Weekend Wrap

My weekend recap…

Bookmarks series – We wrapped up the series yesterday with MapQuest. We looked at Proverbs 3:5-6 and how we can have a better understanding of God’s will for our lives. The entire series is available on the LCC audio page as well as on iTunes.

STRIVE – Our next series begins August 10th…and it coincides with the Olympics. Our focus will be on the first few verses of Hebrews 12. I’m looking forward to this series. Read more here.

Special speakers @ LCC – This Sunday August 3rd, Dan Phillips will be speaking at LCC. Dan and his wife Nicki have been a part of LCC for about a year now. They are in the process of taking over our life group ministry and they have a real passion for seeing people get connected. You’ll enjoy hearing from Dan this Sunday. Then on August 31st, we have a guest speaker that I will reveal later.

More from Sunday – Good summer crowd yesterday…I keep wondering if we are going to have a real low attendance week, but it hasn’t happened! It’s great to see guests each week. New families move into the area every summer and we look forward to the fresh faces and energy they bring. We’ve also had a handful of families just move away from the area…so it’s nice to see the new families coming in to take their place! The band did a great job yesterday…the new song Cannons was great. We moved our nursery to the hallway yesterday which seemed to work out better than the room we had been using. Of course this all should get better once school starts and they are finished with the summer cleaning/renovations.

Karate Kid - I showed a clip in yesterday’s service from Karate Kid. Then I had to expose my 3 kids to this 1984 classic in the afternoon. Great movie…and we had to admit to our kids that we actually had those hair styles and wore shorts that short when we were teenagers.

And yes, we did like that KK soundtrack

Baby Watch – Unless Sherri goes into labor sooner, we are heading to Fairfax Hospital first thing on Friday morning. The C-section is scheduled for 10 am. Thanks for praying.

The Monday Post

Sorry for the slow down on my blog posts…hey – it’s summer…what can I say?

Sunday (yesterday) at LCC was a great day:

• The band was actually all back together at one time and they sounded sweet. The stage area is kind of crowded in the cafeteria, but we can manage. Great job Josh, Mick, Cara, Matt, Alex, Valerie! The music set was great…people are digging the new Tomlin song - Jesus Messiah.
• One more week left in our Bookmarks series…yesterday was ebay…basically I talked about how we handle our money and treasures. Jesus had a lot to say about and we dove deep into Matthew 6. God wants us to not only Shop victoriously, but also budget, invest and give victoriously as well. It was a good challenging message. I expect next week’s offering to be through the roof .
• It was great to have 2 new families Sunday…well actually 1 new family and 1 family back after 18 months in Kuwait. One of the downsides to pastoring in this area is people are always moving away…one of the upsides is that they often come back around. Good to have the Cresons back!
• I spent about 30 minutes yesterday with the school’s head custodian. The auditorium renovations are going to take longer than expected…I know this is a shocker It’s looking more like November before we move back into the auditorium for worship. It’s going to be getting tight in the cafeteria this fall…but we’ll survive. The more difficult aspect is the current displacement of the nursery and preschool – I don’t like what we have to work with right now, but it will get better. (What we really need is a place of our own – in God’s time we’ll have it – just PRAY!)

Some other misc…

• Pumped about our Fall Campaign for October-November. I’m writing a 30-day devotional to coincide with our campaign/series. I’m looking forward to see God move in an amazing way this Fall.
• Ran into a college student LCC attendee who I haven’t seen much this summer. She apologized for missing because of her schedule/vacations/etc, but she wanted me to know she downloads the message each week on iTunes and listens while she works out. That’s always encouraging to hear.
• We had a great leadership team meeting last Tuesday night…I’m so thankful for the awesome people that God has brought to LCC to be on the team. I am blessed.
• Our youth leave in 12 days for their missions trip to Maine – keep all 16 students and 4 adults in prayer.
• Friday, August 1st…we’re going into the hospital to have a baby that day, unless he decides he wants out sooner. Keep Sherri in prayer…she’s getting more and more uncomfortable!
• I’ve got 2 guest speakers lined up for LCC in August – On August 3rd and on August 31st LCC will get a break from me

Weekend Whirlwind

It’s Wednesday afternoon and I get an email from my wife about my 3 kids being bummed about not getting a chance at the beach this summer because of the baby coming and other conflicts.  I’m already done my message for Sunday and I suddenly get real spontaneous and book us a hotel in Ocean City, MD for 2 nights and the kids and I are off on Thursday morning…just like that.  We had a great time, but I really missed my wife.  Vacation without Sherri is just not right, but the kids and I did have a good time…playing on the beach and in the ocean, hanging out by the pool, minigolfing, going to the boardwalk, eating at our favorite spots…it was a nice quick getaway.

Church was great today.  The band was awesome – Josh introduced a brand new worship song that Chris Tomlin just released to iTunes a few weeks ago – Jesus Messiah. I believe it will be a classic worship song before long.  He and the band did a superb job on it.  We had a great summer crowd and 3 people accepted Christ as their Savior today…what a great day!

I’m putting on my youth leader hat tomorrow and going to Kings Dominion with the youth group as an adult chaperone.  We have 30 youth and adults heading south for the day.  It should be fun…got to try out the newest coaster – The Dominator.

Baby watch…officially only 17 days to go.  Hard to believe that really any day now, we’ll have a little baby boy in our house…wow!

A Few Midweek Tidbits

• Looking forward to preaching this Sunday’s message. It’s definitely going to be different. Going to be taking a look at 3 songs which are in the top 10 downloads on iTunes in their respective genres. Don’t miss Sunday.
• Getting pumped about some stuff we are planning for LCC for this Fall. I’m looking forward to our big leadership team meeting next week.
• Having lunch with a few pastor friends in the area tomorrow…should be good fellowship…always like to learn from these guys.
• Our All-star baseball run ended last night…we got thumped…I can’t bear to publish the score…but I am done coaching for awhile…I’m officially now on Baby Watch.

Missions

In Our State…

• We are collecting “College Care Kits” for incoming freshman at various universities. For info on how to participate, click here.

In Our Country…

• Our youth are heading to Maine on August 2-9 for a missions trip. They will be serving people in a poor economic community and having opportunities to share the good news about Jesus. Be praying for our 16 youth and 4 adults who will going on this trip. You can still give to help out with the travel expenses involved.

In The World…

• We are supporting two of our members are currently in the Dominican Republic. Rich Feehs and his son Josh are sharing the gospel through baseball. Click here to read the blog and see pictures from their trip.

Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Weekend Recap

Hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Overall, we had a pretty good weekend. Here’s a little recap…

Friday – We had some friends over for the 4th. I got the grilling done just before the heavy rains. We had a great time hanging out and eating some great food. I ended up 2nd in our Ping Pong tournament. We ended the night with our own little fireworks show in the driveway.

Saturday & Sunday All-Stars – In spite of the rain, we were able to get our all-star tournament game in on Saturday at 5pm and we had an exciting 7-5 victory over Dale City. Sunday’s game didn’t go so well. An ugly 8-2 lost against Fort Hunt. This puts us in the loser’s bracket…one more loss and we are done. So we have to win Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights in a row to win the district title. It’s doable…but a big challenge.

Sunday at LCC – Obviously, we were expecting a slightly smaller crowd because of it being a holiday weekend as well as having a lot of church families on vacation. Our expectations were met but it even with a smaller crowd we had a great service. Josh and the band did an acoustic set with some old throwback worship songs as well as a new song called Satisfy from his CD. Alex did a great job on the bongos and Mick did a great job on guitar. I enjoyed preaching on the reliability of the Bible…unlike Wikipedia, the Bible is 100% reliable. Now the challenge for all of us is to read regularly and apply!

I’m having one of those tired Monday mornings, but looking forward to what God has in store this week. Hard to believe in less than 4 weeks, we’ll be having a baby!

What is Wikipedia?

Midweek Update

Hard to believe tomorrow is the 4th of July…feels like the summer is speeding by…

• Zac’s team won it’s all-star game last night 6-2 over Fort Hunt. We play Saturday at 1 pm and then Sunday afternoon as well. Having a blast!
• Looking forward to Sunday’s message. This Bookmarks series is a lot of fun. This Sunday is WIKIPEDIA…any idea where we can go for reliable trustworthy information?
• Our church is participating in an outreach to college freshman. We’re collecting college care kits. Click here for more info on how you can participate.
• Going to be doing some grilling tomorrow afternoon. Having a few friends over. Looking forward to a relaxing holiday and watching fireworks on tv
• Church office is closing at 3pm today for the holiday weekend!