Well it is another post test drive service Monday. For some reason I am more exhausted today than I have been for the previous two. I even fell asleep while putting my son to bed at 8:00 but woke up this morning feeling hung-over. I am waiting for my boss to start wondering if I am into some sort of underground fight club because I come in with bruises and scrapes all over my arms and hands and have some general muscle fatigue which makes me a little slower than usual. Even though on one side I am looking forward to eventually playing less of a role in tear down and set-up I love when people tell me that they are impressed with the environment we prepare. It feels good to know that I sweated and bled along with a wonderful group of men and women to prepare a great worship experience.

This was our first weekend doing it all on Sunday so we started at 7:00 which meant being out the door at 6:00 to go get the trailer there by 7:00. I finally got home after returning the U-haul a little after 3:00. I don’t say that because I want you to feel sorry for me but to warn any future church planters who may stumble across this. If you have a problem with long hours and back breaking work, confirm God called you, and if He did, start praying immediately that He will send you some men and women that don’t have a problem with the above mentioned things. I am quickly learning that I can’t do it all and thankfully I haven’t had to but I like to lead by example. I want those men and women to see me busting my butt right along side of them. Besides what a great team building exercise!

So what did we accomplish for God’s kingdom with all this work? Just as a reminder to me if to nobody else…that is why we do this. Well I feel this was our best services yet. God laid an awesome message on my heart and I didn’t screw up the delivery too bad. I was a little concerned because even though I knew the direction God was going I really struggled with preparation and had far less notes than I normally do. Maybe that was part of the plan this week. I am going to post some notes later but I believe that God really did some work in people’s lives through His word.

We changed up the order of service pretty dramatically and we had praise and worship at the end. It was a nice change because I think that many of the lyrics reinforced the message and gave it longer to soak in before having to take on the world. Our guest worship leader was Eric Vick and even though he was suffering from a cold I received a lot of positive feedback. We will be discussing over the next few weeks having him back so that we can hear him healthy. We’ll have to see where that goes but I walked away feeling good about what we accomplished for the kingdom.

One of the cool things that I am proud of was that I had another neighbor and her daughter in service with us. That makes three families that have attended our church, the other two multiple times. Being Catholic she told me that it was going to take a complete change of her understanding of church but said they would be back.

This excites me because I believe that evangelism (spreading Jesus) starts at home. Then the next location that makes sense is your neighbors, then your neighborhood, your city, your county, your state, your country, etc. So in planting a church we are trying to do the whole city thing but at the same time we can’t forget the locations before that.

All it takes is enough nerve to borrow something. That is right…even if you don’t need it…go ask your neighbor to borrow something. Whether it’s a tool or some sugar I dare you to knock on their door and ask to borrow something. Break the ice, put a crack in the wall and see if God won’t help you to establish a relationship that allows you to demonstrate the love of Jesus. Sounds simple…what do you have to lose?

Well my lunch break is almost over but I want to quickly thank all of the hard workers who made InDependence successful this weekend. You know who you are and you know what you did. I am praying that God would bless you for your sacrifice because as we discussed Sunday…sacrifice matters more than size to God.