- From the outside looking in, today looked pretty good, but behind the scenes, it was a rough day.
- Pretty fitting though considering that I was preaching about how to go through tough times and grow from it. :)
- Despite a lot of technical difficulties, it was still a fun day.
- I’m sort of sad that we’re done with the medley’s…they were all a lot of fun!
- Don’t know how many people picked up on the Milli Vanilli lip synching gag…oh well at least we amused ourselves.
- Brian and Adam’s dancing was about as good as mine….haha!
- I thought then that the whole team really pulled it together for Loser.
- Brian did a great job of remembering an incredibly confusing song, Adam played the slide on the guitar to perfection and Andy gave Brian some neat effects for the rapping portions.
- At the 9:45 I was really flustered by everything that had happened in the morning and then my mic was causing some weird feedback which never happens.
- I was disappointed, but I’ve had quite a few people tell me that the message really spoke to them.
- At 11:15 then I was able to bring it with a bit more passion.
- I was sharing with a few people that if we ever do a series like this again, I’m scheduling it for the winter…
- All these wigs and costumes I’ve been wearing are very hot…nothing like wearing flannel today when it’s hot and humid out.
- Had some guests tell me that a greeter at the door asked them if they wanted the “smokey and wild” service or the normal one.
- Interestingly enough with a description like that, they still chose to come to United.
- I forgot to mention at the 11:15 that if you’re interested in helping with set-up or tear-down, we could really use your help. Either put it on a Connection Card or e-mail Tony at thediehls@comcast.net
- I’m excited about this up-coming week for two reasons…
- First, Lisa and I will be on vacation in Florida!
- Second, Josh Schlotterbeck is going to finish out the Rewind series by looking at the song Criminal.
- Josh is an awesome young man of God and I promise you’ll not want to miss out on what God wants to speak to you through him.
- This is going to be big-time salvation message, so if you have friends, neighbors, co-workers or relatives that don’t yet have a relationship with Christ, do whatever it takes to make sure they show up next week.
- The following week then I’ll be back with the start to a new series called, Unveil: Revealing God’s Will For My Life.
- That’s a question everyone wants to know so I’m excited to share with you how to discover God’s will.
- Again there are plenty of invite cards in the back, so invite, invite, invite!
- Since I’ll be on vacation, I probably won’t post much, but check back periodically for vacation up-dates.
Here’s My Chance…
In this past week’s message, Imagine, I encouraged everyone to all week long remind yourselves when confronted with a tough situation or a person that you didn’t want to deal with or who had angered you in some way, to just simply say, “Here’s My Chance”. My chance to love the way God would want me to. To forgive in the same way Jesus has forgiven me. To prove to Jesus that I care more for others than I do for myself.
Monday I had my first opportunity to remind myself…”Here’s my chance”…and wow am I glad I followed through by “inconvenicing” myself to help someone else. Through e-mails, this blog and Facebook others have also shared some of their “Here’s My Chance” moments.
So how about you? Are you reminding yourself of this? If so, please share with everyone what happened so we can all be encouraged that it can be done.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- What a great day!
- I promised an unforgettable opener to the Experience and I don’t think the team disappointed.
- The 9:45 crowd was about to explode our of their seats…the energy was incredible.
- If you missed it, you definitely missed something special.
- One of our core values is that…”Excellence honors God and inspires people”.
- Even the midst of the band covering 70’s music, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up as I saw the team giving their all to God in the hopes that something like that would prepare hearts for what was yet to come.
- The band worked incredibly hard and the video plus medley was the perfect start to the series.
- Great job by Brian in coming up with the arrangement and I thought Andrea knocked her parts out of the park.
- Brian and the stage team did an awesome job creating a new set…definitely one of my favorites.
- I think the new times periods worked out great.
- I felt so goofy in my 70’s garb and wig, but I was pleased that the fu-manchu grew in.
- Gayle as well did a great job in covering “Imagine”…such a beautiful song, too bad as we saw in the message that the lyrics are so unrealistic.
- Thankfully though Jesus has a better way…”Love your enemies and pray for those the persecute you”.
- I’m also still amazed at how seriously Jesus takes the whole forgiveness thing…in essence…if you don’t forgive others, God will not forgive you.
- The energy at 11:15 was completely different…however still a good day!
- Right before the first Experience I was in my office and the phone rang. I answered and it was a man (not from the church) asking if he could meet with me ASAP.
- I told him I could meet at 12:30 and he said that was fine.
- When I met with him you could tell he was broken and struggling.
- To make a long story short, after a few hours and many tears, he prayed to ask Jesus for His forgiveness and to be the leader of his life.
- I’m not going to mention the man’s name or his struggles, but if you could generically pray for him and his family this week, God knows who it is you’re praying for.
- I told you this story because again there is nothing else in life like helping people discover Jesus.
- Yes we had 2 great Experiences and yes I got to be up front doing my thing…but sitting with someone in my office and leading them into a relationship with Christ was by far the highlight of my day!
- So who are you inviting next week…again we’ll be doing something special as we look at the 1980’s and I’ll be preaching a message based off the song, “Everybody Hurts”.
Inside Today’s Experiences
- Sitting in my office getting ready for our staff picnic.
- Had a great day!
- Couple of minor glitches in the set-up portion and the keyboard died in the 10:45 (RIP), but other than that we couldn’t have asked for a smoother day.
- First, any day when people come into a relationship with Christ, it’s awesome…4 more today…God is so good!
- I’m really loving the new song “Yours Forever” that the team has done the past few weeks…great stuff!
- I also liked the new song today called “Ready Now”. It was cool to intro it at the beginning of the Experience and then use it as a response song to the message.
- I love doing vision messages. Nothing gets me fired up more than reminding people why we’re doing what we’re doing.
- The response so far to the message has been incredible…the real test will be in actually applying it…hope for a lot of new faces next week!
- The bumper video that Aaron put together was awesome. What’s funny though is it took he, Brian and I almost 2 hours to record the voice overs. For some reason we couldn’t get the equipment to record it right…so we did it again…and again…and on a different machine…and again…and on a different machine…and…
- It’s a shame some of them didn’t come out…Brian and I were having a lot of fun coming up with different things to say.
- The two videos I used today I thought were powerful as well. Here are the links. Pauline Jacobi getting robbed. Penn Gets a Bible.
- I love that line…”How much do you have to hate someone to believe that there is a heaven and hell yet not tell someone how to escape it”. (paraphrase)
- Again it amazes me that an atheist understands that better than many people in churches.
- So one more time…Do whatever you can to invite people next week as we begin the REWIND series, by looking at the decade of the 70’s and specifically John Lennon’s, “Imagine”.
- Also be sure to check out the new web-site and join the United Worship Experience fan page on facebook.
Random Thoughts on a Thursday
- Had breakfast/lunch with my first pastor from after I became a Christian, today.
- Great to catch up and hear what God is doing in his midst and ministry.
- I’m feeling much better today!
- Had some bad news today that hit me pretty hard…still processing.
- On the other hand, there is some exciting things that happened today which I’ll share in a post right after this one.
- I got a treadmill delivered this week and so far have been faithful to be on it every day.
- Figured I’m not getting any younger and should get some exercise from time to time other than the Wii. :)
- Really excited about the REWIND series coming up in August…don’t forget to be in your seats on time for the wild stuff we have planned!
- I’m working on a huge project right now for the entire church that is going to be so awesome when it’s done, but right now is kicking my butt and everyone who helps…quite overwhelming, so we could use your prayers.
- Ok…can’t wait to tell you the exciting news…so time to hit publish and get to that.