Another great day at Element today! So weird cause it was my second Sunday in a row not preaching. Here are my ruminations on the day.
— SO NICE to have the extra Sunday break from preaching. I LOVE preaching. It is my passion. But there is something so refreshing about having two Sundays off in a row. My body, voice, mind, spirit all feels great! So healthy to develop the practice of rest.
— If you are a pastor, you need to build in times for a break. If you go to church, YOUR PASTOR NEEDS A BREAK! It is not only healthy for you as the pastor but the church needs a break from YOU. Element Church doesn’t rest on my shoulders, it rests on GOD’S. The church needs to hear from other people and qualified preachers on your staff need opportunity to preach. Schedule it in or you won’t do it.
— This the my first time ever with two off in a row and I can’t tell you how much the extra Sunday makes a difference. I was challenged to practice that from another pastor and I can see why. Definitely need to do that at least once a year.
— I build in a certain # of Sundays a year in which a guest or one of our staff will preach. Burnout will occur without it.
— BOTH Andy and Curtis are fully capable of preaching. They both did such and outstanding job. I listened to Andy’s sermon online and Curtis today nailed it. If you missed either service you NEED to listen to their messages. Such good challenges.
— I can’t tell you how comforting it is as a senior pastor to know you can leave your pulpit to qualified and gifted preachers. I didn’t worry ONE BIT last week or this week what kind of sermon we would have. Thanks guys!
— 876 in church today. So weird how 876 feels down. Perspective changes SO quickly! Continue to be amazed at God bringing people to Element.
— I was lost today. Didn’t know what to do with myself. I was able to poke my head into each kids class today. I did that during first service. I also helped run one of our computers first service, lol. I got to sit with my wife in 2nd service. Love worshiping and listening with her. I then sent Twitter updates of Curtis’ sermon during third service.
— You should try Twitter. I have my updates on the sidebar here on my blog. Pastor Kody, Adam and Curtis are all on Twitter as well. Still working on Grant and Andy. Facebook is a great way to connect with and follow the staff and church. Element has a facebook page as well as all of our staff.
— (And YES 2 months ago I hated Twitter. It’s kind of my M.O. to boycott things that I eventually succomb to. Maybe I should boycott OU winning championships and they’d finally pull one out. Thanks Ryan for finally breaking me into the Twittersphere )
— Curtis spoke on experiencing God today. It was so good. “Jesus is not something to believe in but a person to be experienced”
— I was VERY challenged by Curtis’ word today.
— Curtis did an “altar call” in a totally new way today. He displayed his phone number on the screen and said that anyone who wanted to talk further about what it means to KNOW Jesus and not just know ABOUT him to text him. We are going to follow up with those people this week. He had 46 text messages following service (not all of them from seekers, but plenty were).
— I thought it was a GREAT idea as he was talking about connecting to the “college” generation and what they are looking for. We are so tied to technology, why not use it for the Kingdom. Sparked some great ideas in my mind.
— Curtis ended the service really cool with us all holding our cell phones up. Definitely was different for everyone! He was dead on though in saying that our technology is a tool and it can be used for evil, or we can leverage it for good. How can we leverage technology for good? Technology in and of itself is NOT evil, it is the use of it. That wasn’t even really the gist of his message at all, started sparking some thoughts in my mind about how to use it further.
— Couple of thoughts from Pastor Curtis that I loved:
I don’t want to teach you about Jesus. I want to introduce you. We teach about dead people we introduce people who are alive.
You can’t introduce someone that you don’t know.
We can’t convince people that God is real they have to experience Him.
Its one thing to pray for something or even to believe it. Its another thing to actually experience God do it.
Identity is not found in our knowledge but in our experiences.
— We have The Tour tonight at 5 PM. Always love connecting with new people at Element. Gonna chill a bit before I head back to the church.
— With two weeks off from preaching you’re going to need to buckle up next week. Thanks Element! I love you guys.
Following Christ,
Jeff
