Prime Timer's Pot Luck and Bean Bag Baseball

 

  

  

  

 

Small Groups Begin June 6

We are so excited to announce the new small group line up for our summer session.  For the first time there are multiple topics on multiple days.  Pastor Ward has been working for months training our small group leaders and we are taking the month of May to get everyone signed up for a group.  Our Summer Session goal is 200 sign-ups in 11 classes!  If you still like Sunday School, no problem, we have groups for you.  If you like home groups, no problem, half of our groups meet in homes.  If you want a ladies group, we got that.   Childcare? Many of our groups have kids and youth group times built-in.  Our goal is to help everyone related to our church know and follow the Word of God.  You can check out the online catalog here.

What's Your Big Problem?

Everyone has problems, in fact everyone has a list of problems, and the point of a job, the point of leadership is to solve problems.  In churches there are all kinds of problems, there is the problem of who gets first dibs on classroom A, and who will we get to work in the nursery during the concert etc.  There are all kinds of problems and the good news is that some of those problems are phantom problems, they don't really exist except in our paranoia, some of the problems are self correcting, and some are even insignificant.  So the question remains, what is your BIG Problem.  What is the problem, that is keeping you from moving forward as a leader, or as a church?  What is the problem, that if left undone will keep you from accomplishing the Great Commission.  If you are still saying, I have lots of problems, then your lack of ability to identify the one from the crowd may be your problem.  Identify the problem, the BIG problem.  Kill your Goliath first, then chase down the rest of your Philistines.

Rise - Easter Services

Thanks:
First, I want to thank God for His abundant grace as we made the move over to the middle school.  Of all the things that could have gone wrong, only minor hiccupps occured.  Thanks to all those who gave and worked, you are too numerous to list.

Stats:
Easter weekend began with 81 coming to the Saturday night service, and two people accepted Christ as their personal Savior.  Then at 9:00 on Sunday we had 133 in service and at 10:30 we had 286 with 4 more decisions for Christ.  27 others indicated a rededication to Christ and 7 signed up for baptism. In addition, over $7,000 was given in our Easter Offering towards the building of our next Hope Center in San Lorenzo.

Stories:

Story 1 begins a long time ago in a land far away.... well kind of.  Early on in the life of our church we had a couple nammed Jim and Celeste, they came to church, came to Christ and then moved away to Baharain.  Last year for a few months they returned to this area and thought they might settle back here.  Needless to say we were thrilled.  Their son now in Jr. High attends the youth group and on one occasion invites a friend to an activity at church.  Long story short, a few months pass and employment demands that they move back to Baharain.  The friend of their son forgets the name of the church but tells the parents that he wants to come, but because he cant remember, they do not.  Then, our Easter Ad shows up in the mailbox and he sees it and tells them that this is the church he was telling them about.  Yesterday morning, both parents accepted Christ as their Savior.

Story 2 also begins far away, with a familiy getting ready to go to FL on Holiday.  Being Easter, they decide to attend services at a local church, Cornerstone.  Coming in late the only seats left are on the front row, and if you are a baptist you know how bad that can be!  After church, while people are snapping up pictures and children are snatching up Easter Eggs the dad comes over to thank me for the service.  I apologize that he had to sit on the front row and he said it was the best thing that could have happened.  He goes on to tell me that his wife is the church goer, and that he was too embarrassed to raise his hand, but that today he prayed to receive Christ as his Savior.  He said, for the first time in my life, I actually understood it!

Story 3... got an Easter at Cornerstone story? Send it to me and I will post it here.

Prayer Walk Tonight

Tonight we will have a very special prayer walk at church as we prepare our hearts and minds for this coming Easter Sunday.  We will be praying at each location where our guests and those who come will be met and ministered to by our volunteers and staff.  It will be a special time of asking God for His grace and blessing on this weekend and I hope everyone can come and join in.  It will begin at 7:00 p.m. and the teens and children will have their regularly scheduled programs.  I hope to see you there! - Pastor Joel

Easter Offering for San Lorenzo

On February third I got in the back of an Isuzu pickup truck and drove from the Nicaraguan town of Tecolostote to the neighboring town of San Lorenzo.  The Hope Center in Teco was almost done and the next week the surgeons would arrive to perform operations for the people of this rural impoverished town.  The Mayor of San Lorenzo had just donated land on the town square for the construction of a second Hope Center that would bring not only medical, education, and feeding programs, but the good news of salvation through Jesus to this town.  In fact, the entire countryside is covered with small neglected towns in need of the gospel.  Driving through cobble stone narrow streets at speeds a little fast for comfort, dodging animals and oncoming traffic, we finally arrived in San Lorenzo.  The lot was directly across from the local school, and in between the library (which is never open) and the basketball court, a staple of each of these small towns, a courtesy of the communist party.  In reality, it could not be in a better location and as I stood there with pastor Ward and our missionary Paul Heier, I was convinced that we as a church could do something to get this project going.  That day we made the decision to raise $7,000 for the foundation to be built.  Upon returning we immediately announced that we wanted to raise this as an Easter offering.  Over the past few months, the people of Cornerstone gave sacrificially and on Sunday, we reached our goal of $7,000. This coming Sunday Paul will be here at Cornerstone to be presented a check during the Easter Worship Services.  I wanted to tell everyone who had a part in the offering how much I appreciate your giving and I thank God that we are able to do this together.  Keep praying for Paul and the team down in Nicaragua as they begin construction and begin reaching this town for Christ.

Methods of Personal Evangelism

I mentioned in the service that I would post some how to methods for leading a person to faith in Christ.

ABC’s / Romans Road

a.      Admit

Romans 3:23 (ESV)

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

b.      Believe

Romans 10:9 - 10 (ESV)

⁹because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 

c.       Call

Romans 10:13 (ESV)

¹³For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Way of the Master

1.      Do you consider yourself to be a pretty good person?

2.      Do you mind if I ask you a few questions as a test?

3.      Do you think you have kept the ten commandments?

4.      Have you ever coveted or been jealous of something that did not belong to you? #10

5.      Have you ever told a lie? # 9

6.      Have you ever stolen anything? # 8

7.      Have you ever committed Adultery? #7

8.      Have you ever murdered anyone? #6

9.   If God judged you according to these laws, would you be guilty or innocent?

Four Spiritual Laws

* Just as there are physical laws that govern the physical universe, so are there spiritual laws that govern your relationship with God.

1)      God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life

John 3:16 (ESV)

¹⁶“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 10:10b (ESV)

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 

2)      Man is sinful and separated from God, therefore he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.

Romans 3:23 (ESV)

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

Romans 6:23 (ESV)

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

3)      Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin.  Through Him you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.

Romans 5:8 (ESV)

⁸but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

John 14:6 (ESV)

⁶Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 

4)      We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.

John 1:12 (ESV)

¹²But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 
Ephesians 2:8 - 9 (ESV)

⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  ⁹not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

Anticipating Easter

Okay here's the story....  We were supposed to move to the larger space on January 22nd, but due to some complications with getting the CO, Community of Faith is still in the middle school auditorium, and we are making two plans for Easter.  Plan A is that we will be in the middle school, and have three services, Saturday at 6:30 p.m, Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and 10:45 a.m.  With the additional space we should be able to let everyone attend the service that best suits them and their schedules.  All services will be identical and include extended worship etc.  Plan B is that we will be in the elementary school and due to extra crowds we will add an additional service Sunday morning.  We will also need to have everyone request which service they will attend.  The last thing that we want to see happen is that our guests not have a seat! We are also exploring options to do an overflow room for those willing to make space.  Please keep this in your prayers that we will be able to cover every detail of every service so that we are ready either way.  I am so excited that God has allowed our church to grow to meet the needs of more people and these are definitely good problems.  I also want to thank everyone who has sacrificed and crammed in.  There is light at the end of the tunnel, I promise. God is in control and He knows our space needs.  Let's keep putting the needs of others before our own.

Discovery Launch 3,15,09

here is the launch via my cell phone. we had a great time playing catch with the football, and eating overpriced festival food. Unfortunately, I did not have a very good exit strategy and ended up on the same road as all the tourists going back to Orlando. I would have been wiser to drive south to Miami on I-95 and then take 27 north home :-). Great experience, everyone should do it at least once.

Random thoughts for Friday

1. Keep praying for Chuck Stephens, he had abdominal reconstruction surgery yesterday and is in ICU recovering.  They expect him to be in thehospital for 5 days to a week.

2. Last Sunday was slammed!  We had people sitting in the hallway and the heat from the crowd was not cool.  (Get it, not cool....)  SO.....
     A. I called the school about turning the AC down a few degrees so that will help.
     B. We are re-orienting the room to be able to seat 20 more chairs.
     C. We are more than ready for the BIG Move to take place, keep praying that Community of Faith gets their certificate of occupancy.

3. This weekend we kick off the "Whatever it Takes!" campaign.  I am so pumped about this message series and I cannot wait to see how God is going to use this motivation to bring people to Himself.

4. I am blown away by some of you people who are already doing whatever it takes.  One guy in our church is paying out of his own pocket to put invitations to our church in his monthly community newsletter.  Someone else, never comes to church without a friend or neighbor in the car.  I love this stuff!

5. Easter is coming.  Some have asked about Easter and all we know is that if we are able to be in the other building by then we will have one service at Saturday at 6:30 p.m. and one at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday.   IF it looks like we will not be in then we see about 3 services on Sunday where we are at now... (Yikes)

6. Small Groups are Rockin.  Pastor Ward is doing an amazing job with our small groups ministry and we are excited to see people every week get involved in this, the most important ministry of our church.

7. Time Changes coming.  Once we move to the other building, we will be shifting our early service to begin at 9:00 a.m. and those who attend that service will go to small group at 8:00. This is because of limited classroom space available for small groups to meet in, but I hope that it will make it easier for more people to get to the early service.  The Contemporary service will move to 10:30 a.m.

8.  Between now and Easter we are raising money for the new Hope Center in San Lorenzo Nicaragua.  the land was donated by the Mayor on the town square and we are raising money for the foundation.  What is amazing is that we already have $1,500 raised for the project so we are well on the way.  We will be flying Paul Heier in for Easter so that we can present him with a check.  Keep up the good giving!

9. BIG SURPRISE - We are working on a Big Surprise for May 3rd.  I am not at liberty to say what just yet, but you will absolutely love it.