- Loved the weekend
- Always enjoy meeting guests
- Wonderful to have a full house at the membership brunch
- An honor to ordain Rick Siboni – congrats Rick!
- Felt like the Word of God struck a chord in the hearts of many.
- Rare that I get a chance to talk about sex and alcohol in the same message.
- If you missed the weekend please watch the message online – www.parkviewlife.com
- Very strong attendance for time change weekend.
- Looking forward to Easter
- Thankful for all those stepping up to serve for Easter weekend!
- Blessed by my family and friends
- God is good!
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Weekend Wrap-up
Marriage Tips
If you are a man click here and read this.
If you are a woman click here and read this.
If you are a man OR woman click here and read this.
Weekend Wrap-up
- It is 8:30pm and I have forced myself to stay up until now. After the post I will be out like a light!
- Love Parkview!
- Tremendous spirit
- Great attendance
- Communion
- New Family Pastor
- Phenomenal opportunities
- People serving
- Great friends
- Guests attending
- Gospel living
- Free to serve
- Free to love
- Free to forgive
- Galatians 5:13-15
- Spirit empowered
- Easter’s coming
- Time change this week
- Be Blessed
The Great I Am
Below is a post written by my wife, Denise. It was a must share! Enjoy:
Sunday, after one of our services, I was talking to a mom and her 11 year-old daughter and the mom asked the daughter to share with me the question she had been asking her. I felt honored to be included in what sounded like a special mother and daughter moment. I quickly began thinking what the question might be about. Makeup, boys, school, friends, so many thing ran through my head. Then she said “I don’t get “The Great I AM?” What does it mean?” I have to say…that wasn’t what I was expecting!
Mom told me how earlier in the week they had heard the song on the radio and she had asked her mom the same question. Mom took the time to explain her thoughts about the song. Then, only as God would have it, we sang the song in our worship service. Mom glowed as she shared with me how her daughter looked up at her and said “Its that Great I am thing again!”
Now, posed with the question, I began thinking about our worship service and all that was said and sung. I realized, we had sung several songs, ALL about “The Great I AM!” Asking even myself, why does that very song bring tears to my eyes and give me chills? So, what did it mean and how do I explain it to an 11 year-old. I realized I had an opportunity in my hand. An opportunity to tell an11 year-old about who God is and what He does! My heart started beating faster as I talked about that many names scripture gives to God and how they all tell about Him, who He is and what He does! I told her how amazed I was at how she was asking the right questions and that by asking “Who” He is and “What” He does, she comes into a deeper understanding of and relationship with ”The Great I AM.” That her very question was the stuff of “life change!” It was an amazing conversation….hopefully I didn’t overwhelm her with my excitement.
But I haven’t stopped thinking about “The Great I AM.” Did you know that even the best scholars disagree over the actual meaning of these words? But the best I’ve found says that God meant, “I am whatever you need me to be!” How’s that for an explanation! In Exodus 3:14 we know that God declared himself to be “I AM” to Moses and in the NT Jesus, in the flesh, declares the same to us.
John 6:41 – I am the bread that came down from heaven
John 6:51 – I am the living bread
John 8:12 – I am the light of the world – light of life
John 10:7 – I am the door of the sheep
John 10:9 – I am the door
John 10:11-14 – I am the Good Shepherd
John 10:36 – I am the son of God
John 14:6 – I am the Way, the Truth and the Life
John 15:1 – I am the true vine
John 18:37 – I am a King
Revelation 1:18 – I am the first and last
Matthew 16:15-17 – I am the Christ, the Son the Living God
He is “The Great I AM” and that about sums it up! And you want to know the part that makes the hair stand up on my arms…”the mountains “know” and the devil and his demons “run and flea at the mention of His name!” We can’t even stand before the power and the presence of the Great I am! “ If that doesn’t give you chills, I don’t know what will!
Is He your “Great I AM?”
I wanna to be close close to your side, So heaven is real and death is a lie
I wanna hear voices of angels above,Singing as one
Hallelujah Holy Holy
God almighty Great I am
Who is worthy, None beside Thee
God Almighty, Great I Am
I wanna be near near to your heart, Loving the word hating the dark
I want to see dry bones living again, Singing as one
Hallelujah,Holy Holy
God almighty Great I am
Who is worthy, None beside Thee
God Almighty, Great I Am
He’s the Great I Am Great I Am
The mountains shake before Him, The demons run and flee
At the mention of the name, King of Majesty
There is no power in hell, Or any who can stand
Before the power and the presence of the Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am
Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am
The mountains shake before Him, The demons run and flee
At the mention of the name, King of Majesty
There is no power in hell, Or any who can stand
Before the power and the presence of the Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am
The Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am
The Great I am The Great I am The Great I am
Mentored From Afar
To me mentoring is all about seeing the potential in an individual, helping them see it and then calling out the individual to reach that potential. I love being mentored and what I have just described has been my personal experience through being mentored. Several great men have seen what I did not and called that out in me. To those men I am grateful!
Most of the people who have mentored me have done so in an up-close and personal way. On rare occasions I have been mentored from afar. Being mentored from afar has most often been done through books, pod casts, articles, etc. Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting one of the few men who have mentored me from afar.
In the early days of pastoring the church I recall driving to the theater every Sunday morning and listening to Dr. Joseph Stowell, then President of Moody Bible Institute, preach on the radio. His sermons were always encouraging to my heart and were also a primary challenge for me to develop my own preaching. Around that same time I purchased Dr. Stowell’s book, Following Christ. That book still stands out as one of my favorites both for its content and its timing in my life. Several years ago I had the opportunity to take our staff and wives to a conference in Miami at which Dr. Stowell was a keynote speaker. Once again God used him to challenge me and encourage me. Yesterday I was invited to a breakfast where Dr. Stowell would be speaking to pastors. During the morning I had the opportunity to speak with him on two occasions and they were both wonderful conversations.
If you would like to listen to Dr. Stowell you can click here to find some of his resources.
In closing, who is mentoring you and who are you mentoring? Also, who has mentored you from afar?
Weekend Wrap-up
- I am overwhelmed at the power of the gospel!
- Loved having several people say to me today, “Let me introduce you to my friend”.
- Never get over seeing people in our prayer area coming to receive their new believers Bible.
- We ran out of new believers Bibles – I guess if we have to have a problem that is a good one.
- A lady who trusted Christ last weekend high fived me in the lobby this weekend.
- A guy from my small group got saved this weekend.
- If you are interested in my sermon notes from the weekend you can click here.
- Every time the celebration choir sings they are better than the previous time! Thx Derek!
- We have some very faithful high-capacity volunteers who serve the children and students of our church – I saw some of them in action this weekend – THX
- Absolutely tremendous attendance this weekend!
- Saturday night crowd was huge!!!
- Thx for coming on Sat night and making room for our guests on Sunday morning!!!!!!
- If you had to miss a weekend and you picked this weekend, you missed the wrong one – just saying!
- Love what God is doing at Parkview!!!!
- Have an exciting announcement to make next weekend!!!!!!!
Gospel notes
Below is most of my introduction from this past weekend. I share it primarily for the purpose of putting before us the definition of the gospel that we are using for this series. I think it is important to familiarize ourselves with the definition in order to further expand our understanding:
The gospel is the final answer to every issue and it is the solution to every problem.
The Gospel: Understanding that God is more holy than we can imagine and we are more sinful than we care to admit. Yet, God loved us so much that He sent Jesus to reconcile us to Himself. Christ’s love is beyond all comprehension and as a result He took our place on the cross and satisfied the wrath of God. Through the resurrection of Christ and by the grace of God, when we repent of our sin and make Jesus Lord and leader of our life, we inherit eternal life. As a result of our faith, we become ambassadors for Christ who proclaim and live out this gospel.
The Gospel is the Great Exchange
The gospel in short – Christ died in my place
Being able to define the gospel is one thing – having it captivate your soul and saturate your life is entirely different.
Christianity is not about receiving the gospel and then moving on from there. We receive the gospel and then we go deeper in the gospel.
The gospel is not the diving board we jump off of into the pool of Christianity – it is the pool itself.
Grasping the gospel and living by the gospel is not about saying the sinner’s prayer and learning some new principles and keeping some new rules – when we live gospel saturated lives we are allowing the gospel to become the filter of our mind, the lens of our eyes, the gate of our heart and the attitude of our actions.
Weekend Wrap-up
- Loved launching The Gospel
- I had really been looking forward to this for a couple weeks. My prayer was to share with you the things that God has been sharing with me.
- Praise the Lord!!! We had a tremendous response to the invitation of trusting Christ as Lord and Leader!!!
- 18 people indicated they prayed to receive Christ and I loved watching many of them come after the service to receive prayer and a Bible.
- AMAZING!!!!
- I can’t wait for the next 2 weeks!!
- Whatever you do try to bring someone with you!!!
- If you bring someone with you, come to whatever service you want!
- For our regular attenders – if you can attend Saturday night that will help us free seats for our guests. Most of our guests attend 11am. In fact, 13 of the 18 who received Christ did so in the 11am service.
- 11am was packed this weekend – great problem to have!!!
- This past week I had 6 people tell me they would like to volunteer in Children’s ministry!
- Really excited about some of the things I see on the horizon of our Children’s ministry!
- If you are not currently serving you ought to pray about the exciting, life changing ministry to kids!! You can serve once a month, bi-weekly or monthly – your choice! You can also choose the service time in which you would like to serve! Email steve@parkviewlife today!!!
- I am as excited about the future of Parkview and our Kingdom impact as I have ever been!!!
Implications of the Gospel
Why do you need to do everything that you can to get to church this weekend? Because The Gospel changes absolutely everything!
Many churches teach that The Gospel is where you find faith and then you move on from there. I don’t believe that! I will challenge our thinking and I will call many to perhaps a new understanding of The Gospel. The Gospel is not as simple as A-B-C; we will see that it is A to Z. It is The Gospel that should change our life, our relationships, our habits, our perspective and every single way we live our lives – and the beauty of all this is that it is grace based!! The Gospel is not about what you are doing but it is actually based on what has already been done.
This series has the potential to revolutionize our church and every single person in our church!
What I Am Reading
