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.
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.
This goes out to all my homies with a big "home school high five!"
This week I changed my sermon topic in our Kaleo series to talk about the need for daily worship in our lives. I feel that the need that we all have is to have daily, meaningful time with God, however, I know that for most Christians, time with God is set aside as 1 hour on Sunday. Sadly, many Christians will not even worship God in church. To our church family, I want to beg you to come to worship service tonight or tomorrow. Without worship, we will be anemic as Christians and ineffective in our calling.
tomorrow I will preside over two weddings.... one of them at the beach. So here's to you Jeff, Angie, Doug and Adel.... May your best man truly be the best.
No offense to Boxing Announcer Michael Buffer but there is so much going on that this blog is going to be a bit of a ramble. keep up if you can....
1. God is doing some amazing things at Cornerstone. Last weekend we had a record Sunday attendance, save Easter and Christmas. Somebody asked what we did to get everyone there. I said, nothing it was a God thing. It is His church and He has decided that it is time for us to grow to the next level. Now we just have to make some adjustments...
2. Speaking of Adjustments, I cannot wait to move over to the other building. We have brand spanking new chairs and 3 times as much space to fill up in all three services. No kidding, our church could run 1,000 in the space we will have....Let's fill it up!
3. Today I have to go to the store for some toiletry items.... this is not usually news, but it is for our Missions trip to Nicaragua. We have 8 people from our church leaving this Sunday afternoon and will spend a week doing construction on the Hope Center in Teco! You can see the progress made by previous groups, and we will be doing all kinds of stuff. I will be taking part in a baptism, I am guessing my part will be to distract the crocodiles, a la Steve Erwin, and then preaching via translator on Wednesday night. Seriously pray for me to not screw that up! I plan on telling my buddy Paul to let me speak in English, and for him to just preach in Spanish.
4. Speaking of World Hope, tonight we are going to a celebration dinner at First Baptist Orlando, celebrating all that God has done this past year through World Hope. I am so glad that we have a strategic Missions Partner like Hope. I don't know any missionaries who balance Evangelism and Ministry like them. Jesus served people AND preached the gospel. To do one and not the other is inadequate.
5. I will be meeting today with Gabe to work on some stuff for our upcoming message series Kaleo. It is going to be awesome, and I want to kick this one up a notch.
6. It has been 1 month since Ward came along side and started working with us in our small groups. God has given him a vision to make our church the most biblically literate church in the world, and I believe that Ward believes God will do it! We are working with our small group leaders on Wednesday nights and are looking forward to getting everybody excited and engaged.
7. This Sunday will be my last message from Gideon. I am going to miss that dude! He has taught me a lot about myself and how God wants to use me and how to find His plan for me. This weekend we will see that God want's us to do MORE with less. Prolly a good message for 2009!
8. Let's put the recess back in recession! I am tired of all the complaining! Let's enjoy the downturn seriously! I remember when the lights went out as a kid and we "GOT' to use candles! That was a blast. Just cause we have less, does not mean we have to pout! Let's kick up the creativity and put recess back in recession!
9. Just got word from Paul in Nicaragua, that as soon as our team leaves, a surgical team will arrive from Canada. I am not a Dr. but I can do my part by building an examination room. That is teamwork!
10. BTW for any of you who skip church when I skip town, I will not miss a weekend service, and I will know if you are not there! More so, you will miss out our presentation on the 7th and 8th if you are not there, and I may not post pictures here simply out of spite! Don't miss!
11. Giving was great in January! We took a step forward this year, and set an aggressive budget. Each week we need $5,000 to come in so that we can continue growing forward. I told someone the other day that February will be the test for the rest of the year. Moving into the larger room requires that everybody get on board and share the load.
12. I don't know a time when I have been more hopeful about what God is doing in our church. We do not have another "growth barrier" until we hit 400 in attendance and I can't wait to get to the foot of that mountain. Let's enjoy the journey!
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