On Sunday afternoon, I couldn't help but reflect on how far God has brought our church in the last 6 years. We went to my parent's house in Cape Coral for Easter Lunch. That's the house that Sarah and I lived in for 5 1/2 years before mom and dad retired last fall. As we sat around the table, I couldn't help but think that just 6 years ago, there were 6 adults and 2 kids (taking naps) during "Easter Sunday Service!" in the living room of that house!
Easter services at NLC yesterday were absolutely mind-blowing. We had over 1000 people in church and saw hundreds of people respond to the first of our 3 part series we started called, "CAGED."
A Few High Points for me for the Day were:
- Seeing one of our worship leaders, Elizabeth, (I call her Bethy), who is 17, absolutely set the stage for the presence of God to move in our church in an unprecedented way! I believe our people responded to God's presence like they never have before b/c of the words Bethy shared!!! I'm so proud of her! She's an amazing worship leader... and only 17, that's just crazy!
- Seeing our staff giving ministry away! I loved watching our staff at their best yesterday! They were impowering others to "do the work of the ministry" and were rising above it all day long! The staff of NLC truly has the DNA of this thing and are doing the work of reproducing that DNA into hundreds of Team Members!
- Seeing Mike and Scott lead, cast vision, and truly pastor our people like they were created to do! Those two guys are an absolute riot! I can't believe I get to do this with them!
- Seeing South Fort Myers High School transformed into a house of worship every Sunday is just a cool thing! What a gift from God that we don't have to build a $40 million facility to have church in! The state of Florida did that for us! Wow!
- Seeing it all come together. I heard John Siebling, an ARC pastor from Memphis, TN, say, "Our goal is to try and put 3 good Sundays in a row!" anyone in the church world knows just how hard that is to do. Yesterday was truly a good Sunday! I feel like we keep stringing "Good Sundays" together, I think we may even be able to get to "3" by the end of the year!!! :)
To all who are apart of making NLC happen on a weekly basis, this is BIG WIN for you too! Do something today to celebrate! Take your spouse to dinner, play with your kids, give your pet a treat, get the mail, yell out the window in traffic, drink an energy drink, go off your diet, take a day off!
Personally, I'm opting for the last one,
Matt
2 comments:
Big win for sure. Not to mention, a big high point of Matt delivering a powerful message that allowed God to set hundreds free... you rock man!
PS- I think I'm going to give my pet a treat.
Wow! I can't wait for my family to get down there and be a part of it. What a great time I had with you and your family. Thanks for rocking the connections for me. By the way, I just downloaded a bunch of geocaches to my gps from the website. The Mac version is out, baby! And I'm loving it! Taking my kids out this week (snow or not)!
Your friend,
Mike
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