The last Sunday in 2004 was a bit lower in attendance, but it was a good service with a good spirit and (what I felt was) a good message on the "The Gift of Opportunity: Writing a Good End to Your Christmas Carol." We will finish out the "Humbug to Halelujah" series next week with the New Year's message, and I have to say, I have really enjoyed Advent and this sermon series. It has been a good experience, one that I hope to repeat many times over.
Considering that our Candlelight Service and our Christmas Open House were pretty full, the attendance was a little bit of a let down, as we only had 42. But considering the sickness and the vacations and all, it was a good attendance and good service.
I am so grateful for what God has been doing in our midst this past year. Reading this blog from July to now has been quite a treat, as we have come so far and God has led us into some great things. I cannot wait to see what next year brings at The Journey!
Monday, December 27, 2004
Friday, December 24, 2004
Candle Light Service - Wednesday, December 22, 2004
A tradition that we have adopted here at The Journey is the annual Candle Light service. This service is a family event with no childcare, meant for the whole family to focus on Jesus Christ and what He has done for us together. Last year (2003) we had 25. This year we had 65.
The service is not meant to entertain, but rather meant to invite people to ponder and dwell on the love of God in sending His Son. We had several people do readings (me, Pastor Rod, Heather Branch, Lee Thompson), sang many Christmas carols, and did some congregational readings from Isaiah 9 and Matthew 5. Then before getting candles, I asked everyone to fill out a little slip of paper that was being handed out. The paper said, "This year I give to God..." and then there were blanks to fill in. We so often come to God asking, and this was an opportunity to come to God giving. So after the slips were filled out, everyone came forward, dropped their "gifts" into the offering plate, and then took a candle.
The "gifts" were moving as I read through them. What I want to do is (with no names used) record down what the slips of paper said. They are in no particular order, and there is a mixture of kids and adults (I have preserved the spelling to exactly what they wrote). Here goes:
This year I give to God...
dedacation and more attention
time
my hope and patience in difficult situations that I might act properly
my will and my full attention
nice stuff and (be) a nice kid
more time in prayer and bible reading
more time for & with Him
control in my life, all love and faith!
my unconditional trust and my unconditional love, my life and my willingness to believe and turn things over to Your grace.
more time in prayer.
my love, and myself, my spirit
my marriage & carreer
a new beginning relationship wise!
a relanshonship
my worry and stress
my life
control. I want to live my life in a Godly way & put aside my old ways & live as a true Christian. I will follow you because You died for me.
all of my negativity and my mean ways. To help me be a better person.
my heart
a new understanding
My life is Yours God I love you with all my heart
My time
My life or at least I'll try and pray for that...
My heart
My heart
My whole life and work in the Spirit not the flesh.
My leadership
my stress.
more of my time.
more time - more worship - putting my husband 2nd, not last.
complete control of my life
my trust, my pain and my attention.
My finances - my marriage - my family
all of my sins
my family
My life.
my full and complete trust, love, and life. To be used as he sees fit.
my art talent
my undying faithfulness
my time - @ least an hour today
I wot (want) to give love (and I) want to give to you my love
a relationship & my gifts & talents:
anger, children, husband
my financial stress
wish to be open with others
Forty-five different people, 45 different gifts...may God be honored not only by the presentation of our gifts, but may He be honored by our determination to truly turn these things over to Him.
The service is not meant to entertain, but rather meant to invite people to ponder and dwell on the love of God in sending His Son. We had several people do readings (me, Pastor Rod, Heather Branch, Lee Thompson), sang many Christmas carols, and did some congregational readings from Isaiah 9 and Matthew 5. Then before getting candles, I asked everyone to fill out a little slip of paper that was being handed out. The paper said, "This year I give to God..." and then there were blanks to fill in. We so often come to God asking, and this was an opportunity to come to God giving. So after the slips were filled out, everyone came forward, dropped their "gifts" into the offering plate, and then took a candle.
The "gifts" were moving as I read through them. What I want to do is (with no names used) record down what the slips of paper said. They are in no particular order, and there is a mixture of kids and adults (I have preserved the spelling to exactly what they wrote). Here goes:
This year I give to God...
dedacation and more attention
time
my hope and patience in difficult situations that I might act properly
my will and my full attention
nice stuff and (be) a nice kid
more time in prayer and bible reading
more time for & with Him
control in my life, all love and faith!
my unconditional trust and my unconditional love, my life and my willingness to believe and turn things over to Your grace.
more time in prayer.
my love, and myself, my spirit
my marriage & carreer
a new beginning relationship wise!
a relanshonship
my worry and stress
my life
control. I want to live my life in a Godly way & put aside my old ways & live as a true Christian. I will follow you because You died for me.
all of my negativity and my mean ways. To help me be a better person.
my heart
a new understanding
My life is Yours God I love you with all my heart
My time
My life or at least I'll try and pray for that...
My heart
My heart
My whole life and work in the Spirit not the flesh.
My leadership
my stress.
more of my time.
more time - more worship - putting my husband 2nd, not last.
complete control of my life
my trust, my pain and my attention.
My finances - my marriage - my family
all of my sins
my family
My life.
my full and complete trust, love, and life. To be used as he sees fit.
my art talent
my undying faithfulness
my time - @ least an hour today
I wot (want) to give love (and I) want to give to you my love
a relationship & my gifts & talents:
anger, children, husband
my financial stress
wish to be open with others
Forty-five different people, 45 different gifts...may God be honored not only by the presentation of our gifts, but may He be honored by our determination to truly turn these things over to Him.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Scenes from a Christmas party, December 19, 2004
Below are the pictures from this year's open-house Christmas party at The Journey. We had 65 people join us this evening, and we hope that everyone had a good time and walked away from it feeling more in the Christmas spirit!
.jpg)
Sunday, December 19, 2004
I know that I have had a tendency to use the word "wow" alot in my blogs about the church, and quite honestly, I like the word "wow." It's not used enough anymore - everyone goes with "cool" or "awesome," but I use the word "wow" because I am complimenting God on what a great job He is doing here, and all I can say is "wow." This day was another "wow" day for us at The Journey.
To begin with, it was the fourth week of Advent, and we lit our fourth candle signifying love, which is also what I preached about - God loves us and we should love others. I feel that the sermons are going over very well (although I am majorly revamping them!), and the response has been great. When we started the service yesterday, we were low - probably around 50 people or so. But the rest of the crowd kept showing up, and by the time the service ended, we had 87! Wow!
We did have a visitor with us named Bill, who found us on the internet. He seemed like a really nice guy, and he told me that I looked older in person than my picture on the internet! :)
The worship time was great this morning. The response of the people was great this morning. And I believe the Spirit of God was able to work because people were ready to worship and receive the Word. A few people raised their hands for salvation this morning that I need to do some follow up with, and just a great morning.
But the day did not end there. We did an open-house Christmas party for our church, our second year doing that. Krista baked all day Saturday and decorated the whole house very Christmas-y, and we handed out door prizes, and played games, and gave everyone an ornament to take home. Last year at the party we had a total of 9 people show up. This year we had 65 people show up!!! It was great time, and wouldn't you know, it started to snow. Our first real snow fall of the year.
I do not know what I will be writing in one year, or what our attendance will be, or what major obstacles we will face in 2005, but this year has been a good year. I hope next year that we are talking about an additional 100-200 people (wouldn't that be something?!)
An additional note: our offerings are down this month (which is to be expected with Christmas), but pray that they come back up to where they need to be and that people handle their finances correctly and tithe.
But Sunday was good, and God is good. Wow.
To begin with, it was the fourth week of Advent, and we lit our fourth candle signifying love, which is also what I preached about - God loves us and we should love others. I feel that the sermons are going over very well (although I am majorly revamping them!), and the response has been great. When we started the service yesterday, we were low - probably around 50 people or so. But the rest of the crowd kept showing up, and by the time the service ended, we had 87! Wow!
We did have a visitor with us named Bill, who found us on the internet. He seemed like a really nice guy, and he told me that I looked older in person than my picture on the internet! :)
The worship time was great this morning. The response of the people was great this morning. And I believe the Spirit of God was able to work because people were ready to worship and receive the Word. A few people raised their hands for salvation this morning that I need to do some follow up with, and just a great morning.
But the day did not end there. We did an open-house Christmas party for our church, our second year doing that. Krista baked all day Saturday and decorated the whole house very Christmas-y, and we handed out door prizes, and played games, and gave everyone an ornament to take home. Last year at the party we had a total of 9 people show up. This year we had 65 people show up!!! It was great time, and wouldn't you know, it started to snow. Our first real snow fall of the year.
I do not know what I will be writing in one year, or what our attendance will be, or what major obstacles we will face in 2005, but this year has been a good year. I hope next year that we are talking about an additional 100-200 people (wouldn't that be something?!)
An additional note: our offerings are down this month (which is to be expected with Christmas), but pray that they come back up to where they need to be and that people handle their finances correctly and tithe.
But Sunday was good, and God is good. Wow.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Sunday, December 12, 2004
This Sunday was a good service. Overall, I felt that everything went smoothly, we had two people raise their hand that they prayed with me for salvation that I need to do some follow-up with, one of them being Dory's husband, Dave, who is a super nice guy visiting with us for the first time! I praise God that HE continues to work in our presence. Pray as I follow up with this family.
For the third week we also had Scott & Catherine with us, and their daughter Dericka. They are a very nice couple that recently moved here from Massachusetts, and I hope to get the chance to connect with them within the week.
The service did go smoothly, as we lit the third Advent candle and I preached the third message in the "Humbug to Hallelujah" series on Joy to the World, a look at how the coming of Christ brings joy. I have to say that although the sermon went long, I was VERY pleased with how it turned out. I ended up revamping almost all of it (as I also did last week), but I spoke on how the first step to joy is obedience, as we looked at the example of Mary. It was good.
The music was also good, but I felt a hesitancy to engage this morning by the crowd, like there was a block of some sort. I didn't feel they engaged a whole lot. I need to bathe our service and our church more in prayer. We did have 68 (praise God!), although I felt our attendance was really down.
Another good note: I am excited about the progress the praise team is making. Corey (he and his wife just joined and I am very excited about them), along with Andy (he and his wife are also considering joining!), and Ed (he and his wife are also joing us) have been practicing and are hyped up about worshipping God with their instruments every week. I am excited to see this progression in our church!
For the third week we also had Scott & Catherine with us, and their daughter Dericka. They are a very nice couple that recently moved here from Massachusetts, and I hope to get the chance to connect with them within the week.
The service did go smoothly, as we lit the third Advent candle and I preached the third message in the "Humbug to Hallelujah" series on Joy to the World, a look at how the coming of Christ brings joy. I have to say that although the sermon went long, I was VERY pleased with how it turned out. I ended up revamping almost all of it (as I also did last week), but I spoke on how the first step to joy is obedience, as we looked at the example of Mary. It was good.
The music was also good, but I felt a hesitancy to engage this morning by the crowd, like there was a block of some sort. I didn't feel they engaged a whole lot. I need to bathe our service and our church more in prayer. We did have 68 (praise God!), although I felt our attendance was really down.
Another good note: I am excited about the progress the praise team is making. Corey (he and his wife just joined and I am very excited about them), along with Andy (he and his wife are also considering joining!), and Ed (he and his wife are also joing us) have been practicing and are hyped up about worshipping God with their instruments every week. I am excited to see this progression in our church!
Monday, December 06, 2004
Sunday, December 5, 2004
Week 2 of Advent, dealing with Hope and the story of John the Baptist really was fantastic at The Journey. I have enjoyed the first two weeks of Advent, as it has brought a whole new dynamic into our worship and our service.
Focusing on hope, we sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "O Holy Night," two songs that speak about the hope that we have because of Jesus' birth. And I will say "wow!" to the worship that we experienced. It was incredible - quite honestly the best worship service we have ever had. And worshipping with Christmas carols nonetheless! I pray that every service we ever have is like that.
I preached the 2nd week of Advent's theme on hope from the story of the birth of John the Baptist and Zechariah's song in Luke 1. It went very well, as the theme of hope because of Christ's coming really sprung out from Scripture. Advent is fantastic.
On top of all this, we had 65 in the service, which was good, altough still low because of some sickness that was going around. But we did have two women raise their hand that they prayed with me to begin a new relationship with Jesus Christ - Dory Gibson and Sherry Johnson. I was very excited about this, and I am praying that we will see them begin to grow and attend more consistently.
Another note - Andy & Kim Becker were back again, and I had the opportunity to visit with them for a while on Thursday the 2nd. I really like them, and I pray that this place becomes more and more like home for them.
One final thing - I am finding that as we grow, that it is so easy to lose our focus, and for different forces and interests try to determine what directions we should take as a community of believers. Some will vie for political involvement, some will push for more social involvement, and others will push for more denomination involvement - all of which are good for various reasons. It is my prayer that we continue to be a revolutionary community - bringing about revolutions of the heart that result in people who live for God, who want their communities and their homes to be better, and who tell others about the changes that God has brought in their own lives. Identity and mission are important for us to keep and remember.
We are The Journey - a church or assembly of believers - imperfect and diverse - who agree on six fundamental core beliefs (the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the blood atonement, salvation by grace through faith alone, the second coming of Christ, and the inerrancy of the Bible), but who allow liberty beyond these beliefs. God has used us tremendously because of our ability to not pigeon-hole ourselves and isolate or ostracize others. We adhere to the Apostle's Creed (see our website at www.thejourneynh.com), and embrace several values that we want to keep as distinctive to us. We are not sold on denominationalism, or on politics, or on becoming social activists. Our purpose is clear - we are inviting people on the journey toward God, together in community, to reach our culture.
Focusing on hope, we sang "O Little Town of Bethlehem" and "O Holy Night," two songs that speak about the hope that we have because of Jesus' birth. And I will say "wow!" to the worship that we experienced. It was incredible - quite honestly the best worship service we have ever had. And worshipping with Christmas carols nonetheless! I pray that every service we ever have is like that.
I preached the 2nd week of Advent's theme on hope from the story of the birth of John the Baptist and Zechariah's song in Luke 1. It went very well, as the theme of hope because of Christ's coming really sprung out from Scripture. Advent is fantastic.
On top of all this, we had 65 in the service, which was good, altough still low because of some sickness that was going around. But we did have two women raise their hand that they prayed with me to begin a new relationship with Jesus Christ - Dory Gibson and Sherry Johnson. I was very excited about this, and I am praying that we will see them begin to grow and attend more consistently.
Another note - Andy & Kim Becker were back again, and I had the opportunity to visit with them for a while on Thursday the 2nd. I really like them, and I pray that this place becomes more and more like home for them.
One final thing - I am finding that as we grow, that it is so easy to lose our focus, and for different forces and interests try to determine what directions we should take as a community of believers. Some will vie for political involvement, some will push for more social involvement, and others will push for more denomination involvement - all of which are good for various reasons. It is my prayer that we continue to be a revolutionary community - bringing about revolutions of the heart that result in people who live for God, who want their communities and their homes to be better, and who tell others about the changes that God has brought in their own lives. Identity and mission are important for us to keep and remember.
We are The Journey - a church or assembly of believers - imperfect and diverse - who agree on six fundamental core beliefs (the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the blood atonement, salvation by grace through faith alone, the second coming of Christ, and the inerrancy of the Bible), but who allow liberty beyond these beliefs. God has used us tremendously because of our ability to not pigeon-hole ourselves and isolate or ostracize others. We adhere to the Apostle's Creed (see our website at www.thejourneynh.com), and embrace several values that we want to keep as distinctive to us. We are not sold on denominationalism, or on politics, or on becoming social activists. Our purpose is clear - we are inviting people on the journey toward God, together in community, to reach our culture.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)