The end result of today was simply shock and awe. Shock that God would let ME be a part of what happened earlier, and awe over what He has done.
Gearing up for our Easter services as we conclude our "Old Time Religion" series (You do NOT want to miss Easter services at Lifepoint!) we, instead of our normal 2 services we did a HUGE combined one service today (at 10:22:30 (yes, thirty seconds, we split the start time directly in half). Today was our largest non-special event series... actually (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) today was our largest service ever! And the big surprise that we've been keeping under wraps, we did a baptism today.
Well actually we did 107 (One hundred seven) Baptisms today, I'm sitting here in front of my computer, still trying to wrap my mind around what happened a few hours ago....
Sorry at this point it sounds like I'm rambling, but I'm working on two hours of sleep in the last 48, and I'm still on an adrenaline rush from the baptism.
To make it more eventful a bunch of people from my team went up, I don't know if you ever have felt like your heart could explode from joy but I think mine just about did. Sorry, it was six hours ago and I'm still getting a little emotional here.
(We did a spontaneous baptism today, here's my post from the last one we did, to bring you up to speed)
Everything that went into this, every hour spent in planning, or in procuring the necessary items, every hour rehearsing the music, the time spent in meditation and prayer that God would just let the Holy spirit fall on the building even as service began, everything would be worth it, to know that even only one person would spend eternity worshiping our Creator, instead of separation from Him. We saw far more than one person cross that great divide today... excuse me for a minute I need a tissue, my eye's are sweating a bit.
Let me move on to the rest of the service, Pastor preached an awesome message and the worship set was just ON (2 songs, short set, and still amazing) I also wanted to give a Huge shout-out to my rocking bass playing Ricky Duncan who nailed a bass solo with his in-ears malfunctioning so that he had to play it without hearing a single thing he played! Awesome job man (You know I love you, but it's disgusting that you haven't been playing a year and did that... just sick :) ).
If today wasn't a God inspired day, I don't know what is, and if this is just a glimpse of what God is going to do in this community for Easter Sunday... some one please bring me a paper bag because my mind is already blown...
God thank you! I'm so humbled by what just happened today, and just so... so... thankful that you've let me take part in it, my prayer is You would be glorified and that my life would honor You, and Your sacrifice, even to the cross...
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label church. Show all posts
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Random posts with commentary...
Well when I first saw this, i hadn't realized that it was ONN and not CNN, which led to some confusion and later laughs. Though one line they have in there is true, "I'll buy almost anything if it's shiny and made by apple" as i'm surrounded by mac users at LC (And no, I'm not a mac hater)...
Forget Napster, of Kazaa, or whatever it is that they're going after these days, the mpaa and riaa need to go after China, and they're not the only ones! Copyrights (and human rights if you really want to get right down to it) violations are rampant in the worlds most populous nation.
Pastor Furtick from Elevation Church nails something that I'm still working on in this post.
Pete Wilson from Crosspoint posted a link to THIS post, which i found to be very insightful.
And speaking of insightful Perry Noble from Newspring has a three part post on what the Church can learn from the Auto industry Here, here and here.
Ben Arment hits a point on getin creative here.
Craig Groeschel of lifechurch has an amazing (if short) post here, reminding us hat it takes all kinds for the body... but my favorite line from his post is
Forget Napster, of Kazaa, or whatever it is that they're going after these days, the mpaa and riaa need to go after China, and they're not the only ones! Copyrights (and human rights if you really want to get right down to it) violations are rampant in the worlds most populous nation.
Pastor Furtick from Elevation Church nails something that I'm still working on in this post.
Pete Wilson from Crosspoint posted a link to THIS post, which i found to be very insightful.
And speaking of insightful Perry Noble from Newspring has a three part post on what the Church can learn from the Auto industry Here, here and here.
Ben Arment hits a point on getin creative here.
Craig Groeschel of lifechurch has an amazing (if short) post here, reminding us hat it takes all kinds for the body... but my favorite line from his post is
He can use Baptist Christians, Methodist Christians, Episcopal Christians, and Spirit-filled tongue talking Holy Ghost rollin’ ChristiansI'm actually working on a separate post in which I'll reference Craig's post, but for now,
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
We Interrupt this regulary scheduled blog to bring you...
As probably the most active (and unquestionably the most verbose) Blogger in the Lifepoint Staff, (Both Volunteer and paid staff) I also try to keep current on what other churches and ministries are up to. As such I follow many other blogs, only some of which I have in my blog list.
The results of the above are occasionally I link to another blog for information or insight, or something of that nature. Today, though I just wanted to share something that I thought was really flipping (and by use of the term "flipping" I am merely attempting to state that this goes way beyond the term awesome) awesome.
As perhaps not everyone at Lifepoint knows (But will if they read this post) we are part of a network of churches (Ground Level Network) The church spearheading this is Elevation Pastored by Pastor Furtick. They are hugely impacting their community and have invested a lot into Lifepoint Church.
So back to the reason for this post, I was reading Wade Joy's Blog (Elevation's Worhsip Pastor) and found THIS POST, and then went to Pastor Furticks Blog and Read THIS POST and I got excited. and I mean excited, why? Read and see for yourself!
Monday, May 5, 2008
What a Day!
I'm not sure if words can describe the amazing day I've had today.
To start off we baptized 61 people this morning. And we only had 17 scheduled. How? Well I could explain but I'm going to guess that Pastor Daniel's blog will have much more information about it in a day or so. I'll link over to there once we get to that point.
Two of those people were members of my team! And another one is from our downtown leadership team! I was helping out backstage so I got to see all of them! For me it was really emotional, I wanted to cry in joy!
Earlier this year I posted about a talk that Pastor gave us about having the vessels for oil.
Well this morning was a God thing, we had 51 sets of clothing prepared for, and when we had 24 people respond first service we were scrambling to get stuff dry and reset for second service.
We used all 51 sets of prepared clothing and not a single person had to "double up" and used a previously used set! How awesome is our God. I'm throughly convinced that if we had 52 sets of clothing there would have been 62 baptisms, he had us prepare the vessels and provided the oil until we ran out!
And our downtown campus praise team led worship this morning and did an awesome job!
So this morning was amazing, then following the service I climbed into a van and we drove 10(ish) hours to Atlanta which is now where I'm posting from.
Had crawfish and gator tail for dinner!
I know that Josh is doing a blogumentary from Drive and I'll be posting regular updates myself. Actually as all of us who blog (Pastor, Pick, Josh and Myself) are all down here and all have our labtops I'll wager all of us will be updating.
To start off we baptized 61 people this morning. And we only had 17 scheduled. How? Well I could explain but I'm going to guess that Pastor Daniel's blog will have much more information about it in a day or so. I'll link over to there once we get to that point.
Two of those people were members of my team! And another one is from our downtown leadership team! I was helping out backstage so I got to see all of them! For me it was really emotional, I wanted to cry in joy!
Earlier this year I posted about a talk that Pastor gave us about having the vessels for oil.
Well this morning was a God thing, we had 51 sets of clothing prepared for, and when we had 24 people respond first service we were scrambling to get stuff dry and reset for second service.
We used all 51 sets of prepared clothing and not a single person had to "double up" and used a previously used set! How awesome is our God. I'm throughly convinced that if we had 52 sets of clothing there would have been 62 baptisms, he had us prepare the vessels and provided the oil until we ran out!
And our downtown campus praise team led worship this morning and did an awesome job!
So this morning was amazing, then following the service I climbed into a van and we drove 10(ish) hours to Atlanta which is now where I'm posting from.
Had crawfish and gator tail for dinner!
I know that Josh is doing a blogumentary from Drive and I'll be posting regular updates myself. Actually as all of us who blog (Pastor, Pick, Josh and Myself) are all down here and all have our labtops I'll wager all of us will be updating.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Intercessions...
Recently we were blessed to have one of Pastor's mentors Dr. Early come down to speak to us. (About the subject of spiritual warfare is what he covered at the volunteer meeting). One of the items he mentioned was intercession.
That brought me back, back before Lifepoint was Lifepoint (we were Lighthouse at the time) after the worship set Bill (see previous worship team post) and Lucy (who hosts the small group I attend) would sit in a back room and pray over the service. Lucy is amazing, to borrow a phrase she's someone who can pray down heaven.
When we moved to the new facility it's something that kind of fell away mainly because we didn't have the room setup with an easily accessible back room. However after Dr. Early's talk, it's something we're going to be starting up again. As I was just privileged to witness, there is some serious power in prayer.
I think that Jeremy is coordinating it, when Dr. Early told the story they started with a big buff former military (I think) guy just going up to people and go hey, you're praying with us today. If he can't get volunteers I might ask Jim to do just that for us! Jim's got a Heart for God and the Body of a tank.
That brought me back, back before Lifepoint was Lifepoint (we were Lighthouse at the time) after the worship set Bill (see previous worship team post) and Lucy (who hosts the small group I attend) would sit in a back room and pray over the service. Lucy is amazing, to borrow a phrase she's someone who can pray down heaven.
When we moved to the new facility it's something that kind of fell away mainly because we didn't have the room setup with an easily accessible back room. However after Dr. Early's talk, it's something we're going to be starting up again. As I was just privileged to witness, there is some serious power in prayer.
I think that Jeremy is coordinating it, when Dr. Early told the story they started with a big buff former military (I think) guy just going up to people and go hey, you're praying with us today. If he can't get volunteers I might ask Jim to do just that for us! Jim's got a Heart for God and the Body of a tank.
Prayer Power...
Somewhere around 11:15 last night I received a call from one of our church staff. Now let me start off by saying I'm an optimistic realist, (IE I always focus on the positive, but I'm not ignorant to the fact that there is a negative), Now almost everyone stored on my cellphone has their own ringtone, (a rash and fiscally irresponsible decision but it's too late now, and it has been useful) so as soon as I heard it I knew something was amiss, I know this person would have waited until the morning for good news so I dove for the phone. He was on the way to MCV in Richmond their baby was having seizures and he asked me to pray and get the word out.
This first thing I did was a very quick prayer, the second was to call my parents, then I got notice that they were being re-routed to Fairfax.
At that point I was mass texting my entire team to ask them to pray.
I got an amazing response back (proving that I'm not the only night-owl on my team) and we got down to business. (And intercession is major business in my opinion)*
Around 11:30 one of the staff came back with this message, "This is spiritual Warfare, use your sword!" I felt rather sheepish for not even considering that, but I grabbed my Bible and flipped to the Psalms. I read, I prayed I meditated, I worshiped, I sang, and I know that there were at least seven other people doing the same (well maybe not the singing). Finally around 12:45, and I have no other way to describe this, but I just felt a peace fall around me and I got up off the floor, closed my bible, and grabbed my ipod to listen to some worship music. Seven minutes later a text arrives letting me know that the seizures have stopped and the little one is resting calmly.
God we thank you for your mercy and grace. I thank you for being my comfort through this, and my strength. We ask for your continued involvement in the protections of this family and this child. Father I cry out for your mercy and ask that you continue to protect our staff at Lifepoint. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the stripes you endured, by which we are healed. In Jesus name.
I ask that anyone who reads this would pray for our staff and their families, for their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual protection. For the work that has begun here, that we would have the courage, the strength and the compassion to do what God has called us to do. That we would live lives obedient to his purpose.
Thank you and God bless.
~Matthew Furukawa
04/29/08
*Sidenote: post to follow.
This first thing I did was a very quick prayer, the second was to call my parents, then I got notice that they were being re-routed to Fairfax.
At that point I was mass texting my entire team to ask them to pray.
I got an amazing response back (proving that I'm not the only night-owl on my team) and we got down to business. (And intercession is major business in my opinion)*
Around 11:30 one of the staff came back with this message, "This is spiritual Warfare, use your sword!" I felt rather sheepish for not even considering that, but I grabbed my Bible and flipped to the Psalms. I read, I prayed I meditated, I worshiped, I sang, and I know that there were at least seven other people doing the same (well maybe not the singing). Finally around 12:45, and I have no other way to describe this, but I just felt a peace fall around me and I got up off the floor, closed my bible, and grabbed my ipod to listen to some worship music. Seven minutes later a text arrives letting me know that the seizures have stopped and the little one is resting calmly.
God we thank you for your mercy and grace. I thank you for being my comfort through this, and my strength. We ask for your continued involvement in the protections of this family and this child. Father I cry out for your mercy and ask that you continue to protect our staff at Lifepoint. Thank you for the cross, thank you for the stripes you endured, by which we are healed. In Jesus name.
I ask that anyone who reads this would pray for our staff and their families, for their physical, emotional, mental and spiritual protection. For the work that has begun here, that we would have the courage, the strength and the compassion to do what God has called us to do. That we would live lives obedient to his purpose.
Thank you and God bless.
~Matthew Furukawa
04/29/08
*Sidenote: post to follow.
Monday, March 31, 2008
E double G s Eggs
Well Josh's Blog now has the video for the egg drop up.
He did an amazing job editing the footage (as always!)
He did an amazing job editing the footage (as always!)
Monday, March 24, 2008
Amazed....
We used to do a worship song, "Lord I'm amazed by you" and I think that song really sums up this weekend. I'm sure by now all three pastors, (Pastor Daniel, Josh, and Pick) have all blogged about the weekend, but I wanted to add my 2 cents.
So let's start with Saturday, If you read Josh's Blog you know we've been tracking the weather all week. Since Monday all the weather stations were calling for rain. Our prayer was for a warm sunny day. As always God 1, weatherman 0. (More on this later)
Setup ran really smooth and the volunteers. We had over a hundred (near 150, from an earlier account) Lifepoint volunteers show up to help get the event rolling. Boy did it roll. I'm sure either Josh (who was the lucky person designated to be the event coordinator, or Pastor will be getting a call from the city. Last year we had 2500 people and stopped traffic for 2 miles around the school where we meet. No problem, we figured around 4-5 thousand people would show up this year. Depending on your source, (newspaper, radio, etc) we estimate somewhere between 7 and 12 thousand people showed up, traffic was backed up for MILES in every direction. I heard as far as the mall on Rt. 3 from one side, Lafayette Blvd, from another. We had chick-fil-a as a vendor and they kept running out of food! Oh and did I forget to mention that the police had to shut down our entrances? yeah we had THAT many people showing up. In fact we're already talking about where to go next year. The problem is finding a venue big enough, and one that can accommodate such a huge surge of traffic. And while I'm on the subject Mad Props to Tom Spellman and the whole Parking team who were swamped and went way above and beyond normal call of duty.
Then the eggs, I had the awesome privilege of doing all the ground level filming. (So if the video sucks when Josh get's done editing it, then it's my fault). I had joked all year leading up to this event that it looks like Lord of the Rings when the kids rush in to get the eggs, Well, you'll get a chance to see it I filmed several opening runs from the "epic" angle, just say a quick prayer that it turns out all right.
Also filmed some of the other events going on, we had a petting zoo, a rock climb, and a couple other vendors showed up as well.
Mad props to our Volunteer army, who put in, by my estimate an approximate 1,050 combined man-hours on Saturday ALONE. no idea HOW many hours were put in during the planning stages all I know is that it's a lot.
About the weather, next year I'm going to be dangerously specific with my prayer. Mostly clear with long periods of light cloud cover. I think most of us ended with sunburn from the day... here's an interesting bit of personal trivia in the last two years I've had a total of two Sunburns. The most recent was from the Eggdrop, the other was from our Gas buy down.
Then there was yesterday. What an amazing day, I didn't hear a count from the last service, but there was an estimated 30 people who changed their eternal destination from Hell and an eternity apart from God, to Heaven and an eternity with their creator how awesome is that! And that was just from the first two services! We had 674 people attend across three services, it was w00t-able.
Our set list was All Because of Jesus (by Fee) Mighty to Save (Hillsong) Wonderul Cross (Tomlin/Redman) with a performance song Meant to Live (Switchfoot) everything was so on! My whole upper body is killing me now too. I didn't just play, I didn't just perform I was in full blown worship mode and I have no regrets. Finally, Jeremy and Tom sang Mighty is the Power of the Cross (Tomlin) during the invitation, (with Ronnie, on guitar, Bill on Bass and Hannah on Cello) we were going for one of the those "Meet with God" moments I can't speak for anyone else but I know that my eyes were sweating.
And Pastor preached like the building was on fire, if there was ever (there wasn't for the record) any doubt in my mind about his Passion to reach people who are far from God, yesterday would have blasted those doubts away.
God we give you the glory for this amazing weekend where we celebrated the Resurrection of your son Jesus. Thank you for letting us, for letting me have a part in it.
So let's start with Saturday, If you read Josh's Blog you know we've been tracking the weather all week. Since Monday all the weather stations were calling for rain. Our prayer was for a warm sunny day. As always God 1, weatherman 0. (More on this later)
Setup ran really smooth and the volunteers. We had over a hundred (near 150, from an earlier account) Lifepoint volunteers show up to help get the event rolling. Boy did it roll. I'm sure either Josh (who was the lucky person designated to be the event coordinator, or Pastor will be getting a call from the city. Last year we had 2500 people and stopped traffic for 2 miles around the school where we meet. No problem, we figured around 4-5 thousand people would show up this year. Depending on your source, (newspaper, radio, etc) we estimate somewhere between 7 and 12 thousand people showed up, traffic was backed up for MILES in every direction. I heard as far as the mall on Rt. 3 from one side, Lafayette Blvd, from another. We had chick-fil-a as a vendor and they kept running out of food! Oh and did I forget to mention that the police had to shut down our entrances? yeah we had THAT many people showing up. In fact we're already talking about where to go next year. The problem is finding a venue big enough, and one that can accommodate such a huge surge of traffic. And while I'm on the subject Mad Props to Tom Spellman and the whole Parking team who were swamped and went way above and beyond normal call of duty.
Then the eggs, I had the awesome privilege of doing all the ground level filming. (So if the video sucks when Josh get's done editing it, then it's my fault). I had joked all year leading up to this event that it looks like Lord of the Rings when the kids rush in to get the eggs, Well, you'll get a chance to see it I filmed several opening runs from the "epic" angle, just say a quick prayer that it turns out all right.
Also filmed some of the other events going on, we had a petting zoo, a rock climb, and a couple other vendors showed up as well.
Mad props to our Volunteer army, who put in, by my estimate an approximate 1,050 combined man-hours on Saturday ALONE. no idea HOW many hours were put in during the planning stages all I know is that it's a lot.
About the weather, next year I'm going to be dangerously specific with my prayer. Mostly clear with long periods of light cloud cover. I think most of us ended with sunburn from the day... here's an interesting bit of personal trivia in the last two years I've had a total of two Sunburns. The most recent was from the Eggdrop, the other was from our Gas buy down.
Then there was yesterday. What an amazing day, I didn't hear a count from the last service, but there was an estimated 30 people who changed their eternal destination from Hell and an eternity apart from God, to Heaven and an eternity with their creator how awesome is that! And that was just from the first two services! We had 674 people attend across three services, it was w00t-able.
Our set list was All Because of Jesus (by Fee) Mighty to Save (Hillsong) Wonderul Cross (Tomlin/Redman) with a performance song Meant to Live (Switchfoot) everything was so on! My whole upper body is killing me now too. I didn't just play, I didn't just perform I was in full blown worship mode and I have no regrets. Finally, Jeremy and Tom sang Mighty is the Power of the Cross (Tomlin) during the invitation, (with Ronnie, on guitar, Bill on Bass and Hannah on Cello) we were going for one of the those "Meet with God" moments I can't speak for anyone else but I know that my eyes were sweating.
And Pastor preached like the building was on fire, if there was ever (there wasn't for the record) any doubt in my mind about his Passion to reach people who are far from God, yesterday would have blasted those doubts away.
God we give you the glory for this amazing weekend where we celebrated the Resurrection of your son Jesus. Thank you for letting us, for letting me have a part in it.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Still waiting...
So I'm still without internet. It's in process and I'll hopefully have it in another week, for now though...
So this was the last Sunday in our Quake series. Originally when we planned the service we were thinking about doing the John Mayer song Waiting on the world to change, because quake is about making a difference in the community.
Well what none of us in planning realized was that Waiting on the World to change was a huge war protest song, thankfully Kimberli came through with that information and we avoided a rather unintentional major faux pas (is that proper use of term?).
So instead we did "Change the World" by Eric Clapton, Pick finally played like one of his major musical influences and Ronnie of course blew me away with his gift for the guitar. Especially when they only had since Tuesday to prepare for this. I will admit to being almost giddy when I heard him play it during run through. And while I'm on the subject I had the morning off, meaning Jason our other drummer was playing... I felt lost! (More on this in a later post).
We also baptized 15 people today including on Robb from my life group. I have to admit that my eyes had a little sweat in them during that moment. Robb if you read this, I'm proud of you brotha!)
The rest of our Worship set was "Count Me In" by Leeland and "Glorious One" (By Todd Fields? I think). Glorious One is one of our favorites (It IS Pick's favorite) and "Count me In" is an amazing hi energy song. Which we'll do again within a couple weeks. And the sound today was awesome! Clark did our mix and it sounded great.
Sometime after Easter I'll be taking a month sabbatical from drumming to give Jason our other drummer a chance to grow into the ministry. Hopefully during that time I'll be able to focus some of my energies on some new worship music projects.
Oh and I had a phenomenal interview with Pastor Wade Joy from Elevation Church on Wednesday (which reminds me I need to send out a thank you card. anyone who knows me please ask me when you see me to make sure I get that out, thanks!) and got a ton of notes and ideas. Pastor Joy is their Worship pastor and part of his job reads my duties for director of music.
So on a semi side note wishing (and praying) for some healing for Elizabeth (My aux Percussionist) who developed tendinitis bashing the tar out of a tambourine a couple weeks ago (She's been playing one handed for the last 2 weeks!) Also for Anne (One of my vocals/guitarists) who had surgery the other week.
And I'm staring at my calender wondering when we'll have internet at the house and I can't help be think (yes I know rare for me)... Wow Easter is 7 days away, 6 for the egg drop.
So this was the last Sunday in our Quake series. Originally when we planned the service we were thinking about doing the John Mayer song Waiting on the world to change, because quake is about making a difference in the community.
Well what none of us in planning realized was that Waiting on the World to change was a huge war protest song, thankfully Kimberli came through with that information and we avoided a rather unintentional major faux pas (is that proper use of term?).
So instead we did "Change the World" by Eric Clapton, Pick finally played like one of his major musical influences and Ronnie of course blew me away with his gift for the guitar. Especially when they only had since Tuesday to prepare for this. I will admit to being almost giddy when I heard him play it during run through. And while I'm on the subject I had the morning off, meaning Jason our other drummer was playing... I felt lost! (More on this in a later post).
We also baptized 15 people today including on Robb from my life group. I have to admit that my eyes had a little sweat in them during that moment. Robb if you read this, I'm proud of you brotha!)
The rest of our Worship set was "Count Me In" by Leeland and "Glorious One" (By Todd Fields? I think). Glorious One is one of our favorites (It IS Pick's favorite) and "Count me In" is an amazing hi energy song. Which we'll do again within a couple weeks. And the sound today was awesome! Clark did our mix and it sounded great.
Sometime after Easter I'll be taking a month sabbatical from drumming to give Jason our other drummer a chance to grow into the ministry. Hopefully during that time I'll be able to focus some of my energies on some new worship music projects.
Oh and I had a phenomenal interview with Pastor Wade Joy from Elevation Church on Wednesday (which reminds me I need to send out a thank you card. anyone who knows me please ask me when you see me to make sure I get that out, thanks!) and got a ton of notes and ideas. Pastor Joy is their Worship pastor and part of his job reads my duties for director of music.
So on a semi side note wishing (and praying) for some healing for Elizabeth (My aux Percussionist) who developed tendinitis bashing the tar out of a tambourine a couple weeks ago (She's been playing one handed for the last 2 weeks!) Also for Anne (One of my vocals/guitarists) who had surgery the other week.
And I'm staring at my calender wondering when we'll have internet at the house and I can't help be think (yes I know rare for me)... Wow Easter is 7 days away, 6 for the egg drop.
Monday, March 10, 2008
Sun stood still
We just finished out Sun Stand Still Series and started out quake series.
Jeremy preached and did an awesome job, but we had a sun stand still moment. When I got to the church at around 6:40 (which felt like 5:40 for some reason... stupid DST) the first thing I noticed was the setup crew running around (efficiently) and stuff normally setup by this point wasn't yet. Thirty seconds later I found out the lights were operating on emergency power and we didn't have any.
So we pressed on, setting up like we normally would, we were informed we had an industrial generator coming and a few smaller ones as well. In the meantime the worship team began practice in acoustic mode.
Then power came on...
Then it went out...
We were overloading the industrial generator with something, (I still am not sure what was doing it).
I know there was a lot of prayers flying even as we continued and prepared. Let me back up a moment. Pastor talked last week about (see the podcast) about a new way to prayer that sometimes prayer isn't just about being on your knees, but being in motion knowing that God will come through.
He did.
8:30 power came back on, run through was completed and worship was amazing.
What a mighty God we serve. If anyone asked me how the morning went they got a three word answer. Sun Stood Still!
Oh and as far as quake goes...
Josh and his team did an amazing job on the trailer. Kinda makes me sad that quake is a two part series, we only get to use it one more week.
80,000 eggs,
Jeremy preached and did an awesome job, but we had a sun stand still moment. When I got to the church at around 6:40 (which felt like 5:40 for some reason... stupid DST) the first thing I noticed was the setup crew running around (efficiently) and stuff normally setup by this point wasn't yet. Thirty seconds later I found out the lights were operating on emergency power and we didn't have any.
So we pressed on, setting up like we normally would, we were informed we had an industrial generator coming and a few smaller ones as well. In the meantime the worship team began practice in acoustic mode.
Then power came on...
Then it went out...
We were overloading the industrial generator with something, (I still am not sure what was doing it).
I know there was a lot of prayers flying even as we continued and prepared. Let me back up a moment. Pastor talked last week about (see the podcast) about a new way to prayer that sometimes prayer isn't just about being on your knees, but being in motion knowing that God will come through.
He did.
8:30 power came back on, run through was completed and worship was amazing.
What a mighty God we serve. If anyone asked me how the morning went they got a three word answer. Sun Stood Still!
Oh and as far as quake goes...
Josh and his team did an amazing job on the trailer. Kinda makes me sad that quake is a two part series, we only get to use it one more week.
80,000 eggs,
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Unbelievable...
I've had my official church e-mail address for all of two weeks(ish) and used it maybe MAYBE six times and each of those times were to Lifepoint staff or volunteers.
I STILL got spam in my inbox today.
I STILL got spam in my inbox today.
Monday, March 3, 2008
28 reasons....
I've heard of a movie called 28 days later, (which apparently is a zombie movie? has anyone who's seen this let me know)
Anyway if nothing else I thought it was a catchy title, so in an unapologetic effort to capitalize on said catchiness of said title here are 28 reasons I'm thankful today.
1) I have a Savior who hung on a cross and died, and three days later arose.
2) I live in America, for all our problems and all our issues we're still the free-est greatest country out there. (I mean honestly you don't hear how people built a raft out of an old chevy and then floated it to Russia do you?)
3) I have an amazing family that I have a close relationship with.
4) I have a car that works and has working air conditioning, (I, at one point had a car that didn't have air conditioning which made me appreciate it all the more).
5) I live in a country that allows me freedom to worship. At our recent vocal workshop (write up to follow... err eventually) Tom and Jeremy showed a video clip (which was from a movie, but I know for a fact that this is done in reality) of a church in China and when it came time to sing a hymn they sang it silently, and while it was stirring and moving the reality hit me, they can't sing aloud because if their Government finds them, well I won't go there.
6) I have eyes that see, yes I wear glasses and my vision isn't perfect, but I can still see the breathtaking beauty of a sunrise, I can enjoy the bluest sky or the greenest field.
7) I have some great friends who are a joy and blessing, (even the one who has yet to return my phone call, though he probably won't read this) to my life.
8) I have a mentor, (well I have several for different areas of my life, but I have one in particular who's awesome beyond mere word description, he pushes me to be a better me and believes in me even when I don't believe in myself.
9) I've been blessed with a love and slight (trying to be humble here) talent for music.
10) I've got one of the greatest groups of musicians in my praise team. (Another post to follow)
11) I have a job, while I don't always enjoy it, I do have an income source.
12) I have a roof over my head, (soon to be) a different one then the one I had, but a roof none the less.
13) I have a cell phone, and even though there are times when I find them utterly annoying it's so nice to have a way to communicate with people.
14) I have my hearing. I can't even fathom the genius of Beethoven, writing music when the only place he could hear it was in his mind.
15) My amazing small group who knows my weakness for fresh krispy kreme donuts.
16) My sense of taste (and smell), so I can enjoy previously mentioned Krispy Kreme donuts.
17) Drums, and cymbals... Lots of Cymbals (should be spoken like Neo from that Matrix scene, you know the one).
18) I enjoy reading. Sir Richard Steele once said "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
19) I can cook, (and bake) and do both moderately well.
20) I have a pc and I know how to use it.
21) I have fingers, wrists, arms, feet and legs and all of them work well enough that I can play the drums.
22) Despite my horrible grammar (ask ANY of my English teachers) and even worse spelling (hmm that gives me an idea) I still enjoy writing and apparently have people who enjoy reading what I write, warm fuzzies.
22.5) Auto Spell-check.
23) I have a country that doesn't pull a "big brother" on internet use. (cough cough China, where they'll throw you in jail if you try to look up (insert and remotely affiliated term of Christianity here) on the internet.
24) The second amendment, and I have the remains of a can from 100 yards to prove it.
25) That I am a part of a radical movement of God in my community and I just pray that we can in our own talents and ways make the name Jesus even more famous, that we can impact lives and change forever, the eternal destination of those around us from an eternity apart from God to an eternity with him.
26) Clean air to breath. (Been to L.A. nuff said)
27) Clean water to drink. (See above, the funny story is the first time I visited my family in LA as they picked me off at the airport, their first words exchanged after being greeted was a warning to only drink bottled water, my response was, "So nice place you live, can't breathe the air, can't drink the water... anything else I should know?").
28) I've made it 28 years (thus far... actually 28 years plus 3 days) and I couldn't be more thankful.
Anyway if nothing else I thought it was a catchy title, so in an unapologetic effort to capitalize on said catchiness of said title here are 28 reasons I'm thankful today.
1) I have a Savior who hung on a cross and died, and three days later arose.
2) I live in America, for all our problems and all our issues we're still the free-est greatest country out there. (I mean honestly you don't hear how people built a raft out of an old chevy and then floated it to Russia do you?)
3) I have an amazing family that I have a close relationship with.
4) I have a car that works and has working air conditioning, (I, at one point had a car that didn't have air conditioning which made me appreciate it all the more).
5) I live in a country that allows me freedom to worship. At our recent vocal workshop (write up to follow... err eventually) Tom and Jeremy showed a video clip (which was from a movie, but I know for a fact that this is done in reality) of a church in China and when it came time to sing a hymn they sang it silently, and while it was stirring and moving the reality hit me, they can't sing aloud because if their Government finds them, well I won't go there.
6) I have eyes that see, yes I wear glasses and my vision isn't perfect, but I can still see the breathtaking beauty of a sunrise, I can enjoy the bluest sky or the greenest field.
7) I have some great friends who are a joy and blessing, (even the one who has yet to return my phone call, though he probably won't read this) to my life.
8) I have a mentor, (well I have several for different areas of my life, but I have one in particular who's awesome beyond mere word description, he pushes me to be a better me and believes in me even when I don't believe in myself.
9) I've been blessed with a love and slight (trying to be humble here) talent for music.
10) I've got one of the greatest groups of musicians in my praise team. (Another post to follow)
11) I have a job, while I don't always enjoy it, I do have an income source.
12) I have a roof over my head, (soon to be) a different one then the one I had, but a roof none the less.
13) I have a cell phone, and even though there are times when I find them utterly annoying it's so nice to have a way to communicate with people.
14) I have my hearing. I can't even fathom the genius of Beethoven, writing music when the only place he could hear it was in his mind.
15) My amazing small group who knows my weakness for fresh krispy kreme donuts.
16) My sense of taste (and smell), so I can enjoy previously mentioned Krispy Kreme donuts.
17) Drums, and cymbals... Lots of Cymbals (should be spoken like Neo from that Matrix scene, you know the one).
18) I enjoy reading. Sir Richard Steele once said "Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
19) I can cook, (and bake) and do both moderately well.
20) I have a pc and I know how to use it.
21) I have fingers, wrists, arms, feet and legs and all of them work well enough that I can play the drums.
22) Despite my horrible grammar (ask ANY of my English teachers) and even worse spelling (hmm that gives me an idea) I still enjoy writing and apparently have people who enjoy reading what I write, warm fuzzies.
22.5) Auto Spell-check.
23) I have a country that doesn't pull a "big brother" on internet use. (cough cough China, where they'll throw you in jail if you try to look up (insert and remotely affiliated term of Christianity here) on the internet.
24) The second amendment, and I have the remains of a can from 100 yards to prove it.
25) That I am a part of a radical movement of God in my community and I just pray that we can in our own talents and ways make the name Jesus even more famous, that we can impact lives and change forever, the eternal destination of those around us from an eternity apart from God to an eternity with him.
26) Clean air to breath. (Been to L.A. nuff said)
27) Clean water to drink. (See above, the funny story is the first time I visited my family in LA as they picked me off at the airport, their first words exchanged after being greeted was a warning to only drink bottled water, my response was, "So nice place you live, can't breathe the air, can't drink the water... anything else I should know?").
28) I've made it 28 years (thus far... actually 28 years plus 3 days) and I couldn't be more thankful.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Seriously
Ok, I've been wanting to post for ages! and I don't have the time full a normal (well normal for me) length post.
I've got a ton of things I want to share from the conference I was at this weekend and I'll put some notes up later, but while I was away THIS was going on.
And it's also part of another post I've been working on, so all I'm gonna say is that God has blessed me, (well Lifepoint as a whole but me in particular) with an amazing group of people in our Worship Team. I've got words for each of them, but it'll have to wait for later.
For anyone who follows this blog regularly let me apologize for not posting for a while, While at the conference in St. Louis My Hotel didn't have Wifi. Then when I found a Wifi spot my labtop started having some serious issues. The fact that it's working this morning for me to post this is something of a miracle in and of itself.
Anyway I'll be home sometime late tonight so it'll probably be tomorrow before I get my posts up
I've got a ton of things I want to share from the conference I was at this weekend and I'll put some notes up later, but while I was away THIS was going on.
And it's also part of another post I've been working on, so all I'm gonna say is that God has blessed me, (well Lifepoint as a whole but me in particular) with an amazing group of people in our Worship Team. I've got words for each of them, but it'll have to wait for later.
For anyone who follows this blog regularly let me apologize for not posting for a while, While at the conference in St. Louis My Hotel didn't have Wifi. Then when I found a Wifi spot my labtop started having some serious issues. The fact that it's working this morning for me to post this is something of a miracle in and of itself.
Anyway I'll be home sometime late tonight so it'll probably be tomorrow before I get my posts up
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Attn Lifepoint Pastorial Staff!
If there's one thing I've learned working (though can you really call what I do work? Well some of the organizational stuff I suppose... but I digress) is that Lifepoint has a deep love of Starbucks, and as such I thought that this article needed to be noted for them.
Perhaps if Starbucks coffee didn't cost the same amount as a lunch at a decent family restaurant they'd do more business?
Perhaps if Starbucks coffee didn't cost the same amount as a lunch at a decent family restaurant they'd do more business?
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
There be Eggs there...
Okay first mad props to Josh who I'm guessing did the design work for this
Secondly We learned from last year, last year we did Spotsylvania's biggest Easter Egg hunt and dropped 3000 eggs (in addition to what was already down... ) err I think...
We thought we were thinking big, we thought it'd be plenty eggs for everyone... WE. RAN. OUT.
Having learned that lesson we're doing things a bit different this year, and with 80,000 eggs divided up between different age groups we're hopeful that every kid will go home with more chocolate and other candies than their parent would ever want them to consume... (hehe)
Why are we doing thins? What would posses us to do such an insane thing? Simple, we want to show the love of Christ to our community in a real and relevant way. A young family might not understand, hey we're praying for you, they will understand, hey here's a place your kids can come for a saturday and have a great time.
Secondly We learned from last year, last year we did Spotsylvania's biggest Easter Egg hunt and dropped 3000 eggs (in addition to what was already down... ) err I think...
We thought we were thinking big, we thought it'd be plenty eggs for everyone... WE. RAN. OUT.
Having learned that lesson we're doing things a bit different this year, and with 80,000 eggs divided up between different age groups we're hopeful that every kid will go home with more chocolate and other candies than their parent would ever want them to consume... (hehe)
Why are we doing thins? What would posses us to do such an insane thing? Simple, we want to show the love of Christ to our community in a real and relevant way. A young family might not understand, hey we're praying for you, they will understand, hey here's a place your kids can come for a saturday and have a great time.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Wow...
Well it was my first Sunday where I didn't play drums, and it was.. well umm different.
Our NEw Drummer did a great job and the service itself was wow.
To conclude the C4 series (this was the fifth message the bonus disc so to speak)
It was a vision casting service and part of it included a look into the future of lifepoint. The creative team wrote a narrative of how that might look and then Pastor took it and used parts of it for his message. I managed to snag a copy of the original script and a page of notes regarding it (Though the narrative itself swtiches from first to third point perspective).
First the Outline:
Monday: 4:00pm Creative Team meeting, led by Alice , a single mom who used to make our signs back when we were at Parkside; John, her former manager from Kinko’s leads the graphic arts and video department
Tuesday: 5:30 am Foyer meeting
Lucy: Freshman at UMW, volunteering with videography—came to Lifepoint through the Downtown campus
Carter: Media Team/Technical Director; formerly production engineer for Channel 7 news
7:00pm Lifegroup
Eric: Brought to Lifepoint by his wife Melissa when their marriage was suffering; Recovering from alcohol and other addictions-now a Lifegroup leader
Wednesday: 10:00 am Kidspoint meeting: Sarah—Director of Children’s Ministries—came to Lifepoint while in grad school, accept Christ and was baptized; had a few ideas that turned into emails to the pastor, which led to her full time job after earning her master’s degree in early childhood education and administration
7:00 pm The Source: Maria: Came to Lifepoint after losing a baby—heartbroken and angry with God, her husband dragged her there—they ended up adopting a teen and her newborn sister who had just lost their parents and now together with her husband, Maria leads the youth ministry of over 100 students.
Thursday: 6:00 pm Worship Team practice—worship leader Alex—worship, not performance—secular songs mixed in for relevance and recognition
Friday: Another Lifegroup—this time for the younger crowd. Meets at the college in a meeting room at one of the dorms. This one was born out of the downtowm campus and has multiplied and “birthed” about twenty other lifegroups of its kind, all over campus. After the bible study, the group usually decends upon Hyperion for latte’s and fellowship.
Saturday: 10:00am to Noon: Annual Lifepoint Gas Buy Down—multiple volunteers—Carlos runs it because this is the event that brought his family to Lifepoint—he was drawn to the idea of the fact that Lifepoint is not here just to build a church, but to church a city, a state, and a country.
Sunday morning! 5:00am-Set up at the Stafford High School campus: Bob Jordon, age 65, leads the set up team. Bob was invited by his son, Carter (the media team director) to the main campus in Spotsy for years but started coming when the Stafford campus opened up. Bob has been helping with set up every week, but just got saved last Sunday. He finally understands why he’s been doing this all this time, and why his son is so passionate about his job as media director for the main campus. Bob is excited because today is the first day of the simulcast from the main campus.
And now the narrative:
It started out like any other week at the office, the editor called all of us in on Sunday afternoon to discuss the upcoming week's interest stories. Having just returned from a fairly long oversees stint as a foreign correspondent I was given first pick from the pack.
My eyes widened in surprise as I saw the third lead into the stack, Church opens doors to a new 10,000 seat auditorium. Okay, having covered some of the so called mega-churches in my career 10,000 didn't seem so large, what caught my eye was the name, Lifepoint Church, before work took me out of state and then out of country for the last several years I had attended a few services there, and most of family were there. Eager to see what had been going on since my departure I snatched the story and headed for my office to make some phone calls.
"Hello Pastor? This is Frank Marzetti, I don't know if you remember me... yes that's right! It's been a few years for me too. Well I just got back in country and we're planning on running an article on Lifepoint, yes it's about the main campus's opening next week, I was wondering if I could get some of your time? Great! Same place as always? Great!"
...
One thing I had learned in my early days at the paper was the reporters lived off coffee, and apparently this rule applied to pastors as well as I walked into Starbucks. I saw him chatting with one of the girls behind the credenza and quickly ordered. Once we both had our cups we sat down at one of the tables.
After chatting about a few random issues I pulled out my notebook and got serious. "Tell me Pastor, how does it feel to be opening a church that seats 10,000?"
He smiled back at me, "Well Frank to be honest with you this is just another step along the way."
I blinked in surprise.
He saw my confusion and then decided to clarify. "Frank Lifepoint's not about a building, it's not even about a huge congregation. Lifepoint is a movement of God to make the name Jesus famous across the world, along the way he's just been very good in blessing us. How does your week look?"
"I'm free just about all week."
"Then I'd like for you to see what a week at Lifepoint looks like, why don't you start tomorrow, our creative team has their weekly programming meeting."
"I think I'd like that pastor." I offered him my hand and he gave me a firm handshake. Perhaps I would see what my younger sister found so amazing about this church.
...
"Hi are you Frank?"
"Yes I'm Frank Marzetti."
"Well come in and join us, we haven't started yet there's a couple more people still coming and.. oh where are my manners I'm Alice."
I pulled out my ever present notebook and decided to ask a few questions. "So tell me Alice where do you fit into this movement thingy?"
She laughed, "I see you've been talking to Pastor, but that's what we are, a movement to bring those who are far from God into a place where they can experience his plan for their lives."
I nodded and she continued. "I lead the creative team, wait till you see our planning room." The way she smiled made me feel a bit apprehensive as I followed her into the room and then stopped, I heard several people chuckle apparently I wasn't the first person to react that way. The walls were multicolored and very bright, there was a whiteboard in one corner, stacks of blank note cards, lego's and play-doh on the table, with a easel set up with a large pad of paper and some paint sitting underneath. Off to the side I saw a keyboard and a stereo.
The meeting which ran a couple hours was interesting to say the least, ideas flying around the room people working off each others thoughts and some really interesting ideas came out of it. At the end of the meeting I sat down with Alice to ask a few more questions.
"So what happens now?"
"Some of the ideas will go to productions the rest we'll refine at the next meeting."
"So how did you get started here?"
"My first introductions to Lifepoint was several years ago when I worked at the fedex/Kinko's on route 3, at the time they did the print work for Lifepoint. So every couple weeks or so they'd be in there looking at proofs, or dropping off some new things for a rush job and they'd always invite me to one of there services. Being a single parent raising a daughter on my own, I always shad some excuse until they ran some print material for their kidspoint service."
"Kidspoint?"
"It's a church service designed to reach the younger generations, I thought my daughter would enjoy it so one week we finally went. It was amazing, and Lucy enjoyed it so we started coming regularly. I started volunteering to help with the kids and then they asked me to join one of the planning meetings, I had so much fun and then I ended up running them. Oh my look at the time, I have to pick up Lucy from the folks at the care center. Oh let me introduce you to someone else before I go."
She led me to a room filled with cubicles. "This is our graphic and video department. John you there!"
"Alice! Got something you need designed for the next series?"
"No this is Frank Marzetti, he's running a story on the new launch."
"Hey Frank. Bye Alice."
"So John, tell me how'd you get involved here."
John smiled and pointed to the receding figure of Alice. "I was her manager at fedex/Kinko's. After she started here she started inviting the whole store, my wife and I had given up on church, we were both so disillusioned you know?"
Frank nodded, and John continued. "Well after a long time we finally attended. It was unlike the church services we both grew up in. the people were actually friendly and open and we really enjoyed ourselves. Eventually Linda, my wife started working with Alice at the programming meetings and I took a position here as a graphics designer. Everything is done in house here too. We've got our own print and copy center downstairs. We're also part of a resource network for new churches. We've partnered with several other churches and we share resources as needed."
"I'm confused John, what do you mean by sharing resources?"
"Well, take this for example." He pointed to his screen well there was a half completed flyer for the egg drop. "Let's say that one of the other churches that we're partnered with is planing to do an egg drop like we do, instead of starting from scratch we can send them our graphics and flyers and they can customize them as they need, for a new church starting up it saves them a lot of work."
"How much do you charge for that?"
John laughed outright. "Charge? Not a dime, it's just our way to help preach the gospel."
"Now I'm really confused."
"Well take me for example. I can't get up there on the podium and preach on Sunday, heck I can barely talk at the staff meetings without breaking out in a cold sweat, but what I can do is graphics that we can use in our outreach programs. And in the same way if another church can use our design and save time they can put that time to use through prayer, or preaching or whatever. It's one of the foundations of Lifepoint, everyone brings something to the table, no matter who you are there's something you can do to help preach the gospel."
"I see, thanks for your time John it's given me a lot to think about."
"No problem are you invited to the staff meeting tomorrow morning?"
"Yes."
"Than I'll see you there, have a good evening."
...
That Tuesday morning at the eye popping hour of 5:30 found the Foyer Leadership team plus one reporter at their weekly meeting at Starbucks.
“Why not the office?” asked an inquisitive reporter?
“When we do a full staff leadership with all the campus teams we meet there, these are just the leaders of each team. For one it helps with people who have to commute and also at this hour you just have to have a strong cup of coffee.”
“Before we get to far into the meeting, I had a joy I wanted to share with the rest of the team.”
“John this is Carter, he’s the media team director for Lifepoint.”
“I got a call from my dad Sunday afternoon, he accepted Christ at the Stafford Campus service.”
There was a few moments of congratulations and some heartfelt thanks, before the Foyer pastor got down to business.
John sat and watched and listened as the group outlined discussed the previous week and outlined upcoming events. Then the real shocker was right before the end of the meeting when everyone pulled out a pen and began writing from a stack of cards.
"What are you doing?" he asked pulling out his notebook.
"Something that we strive to do at Lifepoint is to recognize excellence, every week the team leaders sit down and write a thank you card to someone they noticed really going that extra mile here..." Carter flipped his card over for John to read.
'Yo Lucy, awesome job with the videography this past week, God has blessed with you amazing talent, keep up the good work, ~CJ'
"Lucy is a freshman at Mary Washington she joined Lifepoint through the Downtown campus, when she found out we were looking for video staff at the main campus she volunteered."
As the cards were turned in to be mailed he was chatting with the media director. "How did you get involved in Lifepoint?"
Carter smiled, "Well it's funny you should ask that, two years ago I was the production engineer for Channel seven news, and my crazy neighbor came over on Super Bowl Sunday with a bag of chips and a bottle of coke."
"I never was a church guy, but I thought hey this is cool, just in time for the big game too, it's embarrassing to say, but I remember asking him to pray that my team won because I had a couple hundred riding on the game and I needed the money."
The two men shared a laugh and Carter gave the reporter a slap on the back, "Speaking of money I need to head to the office so I can make some, have a good day."
The foyer pastor looked over at John "Any questions? Comments? Snide Remarks?"
That prompted a smile but he shook his head, "So how does a church go from a handful of volunteers to a large staff and a huge army of volunteers?"
The Foyer Pastor smiled back at him, "It's simple first, we keep creating empty seats and God keeps filling them, when you get a chance I suggest you read about the widow's oil, it's something Pastor shared with us at a meeting severals years ago, it's in 2 kings (Chapter 4), Second we cast the vision of where we believe God is leading us and then we give people the opportunity to take part in it." He glanced at his watch, "Whoops I'm running late to another meeting, if you're going to the worship practice on Thursday I'll see you there!"
John waved goodbye and then went back to his hotel room to see exactly what that scripture said.
...
Several hours later and now armed with a better understanding of what helped he made his way to a lifegroup that was meeting.
"Hi you must be John."
"John Marzetti, and you are..." he glanced down at the schedule that Pastor had given him, "Eric?"
"You got it, come on in!"
John was pleasantly surprised. When he had heard about lifegroups he had assumed that it was some kind of boring bible study, and while they did crack open there Books, a good part of the time was spent talking about how to relate it to their lives, and just sharing stories of life. Then afterwards they went out and played football for an hour before it wasn't light enough. A panting reporter finally sat down with Eric as people began to filter out and head for home.
"Here John have a drink, take a few minutes to catch your breath before you pass out."
"Not as young as I used to be, thanks." Composed he began the interview, "So Eric what's our story? and what's with this lifegroup thing, I expected some kind of boring bible study like what I went to when I was a kid."
Eric laughed, "I thought the same thing when I first heard about the lifegroups. I guess my story is more embarrassing then some of the other people here, before this I was a mess. My wife and I had only been married a year and a half and we were on the edge of divorce. I was having problems at work and it carried over to my home life, I started drinking really heavy and then I got into some other stuff. It was actually Melissa my wife who started to come to Lifepoint first, a friend of hers who knew we were having problems invited her to go. I'm not even going to tell you what I told her. It's a wonder she didn't leave me then and there. When she finally got me to start coming I felt so out of place, now don't get me wrong I felt accepted there, but I didn't feel like I deserved acceptance."
He stopped even now a bit choked up about it and after a few uncomfortable minutes he continued. "I didn't know where to go or who to turn to, you know? i felt like I had screwed up so bad, but Melissa got us going to one of these small groups, it took several months, but you start looking at your small groups as family and I finally talked to our small group leader about what I was going through. He had opened his home to us and told us anytime we needed to talk to give him a call. I had couldn't take the guilt anymore, he read me that passage where it talks about how God cast our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, I guess that started the healing process. After a while I accepted Christ as my savior and got Baptized. It wasn't an overnight process, if anything it was a long uphill climb, and I haven't arrived either, but I enjoy every day now, Melissa and I have a better relationship now then ever and now I'm here with my door open because I know someone out there is going through the same thing I did."
John nodded not trusting himself to say anything, the story had gotten to him as well.
"So John, how do you feel about getting a cup of coffee? I need to pick up Melissa from her college class tonight and I'd like you to meet her."
...
John had sat down to begin drafting his story he was only midway through his week, but just the stories of the lives change were inspiring, he looked at his next meeting as he began to toy with titles for his article and then giving it up until he had more of an idea where his story was going.
"Hi John, welcome the the Source."
"Hi you must be Maria?"
"You got it, we're just finishing up here give me a few minutes and I'll be able to sit down and chat."
He nodded and watched as she went back to the rec center they were in. There were ping pong tables on one end and a couple basket ball hoops on the other, right now though, there were a couple hundred teens laughing as several of their numbers were on stage messing around in some kind of game.
He watched as Maria gathered them in and then said a prayer and then they dismissed some kids heading for the parking lot, some sticking around.
"So what is this source thing anyway?"
"The Source is our Youth program, it's kinda like a lifegroup for the teen-age generation, I'm one of about 5 program leaders, the others are helping outside at the moment."
"How'd you get involved in the Source? Your Pastor didn't tell me but he did say it was a powerful story."
She nodded, "Well it actually started because I was pregnant and then there were some complications and we lost the baby, but because of the complications I couldn't have anymore children. I was heartbroken, and just felt lost. I had prayed and begged God for this child and I felt like he had let me down. My husband, bless his heart finally dragged me to Lifepoint. It was a bit tough because there were several people there who were pregnant and the wounds were just so fresh. Our first week there they were doing a volunteer drive and they mentioned a nursery. Philip immediately signed us up. At the time I wanted to strangle him, still do on occasion. Thankfully they had us interview before they let us start, when they heard about our story you could see that they were excited about something." She paused to get a drink of water leaving John at the edge of this seat.
"You're very good at that."
"At what?"
"Keeping someone's attention."
"When you try to work with a couple hundred teens you learn to real fast. Now back to our interview, when I asked them what they were so excited for they invited me to come to a Source meeting. You see one of the girls in the source had just started to bring her friend, she and her newborn sister had lost their parents in an automobile accident, they were currently staying with their grandparents, but they were to old to take care of a newborn. Now at that meeting I fell in love with all the kids there and so I ended up volunteering to work with the teens at the Source, and adopting both Katie and little Rachel. Loosing a baby hurt, but if it hadn't happened Philip and I wouldn't have been in a position to adopt in the first place, sometimes it's hard to see what God is doing when you're in the middle of a storm like that but..." she stopped as a teenager broke into our meeting.
"Mom Mrs. Floyd is on the phone for you."
"Okay sweety, tell her I'll be right there." She turned back to John, "If you'll excuse me."
"Of course," he stood up and shook her hand, "I appreciate your time and your story."
...
"Just what do your duties entail anyway?"
"For the most part I help select and write the worship music for our different services and events, I also oversee the musical department, we have one for vocals and another for musicians. I also fill in as needed in the worship lineup, but we've been blessed with such amazing teams at the different campuses that it's usually not a major issue."
John was sitting once again in the Lifepoint office building with a tall man dressed in jeans and a shirt bearing the phrase, "If my music is to loud than you're too old"
"I was impressed with your rehearsal it was very moving."
"One of our aims is to Worship, not just play music. When I first started here a buddy of mine invited me as another musician, I immediately jumped at a chance to get up and play on stage, after a few weeks the music director invited me to lunch. He complimented me about my talents and then asked me a question that his me right here!" He thumbed the spot between his eyes.
"He asked me if I knew what the difference between worshiping and playing was, I told him no. He then told me when your play you do it for the people listening and for yourself. But when you worship you play for the Lord God Almighty, you want to bring a room of people to a place where they can experience that. Those simple words had such an impact on me. I took some time off the band to really understand what he meant, but during that time he didn't let it go, he still invited me to practices and I began to understand more and more what he meant. I actually accepted Christ as my savior at a practice, you know I heard about making those decisions on Sunday morning, it it just all came together, they were working on a song and I just felt the Lord pressing on me. I've never looked back either."
"I noticed you played some secular music, can you explain that to me?"
"Sure, what we aim to do every week is to create an Environment conducive to hearing and understanding the message of Salvation. At Lifepoint we want to make sure that someone walking off the street will understand what going on and we've found that using songs people are familiar with can help people connect to Pastor's message. That's not to say that we only do it with secular music, but truth is truth. And you can find truth in a song played on a top 40's radio station the same as you can find truth in the old hymns."
John nodded, he didn't know what the message was on that week but he had to admit he had recognized the one song from the radio. "Well thanks' for your time I look forward to hearing your work."
The music director smiled, "I appreciate that, I write music and play to worship, it's a way I've fond that I can preach the gospel."
John nodded, "Everyone bring a different part to the body?"
"You Got it right in one."
...
John spent most of Friday outlining his story, he only had two more appointments on the schedule the pastor had given him. The first brought him to a Gas Station looking for a man named...
"John! Carlos, Pastor asked me to keep an eye out for you."
"Thanks, So what's going on? All I had was an address and a time?"
Carlos let out a booming laugh, "This is the annual Lifepoint Gas buy down."
"The what?"
"We knock of, in the case of this one, 20 cents off every gallon of gas for the next four hours, here suit up."
Looking at the smiling man who would have intimidated a linebacker in sheer bulk John quickly pulled on the bright vest and was pointed to an empty pump.
An hour later someone arrived to relieve him and he met with Carlos who had just handed his own vest to Carter the media director who had just arrived.
"So what's the point behind all this?"
"We just want people of the community to experience God's love in a real way. There's a lot of people in this city who wouldn't understand or care if we were praying for them, but to fill up their tank for them? That's something the people can understand."
"So how'd you end up running this... this..."
"We call it an outreach. And I'm running it because this same event is what brought me and my family to Lifepoint a year ago."
"Really, so you've only been at Lifepoint for a year?"
"Yeah, it's amazing to see what they're doing here. We were looking for a church to attend and after that we wanted to see what they were about. Our first Sunday there the Pastor talks about how we're not here to build a church but to church a city, a state, a country. It was a movement of God and it was something I wanted me and my family to experience as well."
"Well I must say it's got my attention."
Carlos nodded and then pointed to his watch. "Time for another shift change."
John stood up "Then let's go."
...
Coffee really was a gift of God, especially at Five in the morning. Thought John as he stood outside one of the area High Schools.
"Good morning, John welcome to Lifepoint Stafford Campus setup team."
"Thanks, I'm sorry I didn't get your name."
"Oh I'm Bob Jordon,"
"So tell me Bob what are you doing here at 5 am, and what brought you to lifepoint anyway?"
"Well I'm here to help preach the gospel by making sure that there's a room setup for people to worship and learn in. I mean I'm 65, I can't play an instrument, you wouldn't want me to sing and I can't stand talking in front of groups of people, but I can set out a chair, or connect a wire. It doesn't seem like much but I'm proud that I can help where I can."
John understood, it was preaching the gospel in a way that he could.
"As for how I got started my boy started working at the main campus and began inviting me, I told him it was to far to drive all the way from Stafford. Imagine my surprise when one day he called and said, that's fixed anymore excuses? I couldn't come up with anything so I started attending, but things just came together last week. I've been helping out in the mornings for a while now, but last Sunday I finally understood why I'm doing this."
"And now that old-codger has forever changed his eternal destination."
"CJ! What have I told you about picking on your father!"
"Hey dad, good to see you, John I see that you've met my father."
John grinned as the two verbally spared for a bit. "Well I can't stay long I was just checking to make sure all the hookups are set for the simulcast. Sometimes we'll have one of the other pastors preach at the other campuses, but as this is kinda a big day for us we're going to simulcast from the main campus."
"All this new fangled gadetry, why in my day..."
"You walked to Church..."
"Through the snow..."
"Up-hill..."
"Both ways..."
"With no shoes on your feet."
All of the men in the room joined in with amusement as they finished setting up the room.
...
That night John polished off his article and emailed it to his editor, complete with pictures compliments of the lifepoint's staff video/photography people.
He smiled at the Title taking from one of his earlier interviews. "Lifepoint, Beyond building a Church and into Churching a City."
Our NEw Drummer did a great job and the service itself was wow.
To conclude the C4 series (this was the fifth message the bonus disc so to speak)
It was a vision casting service and part of it included a look into the future of lifepoint. The creative team wrote a narrative of how that might look and then Pastor took it and used parts of it for his message. I managed to snag a copy of the original script and a page of notes regarding it (Though the narrative itself swtiches from first to third point perspective).
First the Outline:
Monday: 4:00pm Creative Team meeting, led by Alice , a single mom who used to make our signs back when we were at Parkside; John, her former manager from Kinko’s leads the graphic arts and video department
Tuesday: 5:30 am Foyer meeting
Lucy: Freshman at UMW, volunteering with videography—came to Lifepoint through the Downtown campus
Carter: Media Team/Technical Director; formerly production engineer for Channel 7 news
7:00pm Lifegroup
Eric: Brought to Lifepoint by his wife Melissa when their marriage was suffering; Recovering from alcohol and other addictions-now a Lifegroup leader
Wednesday: 10:00 am Kidspoint meeting: Sarah—Director of Children’s Ministries—came to Lifepoint while in grad school, accept Christ and was baptized; had a few ideas that turned into emails to the pastor, which led to her full time job after earning her master’s degree in early childhood education and administration
7:00 pm The Source: Maria: Came to Lifepoint after losing a baby—heartbroken and angry with God, her husband dragged her there—they ended up adopting a teen and her newborn sister who had just lost their parents and now together with her husband, Maria leads the youth ministry of over 100 students.
Thursday: 6:00 pm Worship Team practice—worship leader Alex—worship, not performance—secular songs mixed in for relevance and recognition
Friday: Another Lifegroup—this time for the younger crowd. Meets at the college in a meeting room at one of the dorms. This one was born out of the downtowm campus and has multiplied and “birthed” about twenty other lifegroups of its kind, all over campus. After the bible study, the group usually decends upon Hyperion for latte’s and fellowship.
Saturday: 10:00am to Noon: Annual Lifepoint Gas Buy Down—multiple volunteers—Carlos runs it because this is the event that brought his family to Lifepoint—he was drawn to the idea of the fact that Lifepoint is not here just to build a church, but to church a city, a state, and a country.
Sunday morning! 5:00am-Set up at the Stafford High School campus: Bob Jordon, age 65, leads the set up team. Bob was invited by his son, Carter (the media team director) to the main campus in Spotsy for years but started coming when the Stafford campus opened up. Bob has been helping with set up every week, but just got saved last Sunday. He finally understands why he’s been doing this all this time, and why his son is so passionate about his job as media director for the main campus. Bob is excited because today is the first day of the simulcast from the main campus.
And now the narrative:
It started out like any other week at the office, the editor called all of us in on Sunday afternoon to discuss the upcoming week's interest stories. Having just returned from a fairly long oversees stint as a foreign correspondent I was given first pick from the pack.
My eyes widened in surprise as I saw the third lead into the stack, Church opens doors to a new 10,000 seat auditorium. Okay, having covered some of the so called mega-churches in my career 10,000 didn't seem so large, what caught my eye was the name, Lifepoint Church, before work took me out of state and then out of country for the last several years I had attended a few services there, and most of family were there. Eager to see what had been going on since my departure I snatched the story and headed for my office to make some phone calls.
"Hello Pastor? This is Frank Marzetti, I don't know if you remember me... yes that's right! It's been a few years for me too. Well I just got back in country and we're planning on running an article on Lifepoint, yes it's about the main campus's opening next week, I was wondering if I could get some of your time? Great! Same place as always? Great!"
...
One thing I had learned in my early days at the paper was the reporters lived off coffee, and apparently this rule applied to pastors as well as I walked into Starbucks. I saw him chatting with one of the girls behind the credenza and quickly ordered. Once we both had our cups we sat down at one of the tables.
After chatting about a few random issues I pulled out my notebook and got serious. "Tell me Pastor, how does it feel to be opening a church that seats 10,000?"
He smiled back at me, "Well Frank to be honest with you this is just another step along the way."
I blinked in surprise.
He saw my confusion and then decided to clarify. "Frank Lifepoint's not about a building, it's not even about a huge congregation. Lifepoint is a movement of God to make the name Jesus famous across the world, along the way he's just been very good in blessing us. How does your week look?"
"I'm free just about all week."
"Then I'd like for you to see what a week at Lifepoint looks like, why don't you start tomorrow, our creative team has their weekly programming meeting."
"I think I'd like that pastor." I offered him my hand and he gave me a firm handshake. Perhaps I would see what my younger sister found so amazing about this church.
...
"Hi are you Frank?"
"Yes I'm Frank Marzetti."
"Well come in and join us, we haven't started yet there's a couple more people still coming and.. oh where are my manners I'm Alice."
I pulled out my ever present notebook and decided to ask a few questions. "So tell me Alice where do you fit into this movement thingy?"
She laughed, "I see you've been talking to Pastor, but that's what we are, a movement to bring those who are far from God into a place where they can experience his plan for their lives."
I nodded and she continued. "I lead the creative team, wait till you see our planning room." The way she smiled made me feel a bit apprehensive as I followed her into the room and then stopped, I heard several people chuckle apparently I wasn't the first person to react that way. The walls were multicolored and very bright, there was a whiteboard in one corner, stacks of blank note cards, lego's and play-doh on the table, with a easel set up with a large pad of paper and some paint sitting underneath. Off to the side I saw a keyboard and a stereo.
The meeting which ran a couple hours was interesting to say the least, ideas flying around the room people working off each others thoughts and some really interesting ideas came out of it. At the end of the meeting I sat down with Alice to ask a few more questions.
"So what happens now?"
"Some of the ideas will go to productions the rest we'll refine at the next meeting."
"So how did you get started here?"
"My first introductions to Lifepoint was several years ago when I worked at the fedex/Kinko's on route 3, at the time they did the print work for Lifepoint. So every couple weeks or so they'd be in there looking at proofs, or dropping off some new things for a rush job and they'd always invite me to one of there services. Being a single parent raising a daughter on my own, I always shad some excuse until they ran some print material for their kidspoint service."
"Kidspoint?"
"It's a church service designed to reach the younger generations, I thought my daughter would enjoy it so one week we finally went. It was amazing, and Lucy enjoyed it so we started coming regularly. I started volunteering to help with the kids and then they asked me to join one of the planning meetings, I had so much fun and then I ended up running them. Oh my look at the time, I have to pick up Lucy from the folks at the care center. Oh let me introduce you to someone else before I go."
She led me to a room filled with cubicles. "This is our graphic and video department. John you there!"
"Alice! Got something you need designed for the next series?"
"No this is Frank Marzetti, he's running a story on the new launch."
"Hey Frank. Bye Alice."
"So John, tell me how'd you get involved here."
John smiled and pointed to the receding figure of Alice. "I was her manager at fedex/Kinko's. After she started here she started inviting the whole store, my wife and I had given up on church, we were both so disillusioned you know?"
Frank nodded, and John continued. "Well after a long time we finally attended. It was unlike the church services we both grew up in. the people were actually friendly and open and we really enjoyed ourselves. Eventually Linda, my wife started working with Alice at the programming meetings and I took a position here as a graphics designer. Everything is done in house here too. We've got our own print and copy center downstairs. We're also part of a resource network for new churches. We've partnered with several other churches and we share resources as needed."
"I'm confused John, what do you mean by sharing resources?"
"Well, take this for example." He pointed to his screen well there was a half completed flyer for the egg drop. "Let's say that one of the other churches that we're partnered with is planing to do an egg drop like we do, instead of starting from scratch we can send them our graphics and flyers and they can customize them as they need, for a new church starting up it saves them a lot of work."
"How much do you charge for that?"
John laughed outright. "Charge? Not a dime, it's just our way to help preach the gospel."
"Now I'm really confused."
"Well take me for example. I can't get up there on the podium and preach on Sunday, heck I can barely talk at the staff meetings without breaking out in a cold sweat, but what I can do is graphics that we can use in our outreach programs. And in the same way if another church can use our design and save time they can put that time to use through prayer, or preaching or whatever. It's one of the foundations of Lifepoint, everyone brings something to the table, no matter who you are there's something you can do to help preach the gospel."
"I see, thanks for your time John it's given me a lot to think about."
"No problem are you invited to the staff meeting tomorrow morning?"
"Yes."
"Than I'll see you there, have a good evening."
...
That Tuesday morning at the eye popping hour of 5:30 found the Foyer Leadership team plus one reporter at their weekly meeting at Starbucks.
“Why not the office?” asked an inquisitive reporter?
“When we do a full staff leadership with all the campus teams we meet there, these are just the leaders of each team. For one it helps with people who have to commute and also at this hour you just have to have a strong cup of coffee.”
“Before we get to far into the meeting, I had a joy I wanted to share with the rest of the team.”
“John this is Carter, he’s the media team director for Lifepoint.”
“I got a call from my dad Sunday afternoon, he accepted Christ at the Stafford Campus service.”
There was a few moments of congratulations and some heartfelt thanks, before the Foyer pastor got down to business.
John sat and watched and listened as the group outlined discussed the previous week and outlined upcoming events. Then the real shocker was right before the end of the meeting when everyone pulled out a pen and began writing from a stack of cards.
"What are you doing?" he asked pulling out his notebook.
"Something that we strive to do at Lifepoint is to recognize excellence, every week the team leaders sit down and write a thank you card to someone they noticed really going that extra mile here..." Carter flipped his card over for John to read.
'Yo Lucy, awesome job with the videography this past week, God has blessed with you amazing talent, keep up the good work, ~CJ'
"Lucy is a freshman at Mary Washington she joined Lifepoint through the Downtown campus, when she found out we were looking for video staff at the main campus she volunteered."
As the cards were turned in to be mailed he was chatting with the media director. "How did you get involved in Lifepoint?"
Carter smiled, "Well it's funny you should ask that, two years ago I was the production engineer for Channel seven news, and my crazy neighbor came over on Super Bowl Sunday with a bag of chips and a bottle of coke."
"I never was a church guy, but I thought hey this is cool, just in time for the big game too, it's embarrassing to say, but I remember asking him to pray that my team won because I had a couple hundred riding on the game and I needed the money."
The two men shared a laugh and Carter gave the reporter a slap on the back, "Speaking of money I need to head to the office so I can make some, have a good day."
The foyer pastor looked over at John "Any questions? Comments? Snide Remarks?"
That prompted a smile but he shook his head, "So how does a church go from a handful of volunteers to a large staff and a huge army of volunteers?"
The Foyer Pastor smiled back at him, "It's simple first, we keep creating empty seats and God keeps filling them, when you get a chance I suggest you read about the widow's oil, it's something Pastor shared with us at a meeting severals years ago, it's in 2 kings (Chapter 4), Second we cast the vision of where we believe God is leading us and then we give people the opportunity to take part in it." He glanced at his watch, "Whoops I'm running late to another meeting, if you're going to the worship practice on Thursday I'll see you there!"
John waved goodbye and then went back to his hotel room to see exactly what that scripture said.
...
Several hours later and now armed with a better understanding of what helped he made his way to a lifegroup that was meeting.
"Hi you must be John."
"John Marzetti, and you are..." he glanced down at the schedule that Pastor had given him, "Eric?"
"You got it, come on in!"
John was pleasantly surprised. When he had heard about lifegroups he had assumed that it was some kind of boring bible study, and while they did crack open there Books, a good part of the time was spent talking about how to relate it to their lives, and just sharing stories of life. Then afterwards they went out and played football for an hour before it wasn't light enough. A panting reporter finally sat down with Eric as people began to filter out and head for home.
"Here John have a drink, take a few minutes to catch your breath before you pass out."
"Not as young as I used to be, thanks." Composed he began the interview, "So Eric what's our story? and what's with this lifegroup thing, I expected some kind of boring bible study like what I went to when I was a kid."
Eric laughed, "I thought the same thing when I first heard about the lifegroups. I guess my story is more embarrassing then some of the other people here, before this I was a mess. My wife and I had only been married a year and a half and we were on the edge of divorce. I was having problems at work and it carried over to my home life, I started drinking really heavy and then I got into some other stuff. It was actually Melissa my wife who started to come to Lifepoint first, a friend of hers who knew we were having problems invited her to go. I'm not even going to tell you what I told her. It's a wonder she didn't leave me then and there. When she finally got me to start coming I felt so out of place, now don't get me wrong I felt accepted there, but I didn't feel like I deserved acceptance."
He stopped even now a bit choked up about it and after a few uncomfortable minutes he continued. "I didn't know where to go or who to turn to, you know? i felt like I had screwed up so bad, but Melissa got us going to one of these small groups, it took several months, but you start looking at your small groups as family and I finally talked to our small group leader about what I was going through. He had opened his home to us and told us anytime we needed to talk to give him a call. I had couldn't take the guilt anymore, he read me that passage where it talks about how God cast our sins from us as far as the east is from the west, I guess that started the healing process. After a while I accepted Christ as my savior and got Baptized. It wasn't an overnight process, if anything it was a long uphill climb, and I haven't arrived either, but I enjoy every day now, Melissa and I have a better relationship now then ever and now I'm here with my door open because I know someone out there is going through the same thing I did."
John nodded not trusting himself to say anything, the story had gotten to him as well.
"So John, how do you feel about getting a cup of coffee? I need to pick up Melissa from her college class tonight and I'd like you to meet her."
...
John had sat down to begin drafting his story he was only midway through his week, but just the stories of the lives change were inspiring, he looked at his next meeting as he began to toy with titles for his article and then giving it up until he had more of an idea where his story was going.
"Hi John, welcome the the Source."
"Hi you must be Maria?"
"You got it, we're just finishing up here give me a few minutes and I'll be able to sit down and chat."
He nodded and watched as she went back to the rec center they were in. There were ping pong tables on one end and a couple basket ball hoops on the other, right now though, there were a couple hundred teens laughing as several of their numbers were on stage messing around in some kind of game.
He watched as Maria gathered them in and then said a prayer and then they dismissed some kids heading for the parking lot, some sticking around.
"So what is this source thing anyway?"
"The Source is our Youth program, it's kinda like a lifegroup for the teen-age generation, I'm one of about 5 program leaders, the others are helping outside at the moment."
"How'd you get involved in the Source? Your Pastor didn't tell me but he did say it was a powerful story."
She nodded, "Well it actually started because I was pregnant and then there were some complications and we lost the baby, but because of the complications I couldn't have anymore children. I was heartbroken, and just felt lost. I had prayed and begged God for this child and I felt like he had let me down. My husband, bless his heart finally dragged me to Lifepoint. It was a bit tough because there were several people there who were pregnant and the wounds were just so fresh. Our first week there they were doing a volunteer drive and they mentioned a nursery. Philip immediately signed us up. At the time I wanted to strangle him, still do on occasion. Thankfully they had us interview before they let us start, when they heard about our story you could see that they were excited about something." She paused to get a drink of water leaving John at the edge of this seat.
"You're very good at that."
"At what?"
"Keeping someone's attention."
"When you try to work with a couple hundred teens you learn to real fast. Now back to our interview, when I asked them what they were so excited for they invited me to come to a Source meeting. You see one of the girls in the source had just started to bring her friend, she and her newborn sister had lost their parents in an automobile accident, they were currently staying with their grandparents, but they were to old to take care of a newborn. Now at that meeting I fell in love with all the kids there and so I ended up volunteering to work with the teens at the Source, and adopting both Katie and little Rachel. Loosing a baby hurt, but if it hadn't happened Philip and I wouldn't have been in a position to adopt in the first place, sometimes it's hard to see what God is doing when you're in the middle of a storm like that but..." she stopped as a teenager broke into our meeting.
"Mom Mrs. Floyd is on the phone for you."
"Okay sweety, tell her I'll be right there." She turned back to John, "If you'll excuse me."
"Of course," he stood up and shook her hand, "I appreciate your time and your story."
...
"Just what do your duties entail anyway?"
"For the most part I help select and write the worship music for our different services and events, I also oversee the musical department, we have one for vocals and another for musicians. I also fill in as needed in the worship lineup, but we've been blessed with such amazing teams at the different campuses that it's usually not a major issue."
John was sitting once again in the Lifepoint office building with a tall man dressed in jeans and a shirt bearing the phrase, "If my music is to loud than you're too old"
"I was impressed with your rehearsal it was very moving."
"One of our aims is to Worship, not just play music. When I first started here a buddy of mine invited me as another musician, I immediately jumped at a chance to get up and play on stage, after a few weeks the music director invited me to lunch. He complimented me about my talents and then asked me a question that his me right here!" He thumbed the spot between his eyes.
"He asked me if I knew what the difference between worshiping and playing was, I told him no. He then told me when your play you do it for the people listening and for yourself. But when you worship you play for the Lord God Almighty, you want to bring a room of people to a place where they can experience that. Those simple words had such an impact on me. I took some time off the band to really understand what he meant, but during that time he didn't let it go, he still invited me to practices and I began to understand more and more what he meant. I actually accepted Christ as my savior at a practice, you know I heard about making those decisions on Sunday morning, it it just all came together, they were working on a song and I just felt the Lord pressing on me. I've never looked back either."
"I noticed you played some secular music, can you explain that to me?"
"Sure, what we aim to do every week is to create an Environment conducive to hearing and understanding the message of Salvation. At Lifepoint we want to make sure that someone walking off the street will understand what going on and we've found that using songs people are familiar with can help people connect to Pastor's message. That's not to say that we only do it with secular music, but truth is truth. And you can find truth in a song played on a top 40's radio station the same as you can find truth in the old hymns."
John nodded, he didn't know what the message was on that week but he had to admit he had recognized the one song from the radio. "Well thanks' for your time I look forward to hearing your work."
The music director smiled, "I appreciate that, I write music and play to worship, it's a way I've fond that I can preach the gospel."
John nodded, "Everyone bring a different part to the body?"
"You Got it right in one."
...
John spent most of Friday outlining his story, he only had two more appointments on the schedule the pastor had given him. The first brought him to a Gas Station looking for a man named...
"John! Carlos, Pastor asked me to keep an eye out for you."
"Thanks, So what's going on? All I had was an address and a time?"
Carlos let out a booming laugh, "This is the annual Lifepoint Gas buy down."
"The what?"
"We knock of, in the case of this one, 20 cents off every gallon of gas for the next four hours, here suit up."
Looking at the smiling man who would have intimidated a linebacker in sheer bulk John quickly pulled on the bright vest and was pointed to an empty pump.
An hour later someone arrived to relieve him and he met with Carlos who had just handed his own vest to Carter the media director who had just arrived.
"So what's the point behind all this?"
"We just want people of the community to experience God's love in a real way. There's a lot of people in this city who wouldn't understand or care if we were praying for them, but to fill up their tank for them? That's something the people can understand."
"So how'd you end up running this... this..."
"We call it an outreach. And I'm running it because this same event is what brought me and my family to Lifepoint a year ago."
"Really, so you've only been at Lifepoint for a year?"
"Yeah, it's amazing to see what they're doing here. We were looking for a church to attend and after that we wanted to see what they were about. Our first Sunday there the Pastor talks about how we're not here to build a church but to church a city, a state, a country. It was a movement of God and it was something I wanted me and my family to experience as well."
"Well I must say it's got my attention."
Carlos nodded and then pointed to his watch. "Time for another shift change."
John stood up "Then let's go."
...
Coffee really was a gift of God, especially at Five in the morning. Thought John as he stood outside one of the area High Schools.
"Good morning, John welcome to Lifepoint Stafford Campus setup team."
"Thanks, I'm sorry I didn't get your name."
"Oh I'm Bob Jordon,"
"So tell me Bob what are you doing here at 5 am, and what brought you to lifepoint anyway?"
"Well I'm here to help preach the gospel by making sure that there's a room setup for people to worship and learn in. I mean I'm 65, I can't play an instrument, you wouldn't want me to sing and I can't stand talking in front of groups of people, but I can set out a chair, or connect a wire. It doesn't seem like much but I'm proud that I can help where I can."
John understood, it was preaching the gospel in a way that he could.
"As for how I got started my boy started working at the main campus and began inviting me, I told him it was to far to drive all the way from Stafford. Imagine my surprise when one day he called and said, that's fixed anymore excuses? I couldn't come up with anything so I started attending, but things just came together last week. I've been helping out in the mornings for a while now, but last Sunday I finally understood why I'm doing this."
"And now that old-codger has forever changed his eternal destination."
"CJ! What have I told you about picking on your father!"
"Hey dad, good to see you, John I see that you've met my father."
John grinned as the two verbally spared for a bit. "Well I can't stay long I was just checking to make sure all the hookups are set for the simulcast. Sometimes we'll have one of the other pastors preach at the other campuses, but as this is kinda a big day for us we're going to simulcast from the main campus."
"All this new fangled gadetry, why in my day..."
"You walked to Church..."
"Through the snow..."
"Up-hill..."
"Both ways..."
"With no shoes on your feet."
All of the men in the room joined in with amusement as they finished setting up the room.
...
That night John polished off his article and emailed it to his editor, complete with pictures compliments of the lifepoint's staff video/photography people.
He smiled at the Title taking from one of his earlier interviews. "Lifepoint, Beyond building a Church and into Churching a City."
Monday, January 21, 2008
Days 6 and 7
Never got around to posting yesterday, and thoughts on yesterday will make it to a separate post.
Yesterday's quiet time was through James 1, and going through it I realized it was the origins of a quote I use occasionally, to know and not to do is not to know, though Scripture puts it "22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."
This mornings time went through some of Ephesians and parts of Genesis.
Getting ready to go through morning exercise now, so that post I mentioned earlier will have to come later
Yesterday's quiet time was through James 1, and going through it I realized it was the origins of a quote I use occasionally, to know and not to do is not to know, though Scripture puts it "22Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."
This mornings time went through some of Ephesians and parts of Genesis.
Getting ready to go through morning exercise now, so that post I mentioned earlier will have to come later
Friday, January 18, 2008
Overflowing...
I started this post yesterday and just got around to completing it.
Reading Pastor Daniel's blog a couple days back reminded me of the staff meeting we had earlier in the month.
At the meeting we were talking about growth in general and being prepared for the growth, pastor read the story of the widows oil from 2 kings and referred to the fact that the oil stopped when there were no more vessels to fill. So now we are working to find ways of creating more vessels, or in our case seats. It's amazing trying to keep up with God's blessing, I think Jeremy put it best in his post. In Luke 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Running over is what we've got right now, it's exciting it's exhilarating it's something that we fully give God the glory for.
So for now even as we continue to find new ways to expand our capacity we're praying God, please help us find the vessels we need, because now that we're experiencing your blessing being poured out, we don't want to be away from that feeling.
Reading Pastor Daniel's blog a couple days back reminded me of the staff meeting we had earlier in the month.
At the meeting we were talking about growth in general and being prepared for the growth, pastor read the story of the widows oil from 2 kings and referred to the fact that the oil stopped when there were no more vessels to fill. So now we are working to find ways of creating more vessels, or in our case seats. It's amazing trying to keep up with God's blessing, I think Jeremy put it best in his post. In Luke 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Running over is what we've got right now, it's exciting it's exhilarating it's something that we fully give God the glory for.
So for now even as we continue to find new ways to expand our capacity we're praying God, please help us find the vessels we need, because now that we're experiencing your blessing being poured out, we don't want to be away from that feeling.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Let it Snow baby...
I apologize for the horrible pun I'm referencing in my post title looking outside the window at work (Lunch break if you're wondering) I can't help but remember our Christmas service for 06, "A White Christmas" We compared how the Jesus' sacrifice and the blood of the lamb covered us and used how snow covers the earth when it falls as a visual analogy.
It was an amazing service and (at the time over a year ago) one of the most complex coordinated things we've done at Lifepoint (though we weren't Lifepoint at the time now that I think about it... which is a topic for a later post.) Even now it was the most "Cram everything we can in a short time" and used a fair amount of Drama, I also go to do a "Stomp" like presentation which was really fun, and really basic. If we ever do something like that again I'm starting much earlier.
I've got a couple more introspective posts to do, but they'll have to wait until I get off work, they'll take to long to write and my lunch break is almost over.
Any one else out there have their own snow memories?
It was an amazing service and (at the time over a year ago) one of the most complex coordinated things we've done at Lifepoint (though we weren't Lifepoint at the time now that I think about it... which is a topic for a later post.) Even now it was the most "Cram everything we can in a short time" and used a fair amount of Drama, I also go to do a "Stomp" like presentation which was really fun, and really basic. If we ever do something like that again I'm starting much earlier.
I've got a couple more introspective posts to do, but they'll have to wait until I get off work, they'll take to long to write and my lunch break is almost over.
Any one else out there have their own snow memories?
Day 3
Today was much better than yesterday as far diving into the Word goes.
I read this morning Philippians 1&2, I think God knew I needed a boost. 1:6 was something I had to be reminded of, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. I mean wow, knowing that God is going to see us through everything we may face until out work is done, or Christ comes back, that just gave me a much needed boost. (Especially knowing that Paul was in prison at this point? I think,)
Chapter 2 has amazing insight on humility and unity, but what really grabbed my attention even on my first pass through, was 14-15 " 14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" We look at society now and consider it the same as Paul did now, Steve Fee said it well in one of his songs, "In the darkest place we shine!"
Edit: did lower body today (yesterday was upper)
I read this morning Philippians 1&2, I think God knew I needed a boost. 1:6 was something I had to be reminded of, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. I mean wow, knowing that God is going to see us through everything we may face until out work is done, or Christ comes back, that just gave me a much needed boost. (Especially knowing that Paul was in prison at this point? I think,)
Chapter 2 has amazing insight on humility and unity, but what really grabbed my attention even on my first pass through, was 14-15 " 14Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe" We look at society now and consider it the same as Paul did now, Steve Fee said it well in one of his songs, "In the darkest place we shine!"
Edit: did lower body today (yesterday was upper)
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