- Hit a major milestone today…100 first time professions of faith in Christ!
- Considering the average church in North America sees 1 profession every 2 years, I think we’re off to a good start! :)
- Each person is important…each person is a story.
- 100 down, 424,900 more to go!
- Yep that’s approximately how many people in the Harrisburg metro don’t yet have a relationship with Jesus.
- That makes me sad, but I’m thankful that ExponentialChurch.tv and other great churches in this area are all doing our part to make hell a little less crowded.
- Other than that it was a fairly typical day with 2 exceptions.
- First being the last week before school, attendance was slightly down, but I think morale even more so…just no energy today from the crowd at all…here I always thought parents were happy when their kids went back to school.
- Or at least mine were…not because of me mind you…it was my sister. :)
- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….ring, ring…yep that’s how long it took my sister to call after reading this.
- Haha…love you T.
- The other difference today was that I did magic in the lobby before the Experience and then again as an illustration during my message.
- Thus the picture in this post of me with Harry Blackstone Jr (forgot to have some take a pic today).
- I did this because today was week 3 of our “God at the Box Office” series and today we looked at the spiritual lessons that can be learned from the last of the Harry Potter films.
- After having performed professionally for 11 years of my life, it was almost like riding a bike when I did about 15 minutes of stuff in the lobby, despite the fact I haven’t done that long in a long, long, time.
- While it was fun to do it, I’m so thankful that God spoke to me many years ago to not just make a temporary difference with my life but to do something that will last for all of eternity.
- Literally I’ve entertained 10’s of thousands of people through the years but the man today and the 99 before him and the 300+ in Chambersburg and the 100’s before that in other churches and ministries that I’ve had the privilege to lead across the line of faith, is so much better than simply entertaining people.
- The band did a new song today that is growing on me called, “Beautiful Exchange”.
- I always walk up to the front during the last song of the set and it’s cool watching Bill lead from up close.
- Appreciate his passion and authenticity even when the crowd is dead.
- As for today’s message…I talked about spiritual warfare and the unseen battle that is constantly going on between good and evil.
- Not a topic I hit a lot but one that watching the Harry Potter movie was so obvious that I couldn’t ignore it.
- The tricky part as I said at the beginning is finding the balance between people who “see” demons everywhere and then people who don’t believe in anything supernatural.
- Chad afterward said he thought it was balanced so hopefully he was right and not just looking for a raise. :)
- Even though the crowd was not energetic today, there were two moments that I heard gasps.
- The first was when I said that Satan wants to R.A.P.E you. Ahh got your attention didn’t I…you’ll have to listen to find out what I mean.
- The second was when I said that the dead don’t come back to haunt us nor become our guardian angel.
- It’s amazing how many people think that grandma is watching over them or in general that people become angels.
- Ummm sorry, but as I said, “Don’t be sad, because angels are real and they’re way more powerful than what grandma ever was”.
- Next week we’ll wrap-up the series with the lessons from “Final Destination 5”.
- Can’t wait to share with you why focusing on eternal things is way more important than just merely the 50-100 years you have here on the earth.
- Thanks to all who brought in backpacks and for the money contributions that came in today as well to buy more.
- As I shared, Office Max is matching us dollar for dollar so it’s not too late to help the still 500+ kids that don’t have the needed supplies that live in Harrisburg.
- Ok, time to go…2 friends are coming in tonight from out of town for dinner and to hang out…have a great week everyone!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Another good day.
- Nothing out of the ordinary today…guess you need those occasionally.
- Set-up went smoothly although our run through went longer than normal.
- So thankful to have an awesome staff…Chad stepped up and lead the team meeting beforehand.
- From what I understand he was a little too enthusiastic that I was going to be preaching a message entitled, “Horrible Bosses”. :)
- Nice to see a lot of people back from vacation…I’ve been very please how we’ve been holding up attendance wise this summer.
- Had another person come to faith in Jesus today…that makes 99 since we launched 10 months ago.
- You can listen after the message (about 45 minute mark) to hear my goals for the future.
- The band introduced a new song today plus did a cover of “Uprising” by Muse.
- Here’s a link to the Youtube video of them doing it…the sound quality isn’t great but it will give you a sense of what they did.
- This was the first time that my new team covered a song that my old team in Chambersburg had also done.
- This was great chance to see where we’re at.
- On this particular song, I think Chambersburg did it better, but when I consider we’re only 10 months old as a church, my new team is 100 times further ahead than where we were 10 months into my time in Chambersburg.
- Guess what I’m getting at is I’ve been very privileged to serve alongside very gifted people in both places…truly it’s a team effort and everything I’ve been able to accomplish couldn’t have been done with out all of them.
- Thanks guys and gals!
- My message today was based of the hit summer comedy, “Horrible Bosses”.
- You wouldn’t think it, but the bible actually has a lot to say about how to be the best employee or boss we can be.
- Listen to my message here to get my take on authority, submission and obedience.
- Next week we’ll look at Harry Potter…should be exciting and very insightful as we look at the battle between good and evil.
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
- What an awesome day!
- Had another profession of faith and then afterward we had 13 baptisms!
- The challenge as a portable church is how to do things like communion and baptism in an environment that’s not really conducive for things like that.
- For baptism it meant setting up a swimming pool out back.
- Chad, his boys and Andre set it up last night at 10:30pm and began the long process of filling it up.
- The fire department was supposed to do it but they stopped after someone complained their water made them sick. :)
- We were concerned whether the pool was going to collapse but it held up fine.
- As for the day itself set-up went well, nothing out of the ordinary.
- During run-through time I gave everyone instructions on how , who and when we’d start tearing down so we could get out to the baptism and have the theater ready for movies to begin.
- Glad we did that because when it came time later in the morning, everything ran like clockwork.
- For some reason energy was down today in the Experience but the band as usual did a great job leading.
- Today was the last in the Jonah series…you can listen to what I consider the shocking conclusion here.
- Amazing how we so often want forgiveness for ourselves but judgment for others.
- The plan was for the band to come forward during the prayer time and get ready to start tearing down once I started doing announcements.
- Instead they started during the prayer itself…
- Wow was that hard…
- I’m trying to lead a very Holy moment and dodging people left and right who are literally taking the floor out right from under me.
- Still God is amazing and despite everything, we still had a young lady come into a relationship with Jesus!
- By the time I was done with announcements, the only thing left to tear down was sound and projection…amazing how quickly they did everything.
- I dismissed everyone to exit out the back door and I ran off to get changed and put the closing touches on things I needed to do before exiting the theater.
- Here’s a link to photos from the baptism.
- Huge thanks to my brother-in-law Brian for traveling in from out of town to take these…also to my nephew Jordan for shooting some video…can’t wait to see what he puts together.
- Check other people’s walls on Facebook for more photos…I’ve seen them starting to be posted.
- Got to admit I got choked up a number of times during the baptisms…one of my favorite things to do in ministry.
- What an honor to be a part of such a special moment in each of these people’s lives.
- Special mention for Dylan Krull…I remember him being born and dedicated and so many other milestones in his young life…now to get to baptize him is so awesome.
- Big thanks to Bill & Meghan Butler for building changing rooms in the trailer so people didn’t have to go home wet.
- Although I was amazed how warm the water was so I didn’t mind staying wet.
- As the guys started collapsing the pool they let too much go at first and it ran down the sidewalk and right into another theater!!!
- Luckily nothing was going on in that one yet and we were able to go in and clean it up…oops.
- Other than that it was a tremendously successful day.
- Best part was I ended up leaving the theater basically at the same time I normally do!
- Next week we begin the “God at the Box Office” series by looking at the spiritual lessons from the newest Transformers movie.
- Please share our commercial for the series with as many people as possible and keep handing out the tickets.
- The commercial can be found here on YouTube or here on Facebook.
- Can’t wait…I love doing series like these!