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- Life Group Leader Training – August 21 | 6:30 pm in the
Worship Center - Worship Arts Fall Kick-off – August 25 | 7 pm in the
Worship Center - Bay Life Out-of-the-Box – August 28 | 6 pm in the
Worship Center - Prayer Night – August 30 | 7 pm in the
Student Center
Greetings Lifers, [Written Aug 11th]
Well, so far, so good – the first week of three services has come and gone and our church seems none the worse for wear (I’ve said that saying before, but I am not entirely sure what it means – felt weird typing it, actually – but I digress....). To all who served so capably and faithfully in making each service run smoothly, I say a heartfelt “thank YOU”. The 10 o’clock service was our most populated (as you might guess), but with our high school group meeting at 11:30 for the first time this week, I am praying for things to even out between the two later offerings. All of you 8:30 people were AWESOME considering the earlier hour – way to go and praise God for coffee (?).
Anyway, just a quick reminder of why we are doing this – there are just over 3,100 people packed in to every square mile in Brandon alone (I didn’t look up the surrounding regions – sorry), a total of 103, 000 souls (according to 2010 census numbers). My best guess is that the 105 churches (source: superpages.com (phone book)) in our area may welcome about 20,000 people to worship (based on a Gallup poll that found that 20% of any American population goes to church each week), and too many of those churches either aren’t preaching the Gospel or stopped caring about the people in their community who are staring down a Godless eternity. 80,000 people spending their weeks, months, years with no face time with Jesus. I know, the numbers are a bit fuzzy, but can we all agree that any number above zero is too many?
That’s why we went to 3 services – to afford us the chance and motivate us toward reaching our neighbors, our coworkers, or classmates and friends for Christ. When you come to one of our services and see some empty chairs, my prayer is that you’ll picture your Names in the Wall sitting in them next to you some day, singing praise to Jesus and being changed by His Word. Can you see them? That’s why we are doing three services – so our friends can know Christ.
So I will see you this weekend – I am looking forward to our dialogue on what it means to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”. Hope to see you – have a blessed weekend!
Peace,
Mark
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