Monday Morning Downloads

*The Lord blessed us with another great gathering last night.
*Pastor Mike baptized a whole bunch of people and their ages ranged from 6 to 86!!!!
*Matt helped with the Baptisms and he was really good at making the people feel comfortable and loved. That is a gift for sure, and if someone wants to be a pastor and doesn't have the love for people, they might as well just keep on preaching to their pets.
*Joe was a lot more comfortable with opening the service. That makes me happy.
*People have been asking a lot of questions about Donovan and his crew and the reason I don't ever name them from the pulpit is mainly because Donovan likes to keep the focus off of them and on the Holy Spirit. I dig that and I respect it, but I do want to give you the names of the band so that you can pray for them by name.
Donovan leads, sings and plays keyboard. Lindsey sings and tambourines her heart out. Nathan plays electric guitar and does a lot of the grunt work. Larry plays bass and carries more wisdom than any of us probably will ever know. Judy sings and plays piano and whatever else is needed. Ryan is the drummer. I've known Ryan since he was in seventh grade. David just joined them on acoustic guitar. David was with me in our CrossOver days. I think every one of them sings except Ryan. I heard Ryan sing the other day and I realize now why they put that drum shield up in front of him. Erika does all of the media and behind the scenes stuff. She also plays bass and teaches and types out all of my stuff for the screens.
*Misty was back with us tonight and it makes a big difference to me. She tells me afterwards if I rambled too much and she said I visited Ramble Town a few times last night. I'll work on that.
*I got so jacked up and moving so fast at the end that I skipped my daisy demonstration. I'll bust that one out in the future I'm sure.
*God has been so good that I couldn't begin to list everything He has done to bring all of this to such a great place.
*I said last night that there have been a few times in my life that I knew I was in the right place at the right time with the right people, and last night was one of those times!
*After every service Joe brings me a cup of water. What a cool thing to do. Its a small thing but it means big stuff to me.
*Thanks to all of you that are coming out on Sunday nights to worship with us. I love seeing each of you and learning along side you all.

Monday Morning Download for July 13th's Service

We left right after last Sunday's service and went to the beach for a week, so I wasn't able to post until now.
*The service was awesome.
*God answered our prayers in BIG ways.
*A lady told me that she felt drawn to church. Thats one of the main things we prayed--that God would draw His people to His service.
*Donovan and the worship team just opened up their hearts and the worship through music was amazing.
*I saw a lot of new faces and that blew me away.
*Joe should have been a zombie because he worked just about every hour of last week and slept a little bit here and there. Instead of being zombie-like he was all over the place. Thats a good thing!
*I left for the beach so jacked up that I felt like I drank two gallons of coffee.

The Amazing Race

This Sunday night we will look at many of the verses that describe the Christian life as a "race".
I'm excited about what the Lord has to say about what He really expects from us when we talk about "the Christian life".

Monday Morning Downloads

Each Monday morning I will download most of my thoughts about the Sunday evening service. This will be an exercise in transparency, but it will also be my attempt to flesh out the message from the night before and to quite simply count my blessings. So here goes:
*Great first night!
*I wasn't as nervous as I have been in the past. God gave me a peace and I found my confidence in Him. Its a learning process, but trusting Him is so much better than trusting ourselves.
*Having Misty in there with me is a blessing beyond my words to express it. My heart still beats faster when I see her.
*Last night reminded me about how much I love Tree of Life. Standing around afterwards and hanging out with people was very cool.
*Joe brought me a coffee from Starbucks. When he told me that cream and sugar was in the kitchen I replied, "I think I'm gonna drink this one black." Joe's response? "Yeah, that makes a huge difference when you're drinkin' decaf...." You are hilarious Joe. Hilarious.
*David was a blessing leading worship with us. He had a long day and I appreciate his faithfulness.
*Donovan and his worship team starts this Sunday and I am EXCITED!!!
*Matt used John 4 to teach on worship last year some time in CrossOver and it was really good. Its amazing how many messages the Lord can bring out of one passage.
*I mentioned snakes in my message so Lindsey told a story afterwards about Donovan pronouncing dominion over a snake before he killed it. The fact that he was serious makes the story even greater to me.
*I re-read John 4 last night and the Lord brought something else out of it. By inviting people to church, we allow them to hear the Word of God for themselves. Like the Samaritans who said, "Now that we have heard it for ourselves, we believe that Jesus is the savior of the world."
*I'm back to digging into the Amazing Race message.

Advertising

I always feel strange trying to advertise about services, or Bible studies, or classes at church. I don't ever want to commercialize the sharing of God's Word, but the flip side of that coin is the fact that you have to let people know about opportunities or they might miss the chance to hear God's Word.
Joe Bivens will be a tremendous help with me when it comes to letting people know about the Sunday evening service.
He is working on a Leaflet insert now and we should have a commercial cranking out soon. Thank the Lord for people that know what they are doing. I know what I don't know, and advertising and marketing and "tech" in general all fall in the "Jason don't know" category.