Sunday Rewind

Today we began One Prayer, a united effort of some 1200 churches with over a half million people to pray for God to do something incredible in His church.  One Prayer was the dream of Craig Groeschel pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma, we have sharing in this summer event since it's inception 3 years ago.  The idea is for churches to partner locally, nationally, and internationally in one theme, this years theme is "Unstoppable".

Today we watched a message by Scot Longyear of Maryland Community Church entitled "Unstoppable Presence".  In this message Scot contrast the truth of scripture that teaches God is everywhere, but sometimes in our circumstances He is nowhere, or it seems.  I love the fact that Scot didn't just do a podium message but presented the message in a rest area with the elements all around.  Personally when I feel like God is far from me, it seems the noise in my life is very loud, so I got it.  Scot had several great lines in his talk, but the one that spoke to me the most was, "Remember the wind in your life is not bigger than the God in your life!"  Good Scot!

Here are a few more thoughts from today:

• Good crowd for summer, excited to see the good attendance.
• Enjoyed being back home with FC people.
• Had a friend visit, Mr. Arial, Sammy Arial's father, I bet he was as surprised at our environment as I was at his coming, glad he did!
• Encouraged by our New Believers class, we had three new attenders, one of which accepted Jesus last week, PTL!
• Enjoyed worship this week, really good song set.
• The best thing today is we had one young lady who asked Jesus into her life, it never gets old!

Final thoughts:

• Next Sunday we will hear a message from Kevin Thomas of CCCLive.tv church in Australia.  I promise it will bless you.
• The next Sunday we will watch Craig Groeschel, whom I believe to be one of America's top pastors will share his thought on One Prayer.
• Then the last Sunday of the month I will share the four things that are truly "Unstoppable", can't wait, it should be fun.

Vacation!!!!!  I will be in the office all this week, but will be leaving Friday for a two week vacation.  Me and the family are headed to the beach for to rest, relaxation and refreshment.  Although I will miss you all, I need some time to refresh my batteries.  Pray that we have a great time away.  Let me also encourage you to make time this summer to get away for rest.  We all need it!

See you soon!

Sunday Night Rewind

As I sit here resting from a very busy day I can't help but feel amazed and blessed by all that God has done.  In fact it never gets old to see God do what He does.  So let me recap:

• Attendance was down today, not sure why, maybe the weather or it could have been all the activities and events in our area.  If you missed today take time to listen to the 3rd talk in the series Incredible God, Leading Worship.
• It was one of those days that I really didn't feel to well.  As I said in the talk I could have stayed home and rested.  I am sure you have those types of days as well, but I believe that it is on these days that God blesses us when we are obedient even when we don't feel life it.
• One person trusted Jesus today!  YES!!!!!  You may not find that amazing, but I do.  We didn't even give an invitation, we just worshiped.   In fact I didn't even know about what had happened until our All-Staff meeting this afternoon.  It just proves that when God's people lift Jesus up, people far from God are drawn to Him.  Can't wait to tell more about this story.
• Worship was great!  During the Incredible God message series we sought to help you worship God.  I think it is working.  Can't believe I get to do what I do, teach people how to follow God. They just explode in your mouth.
• Had a great lunch with friends today, then met some others for some Mex, good food day.
• My wife cooked some great food, but the homemade biscuits were the bomb (bomb in a good way). 
• We had a great All-Staff meeting today.  Since Jessie and Anthony join our staff we have to find times to get all of us together.  I love our staff and believe we are about to see some amazing things happen.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for us this week.  Here is some things to come:

• 10 days until the last day of school.
• Looking forward to the Realtor's Lunch this week, pray that I get to have influence on this group for Jesus.

• Next Sunday will be amazing.  I believe God is preparing us for a time of worship that will rock our world.  We will be talking about Spiritual Warfare when we worship.  I believe every one of you whould be there!
• Two things to REMEBER:  BE QUIET and BE EARLY!!!!!

See you Sunday!

Sunday Night Rewind

WOW What an amazing day!  Not that every Sunday at Fellowship lately has not been amazing, but today had some special things happen that blow me away.  So just as a celebration and reminder allow me to rewind:

• The attendance today was really good considering it is Mother's Day, by the way mother's Happy Mother's Day.  I hope you had a great day with your kids.
• Our coffee barista's did an amazing job today.  Diane and France were out of town and we never missed a beat (not that they are not very important to us).  Thank you to Nokie Moore for stepping up and helping lead today.  I love it that we have a depth of servants at Fellowship.
• We celebrated the volunteer of the month today, Kent Elliot.  You should know that Kent has only been at Fellowship for less than a year, but his level of commitment has really be great to watch.  Allow me to give you one example:  Kent is attending our New Believer's Class.  He shared with us that he wanted to attend so that when people asked him about it at the Guest Services counter he would know how to help them.  That story blew me away.  THANKS KENT, you help provide an environment for people to follow Jesus at Fellowship!
• Today message was Cardiac Rehab - here's a few points
• Knowing God + Walking with God = Worshipping God
• It starts with the heart!
• Knowing God is more than just having information it's having time for personal relationship.
• Worship is like the spilled coffee in the saucer, umm umm good!
• Worship begins with a commitment to a personal Sabbath.
• Baptism today was just amazing, so instead of using this post to tell you about it, I will do another post because the story is so amazing!!! Get ready to be blessed.

It seems that lately we have been experiencing some of the most invredible worship times and spirit at Fellowship Church.  So much so that I can't wait for next week to see what happens. 

Let me encourage you in one way, Invest and Invite:  when God is moving as He is at Fellowship we should be investing and inviting.  As God moves it will lead others into a relationship with God. 

See you next week!

Sunday Rewind

Today at Fellowship was incredible.  I have to say our worship went to a new level and it was exciting to see people letting go and letting God.

Here are a few of my thoughts:

• Guest Services Team rocks, you guys always do a great job when the weather is crazy.
• Coffee bar -  the coffee was great today and the smiles you guys serve up are truly encouraging.
• Even thought I didn't get to walk through the kids area (due to the worship schedule) I watched as the kids and parents exited, all I saw was smiles and laughs, I think we exceded our goal of kids having fun and learning about Jesus.
• Great crowd of 360 or so, I will get the exact count in the morning.  So far since Easter we have been above 350.  Next is the 500 mark.
• The Offering was good today.  Thank you for being faithful and supporting the ministry of FC.
• I am so excited about our New Believer's Class that began this morning.  Attendance was good and I believe this will prove to be an important part of our future growth.
• I enjoyed playing the guitar with the band this morning, I really rocked.

The message was really good this morning, not because I gave it, but because God used it to change lives.   During the Destroying the Idols time I listening as everyone tossed their light bulbs over the wall, the noise of the bulbs bursting on the ground was out of this world.  It really rocked me, I can only hope you did that for real in your life and didn't just go through the motions.

As we worshipped to close our time together all i can say is WOW!  I believe God was happy watching us worship and give Him praise.

Next week I hope you will come as we tackle the thought of Cardiac Rehab.

Reminders:

• Baldwin Elementary Teachers Appreciation - we need help putting together the gifts and if you can visit with them to give out gifts each day let us know.
• Baptism is this Sunday.  If you haven't talked to Stan you still have time.
• New Believers class is an ongoing class that you can drop in on.  Each class is independent of the others so you can miss one and catch up late.  Greg Brock is teaching this first steps class each Sunday at 11:00

More to come this week.