Is Evil Real?

For those that were at CX Saturday night, we talked about the reality of hell. I challenged us to see our world with that in mind. Do you weep for your neighbors and friends? Do you pray for those in your family who are lost? I hope this is a life changing week for you.

I promised you a link to the debate on whether Satan exists. You can watch it here. http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/faceoff It is very interesting.

Also, start inviting for Easter! Here are the details, one more time. 5:30 is an Easter Egg hunt for all kids. At 6 we kick of our service which we're calling, "The Bridge," and then afterwards we'll have snacks and coffee like normal. Easter is a huge opportunity to invite others. Make the ask! We'll be meeting at Reflections church. It's on the southwest corner of Ustick and Meridian. You can't miss it!!!

This is what's new.

Sunday night we held our behind the scenes look at Connections called, "The Tour." We invited all our new families to join us. We fed everyone dinner and spent a couple of hours talking about what makes Connections tick. It was a fun to see all the new people getting involved. We had over 20 people at our house, including the kids. Also from that meeting, we started two more Connection Groups. This doubles our small groups to four. What I'm most excited about is not the number of small groups, but the percentage of our people who are connected to one. After these two launch, we'll be in the 90% range for people being in a small groups. That's incredible. Kudo's to Jeremy who oversees our small groups. He is doing a great job!!!

Another great thing is finally happening. We've launched a new section of our website we call CXbration. It is where you can find our sermons and videos. Right now we have all the sermons since launch and a video of launch service. You can see it here. This is a great place for people who are considering checking out Connections to actually see it in person before they visit.

This weekend we're doing a big drama that will take up a big chunk of the service. I'm really excited about doing more things like this in the future. I say this often, but I think dramas and videos hit people harder than preaching does and it lingers in the brain longer too. I'm excited to have some people around me who can write, direct and act in our dramas. We're recording with two cameras this week and hoping to get a video on the website or on this blog early next week.

Lastly, don't forget that tomorrow is a big day. The beginning of March Madness! At my last church we all took our powerbooks to the back room and worked while we watched the games. I'll miss that this year.

Thanks for keeping up with us. Pray for our Easter celebration. We've hit a couple of snags on our facility for that Saturday night, but I believe it's an opportunity to do something great! I can't wait to see what God has planned. He's always up to something!

What He Opens . . .

Saturday night we talked about the verse in Revelation, "What He opens, no one can shut and what he shuts, no one can open." We talked briefly about what happens when God closes a door and we go busting through it anyways and then we showed this video. Brandi and Amy did an AWESOME job acting in this video. My challenge was putting in the special effects. Let's just say spielburg won't be hiring me for the long awaited ET sequel! We ended up with a 70's sci fi show but I think the point still comes across!

DayOne

This last Saturday night was a dream come true for me. Since I was in college I talked about starting a creative community. I could picture this incredible movement with dramas, videos, loud music and Jesus. That day finally came!

I think there were more people I didn't know Saturday night than those I did. We had a couple of families from out of state drive or fly in to celebrate with us. Our band did AWESOME!!! I'm so stoked to have them lead me in worship every week. John and I did a drama about Edgar Allan Poe (any poetry buffs in the house?). We had a few videos throughout service. We had over 100 in attendance. We had a couple of people get their hearts right with Jesus, and to top it all off we had a Huge cake after service was over. I can't tell you how great it is to be part of this!!! The ride has finally begun!

I've included some pictures below (click to see full size)and here's a link to the actual service. The link gives you the WHOLE service, not just the highlights, so settle in if you plan on watching it.

So, where do we go from here? Great question. I feel like all our wheels are all turning. Our children's ministry continues to grow every week. Our greeter team is fully functioning and caffeinated (lots of energy). We put together these incredible visitor packets with a DVD about CX (connections), a CX coffee mug and some freshly roasted coffee (we roast a new batch every Saturday). The big thing that's left is just inviting and inviting! I'm putting together my own list of 10 people that HAVE to come to CX. Whatever it takes, I'll get em there. I'm telling them too, "You're on my list!"

Also, we are kicking off our assimilation track. For a while it's mostly been just theoretical, a list of discipleship opportunities to help people grow in their relationship with Jesus. Starting March 15 we start putting it in motion. On that Sunday night we're doing, "The Tour." It's a 3 hour Sunday night meeting where we share the heart of CX with new families and answer all their questions. If you're reading this and you are a part of CX, you are invited. We'll be talking about things like, why we don't advertise, what our core values are and the next steps in our assimilation track (which we call, "The Circuit.")

Thanks to all those who made Saturday night a reality. It's in my top 10 favorite days. I am truly blessed, God continues to move! God continues to move!! God continues to move!!! - - !! - !!! Whahooo!

This is the way we Launch a Church, Launch a church . . .

We'll, it's almost go time. in a little less than three days we'll be an official community.  It amazes me that not long ago we were a Bible study with 12 people.  Here's a shot from our very first meeting.

This weekend we hope to top 150 people.  Granted, alot of these people will be from out of state.  They're just here to celebrate the start of something major, but we're hoping to meet some new "Connectors" too.  This is what we've been doing for out reach . . .

1.  We gave out hundreds of postcards to out regulars. Some were already stamped.  We encouraged them to mail them to their friends and family in the area. 

2.  We gave all our regulars cookie mix.  We encouraged them to make cookies and send them to neighbors and such.  It's amazing how many walls cookies break down.

3.  Tomorrow night we're making even more cookies and taking them around to houses close to the church where we meet. We're just knocking on doors and telling them about launch.

4.  We did this . . .

I have to send some pics to a newspaper tomorrow.  Hopefully they'll run a story on Friday.  I've already got an email from a guy who saw the news coverage.  We're really hoping the story leads to some new people checking out a weekend service.

Thanks for all your prayers, I've encouraged our Connectors to fast and pray on Friday.  I'll be spending that day as quietly as possible (with three kids around the house). I'm really excited about the sermon this weekend, and the drama and the videos that we have planned.  It's going to be really great!  We'll be recording the service.  If you've been keeping up from the outskirts of Idaho, I'll do my best to get a version of it up so everyone can see it.  

KEEP PRAYING!!!

WE MADE IT!!!!

Congrats on your 21 days!  What a journey for so many of us.  Was it challenging? I know mine was on certain days, but it was worth it!  It feels good be who you want to be. 

So much has happened in the last 21 days that some of the non-idahoans don't know about. I haven't been reporting all the good things because we've been running our 21 vids in this blog.  Here's a bullet point update.

We've picked up a worship leader to help us get to the next level.  He's an incredible musician and even a more incredible man of God. Add that to fact that he loves basketball and video games and you realize it was meant to be.

Our numbers continue to run in the 50's.  

We're officially launching on February 21!!!  That's a big one.  More on that later this week.

The last two weeks, we've had guest speakers.  Susan Carter spoke two weeks ago about eating right.  She did an awesome job.  She came to my house and raided my closet and fridge and told me what kind of eating choices I should make.  We put together a video of that experience. I'll toss it up at the bottom of this video.  

Jeremy Higgins from Sacramento came up to share two nights ago.  He did an awesome job talking about keeping our finances in line and making the most of the money we have.  He also recommended a movie that I watched called Maxed Out.  It's an incredible documentary that everyone should watch (it has a dirty mouthed comedian in the middle and thus the PG-13 rating. Not sure why they had to ruin a perfectly good movie like that!).  

Every week, great things are happening here.  Every week.  I'm amazed at what God is doing! For those who pray for us often, would you begin praying for our launch. It's a big deal.  We have a few families flying in to be a part of it.  I want it to be impactful and fun. I want our visitors walking away thinking . . . "THAT'S a church I can get into!"  

Thanks for your prayers.  It's working!

And now . . . the Susan Carter Experience.

Then there was two!

Does Raboni rhyme with zamboni?