibly self conscious.
- Maybe because some people still dress like that today and I was embarrassed to be seen like that.
- I had a lot of fun with today’s message…talking about video games and the Gospel…does it get any better?
- Had 8 more first time professions of faith…that will never get old!
- Can’t wait for the Next Steps ministry to start in September.
- Speaking of new ministries…in case you missed it, last week we started the “You Matter” ministry and the first task was to provide a week’s worth of food for the Boys and Girls Club of Chambersburg.
- Not only did we do that, but we far exceeded it. We gave…
- Enough drinks to last them through November…
- Enough food to last through the winter…
- Enough cash and gift cards to get them to next summer!
- This week’s task is to fill backpacks for needy kids and already about a dozen have been filled and turned in…wow! Keep it up.
- I met some great new people today and all of them just couldn’t get over how different United was than what they expected from a church.
- If I haven’t mentioned it for awhile, let me remind you that I love getting to be your pastor. You guys rock!
- I’m really excited about next week…not only will there be a 1990’s medley but I’ll be preaching based on the Beck’s song, Loser.
- I’m really, really looking forward to this message…make sure you invite a lot of people.
Will You Be My Friend
As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Facebook and Twitter and other social media networking sites. They allow me to follow some of my favorite pastors to get inside their head today instead of waiting for their next book to come out.
And Facebook to me is one of the best things that ever happened for pastors of larger churches like ours. We’re in the process of implementing some new software for the church and in the gathering of information stage, we’ve discovered that about 1600 people call CFCOG their home church. That’s a lot of people! It’s impossible for Earl and myself to know every single person’s name, much less details about their lives. Facebook however does help in at least getting a brief glimpse into people’s lives.
However, here’s my problem with it all. It has never been easier than today to have “Friends”. Just click the “accept friend” button or “add as friend” button and BOOM there you go, “I have another friend”. But really you don’t…yet many people are today gauging their quality of relationships on the quanity of friends or followers they have on these sites. So with that said, here are a few thoughts:
- People aren’t looking for a friendly church, they are looking for a friend in church.– It’s easy to be friendly, but it takes time and effort to truly be someone’s friend. Just because you “friend” someone on Facebook doesn’t mean they are your actual friend. So when someone new comes in, we must be sure to go beyond the superficial and truly be a friend.
- People don’t need MORE relationships, they need a few DEEPER ones where they give each other refrigerator rights.– Again the quantity of “friends” you have in life or Facebook means squat. My guess is that 99% of the people who are friends with you on Facebook would be irked if you called them during the middle of the night with a problem. A true friend is someone you can call in the middle of the night to say you need help and they just come right on over without asking a billion questions on the phone first. A true friendship is when someone is at your house and they just get in your refridgerator without even asking, because they’ve earned that right. The bible gives us 58 “one anothers” we are to be doing with each other…some of them are quite deep like, “confess your sins to one another”. Posting your deepest, darkest sins on your Facebook wall for all your “friends” to see is not the wise thing to do. So who are you intentionally developing a deeper, personal relationship with so you can pray, encourage and hold each other accountable?
- Proverbs 18:24- “A man with many friends comes to ruin, but there is a friend he can have that will stick closer than a brother”.