Back in one of my earliest posts, as I had just started off as a newbie pastor here at Fellowship Church, I shared the next 5 series would be doing over the next several months at our church. So I thought I’d do it again. Here they are, and I’ve also put were I came up with the idea below.
Nature Lover: A journey through Psalms- 4 weeks
Begins July 6th at the Party in the Park and ends on July 27th
Idea: Came from my head. I’m an ideator.
Treasures: Finding Proverbs - 5 weeks
Begins August 10 and ends on September 7
Idea: Came from my head, but was probably inspired in some way by Lonnie and Andy.
Changeup: The story of Pauls conversion- 4 weeks
Begins September 14 and ends on October 5
Idea: From the old noggin, but was probably inspired by my 1st grade teacher, Miss Talis.
the Levite Chainsaw Massacre: The worst story in the Bible - 4 weeks
Begins October 12 and ends on November 2
Idea: Once again, came from my head, but was probably inspired by Hannibal Lector (just kidding)
The Fellowship Globe: Missions - 2 weeks
Begins November 9 and ends November 16
Idea: Probably something like a missions conference, which I was exposed to growing up in this church.
Say what you need to say: A bucket list of words - 2 weeks
Begins November 23 and ends November 30
Idea: Andy
Presence: The Gift of God - 4 weeks
begins December 7 and ends December 28
Idea: Steven Furtick
30 Days to Live - 4 weeks
Either in January or February
Idea: Craig Groeschel
In this post, Susan commented that she “really enjoyed the discussion.”
Last night, a lady in our church got this bright idea to invite some of her friends to an inpromptu potluck grill out (aka barbeque, cookout, shindig, etc…). This week Carie is away taking a class for AP Spanish certification (or certificacion, if you please), and so I popped over to the house of the fam having the grill out and we had a great time eating and chatting and enjoying one another’s company. Four or five families took the family up on her offer and community was built - just like that.
Now in the process, Susan shared something that was she was going to be going through on Thursday and it led to this pretty intense, 2008 style discussion where everyone chimed in and gave their opinion (their were a wide variety of opinions by the way) using Scripture, real life circumstances, and stories of what people around us have gone through considering this subject.
In the end, I was able to see about 4 different opinions to a really hard topic and appreciate why several people in my church think and believe certain things about life. And I wonder what would happen if more people decided to give away their nights to a community of friends and acquaintences in an effort to get to know people more, rather than sitting in front of a tv or working on the lawn. (2 things I didn’t say in this statement: 1. Sitting in front of a tv is wrong. 2. Working on the lawn is wrong. Thank you) Would our lives change for the better or worse? Would you feel stifled with too much community or could you use a bit more, even with your friends?
So I’d like to thank my friends (4 different life groups in our church represented) who took a step with me and in the spur of the moment decided they could use a night with friends. I sure could because I miss Carie a lot!
Currently I’m reading this absolutely brain-stimulating book by A.W. Tozer written in 1949 called “The Pursuit of God.” This pastor was years ahead of his time and has caused me to really rethink some things. I thought I’d share one of my favorite quotes of the book so far:
“At the root of the Christian life lies belief in the invisible. The object of the Christian faith is unseen reality.
Our uncorrected thinking, influenced by the blindness of our natural hearts and the intrusive ubiguity of visible things, tends to draw a contrast between the invisible and the real-but actually no such contrast exists. The antithesis lies elsewhere-between the real and the imaginary, between the spiritual and the material, between the temporal and the eternal; but between the spiritual and the real, never. The spiritual is real.
If we would rise into that region of light and power plainly beckoning us through the Scriptures of truth, we must break the evil habit of ignoring the spiritual. We must shift our interest from the seen to the unseen. For the great unseen reality is God. ‘He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.’ (Hebrews 11:6) This is basic in the life of faith. From there we can rise to unlimited heights. ‘Ye believe in God’ said our Lord Jesus Christ. ‘Believe also in me’ (John 14:1) Without the first, there can be no second.”
The internet on my computer is down,but I had to find myself on another computer to share with all who will listen about yesterday’s service. It was Fellowshipable! Not sure if this is a word, but go with me.
Before the service I thought we were going to get hammered in attendance because so many people have been on vacation and doing their thang, so I brought a few members of the team together (Al and Billy) and told them that no matter how many people we have in this room, we will do what God would want us to do if the room was packed. Then I prayed with them, and felt much better.
But alas, it’s not just that the room was packed, but the spirit in the room was unbelievable. It was electric! Here are some of the highlights of the morning service for me:
*We finished the “One prayer” series. This has been amazing and couldn’t have finished on a better note.
*The band, led by Al, had a smooth sound yesterday right off the bat. They started the service with a jazzy blues jig, and never slowed down.
*Going up to welcome our attenders for that day, and just watching more and more people come in the door. I wonder if North Point has (relatively speaking) thousands of people coming in late. Just to let everyone know, our service really does start at 10:30 am now.
*Getting to worship (with music) without being distracted by a whole lot going on.
*The Production team played this video that showed all the churches participating in One Prayer this year.
I have been saying all along that 1,200, then 1,300, then 1,400, then 1,500 churches were along for the ride, but seeing it scroll in front of them made those numbers come to life!
*The crowd cheering two times in that video: When Fellowship Church’s name scrolled by, and at the end of the video.
*Craig’s message or his prayer for the church was “Make us one” and all I can say was how it evidently impacted our church. Even on video it connected in a way that was clear by the end of the service.
*Our church commiting in their prayer and singing to be one in heart and purpose. POWERFUL!
*At the end of the service during the last two songs, I went to an office and knelt down and prayed for our church. Then the band played and for the first time ever, I couldn’t hear Al and the band - only the church as a whole.
*You need to know that several people in our church community gave up their time to serve on Saturday in the spirit of One Prayer and picked up trash to give back Tacoma St in Worcester for the kingdom of God. We prayed together, and had a great time too. Here are some pics:
*Next week, we’ll have the “Party in the Park”. Our morning service will be outside at 10:30 am! Save for rain of course. Bring a blanket or a chair, and invite some friends. Afterwards we’ll have a potluck dinner with your choice of games or talking or whatever you want to do!
If you’ve been reading Martyholman.com for very long (more than 3 weeks lets say), you know that I have recently changed the theme of my blog to this cool gray/white layout with disturbing bright red picture. I like it. I’ve received some good feedback as well. Along with the blog change I’ve tried to make some changes on the widgets as well to best utilize my space for those who read the site. One of the reasons for this was because I had my site graded here, and it didn’t do very well initially. My old address did, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason it did well is because it’s a Wordpress domain name, and let’s just say that Martyholman.com, though it has promise, is not quite as dressed up as it should be, internally and otherwise.
So I’m looking for some advice from bloggers and computer type people (this means you Eric) who will share what I might be able to do to improve the blog.
Also, I need help dressing all my link colors in red. I have no clue how to do this, and it appears that my link colors (the colors the words become when I link them to a site) do both red and black. But you can’t always tell when the color is black because it’s only slightly more bold than before. So I need all the links in red.
This weekend is our last weekend of “One Prayer” at Fellowship Church in Holden.
Tomorrow we will be going out as a church community to serve by claiming a street for the Kingdom of God and cleaning up the trash on that street.
On Sunday we’ll be hearing a message from Craig Croeschel of LifeChurch.tv, as he prays his one prayer for the church at large - “Make us One” Here are two examples of some of the excellent things Craig has done in his community and beyond.
For those of you who have been a part of One Prayer, both at the FC or elsewhere, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it’s impacted you.
Carie and I love to play the game Boggle. Okay, I love to play the game Boggle and Carie tolerates it. So I got this idea. What about seeing who in the Martyholman.com world would win in a big nasty internet game of BLOGGLE - or the art of playing the game Boggle on my blog. So here are the rules:
*Be the player with the highest score card at the end of a 3 minute time period. Please keep your own time and be honest. You score by listing words of the highest point value you can find in the four rows of letters.
*You’ll just need to go back and forth between the comment section of this page and the letters and type your found words as a comment.
*Letters in words must always connect, although they can connect in any way possible (back and forth, up or down, etc…)
*Proper nouns (Smith, Ohio, France, Heinz, etc…) and abbreviations are not allowed.
*Point values 3 letters=1; 4 letters=1; 5 letters =2; 6 letters=3; 7 letters=5; 8 or more letters=11
*Don’t look at the other peoples answers who might have played before you!
*3 MINUTES ONLY; Be honest.
Todays Cube:
U D W E
Z T E H
N C A E
T D N K
Last week’s winner: Jeff Campbell with 10 points. Who can dethrone the king?
I’m a bit irritated right now. I was reading through my blogs via google reader (I was proud of myself for only having 17 this morning) when one of the blogs brought me to this link. The person’s blog I was reading is a marketing rep for a music company in Nashville (I won’t provide the link) and he said:
“ChurchRelevance.com has posted their top 33 church logos. “ This implied that this magazine and web site has just posted the 33 top logos that they have found, based on the intelligence they have sent out, and the research they have done. So I was interested and went to the site.
What I found was a commercial for this particular church marketing site, which wouldn’t be a big deal, if the writer of the article wasn’t the deigner of the 33 logos. What?!!! You call this reporting in a magazine? So basically the writer of this article claims (or at least implies) that he is sharing with us his top 33 logos in our church culture are, and then pedals his own brand?
I went to Pensacola Christian College (yeah, get off my back). In retrospect, or if you’re still making this decision, which college would you go to if you could do it all over again?
