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March 2007

March 26th | I'm Back!

Wow! Keeping up with a daily blog can be difficult if you are not used to doing so! Time has a way of slipping by you...FAST.

God is really streching me in the arena of prayer and fasting. Core value number three for our ministry is: "Prayer is the power behind our ministry." I, like most Christians, believe that in theory, but often don't flesh it out in lifestyle. As a Pastor, I often find myself so busy doing the work of the ministry, that I can find myself neglecting the LORD of the ministry. Fasting has a way of slowing you down and focusing on what truely is important.

I want to thank you all who have sent me so many wonderful letters and cards of encouragement. They mean more to me than you will ever know. God is about to do something BIG...I feel it in my spirit. Our growth has been great but I believe it is about to go off the charts with our community Easter service. I am praying every day for each name that was given to me...over 1,000 of them. I am also praying that God will give you boldness to invite...then let's see God work!

I love you Church! There is no better place to be than with you, squarely centered in the love and will of God!

March 13th | The Big Wait

Yesterday I received an e-mail from a friend of mine and one who attends our ministry. He posed a good but difficult question to me: What if your Big Ask becomes the Big Wait? In other words, you have been asking God to do that big thing in your life and He He hasn't responded...yet.

That is the question of the hour. When I don't know something about God or His ways (and that is a lot!) I go to what I do know about God. I know that God desires to have patience develop it's perfect work in me (James 1:4). I know that God says I will benefit if I do not give up (Gal.6:9) and I know that it is faith that really juices God (Heb.11:6). I also know that God is absolutely head over heels in love with me and that He is more committed to me than I could ever be to myself or my family.

So...when I have a crisis of belief or just don't understand, that is what I hang my hat on. Simple? Perhaps...but it works for me!

March 11th | a great start to a new beginning!

Today was a good day at Church. Difficult but good. Difficult in the sense that we had three things working against us. We had the new service times, we had time change Sunday and we had spring break. Yet it was an awesome day in the house of the Lord.

This concept of asking God for big things can be revolutionary for you. It has been for me. God doesn't want me just to survive, He wants me to THRIVE! Our God is the God of the Big Ask. Pray the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles 4:10. Pray it, live it and believe it. See what happens and let me know.

I am praying that way in my life and for our ministry. I want to MAXIMIZE my life and this ministry. I want God to entrust to us a boat load of responsibility in building His Kingdom. By the way, I am praying for 2,000 people on Easter Sunday...and I am asking God to bring back that next week 200 new people to our Church. That is my big ask! Would you pray it with me? Have a good night!

March 10th | excited!!!

As I sit at my desk on Saturday evening I cannot tell you how excited I am for tomorrow. The new early morning service time juices me. (Not getting here before 7:00 am thrills me!) But it is just another turning point for our ministry.

Life groups have begun this week too. The Life Group that meets at my house on Wednesday evenings started out great. Chris and Danielle Caslow head it up and the series is on Know Fear: Overcoming lifes six most common phobias. Check it out on Wednesday from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. Call the church or my cell for directions.

Also, another Life Group started this week at Steve and Nikki Smith's house. It is led by the Smiths and Dennis and Rachelle Parezo. They meet on Thursady nights and they are going through a parenting curriculum. Check them out. The office can get you all the vitals on the group.

As I sit at my desk you have Ty Quillen, Troy Manlove and my son Craig all working hard to finish the stage design for our new series called 24. I hope they can get it finished for tomorrow. They're miracle workers...I know they will!

March 5th | Life can be a funny thing

We all love to live life on the mountain top. All of us. Yet, it seems that so often that life is lived in the valley, or atleast part way up the mountain. I find though, in my life, that God often speaks the clearest to me when I am NOT on the mountain top. Weird isn't? Life can be a funny thing!

Here is another thing...I have found in my life that satan tends to come at me the hardest right before God is about to do something real special in my life. No, satan is not all knowing. However, he is a pretty smart cookie who has been around a long time. He knows, or maybe senses is a better word, when God is about to breakout in our lives. So what does he do? He calls for an all out attack on us to discourage us and cause us to quit.

I currently am in one of those times in my life. Satan is banging and hitting hard, real hard to be honest. But it lets me know that God is on the verge of doing something special in my life and within our ministry. Stay tuned to see what God does...

March 4th | Wow! What a weekend!

To say that God blew us away this weekend would be an understatement to say the least. The Opening Day festivities that we put on at Eastmonte Park was unbelievably more than I had personnally expected. The amount of people that we showed the love of Jesus to by serving them was HUGE! I mean BIGGER than I could have imagined.

Thank you Church for being such a great example of Jesus to our community. I love being associated with you. You really do make God look good. And as a result of serving our community...the city of Altamonte Springs has invited us to do the children's portion of RED, HOT and BOOM! (Only 100,000 people attend this event.)

Services today went well. I am excited to go to our new Sunday schedule: 9:30 am and 11:00 am worship services. Take the time this week to thank our band, the singers and all our tech people for making our services so special and unique.

It was good to talk with Col. Tom Killgore from Germany this morning. He has such a servants heart. He will be to be a joy to work with. Continue to pray for our trip to Germany this summer...and your involvement with it! Have a great week!

March 2nd | Making our community look good

As I sit and wonder if the rain is going to put a damper on our Opening Day event at Eastmonte Park, I am thanking God for the privilege of serving our community. Truely, it is our responsibility to make our community look good! It really is. That always needs to be our anthem as a ministry.

I ran across a Barna study that asked people to use single words to describe Jesus. They responded, "wise, accepting, compassionate, gracious, humble." Then Barna asked them to use single words to describe Christians. They said, "critical, exclusive, self-righteous, narrow and repressive." And we wonder why some people have a hard time buying into Jesus. It is my prayer that my life will be a true representation of His life.