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After Easter

09 Apr

It’s the Monday after Easter, and even though it’s my day off, I can’t help but write down a few thoughts about the weekend. Between Good Friday and Easter, 888 people attended VALLEY Christian Church over the weekend. Here are some reflections:

Good Friday was really special for VALLEY. We had a packed house and it was amazing to see so many new faces in the crowd. Thoughts of two services next year are already being kicked around. There’s just something about focusing on the cross of Christ that makes Resurrection Sunday all the more meaningful. Remember, “He Did It For Us!” Interesting to see many Evangelical churches around the country beginning to have Good Friday services. We’ve had one for over 10 years now, I guess VALLEY is a trend setter :)

Saturday, a team of volunteers were out early setting up for the start of our Real Marriage campaign that kicks of April 15th. Look for signs and a lot more while you’re out and about this week, as we blitz our community to get the word out! Thanks for all the hard work Real Marriage Campaign Team!

Easter, was another record breaking day or VALLEY as we celebrated Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, “Just As He Said“. We had 615 in attendance and were flooded with friends and family experiencing VALLEY for the first time. It was mind blowing to have a translator in our Fireside Room for some first-time guests who needed translation from English to Spanish. They said they would be back next week, even with the language issue because they felt such peace, love and God’s presence while at VALLEY. One of the things I love about Easter at VALLEY is the fact that we just do what we do every week; be who we are. It’s been said, “Whatever it takes to catch people is what it takes to keep people”. If that’s the case, all those returning next Sunday for our gatherings at VALLEY will once again experience what they did on Easter (as well as week in and week in our gatherings).

Thanks to the MANY volunteers (100+) who served Jesus by serving VALLEY this week! There is no way we could have done it without each and every one of you! The best is yet to come!

 
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Posted by on April 9, 2012 in Church Growth, Leadership, Preaching, relationships

 

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Plan, Prepare, Expect to Win

15 Mar

You work, you sweat, you sacrifice and then the day arrives. It all pays off and you know that despite all that you put into it, the sum is so much greater than the total of the parts. That’s what’s on my mind lately. At VALLEY Christian Church, we have a dream that God put in our hearts and we’ve been planning and preparing behind the scenes for it for months.

The dream that God has placed in our hearts is “to do all we can to change the divorce rate in our community“. Just like the community you live in, and everywhere across our country, the divorce rate in our community is about 51%. We want to do something about that. As a church, we believe, we have to do something about that! We want to put a significant dent in that number! So we’ve got big plans, months of preparation, weeks of prayer and high expectations as we set out to change marriages in our community.

All of the planning, preparing and praying will culminate over ten weeks as we launch a Sunday message series running from April 15th – June 17th. For ten weeks, what the Bible says about men, women and marriage will be central to everything going on in our church, as we engage family, friends and neighbors to lend a hand to help their marriages go from good to great. This series will also be incredibly helpful for singles as well. We’re going to discover not only practical things to look for in a future spouse, but also how to improve yourself to become that man or woman someone else is looking for.

One thing is for sure, this won’t be your average sermon series on marriage! We won’t give you five steps to happiness. We won’t talk about sex in code. We won’t talk about how you can fix your marriage. No, this is a sermon series about Jesus—and what he has to say about marriage through the Bible. This isn’t to say it won’t be practical. It will. We’ll cover important topics like friendship, the role of men and women in marriage, how to fight to the glory of God, past sin and present—and yes, sex. But the basis for all these topics will be the gospel, as it is for all of life.

So join us, as we pray that this God-sized dream that’s been given to us, and all of our planning and preparation (we’ve only got 5 more weeks to kick-off), will be met with expectations fulfilled as we stop trying to fix our marriages and start understanding how Jesus can!

 
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Posted by on March 15, 2012 in Marriage, Preaching, relationships

 

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The Sin of Safety

23 Feb

Safety has become one of the highest and most cherished virtues in our culture today. When we were kids, we rode bikes without helmets, drank water out of the ditch, didn’t go to the doctor unless we had a fever for more than two days, didn’t ride in car seats (and rode in the “back shelf” of the back window), had real BB gun fights and played tackle football without equipment every chance we had. All of that (and more) and we all seemed to turn out alright.

This same obsession with safety has also crept into our churches. God has really been speaking to me recently about the sin of safety. We can no longer afford to play it safe when it comes to reaching out to those who don’t know Christ. We must train and equip those under our care to deliberately reach out to those around them, and at the same time be prepared for the heat we will experience as we take ground for the Kingdom of God.

So what are we doing new at VALLEY Christian Church to respond to break the back of the sin of safety? We’re gearing up now, behind the scenes, for a twenty week push (offensive insurgence) into our community. The prayer, planning and preparation going on right now is unprecedented in the life of our church family. We have steadily grown through the years by reaching the unchurched around us (17% growth in 2011), but we’re going to push out even harder than ever over the next few months. We are confident that as we rid ourselves from the sin of safety God will meet us in the highways and byways of our community as we go to those who do not know Him rather than expecting them to come to us.

So, how much is safety hindering your life and ministry today? How can you (or your church) rid yourself from the sin of safety in order to reach out to and connect with those who don’t know Christ?

 
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Posted by on February 23, 2012 in culture, Leadership, Marriage

 

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Longing & Love Letters

16 Feb

Yesterday, while studying, I came across this story about Coach John Wooden. Seems like it’s a perfect one to share during the week of Valentine’s Day.

Coach John Wooden is the undisputed…best college basketball coach of all time…. But Coach Wooden had his eyes on something other than popular acclaim. [Once when asked about the reality of his approaching death, Wooden responded,] ‘I’m not afraid to die. Death is my only chance to be with her again.’ The ‘her’ John referred to was his wife, Nellie, who died in 1985 after fifty-three years of marriage. John is still very connected to this woman. On the twenty-first of every month, he writes a passionate letter to Nellie, telling her how much he misses her, loves her, and values the time they had together. Then he folds the letter and puts it on a pile near where he sleeps. That stack now has over two hundred letters. By his own admission, John would gladly leave this world of acclaim if in doing so he could be reunited with the love of his life.

John Wooden (October 14, 1910 – June 4, 2010)

 
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Posted by on February 16, 2012 in culture, Family, relationships

 

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