- Another great day!
- Saw 8 more people give their lives to Jesus!
- Had a lot of new people doing “First Serves” today.
- So awesome seeing people step up and use their gifts, skills, talents and abilities to serve others.
- Great having church planters, Luke and Sabrina from Raleigh, North Carolina with us this morning observing what was happening and then having lunch with them at the Rock Bass Grill. Holy cow is that some good food.
- Also awesome having Aaron Hoke leading worship for us today.
- Aaron is normally one of our guitarists but with Bill away for a few weeks while he and Meghan welcome a new child into the world, Aaron is stepping up and did great!
- FYI, Meghan was there today along with Bill…she’s now past due by a couple of days…they’re hoping for a Leap Year baby now.
- As I told Bill, “The good thing is you only have to buy birthday presents every 4 years, the bad news is the kid will live with you for 72 years”. 🙂
- Not a lot else to report for the day…pretty smooth.
- I preached part 2 of the Sun Stand Still series on how to turn your pitiful prayers into powerful ones.
- Based on Facebook comments, it apparently was a good and convicting message.
- You can listen to it here as I taught on how to pray using an acrostic for the word ASK.
- Next week we’ll wrap the series up by looking at what to do when opposition comes to your new life of faith. See you then…hopefully with a friend or two.
Inside Today’s Experience
- What a great day!
- Last week I told everyone NOT TO invite anyone today but didn’t tell them why.
- It immediately became clear today why I said that…for some it happened sooner than it did for others…more on that in a second.
- So what did we do? Well it was called “No Show Sunday” and the premise was this…
- What would church be like if none of our normal 43 volunteers on a Sunday morning showed up.
- In other words, without telling them why, I gave everyone who serves the week off and then between myself, Bill and Chelsea (all staff)…we did everything (Chad our other staff person was away).
- But when I say everything, we only did the very minimum’s.
- What this meant was no signs, nobody opening doors, no greeters, no ushers, no children’s ministry (yep that was interesting have all the kids in with us), no cafe, none of the little extra touches we normally do to spruce up the theater, no lights, no projection (ok we did use an old transparency projector. You can see what it looks like here on the blog…wow it was horrible!), no full worship team (just Bill on keys), no stage set, no bulletin…well you get the idea.
- There were multiple goals for the day…
- First that people realize what we do and the incredible things that God is doing in our midst is not a 1-man show. As I said, “Yes I may be the big mouth but it takes dozens of people doing their part to pull off all God wants us to do”.
- Second that those already serving would realize how valuable they are and would be honored.
- It was awesome the ovation they got and we were honored to treat them all to lunch afterward at a local restaurant. It was expensive but they are worth 100’s of times what it cost…it truly is a team effort at ECTV.
- In total 56 of our people who serve showed up and it was my honor to be able to personally go around and thank each of them for the various things they do.
- Third that those not already serving would be inspired to start. As I also said, “It’s not that we NEED you to, it’s that we WANT you to so you can experience what all the rest of us are”.
- I think all of the goals were achieved!
- You can listen to my message here.
- Really though this was a message that was more felt than heard.
- I was amazed how many people picked up on no directional signs being anywhere on Valley Road.
- It was almost comical watching people come in the wrong doors from the outside. Our team does such a great job of welcoming and then directing traffic that most people don’t even realize it. It was funny time after time watching people come through the center doors and then looking around like, “Where am I?”
- For those that did come in the usual set of doors it was also funny to see them immediately turn left to go get something to eat in the Cafe and then the shocked look on their face when they realized nothing was there.
- Another big shocker was how many people later commented to me how much they miss the little touches we do in the restrooms to make it first class.
- Some of the things I didn’t even know we do, but again it just proved that it’s not all about me and the staff and that the “little things” sometimes make the biggest difference.
- Ok let’s cover some other quick stuff from the day.
- It was nice being able to sleep in a little later than normal.
- I busted my head on one of the railings this morning and was pretty woozy…as I write this at 5:30 in the evening I still have a headache.
- Bill and I decided to set things up early to make sure we had all our bases covered since we weren’t using our normal equipment.
- Everything set-up quickly which meant we had 1 1/2 hours to kill.
- Nice of Andy to bring us some coffee cake.
- We sat around waiting for Chelsea to come in and then the 3 of us just sat there taking turns going, “This is so weird”.
- We always start the Expereinces with a countdown and today was no different…except it was my fingers shining a shadow on the overhead projector.
- Bill did a great job leading worship by himself…it was hilarious when he played and sang the beginning of the old, cheesy Eric Carmen song, “All By Myself”. His wife Meghan gave him the idea which was awesome!
- All in all the worship time was pretty good energy and participation.
- My message was the longest I’ve done at ECTV but there was a lot that needed to be said…and also included something I would rather not have had to announce…
- Effective March 11th, Chelsea will be leaving our staff.
- Please check back on the blog tomorrow and I’ll be posting much more about this.
- Until then know that while this was sad to announce, Chelsea and I are both excited about the future of ECTV and our Children’s Ministry.
- It was so great the sustained standing ovation that Chelsea got from everyone…it was well deserved!
- Having been in her shoes a couple of times, I know how draining of a day the announcement of your departure can be, but she did great.
- Again check back tomorrow for more from me and a letter from Chelsea as well.
- Then on Tuesday I’ll post more info on what the plan is from here on out.
- If you’re dying to know I did talk about it in the message so again here is the link.
- Speaking of kids, all of them were in the Worship Experience with us and it was basically what I figured it would be…controlled chaos.
- We had more people up and down today than we’ve had in the previous 15 months combined…a lot of that I could tell was kid related.
- For the most part I was able to block out the crying and other general noises from the kids as I was speaking but I could see that others were being distracted by their own kids or others.
- So thankful for those that serve our kids each week in a fun environment that allows them to learn about Jesus in age appropriate ways…it’s not only good for the kids but also for the adults so they can worship and learn without distraction.
- I haven’t gotten the final count yet but it would appear that a couple dozen people signed up to begin serving in various roles we have both on Sunday’s and during the week.
- Doing what we did was a big risk but it would appear well worth it.
- Oh yeah forgot to mention we had one of our largest crowds ever. Add on top of that all the kids in with us and the theater really felt full.
- I kept apologizing to guests afterwards but they all said they understood the point and would be back during one of our “normal” weeks.
- Next week things will be back to normal…but two things will be a bit different.
- First for anyone interested, we’ll be sharing communion together at 9:10am in the lobby.
- Afterward you’ll be able to see what one of our normal team meetings is like.
- Second, all are invited to Infinito’s on Union Deposit Road at noon for a chance to eat and hang out with one another.
- Ok think I’ve said enough…have a great week!
Inside Today’s Experience
- Another great day.
- Had another person start a relationship with Jesus today.
- The amazing thing about that is we’re currently doing a series on how to share your faith.
- Amazing how God can speak to people’s hearts even in messages that aren’t necessarily evangelistic in nature.
- In fact, a big misconception of churches like ours is that we must only preach seeker friendly, evangelistic messages every week in order to have as many professions of faith as we do.
- The truth is in now a little over 1 year of existence, I’ve only done 1 message that was strictly the Gospel message and geared for a response at the end.
- Every other week messages are about growing in your faith.
- In other words, I assume that everyone will want to be a follower of Jesus so here’s what it means to follow Him more closely.
- Now of course I present this in such a way that it does make sense to non-followers, but for the most part we tackle some pretty serious discipleship stuff.
- At the end then I usually say something to the effect of, “Ok now the first step to applying today’s message is starting a relationship with Jesus if you don’t already have one”…then I present how to do that.
- Ok didn’t mean to start this with my philosophy of preaching but there it is.
- In any case, nothing out of the ordinary today with set-up.
- Had fun at our team meeting today giving a quiz on our core values.
- During it I said, “We say there are 2 things which we say are not optional, what are they”?
- One of the teens said, “Clothes”?
- Haha…gotta love those teens!
- All in all people did pretty good at least knowing the gist of each value.
- Huge difference though between intellectually knowing these things and living them out.
- Making great progress though!
- Very funny yet potentially embarrassing thing happened to Lisa today in the lobby.
- I went out and her and Meghan were laughing so hard they were in tears.
- I’ll let Lisa decide whether to fess up to what happened.
- Band as always did a great job.
- So interesting watching Jeff use a bow on his electric guitar for the one song.
- I continued the “Just Walk Across the Room” series by talking about the 3 D’s we all need to do to help people who are far from God.
- They are…Develop friendships, Discover their story and Discern appropriate next steps.
- You can listen to the full message here.
- As I mentioned in the message, over 300 names were written on the walls last week.
- I prayed for each one by name before today’s Experience.
- As I mentioned in the message, 3 things happened as I did it.
- First, the reality that these are real people that we know that are bound for hell unless we do something about it.
- Second, that reaching 90% of them is not enough.
- As I said, “That’s 30 people…anyone want to volunteer any of your people for hell?”
- Last thought was actually a feeling of righteous anger that so many people waste their lives on things that don’t really count for eternity while real people, like on these boards, die and enter into a Christ-less eternity.
- Whether you attend Exponential or not, let me ask you a question…What are you investing your life, time and resources in? Is that going to last for eternity?
- If not, then stop wasting this one and only life on things that don’t really matter.
- Ok shifting gears somewhat…one of the best things about Facebook’s new list feature is I can get pretty instant feedback on the Experience.
- Came across this earlier from a 1st time guest of ours…”Had a great morning with family and friends at a new church. Cried the first 3 songs. Praise God! Got my love for Christ back this morning”.
- Awesome…that’s why I love what I do!
- Next week we’ll look at how to verbally share your faith with 2 simple short stories you can tell.
- In the meantime…have a Happy Thanksgiving!
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!