Potential March 1, 2007
My wife is pregnant! I have always heard men say that their wife is so beautiful when she is pregnant…and I have to give that a shout out! Lucretia is HOT! :-)
AND…I am getting more and more excited because her belly is beginning to show. (Once again, please do not touch her belly…she will smack you! AND…please do not talk to her belly–that’s just freakin’ weird! Seriously…why do we do that?)
Every time I see her belly I think, “It won’t be long!” AND that is both a scary AND exciting thought! I have no idea what Charisse is going to be like…I have no idea what her personality will be…I have no idea whether or not she is going to be REALLY girly OR want to throw the football in the backyard.
BUT what I do know is that the day of her arrival is getting closer and closer…and I am getting SO excited!!! The potential for my little girl is unlimited!!!
And that’s the way I feel about our church…our potential is unlimited!
I look at where we have been and I celebrate! I can’t help it–God has done WAY too much for me to stay silent about HIS work! Our past has been incredible…BUT…
WE CAN NOT LIVE THERE!
One of the problems that I see in churches is that they have an incredible move of God & then they spend the next ten years either trying to reproduce that same thing over and over…or they just stop and break their arms patting themselves on the back!
But the Bible says in Isaiah 43:18-19 that God is doing a new thing…and wants to continue to do new things…thus the potential for our church is unlimited!
Seriously–the tomb is empty…so pretty much nothing is impossible!
For instance…I remember several years ago we saw 26 people accept Christ one morning at NewSpring…and we were PUMPED! BUT the very next day we began to brainstorm how we could continue to reach people. The next time we did a specific salvation message we saw 52 people receive Christ…and then 74 the next time…last fall we saw 214…and then just a few weeks ago we saw 250.
I celebrate that–but there is the potential for SO MUCH MORE. I am SERIOUSLY praying for the day when we will see 3,000 people accept Christ in one day…if he did it here then He can do it here!
NewSpring–our potential is UNLIMITED…God is at work…and so as your pastor I am asking you to…
#1 – Pray Like You’ve Never Prayed – I am desperate for God, more desperate than I have EVER been before. I am praying harder than ever…and I am asking you to do the same. Pray for the staff. Pray for the leadership. Pray for Jesus to draw lost people to Him through our church. Pray in the car before you get out to walk in this Sunday that people will experience the presence of Jesus Christ! PRAY!
#2 – Serve Like You’ve Never Served – If you are a Christian then you have a spiritual gift…and you will never fully develop as a Christian until you begin to use that gift to serve others. The thing I love about our church is that every week people work together, empowered by God, and we are seeing the results. Keep in mind that if I were to not show up this Sunday then our church could function…but if our volunteers decided to not show up–we would fall apart. If you volunteer–thank you, SERIOUSLY, thank you. And if you don’t–jump on board–you are WAY too important to sit on the sideline!
#3 – Invite Like You Have Never Invited - People come to church because other people invite them–period! We have done television commercials, direct mail and a host of other things…and yet we see over and over than around 95% of people show up on a Sunday because they were invited by someone they knew. DON’T GIVE UP on that person you’ve been trying to reach–get them here and we will tell them about Jesus!!!
NewSpring–we haven’t even BEGAN to see what God wants to do here! He has done AWESOME things in our past–but if we will keep our eyes on Him and do what He says…the potential for our church is UNLIMITED…I can’t wait to see what will happen next!