- What an awesome day!
- We had 15 people make professions of faith in Jesus!
- We also broke our attendance record.
- Not bad for having our Christmas Experience on Saturday instead of Sunday.
- Honestly I had no idea going into this morning whether switching to Saturday morning was a good idea or not.
- For multiple reasons it seemed to be the right decision but I figured it would either be a hit or a complete flop.
- Thanking God this evening that He honored our efforts and that we in turn were able to honor Him through our efforts.
- Just like last year’s Christmas Eve Experience, set-up was a bit stressful because of all that we were trying to pull off.
- So thankful for the entire team. They came in at 7am this morning and we finally finished up getting ready at 9:47.
- Considering I had told everyone last week to be in their seats at 9:50, we were cutting it real close.
- Special thanks to Andy, Mike and Cris for the extra work they accomplished from the tech side. Your hard work paid off…thanks!
- As always the band…Bill, Gayle, Jeff, Mike, Steve and Aaron did a fantastic job.
- They put in a lot of work Thursday night and this morning to get ready and the results were fantastic.
- This week they were also joined for one song by Jake Sellers on drums…he did awesome for his first time with us and considering how young he is…thanks Jake!
- Here’s the opener we did called, “Let There Be“…I put together a video for it and Gayle as usual killed it!
- The other special we did was our rockin version of “O Come O Come Emmanuel“.
- And yes for the 2nd year in a row we used trash cans.
- Who says we’re not traditional? 🙂
- I actually had an “older” guy stop me in the lobby who was disappointed we didn’t do “The Little Drummer Boy” again.
- Funny thing is he was being serious.
- Again couldn’t be prouder of my team…from the parking lot to the “pew” our people serve with all of their hearts and with excellence!
- My message focused on how King Herod missed out on what should have been so obvious…the birth of God Himself just a few miles away.
- Of course the application was not to miss out on Jesus in the midst of the busyness of the Christmas season.
- You can listen to the entire message here.
- Or you can watch the Experience from start…to almost finish here. (Note: it is uploading as of 6:30pm. It should be live by 9-10pm).
- Unfortunately the camera battery died a few minutes before we ended.
- What you miss in the video is me leading the 15 through a prayer to receive Jesus and then everyone standing to sing along to the remainder of “It is Well”.
- Yep…that’s right the hymn…done as a hymn not Exponential style.
- A couple of brief announcements followed and then we closed with the “Party” song which you can see the band perform from last week’s Experience.
- FYI…on of the announcements I gave was the results of our Contagious Christmas Challenge…you/we gave enough that we were able to help 50 needy families have a Christmas that wouldn’t have otherwise! Way to go Exponential!
- Again it was an incredible day…what’s weird is coming home and the NFL was on anyway…feels just like a Sunday except it wasn’t.
- So glad we decided to worship and celebrate today!
- In fact…we’re going to do it again next Saturday at 10am to avoid New Years Day.
- Hope to see you then for the conclusion of the “Party” series.
- As I announced it’s called “The After Party” and will be a recap of every series we did in 2011.
- Going to be an awesome time looking back on God’s faithfulness.
Inside Today’s Experience
- What a great day!
- Set-up this morning was one of the easier we’ve had even though we really couldn’t feel the effects of the AC until after set-up was done.
- Great to have Mike Lockard fill in on bass today…only problem was he threw his back out yesterday and the doctor has him on some strong meds.
- Of course today of all days included some pretty cool bass solos…I was afraid the meds were going to kick-in and slow him way down.
- But thankfully God helped him get through and he did a great job…thanks Mike!
- I think Bill our worship pastor may be the most fit person in America!
- His energy is tremendous during every song and by the time he switched to keys for the last song, he had quite the glisten going.
- It was funny to watch him keep switching hands on the keyboard to wipe the sweat away.
- Again awesome to see his passion for Jesus and his passion to enthusiastically lead people in worship.
- Of course the highlight of the day for me was having my wife Lisa preach for the first time in her life.
- It’s been a fun last few weeks helping her in whatever way she asked so that today could happen.
- I think were both ready though to go back to normal.
- In any case, other than some to be expected nerves, she did a great job.
- Of course one of the bad things she learned from me is perfectionism. So this afternoon she’s been beating herself up for various things that she wished she did differently.
- As I’ve learned and in turn shared with her…God doesn’t expect us to be perfect but to do the best we can with what we’ve got and let the results up to Him.
- Multiple people shared how God spoke to them through her message so she did her part, hopefully they’ll now not just be hearers of the Word but doers as well.
- Her message continued our Jonah series and covered chapter 3 when Jonah obeys.
- Listen to it here to hear about the process from disobedience to obedience that we go through.
- It was great seeing all the people who came out to support Lisa today…thanks…she appreciated you being there.
- Afterward I went out to eat with friends while Lisa decided to come home and sleep…she warned me she may sleep until Tuesday. 🙂
- Can’t wait for next week…we’ll wrap-up the Jonah series and then do baptisms right outside the theater…going to be exciting!