Sunday, April 20, 2008

On a Personal Note

I had a great weekend (besides the problems). Isn't that usually the case! I was in charge of building (which I had help with) two doors that had signs above them that read, "Jesus, the Door of Hope" for the weekend services. This idea came to us in staff meeting on Tuesday, which left little time to accomplish it. I had great help, but I don't think Satan wanted people to get the message of Jesus being their door of hope this weekend. The doors looked great, but we had a time getting them to the church (one fell off the trailer on the way and broke 1 hour before the service began). Even though I was frustrated, God used them to illustrate His Hope and many lives were touched by the example.

After church on this past Saturday night, we had a baptism and I needed to video it. I led kids church and then ran across church to video and almost slipped in water. Little did I know what went on during service! We had the baptistry water line plumbed in this week and someone left it on for about 45 minutes. The baptistry overflowed, no exaggeration, about 1,000 gallons of water. IT WAS EVERYWHERE. It filled the 2 conference rooms beside it, the front of the prayer room, the hallway, and the student center and literally flowed out the door and under the walls into the parking lot.

We got all the water out and everything dried out fine. People were mopping, using wet vacs, squeegees, push brooms, towels, etc. What a team!!! No one owned up to leaving the water on though. Shame, shame, shame. Anyway. The lesson for kids church that night was "God is in Control" and we used the bible story of Moses parting the Red Sea - how appropriate! God was in control of the doors we were building and He parted the baptistry waters that flowed down the hall. We are going to install an overflow drain this week (why we haven't already, I'll never know. Whoever is in charge of the baptistry should do a better job - oh, wait, that's me).

One of my Life Group guys and I went to measure and make a materials list for a wheel chair ramp we are building for a little girl in our church. What fun! To know we are really touching that family's life and making a real difference. Sometimes, you don't know if you make a difference or if you are even being taken advantage of - which is really beside the point anyway. Its all done in faith. Its great to know we can be used of God to help a family with a real need - imagine that - being real and being church at the same time.

Our Life Group went great with 19 people present. We had three guests we reached out to as well. I ran into a couple who had been out of church for a while and began to get into their lives again. We encouraged the group, as we talked about hope (Prov 13:12; 1 Corinthians 13:13; Romans 8:28; 1 John 3:2-3) to watch for the open doors into the lives of people who need the kind of hope only Christ offers.

We've had several families join the church lately and we decided to add another membership class because of it. 8 people were baptized last weekend and we've had several saved recently. God is doing great things. We just need to stay humble and on track with what the Word says.

I just finished a book "Honor's Reward" by John Bevere. He wrote "Undercover", "Drawing Near", "The Bait of Satan", "Thus Saith The Lord" and several other great books. We are about to start teaching it in all our Life Groups. I love it because its full of scripture and it has brought me back to placing huge honor on those in authority (spiritual, civic, etc.) once again. When we grasp honor, I think we'll grasp a lot more Christ-like characteristics.

I'm starting to build a play fort for the girls tomorrow. That's right - a fort. Two story, with a slide, fireman's pole, and tire swing. Well, we'll see. It could turn out to be a kit from Walmart.

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