Happy new year! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I believe 2011 is going to be an amazing year, full of adventure and new experiences.
Now that I’m pastoring two churches, I thought it would be cool to do a weekly post sharing my thoughts about the two services. Like much of what I do with this blog, this may work, or I may get bored of doing it after one week and never post again!
Bikers’ Church
- Marty spoke and did a tremendous job talking about resolutions, new beginnings, and connecting with others. If you missed the service, you can watch the video here.
- We went “old school” by using videos for worship. It was great to see the reaction from people with each of the videos we played. Familiar songs and people responded.
- Since the crowd was more manageable, we opened it up for prayer requests. It is great to be able to do that, however I was reminded again of why it simply isn’t feasible in our new location. “That’s all I’ve got to say about that!” (said in my best Forest Gump impression).
- Once again, we had new people in attendance. I haven’t been keeping track, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we’ve had new faces every single week since our move to Vanier.
- It was an amazing year for us financially. We took a huge leap of faith with our budget in January 2010 (increased our giving by more than 60%). In the end, we actually surpassed our budget expectations by close to $8,000. So many of our members took a leap of faith in their giving and I’m blown away by their faithfulness.
- There is clearly a sense of excitement for what 2011 holds for the people of Bikers’ Church
City Church
- I was pleasantly surprised with the turnout considering it was Jan. 2nd, and many were still away visiting family.
- The worship team did a great job once again.
- I rambled. I mean, I really rambled! My plan was to speak for 10–15 minutes then introduce Cam & Heather. 50 minutes later, I was bringing those two up to the platform. Yeah, 50 minutes! I don’t know if I was just nervous, excited, or a mix of both, but I just went on and on and on!
- The energy and excitement in the room was tangible. Three or four times during my “rambling” people cheered. It was contagious.
- There was so much talk about the future. I really believe that people are ready to see what God wants to do next.
It’s going to be interesting to figure out how to balance things with the two churches. The majority of what we’ll do will be together, but each church is unique enough to require specific focus. I’m looking forward to the challenge.
