Sunday Night Reflections…A Little Early January 24, 2010

I am not sure there is a word in the English dictionary to describe how I am feeling right now.  What an amazing day…I will try my best to hit some of the highlights.

• We saw around 15,000 people PACK OUT the BILO Center…I can honestly say I’ve never been at any type of event that had more energy/excitement!
• We saw between 350-400 people WALK FORWARD at the end of the service and publicly surrender their lives to Jesus…that NEVER gets old!
• I was caught by surprise at the beginning of the service…totally didn’t expect the way Lee set me up for the videos from other pastors, and to receive THAT type of encouragement from my church was COMPLETELY OVERWHELMING!
• As I said on stage today…there is nothing great about me, there is everything great about Jesus.  I am just a man who HE rescued by HIS mercy, and for some reason has chosen to allow me to be a part of this.
• I am not quite sure how many times I cried today…it seems like every time I would compose myself someone else would come up and hug me, and I would just lose it all over again.
• The videos of our churches history AND the life change stories were amazing!  For those who were there…I’ve read that letter I wrote to Lucretia more than once during this 10 year journey, and every time Jesus uses it to remind me WHO He is and WHY He called me.
• We’ve seen Jesus do SO MUCH during the past 10 years…but THERE’S MORE!!!  Ephesians 3:20 is going to continue to come to life right in front of our eyes.
• Greenville campus…we should meet in the BILO Center every week!  Two services!  It CAN HAPPEN!  :-)
• I don’t want to be a church that merely celebrates what God has done and in doing so loses sight of all that God wants to do in the future.
• Yes, we announced today that we will be starting a Charleston campus within the next 12-18 months.
• I pray that everyone who attended today will let the image of all of those people responding to Christ be burned into your minds…I STILL can’t get over how powerful God moved today!
• I also pray that everyone will remember that what we saw today was church…OUR CHURCH…coming together as one and taking time to celebrate and worship God.
• People asked me today, “Well, after this, what’s next?”  My reply…I have NO IDEA!  I would have NEVER guessed that when we started 10 years ago that we would EVER see ANYTHING like we saw today…God’s plans are GREATER than ours!  (See Isaiah 55:8-9)
• A VERY special shout out to our production crew…they had a few “issues” with set up yesterday (Saturday) and had several delays…their first run through was at 5:30 this morning, they literally stayed up all night to get things set up!  You guys are amazing!
• I serve Jesus with the most amazing staff and volunteers on the planet!
• REALLY excited about our new series we are beginning next Sunday called, “Identity Theft.”  SO many people are NOT becoming who God called them to be…they settle for jobs they hate and a life that they would consider dull and uneventful–which is a tragedy because Jesus called us to so much more.
• The reason is that we have allowed the enemy to steal our identity…and so next Sunday we begin the journey to discover how to get our identity in Christ back!
• AND…on February 7th and 14th we will be diving into more details as to how NewSpring Church is going to get more involved in rescuing people from human trafficking and the sex slave trade.

NewSpring Church…I love you guys!  To all who call NewSpring your home church, thank you for taking this journey with me.  I can’t believe I get to do what I do…and I really do feel like THE BEST IS YET TO COME!!!