Monday Morning Reflections

Had a great Sunday service yesterday as we started our new series. Chris Jones did a great job batting lead off talking about all of the changes in emotions and attitudes during the week of the Passion. You will want to check out the devos that go along with the messages. After our longer than expected hiatus from the world wide web, we are going to have the daily devotionals going again. There will be Scripture references as the least on the site, so feel free to read along in preparation for Sunday and COMMENT, COMMENT, COMMENT.

I think one of the things that Chris said that is still sticking with me was the DISGUSTING illustration he used to talk about how we need to have a PERSONAL faith. He had two doughnut holes on stage and took one and chewed on it for a while and spit it back out on the plate. Then he asked Steven Moody which one he wanted. He said that we wouldn’t eat regurgitated food, why do we seem to want to live on someone else’s faith? That really cuts to the core of discipleship . . . we need to know the Word and digest it for ourselves. He said if we only ate one meal per week, we would starve to death. Are we starving ourselves spiritually when we don’t get in and feed on God’s Word each day? Thanks Chris for a great word picture that I am still convicted and thinking about today.

We had a really good crowd and a bunch of people stayed afterwards for Star Search. I think they had a really good time. I heard there was some dancing going on. . . that hasn’t been confirmed however. I sure hope not, but I heard that several of you all can really bust a move! But as the psalmist says, “let them praise His name with dancing!” Again, I think our children’s ministries are top notch and our dedicated volunteers are the difference. Thanks for letting us see inside what you are doing to reach the future generations of the church!

Our blood drive was brought inside due to a scheduling conflict with OSCAR, the mobile blood donation truck. If there is one thing I have learned in ministry, it is to remain flexible at all times. Eric and the band helped move all of the couches out of the Starting Point room so we could have the Blood Drive in our new “fellowship hall.”

We also had some technical issues with the computer . . . specifically with Media Shout, our presentation software. It seems that we are having an extremely slow “reaction” time with the software. It is kind of a gamble for the operator to go to the next slide several seconds (and words) before it is needed and hope that it transitions well. We have had to take the backgrounds off of the slides to make it run faster. We are looking into a different software package, so if you know of any, please let us know. We are leaning towards ProPresenter for the Mac. Needless to say, many prayers and laying on of hands back there in the sound booth lately.

As Chris mentioned in his sermon, we often underestimate the spiritual battle that must have been going on during the week of the Passion. I think we also underestimate the battle going on each week while we are presenting the gospel. Satan doesn’t want us to get that message out and he is working with every possible thing to prevent the message from being heard. That includes everything from dirty restrooms to untimely computer crashes. Guess that is why we ought to “make the most of every opportunity” as Paul says to the Ephesian church.