The Competition?

Jerry Flint is a senior automotive editor for Forbes magazine. I read a quote from him today that speaks volumes about the church. Jerry flint said this:

"Competition is a painful thing, but it produces great results."

For far too long "the church" has considered other churches to be "the competition." However, I will never consider another church to be a competitor. With 300,000 people in Northampton County and considering that national statistics suggest that 165,000 of those people don't know Christ, other churches are allies not competition. The real competition for growing, relevant, bible believing, Christ preaching churches is not other churches but anything that will keep people from coming to church on the weekend.

Our competition is the golf course, the movie theater, night clubs, sporting events, T.V. shows and anything that keeps people from coming to our church buildings. As Jerry Flint suggests, competing with those kinds of experiences can be painful but if we do it right, if we truly develop the kind of quality that people experience everywhere outside the church, if we tell the greatest story in the world in the most compelling and creative ways possible, we will reach our community!!

That's who we are! That's what we are going to do!

We will not compromise the message and we will not compromise the quality. The results will be great!

Stay tuned, invite your friends and watch what God does!

Storage Units?

I had to run to the bank this morning. The primary branch that we bank at sits up on a hill and overlooks a neighborhood and what used to be a large field. About a year ago, they began to excavate the field and I assumed they were building more homes. Much to my surprise they weren't building homes, they were building Storage Units. You know the u-store-it kind of buildings where we spend $100.00 a month to store the stuff we can't fit into our 2500 square foot homes that sit on 1/4 acre lots with 2 car garages and a shed out back. I don't know about you but I see these kind of storage companies all over the place.

Now I know that some people have legitimate reasons for needing these storage units. They run a business out of their home and they use their storage building for a warehouse. Some people are in between homes and need to store their stuff until the new place is ready. We actually used one when we first moved to Virginia because our new house wasn't ready yet.

However, as I rounded the back side of the bank this morning to go to the ATM machine, I noticed they were clearing more ground and building even more storage space. I wonder why we need so much stuff that we never use? I wonder why we strive to obtain more stuff then our neighbors only to end up not having a place to keep our stuff so we rent a storage unit to store our over abundance of stuff and most likely forget that it's even there?

Isn't this what most Christians do? We attend church every week from the time we're 6 until we're 96 and we store in our brain everything you can possible know about God, His Son Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Ten Commandments, Noah and the Ark, Paul and his journey & everything in between. We keep notebooks of every message outline since the beginning of message outlines. We have libraries filled with highlighted books that we'll never look at again. We end up forgetting most sermons, bible studies and messages within 36 hours of hearing or reading them and yet we still want more. We want to go "deeper." We want to feel "spiritual." But we forget the information and never use it. We never tell anyone about Christ, we never invite someone to church, we never put into practice the principles that Jesus taught nor do we try to emulate or reflect the lifestyle that Jesus led. I read in a book that the vast majority of "Christians" are educated way beyond there ability to actually act or live out that education. We just keep storing it up, wanting more and never using it.

Here's my challenge. Don't just acquire knowledge. Don't just sit in church, take notes, go home and file them and never use them again. Share the knowledge with those who don't know Christ. Reach out to your neighbors, friends, relatives and share your spiritual journey with them. If you don't feel comfortable sharing with them directly then invite them to church so they can hear what Jesus has done for them. Don't waste your time storing up knowledge and forgetting its there. Live it out and invite people in. It will have a dramatic impact on their lives and yours for all eternity.

Looking To The Stars

I have to admit that yesterday was a LOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG day.

Have you ever had one of those days? About halfway through the day you feel like you've been up since yesterday and you can't even remember getting out of bed.

I arrived at the office about 7:45am, had several meetings throughout the day, worked on some long range planning stuff, finished up the music prep for this weekend, left the office about 4:15pm, arrived home about 4:30pm and helped my daughters with their homework, grabbed a quick dinner, took my daughter to her softball game at 5:20pm, left the game at 6:45pm, went back to the church for Praise Team practice at 7:00pm, ended practice at 9:00pm (ish), stayed in the office until about 9:45pm to finish up some stuff for the weekend, because I won't be in today and finally arrived home about 10:00pm last night. I have to admit that by the time I left the office, about 9:45pm last night, I was spent. However, as I locked up the church, ensured that the lights were off and as I made my way to my car, God grabbed my attention. At the end of a very long day, I was tired, I wanted to go home, I wanted to sit down and mindlessly watch anything on T.V. God showed up.

I walked out into the parking lot and looked up at the sky and . . . There He Was! God was smiling down at me. Now, I know that some of you are thinking I'm nuts. No, I didn't hallucinate and see some face in the sky. I saw a beautiful clear sky with shinning stars and an amazing sliver of the moon. The light from the stars and moon seemed to light up the sky and I felt like God was saying, "I'm here." I felt like He was telling me, don't get caught up in the stuff of life and forget Me. It was like He was reminding me that in the midst of a busy day God is still God and we can see Him in everything from big meetings to people coming to Christ to stars in the sky many miles away.

I have to say that it was a perfect end to a long day and I wouldn't want it any other way.

Keep your eyes open. You might just see God in some bizarre way today. If so, comment here and let me know about it. It would be a great encouragement.

G3,
Steven

Encouraging 411

I sat in and played bass for the Ignite Band at our Ignite Students service last night. It was really awesome to see so many students authentically connecting with God during the worship time. Yes, they had fun before the service started. Some were playing basketball, some were listening to music, some were hanging out in "the loft", some were playing the Wii and some were just sitting in the big room talking with friends.

But when the service started and the music kicked off there were many students authentically connecting with God. It's hard to see that connection from the audience but standing on the stage I was able to see hands raised, eyes closed and students singing praises to their God. It was truly awesome.

I also heard yesterday that there were several kidz who gave their lives to Christ this past weekend in KidZone. You'll be hearing more about that in the coming days/weeks. However, I just want to reiterate that God is moving in the lives of people here at The Carpenter's and we can't even dream or imagine what He has in store for us.

If you've been encouraged by this glimpse of what God is doing at The Carpenter's, then forward this information to a friend and encourage them as well.

Three Little Words

As many of you know, radio personality Don Imus was fired from his MSNBC cable show on Wednesday and his CBS Radio show yesterday. Don apparently had a very strong laps in judgment. On April 4th he made a racial comment about the Rutgers University Women's Basketball Team on his show.

Don began his radio career as a disc jockey in 1968. In 1998 he began the Imus Ranch, a home for sick children, in New Mexico. However, after a successful career spanning almost 40 years, he'll will be remembered for the three words that got him fired from both MSNBC and CBS within 24 hours of each other.

What's interesting is that after just a 3 year career as a missionary & evangelist Jesus is remembered for three little words as well.

"It Is Finished!"

When Jesus spread out His arms on that cross and he hung there for the world to see, He took on the sins of you and me forever. He stated it, once and for all . . . "IT IS FINISHED!"

We had a great weekend last week as we celebrated Christ's Death and Resurrection and the reality of those three little words. We also launched "24" and you're not going to want to miss this weekend as we enter week two of "24". We'll be talking about our Work Life and how God fits into the work hours of our day. We've got some really cool things planned and you'll want to be at either the 9:00 am or 10:45 am services and bring a friend. It's going to be awesome.

What An Awesome Weekend!

What a great weekend we had. We kicked it off with the Good Friday presentation of "Your Life" and concluding with the launch of "24" on Easter Sunday. There were 12 decisions for Christ on Friday night and almost 500 in church on Sunday. I'm pumped about what God is doing in our church and our community and it's truly awesome to be a part of it.

We're going to continue the "24" series this weekend and see if God is a part of our work life. It could get tense . . . but it's going to be truth! So, Don't miss it.

Your Journey - Your Story

Until today I had never heard of John Hope Franklin. You probably haven't heard of him either. However, Mr. Franklin was born in 1915, received his doctorate in history from Harvard in 1941. He was a professor at some our countries greatest universities including the University of Chicago and Duke University. He also wrote several books on US History and slavery. As I said, I didn't know anything about John Hope Franklin until I read a quote by him today. Mr. Franklin once said this:

"We must get beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths... and tell the world the glories of our journey."

How true this is of life in general but more specifically I think it's true of Christ Followers. As a follower of Christ, one who has experienced God's Grace first hand, we have an amazing story to tell. However, we can get so caught up in learning "about" Jesus that we never tell anyone what Jesus has "done" for us and the glories of our own journey. I've heard many people say that they don't know how to tell others about Christ. They say they don't know enough, they aren't educated enough or they don't have enough bible knowledge to talk to someone about Christ. My response is; If you are a Christ Follower. If you have experienced His grace first hand. Then simply tell others the Glories of Your Journey. Tell others what Christ has done for you.

Maybe it's as easy as telling someone what God had done in you, through The Carpenter's Church. Maybe it's as easy as inviting them to experience what you've experienced and bring them to "Your Life" tonight and the launch of "24" on Easter Sunday. No matter how you chose to do it, don't just become book smart but "go into the bypaths . . . and tell the world the glories of your journey."

We've got the best story to tell so let's start telling it!

If you've got a story to tell, why not click the Comments link below and share it. The world needs to hear what God is doing.

It's Not Too Late!

You've noticed that I've not posted much in the past couple of days. My wife and kids have been off of school for Spring Break so we headed South and spent a few days with Tally. We visited some friends, did a lot of nothing, spent some time with Hershel from Sonlight Church and heard some great stories of what God is doing down there and just arrived home last night. So, the next two days are going to be very busy as we gear up for Friday night and Sunday morning. It's going to be awesome.

By the way. I want everyone to know that it's not too late to invite people to our Good Friday services (tomorrow at 6:30 pm & 8:15 pm) as well as the kick off of the new "24" series that starts this Sunday on Easter morning. It's going to be awesome and you're not going to want to miss it. Let me just say that if you don't bring someone to Good Friday you're going to be kicking yourself.

I also want to challenge The Carpenter's Members and Regular Attenders to fill up this building on Easter morning. All it will take is each person bringing one guest with them this weekend. It's just 1, uno, one. You don't need to bring 50, although if you want to, that's cool. Just one.

I'm telling you. Test God in this and see what He does. It's going to be amazing.

Sunday Night Thoughts

Well, it's currently about 20 minutes to 12 on Sunday night and it's been a long day. We had two great services this morning and in spite of some technical difficulties in the second service, there were several people who indicated a decision for Christ today. It just blows me away to watch God work.

Right after church, my family and I loaded up the car and headed for Virginia. We're taking some R&R and hanging out with Tally and his family. Tally is the pastor at Focal Point Church in Chesapeake. We're going to spend some time visiting some friends here in Virginia before heading home on Wednesday night to prepare for this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, it's going to be amazing. We're launching a new series called "24" and it's going to rock. Invite some people and watch what God does. It's going to be awesome

Also, don't forget our Good Friday presentation of "Your Life" on Friday at 6:30 pm and 8:15 pm. It's going to be incredible.