- 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
- Great day!
- Had to start the morning out scrapping the ice of the windshield and wearing my beanie…definitely the coldest Sunday morning we’ve had so far this “winter”.
- Had to use the quotes because I know some of you would correct me and say it’s not yet winter…ok but did you really expect me to say it was the crispest fall morning so far. Yeah right.
- Oh wait I did just say it…
- OK here’s the deal…it was cold this morning.
- Anytime we start a new series it’s always an adventure since we have no way to have tested the new stage design up until that time.
- With this one Bill built 4 “candy cane” looking contraptions with multiple color Christmas lights strung between them.
- What’s cool is we can control each color independently…which is harder than it sounds.
- In fact it required 8 extra extension cords since you can’t put them into a power strip and then to the lighting control…each one needs to run separate.
- All that to say…we had to send Gayle out on an extension cord run since we were short a few.
- Amazingly we were short even with taking 6 of our normal lights out of the equation altogether.
- We’ll add them in over the coming weeks.
- So set-up and practice were longer than normal this morning.
- Another factor was that Steve our drummer missed practice on Thursday night…something about getting engaged or something. :)
- Congrats Steve & Kelsey!
- In any case, the band did a great job pulling it altogether.
- However, the crowed energy was down today…not sure why.
- Again using a however…on this day last year we had one of our worst days we’ve ever had…so today was light years better.
- Chad did a great job preaching the first message in the Party series.
- His message was about getting an invitation and not being left out.
- You can listen to it here.
- Since he preached that allowed me a chance to walk around a see some other things I normally don’t get to.
- I twice stopped by and watched Chelsea and the kids in the theater next door.
- Awesome to see them worshiping, having fun and learning about Jesus.
- Also spent some time in the nursery/toddler area where one of our normal toddlers was crying hysterically.
- I tried picking her up and holding her but to no avail.
- So I put her down and quietly slipped away before anyone noticed I had left. :)
- It’s always good to have days like today where I can walk around evaluating things without the “pressure” of knowing I have to preach.
- Got some things we need to work on but for the most part we’re light years ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point in our now slightly over 1 year of existence.
- God has and is so good to us!
- Lisa has been out-of-town all week-long so afterward my mom, dad, sister and I went to lunch together.
- To the best of our recollection it was the first time in about 20 years since it was just the 4 of us together to eat.
- Not sure why but I took a longer nap this afternoon than a typical Sunday.
- That shouldn’t have been…I didn’t really do anything today.
- Lisa flies back tomorrow…can’t wait to see her!
- Next week we’ll continue the Party series with a message I’m doing called, “Bust a Move”.
- Once you’re at the party, it does you no good to stand against the wall…time to get out on the dance floor.
- What’s that have to do with the Bible and your life?
- You’ll have to join us to find out.
- Don’t forget to mark your calendars for Saturday, December 24 & 31 at 10am which will take the place of our normal Sunday morning Worship Experiences.
Inside Today’s Experience
- I like to think of myself as someone who depends on God’s Spirit, but today I didn’t have an option but.
- Last night just before midnight as I was looking over my notes for today’s message, I heard Lisa yell for me to come to the basement right away.
- Our bedroom is down there and unfortunately water was seeping up through the carpeting.
- We did what we could to make sure nothing was damaged and finally went to bed around 1am.
- The problem was it wasn’t to bed since our new house has two offices for us but no spare bed room.
- So I ended up on the sofa and she ended up on the love seat in my office.
- Of course I couldn’t’ sleep well for various reasons and only ended up with 2 hours sleep.
- How I ended up functioning properly is beyond me.
- How this turned out to be my favorite worship Experience since we launched 6 months ago has to do with the Holy Spirit and the awesome team that we’ve assembled.
- We were doing a lot things differently today so our warm-up time went super long, so big thanks to Chad for filling in at the last minute to lead the team meeting and prayer time. By the way their basement flooded last night as well…ughhh.
- The band as always did an awesome job leading worship.
- After the greeting time we took a brief moment to prayer for the Fox family.
- Their son JT passed away this past week at the age of 32. He was 1 of the 71 people who have made a profession of faith since we launched in October.
- Just goes to show we never know how much time we have on this earth and why evangelism is so important.
- Today was the wrap-up to our “Winning” series where we’ve been learning how to take filter pop culture through God’s Word so it helps us bridge the gap between God and the people in our culture.
- Here’s a video showing how some are applying last week’s message.
- After having looked at a popular movie and TV show the past two weeks, today we did a song that has been near the top of the rock charts for nearly 7 months now…”Waiting on the End” by Linkin Park.
- It was cool having our drummer Steve do some of the vocals…reminded me of how Phil Collins used to sing and play drums at the same time.
- I used this song as a jump off to the thing that is most valuable to God…people.
- The key thought was…”Everybody that I have ever laid my eyes on is somebody for whom Jesus died”.
- It of course helped to reinforce one of our core values at ExponentialChurch.tv….”Lost people matter to God and therefore they must matter to me”.
- I can’t describe it but I knew something special was happening even as I was sharing the message…you’ll just have to listen for yourself.
- The band came right out of my message with one of my favorite songs…”Tears of the Saints”.
- This went right into communion and then back into everyone singing along to the bridge and chorus of “Tears of the Saints”.
- I was a mess by this point and was somewhat relived when I got back on stage to see that most of the crowd was a mess as well.
- God showed up big time and spoke to our hearts about how important people are and the urgency for reaching as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
- To be honest I wasn’t sure how to transition at that point to offering so I just stood there like a deer in headlights for awhile and then had the people applaud for all that God has done and is yet to do.
- During the announcement time I then announced not only what we’re doing next week for Easter (a message called, “Marked”…which I think will be at least as powerful as today) but also our next series starting May 1st.
- It’s called iLife and as a part of the series we’re giving away 4 FREE iPads!
- We had 2500 invite cards/tickets made up that look like iPads and our people can give them away to as many people as they want.
- It was awesome seeing people walking out of the theater with huge stacks in their hands.
- After the awesome Experience today I dreaded coming home.
- Thanks to Larry and Melissa Evans for letting me borrow their shop vac.
- I vacuumed for 6 hours this afternoon…not fun but necessary.
- Hopefully now I can enjoy a relaxing evening and get some much needed sleep.
- This week I’ve got two funerals to attend (including an out of town one), I’ve got to wrap up last minute details for Easter and prepare for the following Sunday as well since I leave early next week for Florida.
- It sounds like an impossible week but as God proved today if I’ll rely on Him, He’ll give me all the strength I need.
Inside Today’s Experience
- Pretty good day.
- Started out in the dark with all the wind and cold getting our big signs out. We have 3 of them that are called Wind Master signs.
- Ummm…today they were mastered…2 of the 3 actually sheared off it was so windy.
- Set up went pretty smoothly and we had another batch of new people serving so that’s always exciting.
- Last week my preaching bible never made it home so I spent quite a bit of time looking for it. Finally found it in the lost and found at the theater.
- Was glad to find it but it made me again realize how fortunate we are as Americans. Many people around the world would do anything for a Bible. Here, not only do I have a bible, but actually multiple ones, one of which only gets used for sermon delivery.
- Maybe we’ll do a bible collection this year as a part of our You Matter Ministry this year.
- Really proud of our entire team…from set-up to actual execution of everything that needs to be done on a Sunday, things are going great.
- That includes the band who had another great day.
- It’s weird…even though I’m not a parent, I looked forward to today’s message about raising up the next generation more so than I have any in a long time.
- I’m praying that people, especially parents, will take seriously the new goal I gave them for raising up a generation of world-changers.
- Perhaps I was also excited because I knew my little buddy, Chase Bricker was going to being helping me in the sermon.
- If you want to hear the story of how at age 3 (he’s now 6) he became a Mighty Man of God, fast forward to about the 14 minute mark in the message.
- His parent’s Galen and Jill said that he’s been so excited since he found out a couple of weeks ago that he was going to get to help with the message.
- They said this morning he was up earlier than normal and even was volunteering to have his hair done, teeth brushed, etc because he couldn’t wait to make the drive up.
- He also told his mom that she wasn’t allowed to have her morning cup of coffee because he didn’t want to be late and on the hour long drive up from Chambersburg, he kept telling his dad to pass cars so they could make sure they got there.
- The entire Bricker family were short-term missionaries with us for the first 3 months to help get us launched and Chase multiple times said that he wanted to be our drummer. I knew that would be the perfect way to end his time on stage with me…and again who knows what that may spark in him.
- Big thanks to Steve Kurtz (our drummer) for spending some time answering Chase’s questions this morning and for also giving him his very own set of drum sticks.
- Chase was told that they best way to practice was on a pillow which I’m sure Galen and Jill will appreciate.
- Chase wanted his own drum set though and thought his sister’s room would be the perfect place to set it up.
- Anyway I was pleased with the message even if I did run longer than normal.
- I hope everyone saw that investing in the lives of kids doesn’t take a seminary education or great bible knowledge.
- It’s just taking the time to speak words of encouragement and being there for them.
- So please consider doing a first serve in the ECTV Kids Ministry. Again as I said…”It’s not a baby-sitting job, but rather a chance to invest in the next generation”.
- If you’re interested in trying it for one week, email our Director of Children’s Ministry, Chelsea Miller chelsea@ExponentialChurch.tv
- Also as I mentioned one of the best ways to make sure your kids have some other people speaking into their lives is by joining a Life Group. For more info on that email our Pastor of Community and Connection, Chad Chute chad@ExponentialChurch.tv
- If you’re interested in the Parent’s Dinner we’re having, click here for more info and to register online. This is an event you’re not going to want to miss.
- The New Year is off to a great start…so many things are going on that excite me about our future.
- Check back here and on our Facebook page for other info about events you’ll want to be a part of.