Conservation Over Dinner

Graham: Daddy, what is chicken made out of?

Me: Chicken!

Graham: Oh, I thought it was cow. Seems like everything is made out of cow.

Wednesday Night Recap (May 21, 2008)

Band did a great job! Savior King Rocked!

Crowd was above average (84). Summer is here so who knows what to expect. Pray we will continue to grow through the summer.

2 More Salvations!!! I am blown away at what God has done over the past year.

 

A Couple of Great Quotes

“As your dependence on God grows, so will your church.”  Nelson Searcy.

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me.”   Jesus Christ

Wednesday Night (5-14-08) Recap

• Great Night!
• 4 Students gave their life to Christ!!!
• Average Crowd. Who would have thought we would say 75 was average 1 year ago?
• I am loving the feel of our new environment.

Way to go Ivey!!!

I want to brag on my girl. It has been a few weeks ago, but since I have not been blogging lately, I missed out on sharing some really cool stuff.

My daughter Ivey is 12 years old and a 6th grader at Unity Christian School.  The staff at the school had asked the high schoolers if they wanted to share at Chapel on Wednesdays. No one volunteered so Ivey asked if a 6th grade student could do it. They agreed to let her be in charge of the whole service. The whole service!

Here are some highlights:

1. She recruited her friends for greeters. A first for Chapel, I believe.
2. She developed sermon notes to hand out. Another first.
3. She used powerpoint. Very creative with it too.
4. She had a video clip to introduce the sermon.
5. She recruited a friend to pray.
6. She recruited a worship leader and the songs tied into her sermon. I did say sermon. She brought it!

By the way it was good. I mean real good. I was so pumped! Nobody could have been more proud of anyone that day than I was of my daughter. She studied and worked so hard on that service and it showed. She did it with excellence. I’m not talking about doing the best you can with what you have, excellence (Gina). I am talking about by professional standards, excellence.

Way to go Ivey! You have a gift. You are very creative and bold. I am so proud of you!

Someone said, “She is a chip off the old block”. I wish my first sermon was 1/2 that good. I wished my last sermon was 1/2 that good.

Making the Most of Every Opportunity

Someone told me one of our students was passing out invite cards to Wednesday night while He was ISS (in-school suspension). They thought it was ironic. I love it. I love that our students are excited about what is going on! I hope and pray they will stay out of ISS, but I am glad they are making the most of their opportunities.

A Year In Review

Here are a few things God has done from April of 07 to May of 08 in the Student Ministry of Trinity Baptist Church.

• We have seen over 50 students give their life to Christ!!! WOW! Some really cool stories. (More on those later)
• We tore out a couple of walls and developed a new student center. It seated 60. Seemed big when we had 15-20 students. We outgrew it rather quickly.
• Wednesday Night 1 year ago, Trinity had 15 total people in a Sunday School room with Noah’s Ark border. It was previously a nursery. Last Wednesday we had 125. We have been averaging in the high 70’s. That is a 400% increase from a year ago. God just keeps bring new people. Our students understand that this is not about them. Amazing! We have some students who get so excited about bringing unchristian friends. I love that.
• We voted to move into the old sanctuary and remodeled it into a new state of the art student center. Cafe, game-room, plenty of room for students and a lager stage to teach God’s Word from. You can read more about it coming soon in the Calhoun Times. (More on that later)
• We raised over $15,000 in just 4 weeks to furnish our student center. We were given around 10,000 for construction. God just keeps giving when we ask.
• We remolded the whole thing, doing about 95% of the work ourselves. It looks incredible! I have some incredible volunteers who really go the extra mile!
• We were given incredible gifts to purchase sound. We didn’t even have a band yet. We have a sweet system now.
• My friend Justin Newman and his wife Brandi came and joined us as our student ministry worship leader. He quickly built a band. They are really, really good. Do not call him about Wednesday Nights!
• I believe our budget last year was around 7,500 for the year. We spent around $40,000. God has blessed! Don’t ever say “if we only had the budget”. (More about that later)
• We have some students who are stepping up and being leaders. (More on that later)
• This is just a few things God has done! I will share some more later.

It has been an amazing ride! It has only just begun. I have the best leaders! Thanks for all you do! Praise God from whom all blessings flow! Let it flow! Let it flow!

Back For A While?!

It’s been a long time, I shouldn’t have left you
Without a strong rhyme blog to step to
Think of how many weak shows blogs you slept through
Time’s up, I’m sorry I kept you

 Eric B and Rakim

It has been a while. I like to blog. But only when I want to. When I get tired it seems blogging is the one thing I can let go of. Then it just turns into rebellion against all blogs. I stop reading, writing and I am done for a while.

Well I feel like blogging again. Not sure how long it will last. But man I have some stuff to share. God has been doing some amazing things.