Landscaping Videos

Here are two videos from last night's work at the church. They are my first ever youtube uploads.

Landscaping

We began our landscaping at the front of the church last night. We were pulling out bushes, grass, and sidewalk in order to prep the area for new beauty.

Click on the picture below to see some photos and videos of the work.

Church Landscaping - Sept 07

YouVersion Online Bible

Lifechurch.tv has just launched YouVersion, their online Bible. I think it will be a great tool for Bible study, especially as they finish all of the features that are planned.

Check it out: YouVersion

You can create an account and keep your own journal, post community comments, etc. Search John 3:16 and you can see some of the content Lifechurch has added. You can see one of my comments if you look at Ezra 1:5.

Enjoy surfing the Bible.

Dysfunctional Pastors

Craig Groeschel is blogging on dysfunctional pastors this week. It's good reading.

LifeChurch.tv Blog

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Look How Far We've Come

Were you computer savvy in 1993? Did you use the internet? I had been using a computer for a few years by that time, but I wasn't using the internet. I do think I began emailing shortly after I moved to Illinois, which was summer 1993.

Check it out:

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Outside Again

I just came back from Dodge Park - the real park, not the road or the church building. I went there to pray during my lunch time. It was good to be outside in God's sanctuary.

As I prayed for the pastors in Guatemala, I uttered a sentence inspired by a prayer guide I have: "God, what is on your heart for the Guatemalan pastors? What do you want me to teach them in November?" The answer was almost immediate. It was the same word that God gave me about Dodge Park Church last year.

His answer to my prayer? "Outside!"

The purpose of His church is to take the light of his grace to those outside it's warmth and safety.

Listen to Jesus words from Matthew 28:18 - 20 (NLT): "Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

We are to go to those who are outside the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. These new disciples need to be taught to obey the commands of God.

We are to go.

Outside.

Outside the camp. Outside our circle of Christian friends. Outside our church family. Outside the circle of people who have already accepted the Savior we know.

Are you going? Or are you safely inside with little concern for those still outside?

If you are serious about going outside read Vince Antonucci's blog article. Then read this one, too.

Church Humor

I found this quite humorous. Maybe you will too.

Now that's unfortunate

from Inner Revolution by Geoff Surratt

If you've ever attended church in a theater you will appreciate this. Seacoast's new Asheville campus meets in a cinema that has digital signs over each door giving the name of the movie playing on that screen. This weekend their nursery was in the theater where Death Sentence was playing. That should allay the fears of new parents:

"Oh yes, we have excellent child care. Just drop your child off at Death Sentence and we'll take care of everything from there."

This isn't our first experience with unfortunate movie titles. When we opened our West Ashley campus the marquee outside read "Punch Drunk Love". That's the picture that ran in the paper announcing our Grand Opening. Gives a whole new meaning to spirit filled worship.

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Death and Life

D. James Kennedy died this week. He was one of the most fruitful pastors of our time. He began his working career as a dance instructor for the Arthur Murray Studios. After accepting Christ as his savior, he felt a call from God to become a pastor. He resigned his $3,000.00 per month job at the dance studio. That was a huge sum of money in the 1950's. In a short time he was an interim pastor of a small church in Clearwater, Florida making $250.00 per month.

In 1959, after completing seminary, he moved to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to start Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. They had 45 people in attendance their first Sunday. James often joked about "growing" the church to 17 people in the next 10 months.

Through the influence of another pastor, James developed an evangelism model that eventually was used in thousands of churches around the world. He called it Evangelism Explosion. EE was the first method of evangelism I ever used. It is famous for its two diagnostic questions:

• "Have you come to the place in your spiritual life where you know for certain that if you were to die today you would go to heaven?"
• "Suppose you were to die today and stand before God and He were to say to you, 'Why should I let you into my heaven?' What would you say?"
  

People using those two questions, then following them up with the EE presentation have led millions of people to Christ.

Those questions drove his life. Their influence is evident as he wrote about his own death:

“Now, I know that someday I am going to come to what some people will say is the end of this life. They will probably put me in a box and roll me right down here in front of the church, and some people will gather around, and a few people will cry. But I have told them not to do that because I don’t want them to cry. I want them to begin the service with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus, because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead. I will be more alive than I have ever been in my life, and I will be looking down upon you poor people who are still in the land of dying and have not yet joined me in the land of the living. And I will be alive forevermore, in greater health and vitality and joy than ever, ever, I or anyone has known before.”

Some day all of us will leave the land of the dying. The way we answer those two diagnostic questions will determine whether or not we enter the land of the living.


more about Dr. Kennedy: http://65.240.226.104:8080/default.aspx

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Hurricane Felix

Hurricane Felix moved on shore to Nicaragua today. There are major storm warnings for Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize and Guatemala.

Please pray for these countries. There will be storm surge and flooding along the coasts. The storm will also produce flash floods and mud slides inland as the rains are predicted to be from 8 to 25 inches.