This past weekend, we kicked off our series on Jesus’ last week. We focused on Jesus’ role as King.
Dan presented some great insight into this day in the life of our Savior and Andy led us in some amazing, high-energy, loud, rockin’, outright worship of the King of the Universe. It was easily one of the best services at Calvary ever!
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This last weekend kicked of a new series about the last week of Christ. Easter is early this year, so it seems a little wierd to talk about the passion week already. But I think it will be a great opportunity to learn so much about our savior!
Imagine those who know that their time is short and how all the unimportant stuff is just set aside to focus on the important stuff of life. This is what Jesus did his last week. What can we learn from that?
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Wow, the weekend went very well. We had a tremendous response.
We received more than twice our budget for the week and over 100 people who had never contributed before got involved for the first time!
We have also received many stories from people about how God is being faithful and challenging them to new levels. How awesome!
I think this challenge will become something much bigger in the years to come.
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Before Christmas, I picked up a pocket sized version with grid ruled pages. I had always seen them at Barnes & Noble when looking at other journals and planners. However, they seemed so plain looking and were a little expensive.
However, I have tried this one and just love it. It lays pretty flat, is well constructed and is just top-quality!
I have also found that the Moleskines have a bit of a fan base. And I can see why. They are great.
Visit moleskinerie.com to get an idea of just how big of an impact these little books have made!
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We are in a series on money right now. We have decided to hold a Tithe Challenge Weekend on the last weekend of the series. (Inspired by some posts I read by Tim Stevens, Executive Pastor at Granger Community Church both here and here.)
Basically, we are asking everyone to test God by looking at what they make in a week and bring 10% of it that weekend for the offering. In Malachi, the Jews had stopped bringing their tithes and offerings, thus robbing God. Restoration of their relationship with God involved testing God and His faithfulness by bringing those tithes and offerings.
That was all under the Law. Now, we live by grace. If under the Law, the people brought 10% and other offerings, then under grace, that should just be a good starting point! So, as in Malachi, we are challenging our people to test God and bring 10% of their income.
Our hope is that many of our folks will come to see this as not only a joy, but also an act of worship and obedience. That their lives will become more generous rather than selfish.
This weekend, we will be talking about how "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." And when it comes to tithing, when people are obedient to tithe to their church, their heart will follow and grow their interest and involvement in ministering to others.
There is so much to this topic, but for now I will stop here!
What about you? Do you tithe? Why, or why not? How has your giving to the church changed your involvement in your church’s ministries?
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Our church is over 40 years old and we have just exploded with growth in the last 10 years. This has been due to major shifts in thinking and developing a vision for reaching those who do not go to church at all.
Having made an impact on previously unchurched people, we constantly have to remind ourselves that these folks have no spiritual education whatsoever. That means we have to choose our language appropriately and explain things more than if we had a more "been going to church forever" kind of audience.
It also means we need to hit all the topics…expecially the ones we think are givens having been in church forever. And sometimes, those things we THINK are givens are really just manmade and simply not truth.
As we talked here yesterday, it really means embracing and carrying forward the best of the old and taking on the challenges that come with the fresh new views and ideas of those unencumbered by years in church.
Does this make sense? For those of you who’ve "always been in church," how have you had to flex in order to be effective to those who’ve never been? For those of you relatively new to church, how are you learning from those of us that have been around awhile? What can we do better?
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I loaned out our personal video camera to a friend and collegue for the weekend. Taking the usual risk that it might come back not working. Well, it did come back not working! In fact, he did not even get to record anything.
It’s a Sony DCR-HC96 consumer model of a nice miniDV Handicam. When you put a tape in, it says to reinsert the tape and flashes the code C:31:22 on the screen. So, I google “Sony C31:22 error” and find all these people that have got the same error on their cameras (many different models) and the fix is…slap it around a bit!
I think to myself, well this cannot be! So, I search some more. No other fixes and tons of “I hit mine really hard, and now it works” kind of comments.
So, I did it. I hit it a couple firm times on my leg. Did not help. Tried asecond time. A little harder, but kinda wimpy…no worky. Finally, I am desperate…can’t afford any kind of repair. I wack this thing good on my kneecap on the bottom and on the tape side of the camera. Lo and behold…the thing now works!
The theory from a few people is that some of the mechanism parts can get jarred off track by bumps and bounces or via tape tension. This firm tapping kinda puts things back in place. Hmmm.
The ice storm has made it from Oklahoma to our neck of the woods. Though, we still have power, so we are thankful for that. A lot of people are without across much of the midsection of the US.
Here is a pic of my truck with icing on top.
Schools were closed. Most people stayed home from the office today…including me. But I have a cold anyway.
Hope to thaw out soon!
Marketing guru, Seth Godin, has this post called "the caricature of your brand" that talks about the need for a brand to have certain features that stand out in a crowd. What sets you apart from others in the industry? Seth’s quote below especially impacted me:
Worse than avoiding the negative [caricature], though, is the tendency for most organizations to resist creating a brand that can be caricatured. It doesn’t feel safe or responsible or prudent. Coloring inside the lines and pleasing most of your customers most of the time almost guarantees you’ll be bland.
I think it is natural for us to want to please all people…at times, we have worked too hard to do this at Calvary and have missed opportunities to move forward and be innovative in our ministry. It certainly slows the rate of progress. It is certainly a part of any organization. Hopefully, we can be more aware of these tendencies and improve in the future.
Basic stuff, but a good reminder on writing in metaphor. From WikiHow.
