Answered prayers & The Wolf

We met at the church last night for G.R.O.W. What is Grow? It's a ministry led by Pastor James, where we meet at the church on the last Tuesday night of each month to pray. It lasts from 7:00 to 8:00. James will walk thru the list to see what's been answered and what we need to add and then we pray. That's it. One cool ministry. So, here's the reason I bring it up. On the list last night it said 45 answered prayers! I'm not sure how long GROW has been going on but 45 answered prayers is a big deal. That tells me we are not the only ones showing up. God is there with us! Set your VCR or DVR or whatever you have so you don't miss American Idol and give up 1 hour a month for this ministry. You won't regret it.
I forgot to give out some vital information this past weekend. I told you I would keep you informed and I didn't. God please forgive me. I will be on 95.9 The Wolf Thursday afternoon at 4:00. I get to push the buttons, pick the songs & talk for 30 minutes. Probably 29 minutes of music with a 60 second interview with M. Archer, but hey it will be fun. I've always thought being a DJ would be cool. I'll let you know Sunday how it went.

Weekend & Upcoming

I love that verse in Malachi Chapter 3 from this past Sunday..."and you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked." We like to think that times have changed but really they haven't. We struggle with the same issues today that the Israelites struggled with thousands of years ago and money/possessions is at the top of the list. If you say you don't struggle with the pull of possesions you're a big fat liar! So, why not quit lying and admit that you are in a battle with God over 'your' stuff? At least you can drop one sin by admitting the truth. Money & Possessions are always rooting their ugly faces in between us and God. It's time to put money in it's place. God says you can't serve both. Think about that for a second...He's God...I'm not...he's always right and we are very seldom right and when we are right it's because we're agreeing with Him. So, choose your side. God or money. God is forever and money is temporary so the decision is not something to pray about. Choose God everytime and whatever you do don't look at today's stuff as blessings. Malachi said the distinction will be made but it's on God's watch not ours. We will be rewarded for our faithfulness.
I think the skittles illustration went over pretty good Sunday...we had a $21,000 dollar offering. Ok, that was just a cruel joke...but think about how excited you were for a moment when you read that $21,000. God's big enough do that and so much more if we will just be obedient. Ok...enough money talk. We have some cool stuff coming up so write down the list below and then do something ludicrous. Show up! Wow, that's crazy!

Attention Youth!
I did pick up all the skittles that landed in the floor so no leftover snacks for you.

G.R.O.W. tonight 7:00-8:00
We split up in groups for 1 hour and God shows up...it's great!
Nick asked me to remember the Guntharp family in prayer. They lost their son Judah last Friday so if you can't make it tonight remember this family.

Gathering this Sunday night @6:00
James is speaking and he will not mention that we won the Doubles Tournament. Oh, I just mentioned it...sorry.

Wednesday, April 4th at 6:00 Stuff Eggs.
We have eggs to stuff for the Community Hunt and the Crossroads Hunt.
All cell groups will meet at the church for this event.

April 8th Easter Sunday.
We are having dinner & an egg hunt immediately after the service. Invite your friends and family and let's pack this place out.

Submission

Submission is a tough thing to do. Children are told to obey their parents. Wives are told to submit to their husbands. We are told to submit to God. The thing about submission is this. There can't be submission without disagreement. If children agree with the rules of their parents, there is no need for submission. If a wife's desires match the desires of her husband, there is no need for submission. When God commands us to do something we would do anyway, we don't have to submit. However, when God tells us to do something we don't want to do... well, that is when submission is needed. So the question is...how good are you at submitting? Not very good right? Let's pray that God will help all of us to become better in this area of our life.

Monday

Yesterday was probably one of the heaviest messages I've preached. However, preaching truth is always heavy, especially when it disagrees with most of what you believe. The foundation of the church is so important and if it's not laid right...you're in trouble. I really believe our foundation at Crossroads is based on truth. It may not be the way we would do it, but we're following God and He knows a lot more than us. We were down a little yesterday (number wise) but we still had a great time. 2 were baptized and we have a couple more left. After the service we stuck around for the doubles table tennis tournament upstairs. I was partnered with Big James and we took the final game by defeating team Laubach/Weese. With a mixture of my speed and James' power...we couldn't lose. Better luck next time fellows. We talk about Money this weekend...yee haw!

Sleepy

I'm a tired puppy. We got in from the Unleash Conference last night around 2:00 & I got back up at 6:00. The conference was pretty awesome! The Pastor (Perry Noble) at NewSpring will say whatever is on his mind...no holding back. I think they had around 900 people attend the conference. We were pretty ticked off since we didn't get the prize for longest drive. Some guy from Kansas took that award. What did we learn from the conference? Good question...I'm glad I asked. We learned that God is a Big God and He can do amazing things in the life of His people when they are obedient to Him. The lives that have been changed through this church in the past 8 yrs is amazing. The cool thing is we serve that same God. I'm really excited about the direction God is taking us at Crossroads. For the next 3 weeks we are going to be in the "Fact or Fiction" series. We'll have a lot of vision in this series. We are going to talk about some things that we believe to be true...but are they? We are not making stuff up in this series, we're following the Bible, but does the Bible agree with our beliefs? We'll soon find out. See ya!

Anderson

It took almost 10 hours but we made it to Anderson, South Carolina. The conference starts at 8:30 in the morning. We went to the church tonight and pre-registered for the conference...picked up our name tags...stuff like that. It looks like a pretty cool place. It's sort of in the middle of nowhere. The area that the church is located in has a surrounding population about the size of our area. This church runs around 9,000 each weekend and they are 8 yrs old, I believe. That's pretty darn impressive. I'm ready to hear more about their story. I hope you guys are having a good week. Later!

New Location

Hey, thanks for checking out my new blog location. I've been blogging on our church page for some time now but decided to move to a new location since I wasn't real happy with the options (or lack of) that the site had to offer for blogging. The webpage is great but the blogging is limited so I thought this would be better. Be sure and spread the word since thousands of people depend on my blog for daily encouragement and inspiration. Hope you guys are having a good Tuesday thus far. I'll be leaving for South Carolina tomorrow to visit NewSpring Church. God's doing a lot of cool stuff there. I know it will be worth the 10 hour drive. I had a friend call me yesterday to tell me he set his clock 1 hour back instead of forward. Therefore, he woke up 2 hours late. I've never heard of that before. He'll remain anonymous. Don't forget to bring somebody this weekend as we kick off our new series, "Fact or Fiction." Also, we have 4 people to baptize so get to church early and sit in the splash zone. Peace!