Easter Reflections

It is the day after Easter weekend, a time like no other to see new faces and touch lives we may never see again. All of us as ministers certainly know the opportunity that has been given and I hopw that we all did what we could to be effective in reaching the unchurched.

This year we held our annual Easter weeeknd celebration in our local park which has a large amphitheater. It is our 9th year and this year a local A/G church of about 100 or so asked if they could partner with us to which we replied...without a doubt yes.

So after months of of our 2 church staff's meeting (alot more work for us this year) we stepped into the weekend on Saturday for a community wide Easter Egg Hunt w/ 30,000 candy filled eggs, 2500 hot dog lunches, brand new bikes and tons of other stuff. Our Mayor, council and poliece chief all came out and in spite of 50 degree weather a crowd of roughly 2000 came out to enjoy the day with us.

Yesterday we held our Easter service in the same park and combined our worship teams, tag team preached a illustrated message (with spanish translation) and held a kids program in the aquatic center near the amphitheater. We gave away more bikes and a easter basket to one lucky family filled with small appliances, toys, dvd and 19" flat screen tv etc

The results were 627 peaople who came to the services. 48 who stood and made confessions of faith. Most of them came down where they received bibles, filled out altar cards and met sme of our pastoral staff. We had a info booth both dys that had packets filled with info on our church and gave away a few hundred of those.

The highlight for me was when we gave the basket away with all the stuff in it, it was given to a spanish woman who had just come down for salvation. When I called her name, she stood and came down with her new spanish bible in hand. She stood in front of the basket of household items, put her bible in front of her face and sobbed.

The weekend is now past but the real work begins. getting people to come has never really been a prolem for us, it is getting people to stay, get connected and start a journey of faith with us.

I hope your weekend was a true success for the kingdom.

TELL US ABOUT WHAT GOD DID FOR YOU!

24 hours left

He Lived.
He Died.
He Lives Again.

Here we are 24 hours away from the day we Party because He Lives Again. You will have the opportunity to speak into the lives of more UnConvinced people's lives tomorrow in your church than any other time of the year. On Easter more people far from God attend church around the globe than any other Sunday in 365 days.

Are you ready?? Have you prepared?? Sight, Sound & Smell?? Is your mind clear?? Is the message HOT?? Have you prayed, fasted, asked and begged God to give you a harvest. The harvest is ready, He only needs workers to gather. You are the harvester.

As people walk into your church on Sunday, speak with Passion, Power, Boldness, Love and knowing that if you don't touch them it may be another year before they will hear this message of Hope again.

Get Ready, Get Ready, Get Ready!!!

4 questions to ask ourselves as Leaders/Pastors

Exodus 24:

o If you don’t have leadership that is on fire you can’t expect your church to be on fire
o I am ready to quit; STAY IN THE GAME; if you have not been there, u will

• Who is with ME??

Moses the man of God needed to know the answer. Moses said to God, before I can lead, I must know who is with me.

Lead Pastor; average stay of Pastors in churches is 22 months; you are a church hopper as a Pastor. If you want people to buy into you, then you must buy into them.

Love your staff. You might go to another church and work but you will never have a pastor love you as much as I do.

Satan does not want to split your church, he wants to split your staff. Don’t say, I do as much as he does.

Pastors carry a weight on him you can never imagine.

Your staff is depending on me to: be faithful to my wife, carry the finances & get the vision.

You have got to know who is with ME???

Am I pleasing you??

We must know this because Pastors will be put in uncomfortable situations

Pastors we are Prophets of God; or are we Prostitutes of a message that we speak to get paid for it.

Church work is when you please people

Ministry is when you please God

We depend way to much on our ability instead of God’s anointing

Don’t blame yourself when things are bad, you might take credit when things are good.

God knew all mistakes we would make before He called us. He calls those

If Jesus can’t please them then you can’t either.

Am I placing limits on me that God hasn’t placed on me?

2 Corinthians 4:7…God most often puts His most powerful gifts in His most weakest vessel
What is the vision you have not even spoke yet, because you are afraid it will not happen. He has empowered you, enabled you, His power is limitless

Will we see you??
If your presence does not go with us, we don’t want to go….Moses...Exodus 33:15-18
Do you want attendance or repentance.
Don’t back down from bible.
You must first seek the presence of God
When was the last time you were desperate for God

What is next??
CLC began with 6 people in a living room
April 9th, 2003 had 55; 6 years later we have 335 people; Sunday we are expecting 50 Salvations
Ask God what is next. At the end of the day, we want people to see how awesome God is.
Quit thinking people come to see you or your church. Let them see God and him lifted up.
#1 passion of the pastor/church must be, we want the Presence of God.
Your team will never know the weight the pastor feels, but he will carry it for you, because he wants to carry the ball.
Pastors, be ready to carry the ball. You have to want it if you want your people to want it.

Preach the Word

Men of the Clothe, Clergy, Ordained, Reverend, Brother, Pastor, Bishop,

No really, does the title matter? I say we just drop the titles and pompous attitudes that go with them and be Men called by God to "Preach the Word."

It is Passion Week with only a couple of days left until Good Friday then on the 3rd Day He Lives Again!!! Are you ready to "Preach the Word" on Easter Sunday. Remember the previous blogs, they (UnConvinced people) will be there. Are we ready for them by Sight, Sound & Smell?? But are you ready to do what ONLY YOU can do as the Lead/Senior Pastor??

I have done alot to be prepared this weekend, but there are things i must leave to my team to do because i should not be doing things that others can do, but i should be doing the thing that ONLY I CAN DO, "Preach the Word".

2 Timothy 4:2-5; NLT
Preach the word of God. Be prepared, whether the time is favorable or not. Patiently correct, rebuke, and encourage your people with good teaching. For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. But you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don’t be afraid of suffering for the Lord. Work at telling others the Good News, and fully carry out the ministry God has given you.


Preaching the Gospel of Christ is offensive to men.
If you’re being criticized for your sex talks and creative marketing and never for preaching Christ, something might be wrong with your preaching.

Preaching God’s standards will tick some people off.
If your sermons always make people feel better about themselves and you NEVER confront their sin, they won’t likely see their need for a Savior.

Preaching about the miraculous power of God stirs people up.
If your typical message is five steps to a better life, you may be overlooking the one step of truly taking God at His word.

Preach the Word!!

Don't Freak Out

Now for those of you that have planned and prepared for people to come, Don't Freak OUT!! what i am saying is this, if you prepared and are ready, there will be people you did not expect. Don't Freak OUT, when they don't look like us, act like us and smell like us. They might be there out of obligation but our responsibility is to maek them feel like someone cares about them.

Remember this is what church is all about, bringing people in that don't know Him. You know we are celebrating the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross for these people. So, DON"T FREAK OUT because they are different from you.

i will go back to my original question yesterday, What are you doing about it?? You might say well i don't want to do anything out of the ordinary to try to get them to our church or i don't want to do anything that might be offensive to our charter members or something that might tick off the deacon board. I say tick them off and make them uncomfortable. The problem in the church today is that we have allowed the Christians to get comfortable sitting in our churches seeeeeeeking more of God, when all the time they should be OUT SHARING God with our communities. I don't really give a rat's if it makes the Christians uncomfortable.

Right now God has honored clc by giving us some of these Different people that are attending our church. We have 4 couples living together, 2 homosexuals and a dancer at a Strip Club attending. As a matter of fact the dancer's boyfriend accepted Christ 3 weeks ago, they are living together and they attended our Marriage Intensives last night. We preach the message strong continually believing that those far from God will accept Him. As a matter of fact the Strip Club dancer that attended the Marriage Intensive with her boyfriend, heard teaching and a message on how Pornography can destroy our marriages. She has not accepted Christ, but told Karen my wife, she would be back next week to hear more. They don't look like me or act like me but they do feel welcome and accepted because we DON"T FREAK OUT even though they are different.

Do something different and out of the norm on Easter to reach your community. I have attached a video clip you need to check out. It is a news clip from Fox 2 News in St. Louis. They are interviewing one of the church plants in our District about their message title for this weekend's message, "Easter in the Octagon". Spirit of St. Louis Church, Pastor Tom Skiles is speaking a message centered on UFC, Jesus was the Ultimate FIghter. Because of the title and controversy in the "Church" community, they have got news coverage and lots of other coverage. DON"T FREAK OUT because they are using Ultimate Fighting as a basis to bring people to Christ.

Ck it out: http://www.fox2now.com/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3627840

Don't Freak OUT, but do something to attract the UnConvinced to Christ. Quit trying the keep the Saved, go after the Lost. Jesus left the 99 to go find the 1.

What are we doing about it??

So here we are the beginning of Passion Week. I ask the question, what are we doing about it?? This weekend more people that are UnConvinced will attend churches around the globe than any other time of the year. They might go out of obligation or because it is time for family Easter lunch or it is the right thing to do but the fact is, THEY WILL BE THERE in your church. The question is, What are you doing about it??

Do you have any special plans to make the UnConvinced feel welcomed? Have you gone out of your way to train or establish more volunteers that will greet people on the parking lot or outside the front doors? Have you checked the Sight, Sound and Smell of your facility? You know people that are coming Sunday will be checking these things out. When they come on the property and into our facility will they see clutter or even dirt? Will they hear music they recognize or will they hear Sis. Snooty gossiping about someone?? What does your facility smell like?? Is your bathrooms clean and FRESH? What about the kids rooms and nursery?

You might be thinking, Eddie, the only thing i am thinking about is studying my Easter message. You have preached that message over and over for years now, surely you know it. I DO NOT underestimate the importance of being prepared to preach the word, but if the UnConvinced walk into our churches on Sunday and are met by Rude People and no one really cares that they are there and the place looks like you just had a yard sale and somebody just peeeeed all over the floor, then they will be turned off immediately.

Make sure the UnConvinced are greeted with a warm smile and love. Prepare some people to talk to those that no one else wants to talk to because they don't look like, act like and smell like us. And for God's sake, clean up the CRAP around our facilities.

We established a prayer team for this week and are praying that 50 UnConvinced people will make a decision for Christ on Easter Sunday at clc. They are going to show up at your church on Sunday, maybe not for the right reason, but they will be there. The biggest opportunity you will have all year to speak into the lives of more UnConvinced people's lives in one setting is Easter Sunday.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING ABOUT IT???

Graphic Design

Here was some info passed along by one of our pastors--Ken Rowe. Thought you might like to take a look.

Why aren't you (really) good at graphic design? via Seth's Blog by Seth Godin on 3/31/09
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/

Ten years ago, you had a wide range of excuses for being a lousy visuals person. Starting with no talent, leading to no skill and going from there.

But now, in a world where it is expected that professionals will be able to make beautiful powerpoint slides, handsome business cards, clever bio photos and a decent website, it's as important as driving. And easier to learn and do, and requiring less talent.

No, you and I will never be gifted designers or breakthrough designers. But there's really no reason not to be really good.

I put together a page with some blogs, books and sites you can check out. An hour a day for a month and you won't have to hide your face in shame. Sure, hire the very best in the world when you need a breakthrough. But you don't have to pay for better-than-mediocre design. You can do it yourself.