Sunday, January 30th, 2005

We closed out the month of January on a bang! Having missed the 23rd, we were anxious to get things back on track and start praising God as a body again. And what a time we had!

A few things to note:
*Because we had missed a week, we really needed a good offering to stay on track financially, and we literally had the best offering we have ever had! Praise God, because it was getting tight, and we really needed for our people to not skip a week of giving. They were faithful, and God again showed that this is HIS church, not mine. In other words, with God, we will not fail.
*This month has been an interesting one in attendance. We had a moderate attendance on the first Sunday, which was the last Sunday of the Christmas holiday. Then the next weekend we had snow but still had church, which made our attendance a little lower (in the 50's). The week after that, we had a good attendance in the 80's, but snow canceled the 23rd, so we were hoping to maintain that momentum despite the snow. And we did! We had our highest attendance ever at 88! God is awesome.
*Because of our increasing attendance, I made the announcement that we would be moving to two services beginning on Easter Sunday, March 27th. What an incredible thing to think that God is moving so fast that we will need to do two services!
*Stanley, a friend of Andy's, visited with us in this service, and at the end, he raised his hand to accept Christ into his life. I love it when people have a divine appointment with God, and they don't even know it.

So far as the service itself, I finished up the first month of Experiencing the Heart of Jesus: Community by talking about "The Story of the Church." It will soon be posted on our church website, along with the audio, and I was really happy with it. It was a different type of sermon, telling the story of the church in the grand story of God, and I was very proud of it. The music was good, as we introduced Not to Us and heard praises from several people (Cheri, Kim, Elizabeth, Ed). It was a good service all around.

I am so grateful for what God is doing in our church. Thank you, Lord, for entrusting me to lead this great group of people.