Ok, so as you can tell this new blog has also been suffering lately. Since I updated my other one I figured I should update this one as well. Especially since my last post was about our new church being in the construction phase, and we are now heading into our 6th week of services. It's been nothing short of amazing. Here are some pics from opening weekend.
Here is one hallway of the kids' wing, which is awesome.
Some weekends the girls go to 4 "services" and they don't even get bored. Heidi said they are usually finishing her sentences by the end, but what can you expect? :) Here is a little video I took of Bri the weekend before last, telling me the verse they had worked on. I am so thankful for people like Heidi that can help teach my girls such important truths, and in such a fun way.
The kids have their own special area so the adults can experience God in a new way, here:
Here was an email from one of our teaching pastors about our opening weekend at Blaine. Things in parentheses are my writing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------Happy Monday,
And what a Monday it is. Bob (our senior pastor) and I were talking this morning and he asked me to send out a quick note about what took place this past weekend. In short, we witnessed God at work. Blaine opened and nearly 1,700 people showed up, and that doesn't include kids. Think about that, 1,700 mostly new people! Probably well over 2,000 with kids. With that number of people you might think SLP (another campus) attendance took a hit. Well, they didn't. SLP still had people in the overflow at the 11am service, and just over 1,700 people in worship. Amazing! At Lino (still another campus) I didn't know how many folks would go to Blaine, and thought our number might be down a little. Wrong. We had to put out two rows of extra chairs along the top to handle everyone at the 11am service. Our numbers were up at Lino at every service and 6,600 people showed. And then there's WBL (yet another campus). They were up as well and had nearly 900 people at the 9am and over 900 at the 11am! Overall 2,600 people were at WBL. If you're doing the math that means there were over 12,600 people in our worship centers this weekend. With kids probably close to 15,000!
I think back to Bob's email last week and he had the number 3000 in mind. (A couple days before we opened, our senior pastor sent an email out with a challenge to invite friends/family to our new series. He talked about having the number 3000 in mind -- that 3000 new people would come to church this weekend. I laughed and thought no way, since we'd been averaging about 300 at our other location.) Two weekends ago 9,100 people attended our worship services. That means 3,500 additional people, many of whom were new, came to church. We may have just had an Acts 2 experience. And what makes it more exciting is the growth wasn't just at Blaine, it was at every campus. We work hard, we do what we can preparing, praying, and inviting, but then we wait to see what God is going to do. And I think we saw Eph 3:20 come to life. God did "immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine." This past weekend was the first step of the transformation process for so many folks, so many families, and we get to be a part of it. Well done.take a breath.and let's get ready to do it all over again.in 6 days.
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What I love about our church and our staff is that it has absolutely nothing to do with the numbers. It's simply about reaching lost people for Christ. Following where God leads. Not being content with where we're at but taking leaps of faith even when it seems crazy or uncomfortable. And doing everything with excellence so that when people walk in our doors, they will see that church can be real + relevant.
This is where I want to spend my time. And I'm praying others will want to as well.
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