Self-supporting, and the bigger picture

Yesterday I took a few minutes before the message and illustrated how churches plant churches. We want to keep reminding our people about the importance of church planting, but more importantly I wanted to try to help them understand why being “self-supporting” is an exciting and important part of the bigger picture.

You can pray for Greg and his wife, who visited yesterday. They actually walked to church – which almost never happens in suburban Southern California! Our church style was completely new to them, but they told us they’ll be back next week.

Quote of the Day

Praise the Lord for the quote of the day (from a phone call to the church): “We’re just a little family that is growing leaps and bounds in just a few weeks at your church.”

What a great Sunday!

In church planting, you fight through some Sundays and feel like you are just surviving; and other Sundays you can hardly contain the excitement! Praise the Lord that recently we have had a lot more of the latter than the former. With about 70 people in our services, this was definitely an exciting Sunday. So many things to praise the Lord for: the great attendance, the sweet spirit, the improving singing, the involvement of the people. As teacher and preacher, I am especially thrilled at the eagerness to learn and grow. It really seems like they can’t wait to hear the Word each week.  

www.lahope.org

The new www.lahope.org is almost ready to go…

Public School Bible Club

We had our highest attendance ever – 27 – at our public school Bible club this Monday. This is partly the fruit of the kids clubs that we had two weeks ago. By the way, the team from Emmanuel Bible Church / Heritage Bible Church was tremendous.

Truth Through Personality

A common definition of preaching (from Philips Brooks) is “truth through personality.” This isn’t the place for a discussion of a philosophy of preaching, but I think there is quite a bit of truth in that short phrase. This Sunday was a good example. After studying several hours for the sermon (Genesis 17:15 – 18:15), I was really frustrated. It had been a hard couple of weeks; this was a fairly hard text; and I was as excited about preaching as I am about going to the dentist. In bed that night, with my wife praying for me, the Lord borught to mind another sermon I preached years ago. It’s called “peace when life isn’t peaceful” – and I knew it was exactly what I needed for my heart. So I went to my office and stayed late into the night reshaping that sermon. On Sunday morning, there was no doubt that the Lord was in it. Many people expressed how timely it was for them. And for me.

Big stuff happened, and happening

Attendance at both the kids clubs and the parenting conference was kind of disappointing. I think it was disappointing because we did so much advertising in so many ways (and spent a lot of money). It ended up being bad timing. For example, the Menifee soccer leagues had picture day the same morning as the parenting conference. So something like 1200 kids had to be at pictures that morning.

BUT God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform. And though the attendance was disappointing, that is very different from “discouraging.” We are thrilled with the serious life-change that is happening in many lives. Pastor Sipe did an excellent job, and the parents were very teachable. And actually, we had record attendance on Sunday. Adam is now leading our music, and I am very pleased with the general direction. Of course we have lots of wrinkles to work out and areas to improve, but the congregational singing is better than ever. And that’s the point: a group of God’s people lifting their voices together to praise Him! I almost cried during the worship last Sunday. The bottom line: we had a great week, and God is doing great things in Menifee.

The next big step for our church is independence – i.e., it’s time to be self-supporting. On one hand, I can’t believe we are saying this! This is one of those dream moments for any church plant! On the other hand, it is a sober and important time, and I would appreciate your prayers for wisdom as we guide our people through this time. Satan will take any opportunity he can get to stick a wedge into a church family. October 1 is the target date for this change.

Testing a wordpress blog

It’s about time for lahope.org to go static. It was very useful when we were on deputation and getting started, but since then it has morphed into a blog – and it’s too clunky for that. So I’d like to make lahope.org just a static information page about the needs and ops in Southern California, and use a blog to keep friends, family, and supporters updated on the work here in Menifee.