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Easter

If you weren't at Easter at Eola, you missed out big. It was the most amazing event in the history of Grace Fellowship by far. We had almost 900 people join us at the lake. More than 100 gave their lives to Jesus. Hundreds more stood to rededicate their hearts to Him. We worshiped so hard that the whole city could hear us. (In fact, some of them sent us nice letters!)

We also reached out to a bunch of people in need. The working poor and the homeless met people in the Destiny Foundation who could help them. We learned what we could do to help out, too. Our day of service on April 12th is just the beginning.

I was amazed at how God showed up in every detail -- the weather, the people, the elements of the service and the volunteers. The volunteers! You guys ROCK! I am constantly amazed at what Grace Fellowshipers will do for the glory of God.

I'm going to ask you to do one more thing, too. Show up this Sunday.

Don't get into that mindset of "well, I went last week..."  We had a ton of people we've never met before join us last Sunday, and some of them will come back to meet you this weekend. Be there for them.

Also, I'll be teaching on Control this week. Whether you always have to be in control or you're always out of control, there will be something there for you.

See you this weekend....

crazy statistic

I had to take a moment celebrate this crazy statistic: our finance team let me know today that since I challenged the church to step out in faith to honor God with the tithe about four weeks ago, our regular offerings have gone up an average of 44.92 percent.  That's amazing! Sounds like a lot of you are testing to see if God means what He says. I promise you that He does. You won't be disappointed.

I am always amazed and the way Grace Fellowship people are not just hearers of the word, but doers. I'm proud of you.

10 Ways You Can Help Make Easter a Great Day

1. Pray. Hard. Fast if you feel led to. This day could make the difference in someone's eternal destiny.

2. Get there early.  Allow 30-40 minutes to get yourself a parking spot and make it to the service by 8:00am. Hey, you'd do it to get there on time the Eola fireworks, wouldn't you?

3. Come with an open heart.  God has something for you this Sunday.

4. Bring someone you know who needs Jesus. Find them and ask them -- a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, a family member. If they won't come to church, maybe they'll come to a park.

5. Be ready to worship!  You're going to be able to hear us all over downtown Orlando!

6.  Dress for the weather. Right now the weather says partly cloudy and 81 degrees. Ask God for it to stay that way.

7. Bring an Easter basket for your kids if you have one. We have some, but there are going to be a lot of munchkins out there looking for eggs! 

8. Bring your sunglasses. And maybe your SPF 15. We have water for you, but we weren't sure what shades would look good with your Easter outfit....

9. Be prepared to stick around afterward for a bit! We have events for the kids, including a bounce house, a free continental breakfast for you, and lots of ways you can learn about the needs of our community.

10. Did I say pray? Do it again.

Having the courage to be available

I am going to talk about the  experience in my message tomorrow in our Courage series, but it was so profound I wanted to write about it too.

Last Monday morning, Dave Paul and I agreed to meet at the office at 7:00am to go over some things before our 9:00am staff meeting. We've never done that before, but with Easter coming up we had a huge meeting to get through and we wanted to plan our time well.

I was driving up our street in the dark when a well dressed young kid jumped out in the road and started yelling at me. I could tell he was drunk, he was swearing at me and waving his fists, and he was challenging me to a fight. I got out of my truck and walked up to him and asked him "Are you okay?"

The kid, a seventeen year old name Joshua, suddenly burst into tears and started pouring out his heart that his brother had just died in Iraq. He was ravaged with grief and had spent the whole night out drinking. I told him that I was sorry and that I'd pray for him. I went back to the car then, and drove around the corner to park.

Joshua followed me around the corner, still crying, and said "can you pray for me right now?" I said that I would, and he fell to his knees right in the parking lot and hugged my legs as we prayed. After that I invited him inside our lounge to sleep for awhile, and on the way in he said that he'd gotten away from God and church, but he thanked me because he thought this experience might bring him back. He thanked me again after he lay down for a few minutes, walking home to his nearby house because he knew his mom would be worried.

I don't know what will happen to Joshua, but I'm glad that I could be there for him when God knew he would need someone. Are you listening to Him? Do you have the courage to be available for people He knows are in need?

Back from South Carolina

The staff and I went up to the Unleash conference in South Carolina this week. It was unbelievable. I don't think there's one of us who didn't hear directly from God. Perry Noble is doing amazing things at Newspring Church. Or I should say that God is doing amazing things through Perry Noble.

By Perry's own admission this week he said that he was not smart, not trained and not educated. What he said that he was is open to listen to God and do whatever He says without hesitation. Perry is a man of huge risks. God is meeting him in what he is willing to give up for the cause of Christ.

Some things that stuck with me:
"If you're not offending someone, I don't think you're preaching the Gospel."
"We do not get to where God wants us to go by playing it safe."
"Don't sell out to another agenda other than Jesus."

We're taking a big risk ourselves next week with Easter at Eola. We've never done anything like it. I don't know any church that's done anything like it, turning their Easter service into an actual chance to serve. It could rain. People could stay home, not find it, not find a parking space, or miss the announcement totally and go to our regular church location. But God is teaching me that He will not produce great fruit without great faith.

The event is growing day by day too. Now do we not only have the Destiny Foundation with us, we have Rock for Hunger from UCF, the Orange County Public Library System, and Home Sweet Homeless coming too. There will be tons of opportunity for us to show people in our church and who visit with us how they can help people in our community. I'm encouraged that these organizations are still ready to partner with the church when we are ready to answer Jesus call to serve the poor.

I'm ready to step out. Are you?

Back to the blog for Easter

I know, I've been absent from blogging lately. If I told you how crazy busy it was around here you wouldn't believe me. But I am taking time to write  a post tonight before Grace Notes goes out, so  I can tell you how pumped I am about Easter.

Most of you know that we are doing our Easter service this year at the Lake Eola Amphitheater downtown. That's pretty cool all by itself, but what's even cooler is that we are kicking off a new partnership that day with The Destiny Foundation of Central Florida.

We have always wanted to invest in one global area and one local mission over the long haul so that we can see the maximum impact of our service in changed lives. For more than a year, we have been building our long term global mission with the church in Rwanda to bring clean water to thousands of people who don't have it. We are doing great work there to meet the physical needs of people so that we can meet their spiritual needs too. We've also been searching and praying for a local partnership that we can work with long term to meet the needs of the poor right here in Central Florida.

We finally found it  in the Destiny Foundation. This amazing ministry was founded by a local pastor and it has a food outreach program, a free children's clinic and the largest social services center in Central Florida for the working poor. Not only will we help the foundation with the gifts from our Generous Life campaign, there will be hands on opportunities to serve there on an ongoing basis for people of all ages in our church.

On Easter, we are rolling out our official partnership with the Destiny Foundation. They'll be there right beside us, and they're inviting many of the families they serve to come to the service and worship with us. Right there in the park, they'll be handing out free groceries, giving coupons for free medical care, and more. We will have a chance to be a part of the real needs of our community in a way that we never have before.

I will be telling you more about this partnership this Sunday, but I am convinced that to be close to the heart of Jesus we have to be close to the heart of the poor. God is going to meet us in ways we can't predict or expect.

Check out the Destiny Foundation and what they are doing for the working poor in Orlando:

www.battlepoverty.org

You should also see our easter site:  www.easterateola.com