And the new Journey begins…
And the new Journey begins at The Journey Church! #advancethegospel
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NEW Pastor of Families @ The Journey Church
Just got a pretty cool email today! This was sent to The Journey Church family in Boca Raton concerning our new position as Pastor of Families. Please be praying for us as we make this transition to Boca Raton. Pray for The Journey and pray for First Baptist Church.
Dear Journey Family,
I am excited to announce that after much prayer and a four-month search, Pastor David Stone will be joining our team as Pastor of Families starting Sunday, April 6.
While our search stretched nationwide, David was actually in our backyard. For the last three years, he has been serving at First Baptist Church, Belle Glade in northwest Palm Beach County. I have personally observed and appreciated David’s ministry over the years and am delighted that he is joining our team.
As Pastor of Families, David will add value by leading and shepherding both existing and new areas of our church. His key focus areas will include:
* insuring that our already fantastic Journey Kidz ministry continues to make Sunday the best hour of your child’s week. As we grow as a church, we want to insure this ministry continues to grow, deepen and shape young lives for Christ.
* starting a new student ministry for both Junior and Senior High Students. Building on our teen growth groups, Pastor David will begin working immediately with parents and students in our church to develop a Godly plan for the launch of an exciting student ministry starting this fall.
* serving alongside our great staff, regular volunteers, members and regular attenders to help our church fulfill our mission of giving the people of South Florida the best opportunity to become fully developing followers of Jesus.
You will love David and his family as soon as you meet them. He is a native of Missouri but has served churches in his home state as well as Texas and Florida. In addition to a Bachelors degree in ministry, he has a Masters of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, TX.
You will have the opportunity on Sunday, April 6 to say hello to David, his wife Jenny and their two boys Taylor (age 12) and Tucker (age 8) and we will hold a special meet-n-greet reception after the service on Palm Sunday, April 13.
These are exciting days for our church!
I’m excited about so many things that God is doing in our church: Pastor David joining our staff; Easter coming up in just over three weeks; and God’s great work that I witness each week in your life and the life of those who call The Journey Church their home!
Please join me in praying for our new Pastor of Families and for our church.
See you Sunday. Know you are loved,
Pastor Nelson
P.S. To help guide your prayer for Pastor David and his family, here’s a link to our Facebook page that contains a picture of his family.
Nelson Searcy
Lead Pastor, The Journey Church
CentriKid Camp–2nd Full Day
Just got a call from Taylor boy from CentriKid Camp again tonight…2nd full day of camp! He is doing really well…along with the rest of the kids and leaders. He was “a little bit homesick” last night…but “not homesick at all” now! How funny…and how sad all at the same time! Our baby boy is growing up so fast!
We had a girl commit her life to Christ last night and the kids are really growing in their faith. It is really cool to see them having morning devotionals in the room…I think it looks a lot like heaven!
Keep all the kids in prayer as they have one more full day of camp programming left tomorrow and they head home Friday morning.
Centrikid Camp this week!
Taylor is at Centrikid Camp this week with our Kids Ministry. He is having a great time…just called us from Pastor Tim’s phone a few minutes ago. He said he was “a little home sick.” I said I was too! Check out some of the goings on at Pastor Tim’s tumblr site at kidspastor.tumblr.com. I am really thankful for such a good leader to have my kids being poured into their lives. 
This is a picture of Taylor and Patrick during devotionals…very cool.
Egg Drop 2013
Wow, what an awesome day for our church and the Glades community! Our first ever Easter Egg Drop was a HUGE success!
We had several hundred kids come through and EGGchange their plastic eggs for a big bag of candy at The Great EGGchange! (Get it, EGGchange?! Pretty pun-y, huh?) Our children’s pastor, Tim, says that by his best count, we gave out 1153 bags of candy! (That’s a LOT of candy!)
We think we had close to a thousand kiddos who attended the event for sure. (There may have been a few that made a couple of “EGGchanges,” if you know what I mean.)
A HUGE thank you to everyone who helped us pull off this massive event!
A HUGE thank you to Phil and Sugar Cane Golf Club hosting us.
A HUGE thank you to John Kandel and his piloting skills.
A HUGE thank you to our church staff who served for weeks in planning and implementing the vision for this community event.
A HUGE thank you to all of our volunteers who gave up their time and energy to show the love of God to our community!
YOU ALL are the BEST!!
Here are some pictures and a very short video taken by Chuck from the helicopter as they were dropping eggs.
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Dr. Roy Fish Has Died: A Heart for Evangelism and a Life Dedicated to Sharing the Gospel
One of my favorite professors at SWBTS passed away yesterday. Dr. Roy Fish was an amazing man who truly cared for each and every student in his classes. What I remember most about him is his evangelistic heart, yes; but it was a pastor’s heart with that evangelistic passion that every person would find a relationship with Christ. I was just looking through some old notebooks of when I was back in Missouri pastoring after seminary. I found a sermon outline that he preached at the Pastor’s Conference in St. Louis that was “great medicine” for my heart. I think what really spoke to my heart was his passion for the Church to become all she could become and specifically (preaching from Acts 17) bring the Gospel to the next generation. It did my heart good to hear from an old leader stressing to the next generation of leaders to focus on getting the Gospel to the future generations. May we all press on to share the Gospel to the future generations for God’s glory!
Here is a great post from Dr. Ed Stetzer on Dr. Fish’s life and ministry. Enjoy.
Ed Stetzer – Roy Fish Has Died: A Heart for Evangelism and a Life Dedicated to Sharing the Gospel.
Prayers for Revival in Belle Glade
The Glades have been through a really difficult week or so with the murder of local business owner, Jimmy McMillan, followed by the armed robbery of a jewelry store the very next day. This is on the heels of an extremely bad 2011 with far too many violent crimes including a Saturday in December with two homicides in less than 12 hours. We are praying for a revival in this place and an end to the violence!
Here are some videos from just one of the news stations that were camped out in our church parking lot for the last few days at the visitation and funeral on Thursday and Friday as well as Monday night as we held a prayer walk for the Glades that went from our church to the Community United Methodist Church.
We are praying for an end to the senseless violence in our community. We are praying that there will be real revival here in the Glades that will be rooted in the true Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is beginning to happen here in the Church community is truly amazing! We are beginning to see true revival and repentance in the Christian community here in the Glades. The last three nights have seen three very powerful prayer events at three different churches in our community. What has been absolutely amazing is the start of an amazing unity that is being formed that goes far beyond race, economics and denominational affiliation.
We had a really good crowd on Monday night (which you could see on the video.) I was praying that we would not have a “let down” in attendance tonight as many of these things have a tendency to wain over time. I was absolutely amazed to see EVEN MORE people there tonight to go from Community United Methodist Church, past the Alabama Georgia Grocery (where the store owner was murdered), to St. John’s First Missionary Baptist Church. It was beautiful to see all races and ages gather together under the name of Jesus to beg God to touch our community. As pastor Robert Reese, pastor of St. John’s, said tonight, “this is a picture of what heaven might be like!”
Please be in prayer for Belle Glade and the communities of the Glades as we try to minister to this hurting community. We are having a prayer walk or prayer vigil each night through MLK celebration on Monday. I am feeling like we are going to have larger and larger crowds each night. I hope we can maintain this momentum and that the people will see a unified group of Christians here in the Church in the Glades.
Here are some pictures from the last several nights’ prayer meetings… (quality isn’t great…iPhone 3Gs…waiting for the iPhone 5 and Siri 🙂
KC Church Responds to Murders
Talk about a church and a pastor that is living out the gospel in its context! Pastor John Mark Clifton and the Wornall Road Baptist Church in Kansas City are having a “Longest Night” event to pray for the over 100 homicides in Kansas City this year. They are gathering to pray for the victims and their families as well as peace over their city. Check out their story of a church almost at death just 5 short years ago that has been reborn and is thriving, and making a huge impact in their community. They are a great motivation for me as I lead our church through similar change. Check them out on their website.
Interview::Theology and Practice of Worship
Here is a great interview of Bob Kauflin with the Desiring God guys on the Theology and Practice of Worship. If you have a few minutes it is well worth the time to watch the interview. I have been preaching on worship for the last month or so and opened up our Christmas series talking about worship as well. It has been said that “worship is the activity of the human soul.” Everybody worships…the question is not “do we worship?,” but it is “what or whom is the object of that worship?.” We have found ourselves in the American Church with a real problem because we have placed an extremely high value on form and not so much on the theology and “God” behind the worship. We have these crazy things called “worship wars” that should never happen in the Church of Jesus Christ. We fight over the style of the worship, the dress of those leading, the instrumentation of the worship…all the while, the object of the worship is robbed of His deserved glory. I believe that there is always going to be a battle going on for our allegiance in worship. The Bible is pretty clear that (1) we have an enemy; and (2) he is battling hard to get the allegiance and affection that Christ deserves away from Christ and to any other thing that we might worship. The enemy is working overtime to get us distracted from the True object of worship–Jesus. We have had several really good conversations and discussions about worship here in this local body on Sunday nights following the messages, which is so good to see. We need to have honest discussions about worship in “spirit and truth.” One of our senior adults said it so well last night and basically quoted Paul in 1 Cor. 10:31 in our discussion. He said, “when you get up in the morning and have a drink of water…that is worship. When you go to your job…that is worship. When you have time with your family…that is worship.” Amazing time last night! Paul couldn’t have said it better himself!
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV)
Feel free to conspire
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Check out this promo video from Advent Conspiracy. It is amazing what could happen if we would simply rethink how we do Christmas! Check out the site at adventconspiracy.org to see how you might “conspire” to have Christmas be different and better this year.
There are also some great ideas on how to give affordable gifts that you have made this Christmas at rethinkingchristmas.com.