- Good news, bad news kind of day.
- The bad news is I thought my sermon was one of my worst ever.
- I just never got into a good flow.
- Usually when I’m not really feeling a message, God takes over and it all seems to click.
- Not today though.
- However, just because I wasn’t feeling it doesn’t mean that God didn’t still use it.
- Had a few people tell me this was one of their favorite messages they’ve ever heard me do.
- And now for the good news…
- 4 more professions of faith today!
- Like last week i find this slightly amusing since today’s message was on how to verbally share your faith with other people.
- Ironic huh? Taught on how to share your faith and 4 people realized that they first need to have faith.
- You can listen to the message here if you’re interested.
- As a reminder…practice the Bridge Illustration (can be downloaded at the above link under the documents section) and don’t forget to email me your 3 minute testimony so I can review it and make suggestions.
- As for the rest of the day, it was kind of weird as well.
- Normally we have 40-43 people serve on a Sunday to make everything happen.
- Today so many people were gone because of the holiday that we only had about half of that number.
- Considering half of those are in the band or tech area, it made for a very short staff.
- However, everyone stepped up and did what they could where they could and we didn’t seem to skip a beat.
- Love my team! What an awesome group of servants.
- Surprisingly, attendance was actually really good today even with a lot of our regulars away.
- That’s a good sign that perhaps we’re going to get some good momentum going.
- The rest of the day was pretty much as normal…
- Set-up and tear-down both went quickly and smoothly.
- The band as always did a great job.
- It was great to have George and Rebecca Spangler with us today.
- George is the current pastor at the Camp Hill Church of God and will be planting Turning Point Church next fall.
- We’ll be sharing with you in the coming months ways that we can partner with George to help him as he starts from scratch just like we did in the fall of 2010.
- One of our core values is that, “It takes all types of churches to reach all types of people”. We’re honored to be able to help another church here in the local area reach the 425000 that currently don’t have a relationship with Jesus.
- Next week we wrap-up the “Just Walk Across the Room” series by looking at having a personal vision for your life that includes being an eternal difference maker.
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!
Random Tuesday Thoughts
- Finally got confirmation that the number baptized two Sunday’s ago was 42!
- This past weekend was hectic but great.
- Friday night I was at church for the rehearsal of the wedding I was doing on Saturday.
- At one point one of the organ petals got stuck.
- Remember in “Dumb and Dumber” when they did the most annoying noise in the world…ummm yeah, I’m just saying.
- Had to call Earl so he could line up a repairman while I continued with practice.
- After practice I put the final touches on getting ready for the class I taught on Saturday morning.
- Had 45 people show up for the “Get Connected with God” class.
- I tried to cram it all into 2 hours, but ended up going 2 1/2.
- As I’ve been getting e-mails in response, the #1 complaint has been that the class wasn’t long enough.
- I said it before and I’ll say it again…this class is awesome!
- Here are some excerpts of just a few of the e-mails I’ve gotten…
- “I would recommended that EVERYONE take this class if you ever offer it again”.
- “I wish I would have had this class much earlier in my Christian life…I hate to admit it, but I still feel like a baby in the Word- but now that I have the tools, that is going to change”.
- “This class has given me a game plan”.
- “This class…will take us (husband and I) into a higher level of knowing our God and understanding our purpose”.
- “I guarantee you that everyone who took the Get Connected To God class today came out with a better understanding of what it takes to develop the habits we need to grow to spiritual maturity and how to bring that about”.
- The wedding went very well then in the afternoon.
- Congratulations to Ronnie and Kristy Yarnell!
- At the reception, we sat with the organist who was asking questions about United.
- Our table was about in tears with laughter watching this guys expressions as we kept sharing and you could just see the shock on his face.
- He kept asking, “Wait a second, you did that in church”?
- He said he wants to come visit…he’ll be easy to recognize…he’ll be the one with his mouth gaping open the whole time. :)
- Sunday I’ve already blogged about, but I’ve heard some really good stuff in the meantime about how people felt convicted and challenged by the Experience.
- The new web-site is also getting a lot of good feedback and a lot of traffic.
- One person I forgot to mention in my excitement of announcing it last Friday was Ashleigh Schwindt. Many of the pictures on the site she shot and I’m glad we have someone with her skills in the church.
- Ashleigh has her own photography business and I’m in love with one of her models!
- We are hosting Micah Brickner this week at the church to help him in his internship with our region of the denomination. Micah wants to plant a church in the next few years so he’s spending the week with us learning the good, the bad and the ugly (insert whatever staff person’s face you want with each:)).
- Please pray for Micah and my good friend, Chuck Frank as the region attempts to plant as many churches as possible in the next 5-10 years.
- If you’re interested in something like this, go here.