Category: God
I wasn’t at Life Pointe Church on this glorious Sunday morning, so if you want to know what happened there then you’ll just have to ask Pastor Travis, Pastor Paul, or Praise & Worship Leader Jesse. Travis posted his usual Sunday Wrap-Up, so be sure to check it out.
As for me I’m currently on vacation over on Florida’s Gulf coast, but just because I’m on vacation doesn’t mean that I can’t meet corporately with my extended church family. In fact that’s exactly what I did this morning. On my way over to Fort Myers I made a well-scheduled pit-stop at Nathan Griffis‘ fresh new church in the heart of Weston Florida to attend the 10:29 AM service at InDependence Church. We (at Life Pointe) assisted in the planting of this church, and this was just their 5TH service since their official launch on Sunday January 20TH 2008.
Here’s the skinny:
1. It felt weird arriving for the service some 45 minutes early and not serving with the setup and hospitality team. Everything was already setup nicely, and I kept reminding myself that I was just a visitor there. Pastor Nathan instantly recognized me and welcomed me. He made me feel right at home. I met his wife Harmony as well. As it turns out she’s a new fan of this blog. I like her blog too.
2. I drank some delicious coffee and watched the house band rehearse their material. There was a small explosion on stage during the band’s rehearsal. OK perhaps ‘explosion’ is a slight exaggeration. There was no fire – just a little white smoke. An amplifier was blown out. That’s right – the music was that loud and powerful !
3. ‘Praise & Worship’ was awesome. God was listening intently as we sang loudly and clapped in unison to the beat of His music. The band rocked the joint. The vibe was so amazing.
4. After a short intermission Pastor Nathan got up on stage and began his teaching. It was all about ‘The Power Of Light & Love’. All of the lights went out. Darkness. A flashlight came on. Light at the end of the tunnel. Let there be light. All of the lights came back on. There is no more darkness, for we have been saved. We are chasing daylight. The secrets and the sins that we committed in the dark are in our past. This is a new Life for us. A life of light. Ephesians 5:8 (NLT, 2ND Ed.) illustrates the contrast between our past problems and our present privileges: ‘For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light !’ Ephesians 5:13 identifies the need to bring light to darkness: ‘But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them.’
5. From start to finish it was about an hour and 45-minute service. Pastor Nathan’s message was powerful. He inspired and encouraged us to continue moving further away from the darkness and forward into the light. A new message series begins in March – ‘The Elephant In The Church’. He gave a sneak-peek of it. It should be a thought-provoking and revealing message series.
I really enjoyed myself this morning at InDependence Church. I will return in the future. This is just the start of something MASSIVE for Weston Florida. That beautiful city is going to be taken by storm by the forward momentum of InDependence Church. Satan is going to struggle to stay in business in Weston. The light is shining brightly. I can’t wait to hear about it, and see it in person !
Sky: Sunny & Clear
Temperature: 64°F
Relative Humidity: 100%
Winds: NNE 2 MPH
Barometric Pressure: 30.14 Rising
My thoughts:
1. I added a tenth of a mile to my walk around my neighbourhood this morning during the seven-o-clock hour. I walked about 1.4 miles total in about 27 minutes.
2. Ducks and chickens were in abundance during my walk. They were out and about eating breakfast. I steered away from them. I was once attacked by an angry duck. The unfortunate incident of a few years ago continues to haunt me to this day.
3. Not a single car passed me during my walk. In fact I only saw three people outside. I think everyone was inside eating bacon. I can effectively hypothesize that because the unmistakable aroma of fresh cooked bacon permeated all throughout the morning air of my neighbourhood.
4. A friend from afar recently asked me why I started this weekly walk. Besides the obvious health and fitness reasons this walk – inspired and encouraged by this fellow WordPress blogger – is symbolic of my walk with Jesus Christ. I’ve been walking with Him on His fantastic journey for about 18 months now. I was once a mannequin – plastic and rotting. Now I am alive. Since I am alive I am living Life (always capitalized) the way that I should have lived it during my previous 39 years on His great Earth. That includes throwing everything up in the air like ‘Tossed Salad’ (catch the symbolism there) and only catching the good stuff – the right stuff. A physical walk is now on my agenda to complement my spiritual walk with my Creator. No longer am I sitting still in neutral. I am now moving forward and going places with my Life. The Lord Almighty is driving me. I am merely His passenger.
5. I’m taking this walk on-the-road starting tomorrow. I’ll be walking all throughout the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers tomorrow afternoon. The walk continues on Monday (Presidents’ Day) at Estero’s Germain Arena for the Cross Reference Faith & Family Expo. Maybe I’ll even make a pit-stop at the Naples Zoo on my return trip back to Homestead.
1. Tom and Anne both beat me to the movie theatre bright and early this morning. But then again I was about 8 minutes late (arriving at 7:38 AM). According to Tom and Anne the theatre was unlocked and ready for us to roll as soon as we arrived. I think Pastor Travis got that ‘locked-out’ problem resolved within the new lease agreement.
2. Lisa has some cool ideas for the ‘Kid’s Life’ registration desk, so that makes us work even harder over at the ‘Visitor Center’. The think tank was at work again this morning. We decided that we want a red carpet that we can roll out straight from the ‘Visitor Center’ clear out to the front door. Anne stated that she would ‘look in’ to the ambitious idea.
3. I think that we may have set a new attendance record for the 9:00 service (approaching 90), and if you were at the 10:30 service and tried to find a seat at around 10:40 then you were probably searching hard for one. I think that we shattered the ‘400’ mark in overall attendance at Life Pointe Church this morning. We may have even come close to 450 !
4. We kicked-off a brand new message series this morning entitled ‘(un)christian’. Our church body collectively apologized for those times in which the name of Jesus was manipulated by unprincipled religious leaders, for those times in which we have been abused by church people, for those times in which we were judged without concern for who we are, for those times in which we were duped or taken advantage of by a Christian, for those times in which we were shown Scriptures selectively without concern for the whole counsel of the Bible, and for those times in which we were not loved by followers of Jesus. We apologized. We forgave.
5. About 100 of us met over at Homestead Bayfront Park this afternoon for a nice picnic and water baptism. I think we had about 250 pounds of delicious food available for consumption, so anyone that was on a diet probably took about a 3-hour hiatus from their diet so that they could join in on the MASSIVE feast. Don’t bother weighing yourselves tonight. You can resume your diet in the morning.
I’ll be on vacation next weekend over in the Fort Myers area, and I’m planning to attend a church service over there on Sunday morning. I’ll have a special edition of the ‘Tossed Salad’ next Sunday night regarding my experiences over there. I’ll be back at Life Pointe on the 24TH of February.
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