What A Week!?!?!?!

Well, it's been a long week. I'm speaking tomorrow (I'm really looking forward to that by the way) and so I've been working on my message all week. In addition, we leave tomorrow after church with 30 students and adult leaders for our Ignite Students missions trip to Focal Point Church in Chesapeake, Virginia. Therefore I've had to prepare a ton of graphics and materials that are needed next weekend when I'm not around. Needless to say my weeks' been a bit hectic.

I've felt Satan around me most of the week. You see my message tomorrow is on how to have eternal life. It's a straight forward salvation message and Satan knows it. Every time I went to work on the message I was distracted. It is currently almost midnight on Saturday night and I've just finished wrapping up the details of the message. That's OK though because with everything that Satan has thrown my way this week, I think God's got some big plans in store for tomorrow and this week's missions trip.

Check in often this week as I'll be blogging from Chesapeake and keeping everyone updated on what's going on. You can read Tucker's take on his blog as well.

G3

Nothing More To Say

WOW!!!

I just read a blog post by Steven Furtick at Elevation Church in Charollete N.C.

Check out the post by clicking here.

I believe he's right! Well, I believe his thoughts are right. I've never actually eaten at Ruth's Chris so I can't verify the quality of the steaks.

G3

Summer Is Here

I can always tell when Summer has arrived. My kids stay up later, sleep in later and I get up in the morning, get ready and have breakfast by myself.

Summer brings with it warm weather, sunshine, vacations, family events, carnivals, outdoor concerts and all kinds of exciting activities. As we gear up for the Summer here at The Carpenter's we are preparing for the Summer Message Series, "Chase The Lion", that launches on July 8th. This series is going to challenge each person and our church as a whole to:

"Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive SAFELY at Death."

You'll hear more about this new series in a week or so but until then I want to share with you some thoughts that Perry Noble from NewSpring Church shared on his blog today. I echo his statements and believe they should be for The Carpenter's as well.

• NEVER be satisfied with where we are!
• ALWAYS be thankful for what God has done!
• NEVER limit what God can do!
• ALWAYS dream big…and take bold steps!
• NEVER stop reaching people for Christ!
• ALWAYS spend money on ministry!
• NEVER let the critics and skeptics silence us!
• ALWAYS be willing to make NOISE for Christ!
• NEVER forget where we came from!
• ALWAYS celebrate where we are going!
• NEVER allow creativity to trump Scripture!
• ALWAYS show the world how relevant the Gospel is!
• NEVER lift up a personality!
• ALWAYS lift up the name of Jesus!

I believe The Carpenter's Church should hold true to each of these statements and when we do that, God is going to do some amazing things. I think this is going to be a Summer to remember.

. . . Stay Tuned!

If We Can Just Touch Your Robe?

I've been fairly quite on my blog for the past couple of weeks. In fact I think it's been about 17 days since my last post. I have to admit, I've been in a little funk. I've kinda stayed below the radar and simply spent some time reading, reflecting and praying. In some respects it's been a good time and in other it's been very frustrating. During those 2 weeks, we've had 2 great services at The Carpenter's.

Chris Hull spoke on the 27th of may and challenged us all about how to handle criticism and keep Jesus in the boat. Speaking as someone who gets criticized a lot, it was a message that God spoke, just for me. This past weekend we launched the new message series "Cars." In my opinion it was one of the most well thought out, well organized, flowing and purposeful services we've ever had. The music, media, message, flow, payers, baby dedications and yes, the Austin Healey on stage all worked together to communicate the difference between an authentic relationship with God through Christ and a rules based religious experience.

However, in spite of these great services, our attendance hasn't been great and our giving is still way down. I've been spending time asking God, "what are we doing that You don't want us to be doing" (or) "what do You want us to do that we're not doing." While I've not received a clear response, I was reading in Matthew the other day and a story that I've read many times, seemed to jump off the page at me.

Matthew chapter 9 verses 19-22: tells the story of a woman who has suffered for 12 years with constant bleeding. Jesus walks by and she thinks, "If I can just touch His robe, I will be healed." She touches His robe, Jesus turns around and when He sees her He says, "Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well."

I felt like God was telling me, just reach out and touch my robe. Have the tiniest of faith and I'll take care of the rest. Your Faith Will Make You Well!

So, I have some questions. What if we all were able to reach out and touch His robe and believe that by doing this little insignificant act, He would change the world through us? What if we had just a tiny bit of faith and believed that God wants to reach the Greater Lehigh Valley through The Carpenter's Church and then started putting action behind that faith? What if we spent half as much time telling people about Christ as we do complaining about what we don't like in the church?

I don't know about you, but I want to stop playing church, stop accepting mediocre faith, stop allowing Satan to use good people as a distraction to what God is doing and simply reach out and touch his robe. I want to put my tiny grain of faith into action and work with God where He's already working. We've got a big job to do and God is a Big God and I believe He can explode the doors of The Carpenter's in the next 6 months.

Who's ready to go with me??????