A few things I wanted to say to our church after a great night of sleep…
#1 - THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to volunteer this weekend! I am constantly overwhelmed at the relentless passion that our volunteers show week after week. As I always say…a church is not effective when the pastor ministers to the people but rather when the body ministers to the body…and this weekend SO MANY OF YOU served Jesus by serving others…and heaven is going to be more crowded because you took the time to do so.
#2 - We had nearly 3,000 children show up this weekend (all campuses combined!) WOW! What pumps me up about that is the fact that their first memories of church aren’t necessarily going to be “sit still and shut up or you get a beat down when you get home!” BUT rather they were all engaged with teaching on their level that focused on Jesus…and in 10-20 years they will be leading the church! Our ceiling is there floor and it is an honor to allow them to stand on our shoulders so they can do things with His church in the next several decades that we could never even imagine.
#3 - As I said in my “Sunday Night Reflections” post—keep doing what it takes to get people to church. Don’t give up on someone because they didn’t come…or they came but did not receive Christ. Every week we are going to go all out to make sure the Gospel is clear…it’s not just an Easter thing for us…and there are SO MANY in our communities that still do not know Christ! Remember…we are not a megachurch, we are a micro-church with a MEGA VISION!
#4 - It is NO accident that we saw over 200 salvations and a record attendance after a week dedicated to prayer and fasting! My prayer is that we, as a church, will always stay desperate for God and dedicated to God so that HIS Kingdom will become more dominant in the communities in which He has planted us.
#5 - My prayer as of late for our church is that we will experience an AWAKENING! Jesus didn’t die on the cross so that we could have nice church services…but so that mankind could be reconciled to God. I am literally praying that God will move on all of our campuses in such an undeniable way that ALL of us are stirred up to live out John 13:34-35 every single day of our lives…NOT just on Sunday!