God messed me up today

Posted by Bryan in March 23rd, 2008

Posted in: Church

I am so honored to help pastor such an amazing church. It was cool to see the ushers putting out more chairs to accommodate the crowd.

Abs and her team rocked out today. It seemed like the crowd was more prepared to worship than normal. I love it when you guys come ready to ROCK from the beginning. Keep that up!

Carolyn put together an awesome video illustrating what happens when God turns our world around. Dad did a live voice-over as Abs, Kleetus and Forstner played the music for the video.

I believe the message I brought today was one of the most pivotal words I have ever given. God has been dealing with me for a while leading up to today. It is too easy to get lost in worship each Sunday and forget that church is not just about the already converted.

I love Jesus and I love my city. I believe if we can ever introduce our city to the love of Jesus something amazing will happen.

God spoke to me quite a while back about the need to mark our church in a way that would make it impossible to forget the hurting in our city. So, to conclude our Catalyst series and celebrate why Jesus went to the cross we marked our church by writing names of people in our lives that need to experience the love of Jesus. We didn’t write them on paper or on a canvas. We wrote them across the front of our stage with PERMANENT MARKERS! Over 370 names were written by you ROCKERS! Jesus died for every name on the front of our stage and now we will not be able to forget them.

I snapped a few photos after service as you continued to come.

CATALYST NAMES

How can we ever look toward our stage in worship and forget the hurting people in our city. Every time I look at the stage, I will remember the names I wrote today. I must show these people who God is by loving them the way He would.

CATALYST NAMES 3

Since Rachel was a Kid’s ROCK in the ROCK Stars class, she came down with her daughter, Alisha, after service to write a few names on the wall. I overheard her tell Alisha, “You can write a name on this wall. But, don’t do it at home or Pastor B will have to come over and repaint.” That’s awesome!

CATALYST NAMES 2

I love the photo above. How can I ever again complain that my church is not deep enough when these people are still hurting.

I may never be able to look at the stage without experiencing the overwhelming feeling of compassion for my city. I have been messed up by God and I love it.

This has been an amazing day. Just wait, I am praying about something even bigger for next Easter.

You can download the podcast of this message
on Tuesday by CLICKING HERE.

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Rachel

Said in March 24th, 2008 @9:20 am

This truly was a life-changing day. Thank you for being God’s mouthpiece today. I think we all needed to be messed up a little. This church’s vision is awesome and right on and this church is going somewhere incredible.

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Lisa

Said in March 24th, 2008 @10:28 am

Pastor B. I am looking at this and I have been overwhelmed with a deep sense of compassion for all the hurt in our area. I am saddened that for some it may have taken writing alcoholic for some people to realize that this is a problem in our neighborhoods. We get so disconnected and so wrapped up in ourselves and our problems, as big as they seem…..when put next to a debilitating affliction like alcoholism seem like………anyway I am sure we can all take a look and thank God for what he has done in our lives and praise him for choosing to die for us. because that is what Jesus did… he CHOSE death so we could live. I suppose you already know that. I digress Sunday afternoon in the sanctuary seeing those names on the wall gave me a sense of purpose. We as a church can do something about this. We can pray, teach, go and tell our city we care and we love them. That is just what Jesus would do.

Lana

Said in March 24th, 2008 @11:21 am

THIS IS SO AWESOME! What a great prophetic word picture; even the act of kneeling to write the names represents prayer. It is an honor to be an intercessor for you, your family, and The Rock!

Brad

Said in March 24th, 2008 @2:47 pm

Awesome to see Bryan! Every Sunday before we open our doors I get to glance at all the names we wrote on the back of our chairs. It’s a great reminder for why we do what we do! I’m glad you guys had an awesome service!