- This saturday night will be a night our church and city willl never forget!!!!!!
- Campus opens at 5pm
- Bring your food, chairs and blankets
- Inflatables are free
- Balloon man works for tips
- Dunk tank is $1
- Parking will be on the grass/dirt area adjacent the South of our building, the front parking lot and the park property immediately adjacent our property to the North.
- Patriotic service at 7:15pm
- Outdoor stage
- Gospel recording artist Channing Eleton
- Military Color Guard
- Veteran’s testimonies
- Looking forward to having one combined weekend service
- We will worship through the act of giving and be receiving an offering
- Patriotic message
- FIREWORKS SHOW following the service
- This is a professional, high quality show just like you would see at Disney or Sea World!
- Invite your friends and family!!!!!!!!
Archive - June, 2010
Family, Friends, Fun and Fireworks
The middle road
A number of people in our church have read the book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. In fact, I think a couple of our small groups have read the book and done the accompanying study. I read the book with a mentoring group and was really challenged by the read.
Just a couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Francis Chan preach live.
I also stumbled across this clip and found it to be interesting, thought provoking and challenging. Click here to view an explanation of the middle road.
Weekend Wrap-up
- God is good!
- Really good!
- Really enjoying preaching verse by verse this summer through the first 4 chapters of Romans.
- I love the way our people respond to the preaching of God’s Word!
- I always love preaching at Parkview – well, except for the times that I just feel like I do a lousy job.
- I said this weekend that I am a hypocrite.
- Hypocrisy is condemning in someone else what I am excusing in my own life.
- Done that way to many times in my life!!
- It is always easier to see another person’s tooth pick while missing my telephone pole.
- To stop judging others is hard – to start judging ourselves is probably harder.
- There are 2 categories of sin: My sin and your sin. Your sin is always worse.
- Forgiveness is conditional. God doesn’t forgive if we don’t confess.
- There is no statue of limitations on your sin – God doesn’t just forget about your unconfessed sin because a certain amount of time has passed.
- I was very straight forward in speaking about the fact that some people don’t want close relationships in the body of Christ because they don’t want anybody pointing out the blind spots in their life. They would rather run people off the road with no accountability.
- I think all of us could use a little more accountability in our lives – I know I could.
- Really looking forward to our July 3rd event.
- We really don’t quite know what to expect for our first event of this kind!
- Be sure to invite your friends.
- 5 is when the food and fun starts
- 7:15 is our service. We will worship in song, prayer, testimony, giving and preaching. It will all have a patriotic theme – In God We Trust.
- Fireworks will be shot off at dark.
- Today was a long day but a good day
- I started with a 3 mile run and then a swim with Seth at 7:30 this morning.
- We got home tonight at just after 11pm.
- In between we went to 2 Parkview services, lunch with some new dear friends from church, drove to Jacksonville to hear a friend preach, out to dinner after and then home.
- It was a good God-filled day.
- Seth and Denise were able to really enjoy themselves with friends.
- The Lord is good.
- It is now just after midnight – good night!
- One last thing – thanks for letting me be your pastor.
Just Thankful
Just a few random things I am thankful for – no particular order
- God’s grace and truth in my life
- Eternity
- My family. Denise and Seth’s love is so life giving.
- The homemade pie a friend gave us for our 19th anniversary the other day.
- Some real good friends!
- A hard working, sweet spirited staff.
- Tremendous leaders who have embraced our mission
- Cold a/c in summer florida heat.
- The opportunity to expand our building and reach more people.
- Summer vacation
Weekend Relfection
- Loved so much about the weekend!
- God was at work and His Spirit was moving!
- Great to see some returning guest families!
- The video was great – honoring my dad and challenging all dads to be the hands of Christ.
- Darren Peterson read the piece that was written by his dad and Derek did a great job producing the video.
- It is sad to me how on Mother’s Day, all that moms want is their family to go to church with them and on Father’s Day, many dads think of things to do so they don’t have to go to church.
- We had our lowest attendance of the year on Father’s Day weekend and about 125 less people than we had just the weekend prior.
- That grieves me!
- I am extremely grateful for the 80% of men in our church that were in church with their wives and children.
- It is one thing to talk it and it is another thing to model it!
- It reminds me as go the men so goes the church.
- It reminds me to speak more directly to the men of our church.
- Although it was hard, I really enjoyed preaching Romans 1:18-32.
- One of the reasons I love preaching at Parkview is because our church family loves truth.
- In almost 13 years, that was the first time I ever taught on the passive wrath of God – Romans 1:24,26.
- I had another first this weekend – it was the first time I ever pulled a muscle while preaching. Pulled the muscle from my neck to my shoulder in the 9:30 service. If you were present, you can probably guess when I pulled it. This would be very funny if it wasn’t killing me. Wasn’t bad yesterday, but a night of sleep made it alot worse!!
- Felt it was helpful as we talked about our envy toward the pleasurable sin of others or our “white-knuckling” our faith until rewarded in glory.
- I am so grateful for the privilege of pastoring Parkview
- I loved my own personal experiences on Father’s Day!
- Seth decorated the house with streamers and wall signs and a balloon.
- Denise bought me some very nice pants that didn’t fit in the waist – I refuse to go to the next size, so I am officially on a weight loss regimine.
- God is a Father who is beyond words!!!!!!!!!!
Better is Better
Sometimes in ministry we get overly focused on bigger. Nothing is wrong with bigger, in fact, I think bigger honors God. Not that small churches don’t honor God, but if you can grow and God has put you in a place to grow, then when you do grow that obviously honors Him. In other words, the more people we reach, the better. The bigger we are the more life change we are able to actualize. I do see value in numbers because ultimately numbers equals souls. Empty seats never get saved! With all my heart I want to reach as many people for Christ as possible. While I am all for bigger, I do think better is better. Let me explain – If we keep getting better, better at first impressions, better at campus beautification, better at loving babies, better childrens ministry, better at empowering students, better at preaching the Word, better at the excellence in our tech team, better at the quality of worship, better at the way we fellowship, better at the way we build stronger believers, better at our outreach events, etc, etc, etc. If we keep getting better – bigger will take care of itself!!! If we determine to be better then the community will dictate bigger. By the way, better is normally not working harder it is just working smarter. If somebody is not interested in better then there is a bigger problem – pun intended.
If you are leading or serving in ministry, ask yourself, “what one thing could I do just a little bit better?”.
A favorite quote of mine is – excellence honors God and God honors excellence.
May we get better for His glory!!!
Back to the Weekend
- We had a tremendous weekend at Parkview!
- We had 10 people trust Christ as their personal Lord and Savior – that is beyond words!!
- Love guiding people to life change in Christ!
- Great attendance – great guests!
- Wherever you serve in ministry, you had a part in changing lives this weekend!
- After the weekend services, Jason and Gracie Powers, and Denise and I, went to this conference Sunday night and Monday.
- Alot of great preaching – I personally was particularly blessed by Andy Stanley and Matt Chandler.
- In between attending Greater Things, I spoke at this conference.
- Really was great how the Lord worked it out for me to do both and both were in Orlando!
- We got home last night around midnight – a long couple of days, but spiritually refreshing!
- The Lord gave our family a very unexpected blessing today!
Oil Lessons
Just a few observations and lessons from the BP blunder
- When you screw up you better figure out a way to communicate clearly and quickly
- When you blow your communication you better apologize quickly
- If the President of the US says you should be fired it is probably a bad day
- Big rewards are accompanied with big risks
- If you are taking big risks don’t act like you are not
- Better surround yourself with the right people and the best people because there will be a day when you really need them
- No matter how you try to make your wrong right some people will not let you live it down
- When your company has a major problem it will affect the companies that are closest to you
- There will be a day when you are no longer the top story but it sure doesn’t feel like it now
- Anybody can lead when the profit is flowing
- It takes a real leader to lead when the oil is spilling
- You better spend whatever it takes to make a wrong right
I need more depth
A rather common statement made by Christians is that they “want more depth”. While that statement can mean different things to different people, I think we need to be careful when we make that statement. I am all for growing deeper and expanding knowledge as long as it is not for knowledge sake alone. “Knowledge puffs up” if we are not careful.
Recently I made the statement in a sermon that “we are educated way beyond our obedience”. I was commenting to someone today about how I will discover a “new or deeper” truth, teach that truth, be totally excited from several different angles about the deeper truth and in a few weeks I can’t even remember what I sudied, discovered, prepared and taught. Perhaps that is a statement about my preaching but I think it is more about my memory. It also serves as just another reminder that I need to be concerned about doing what I know and not worry about the deeper truth that I have forgotten. If I never learned another biblical truth, I would still not be able to obey all that I already know.
Pastor Steven Furtick had a recent post where he touched on a similar topic. He said, “The greatest problem of American Christians when it comes to the Bible is not that we are not deep in God’s Word. The problem is that we are not active in God’s Word. We have a lot more revelation than our current level of active application. And revelation without application leads to stagnation”. You can read his entire post by clicking here.
Mix it up
- Missed my weekend wrap up - now it is Monday night at 7pm.
- It was a bell to bell weekend both Saturday and Sunday.
- Love leaving it all on the feild.
- Got to lunch with Denise today and am getting ready to work outside with Seth tonight.
- Had a good membership brunch this weekend.
- Our new Bible Fellowship class went very well from all the reports I heard.
- Our 5 summer womens Bible studies are off to a good start – ladies are still signing up.
- Great to see so many people connecting in group life.
- Our LIFE groups (which are groups that stay together and just continue to choose studies for the benefit of the spiritual growth of group members) and CLASSES (which are one time groups that gather for a specific study, ie. parenting, finances, book study, etc.) follow a Fall and Spring schedule. It is great to see some special summer studies and our new Bible Fellowship group doing so well.
- Growth takes place best in the context of community!
- Had several other meetings this weekend and they went well.
- There are a number of things that are happening that will remove some growth barriers for us.
- Right now the most important lid to be removed is our space constraints.
- I am thankful for the leaders that are keeping our building project moving forward.
- Things are happening every day to make construction happen.
- Be praying as we near applying for our building permit.
- Really excited to be in our summer series, Magnum Opus
- Romans is Paul’s magnum opus, his greatest work.
- Romans is the greatest epistle by the greatest apostle.
- Looking forward to preachiing through the first 4 chapters verse by verse this Summer.
- At the very beginning of Summer and our guest numbers are very strong. It is exciting to see people visiting who are actually moving to town.
- This is the time of year that young families move to town.
- Parkview family – let’s be sure that we go out of our way to be friendly and connect with people!!!
- Let me encourage you to come to church next weekend, having spent quality time with the Lord this week and ready to worship out of your personal overflow.
- Be Blessed!
What I Am Reading
