Today at Pleasant Grove

"It's In Your Hands Now" -- Luke 23:44-49.

Premise: The strongest being who ever walked the face of the earth found that, when faced with His most important task, His strength was actually counterproductive. So instead He became weak, and in weakness did what could never have been done through strength.

And I'm still on crutches for another day at least. I'm not sure if what I felt this morning was progress or just the pain killers taking longer than usual to wear off. The knee brace and crutches have definitely helped prevent new pain. How much they have helped heal the old pain remains to be seen.

Sermon Up

"That the Scripture Might Be Fulfilled" -- John 19:28-30

Premise -- You don't get to customize Jesus to meet your expectations. The Jesus you have is the Jesus you get. You change for Him; He doesn't change for you.

Help Wanted

Blogosphere, we need your help.

We'd like to do a service project for the families of deployed soldiers this Christmas. What we need help with is compiling our list. We have the capacity to serve 20-30 families, so if you go to church with someone in this situation please e-mail us a name and address.

Also, we're making some progress getting our "E-Vangelism" program up and running. For this, we need both social butterflies and dorks, preferably if there are two who can work together as a team. Over the next few weeks I'll be putting together some basic messages we can send to folks just to keep in touch and provide basic information about the church. If you've got a talent for writing or editing, we can use your help, too.

E-mail pleasantgrove.ky@gmail.com if you can help us out.

Thanks.

Sermon Up

Today's sermon -- "You Will Be With Me." Click on "List View" on the menu box; it'll be the fifth one down.

The invitation song is tacked onto the end, but only because I'm moving a bit slowly.

Thanks to Bryce & Justin for getting everything set up this morning.

Sunday Sermon, Plus Stuff

"Have You Forsaken Me?" -- Mark 15.

Premise: Jesus sang the first line of His generation's "Just As I Am" on the cross.

Tonight we have Trunk or Treat and a sermon about Josiah.

And to answer a question Lenny asked in Bible class this morning, I only have the minimum five lessons to teach this week. Six is closer to average, as some weeks I have as many as nine.

Sermon Up, Plus a Couple of Other Things

This morning's sermon is up. "Honor Your Father and Mother", from John 19:23-25. It's about maintaining the balance between achieving our major goals and meeting our more mundane responsibilities.

I counted 58 at church this morning. That's two weeks in a row where we've broken 55, after a long run of struggling to hit 50. I'd like to see us keep the consumer base this high, but what I'd like more is to see the growth in our investor base we'll need to support the consumers long-term.

To that end, I'm putting together a program I'm calling "E-Vangelism." (The name's not original with me, but the domain name isn't registered, so maybe I can claim it.) The idea is for Pleasant Grove to use the fact that our preacher is a dork to our advantage. The premise is that everybody is open to an invitation to church at some point in their lives. But knowing when that point is can be tricky. So instead of trying to be at the right place at the right time, through the Internet we can be in the right place ALL the time.

The idea is to get permission to enter into a conversation with somebody. Then every so often, we'll send them a message. Maybe a Twitter post about an event, a Facebook ad, or even an e-mail a couple of times a month. We can also provide information on topics of interest and/or significance on a website. Then, when their lives change in a way that makes them aware of a deeper need for God, we're there to help.

This way, even if a person isn't open to the gospel now, they'll know who to turn to when they are. And we'll be ready, because we'll have been in conversation with them over time.

I'll be working on this over the next two months, with a formal launch planned for January. In the mean time, if you even the least bit dorky, I'd welcome any input on the development process.

Sermon Upload Complete

Sunday's sermon is up. Finally.

"For They Know Not What They Do" -- on why it's a good thing the justice of God isn't an "equal and opposite reaction" to our sinfulness.

Or something like that. I hope.