I love to play a good prank:-)

Every once in a while I get a hanker'n to play a prank on one of my friends. This past week it happened to be my buddy, barber and ministry partner Mark Artrip:-)
It all started with my administrative assistant not eating the chicken salad she'd brought for lunch...three months ago. Yep, for three months that container slowly brewed up a horrifyingly bad odor. Afraid that the smell might permeate the building I rent my office out of, I brought it home and set it outside for three days in the heat just to add to the aroma.
Rachel, my eight year old, and I headed up to Grace Church to plant the chicken salad in Mark's office. The smell was so bad that even though we drove my jeep with the top off, stopping at traffic lights was nauseating. Once in Grace Church, I chose the shortest route to Mark's office. Using a pair of disposable gloves I carved out a dollop of chicken salad into a styrofoam cup being careful to leave the newly growing maggots in the container.
Rachel wouldn't stay in Mark's office and I was breathing exclusively through my mouth. I could barely get her to be in this picture with me.
After the deed was done I realized it was Saturday night and that Mark's office is positioned on a main thoroughfare into the auditorium. Yikes! I'm still wondering if folks detected anything as they walked into or from the worship services:-)
At the writing of this entry, Mark does not know I was the one who played the prank. If he doesn't find the putrid cup soon I'll post another blog entry with pics. of where it's hidden.
Shhhhh, don't tell.

Privileged to teach

This morning I had the privilege of teaching just over 40 Grace College students in the basement of our mother church.

My good friend Mark Artrip asked if I could come and be a guest lecturer and speak on the topic of biblical preaching. I really enjoyed doing it. Many of the students are wanting to go into full time ministry and asked many questions.

My 40th Birthday

Wow! She really did it! My wife totally hood-winked me.

Last Friday night, January 14th was the best party I've ever been too. Melissa invited everyone from Encounter Church, some staff and members from Grace Church, our mother church, our next door and across the street neighbors and my parents from Canada.

How did she do it? Well... Melissa and I have long had a rule in our relationship that we can only lie to each other when it's for the benefit of the other person. (i.e. when I surprised her for our 10 year anniversary with a cruise and had monies slowly taken out of my paycheck for eight months. She does our finances so it was hard to get around her:-).

She kept telling me she was behind the eight ball and was going to do something after my actual birth date. She said it enough times that I really believed her.

The problem with that was that I planned to go on what has been coined as the, "Sean Spoelstra Diet", starting at midnight of my birthday. What's the "Sean Spoelstra Diet" you ask?...in a nutshell I'm not having any pop, candy, dessert or eating after 8:00pm for a year. Crazy, I know. I'm the guy who's always got candy on him and pop, dessert and eating after 8pm are my specialty. That's why it's gotta stop. See the picture? I'm the candy man:-)

Anyway the party was a blast.My great friend Kyle Mielke out did himself by being the crazy game show host for the Family Feud, with me as the topic. Apparently survey questions had been sent out to dozens of people months ago.

The prize for the winning team got to give me a present...what I didn't know was that present was a cream pie to the face!!! That's Kyle's wife Kristi smashing that pie into my face. She was quick to volunteer for the job. I told her a few days later that we should treat others the way we want to be treated. hehe.

I loved it all. I felt very appreciated and my wife can stop lying to me now:-)

A Very Special Sunday

This morning, December 19th, marked a mile stone for Encounter Church: the 100th church service.

At the beginning of our church plant I told the congregation which Sunday it was for the first 15 weeks. Then I told them I wouldn't say it again until the 100th service. It was fun for me to end my message early and invite all the Ekids, Impact teens and their teachers to join us in the service. There were three congratulation videos shown: one from each of our missionaries, Matt Storer of VisionTrust International and Ryan Janosko of Campus Crusade for Christ and also one from Pastor Rick Nuzum, lead pastor of our mother church, Grace Church. I had also asked our 1st Impressions Coach, Jen Hill, to order a few cakes for the celebration and her hubby Phil to take the picture below as a memory of the day.

All praise be to God for the people He has brought to Encounter.

Purposeful time with men

I had the opportunity to be part of two different men's groups today. One was in the morning and was a Bible study that just recently started. The book of James in the Bible is guiding the discussion time. Then later in the day I had my final accountability meeting with our mother church's elder group. I've met monthly with those men since February 2008. It was a night to celebrate the great things God has done through His people at Encounter Church. I was able to play for the men our newest video that shows what a day in the life of Encounter Church looks like.

Watch the video and let me know your thoughts about it.

Huge Easter Egg Hunt

My Mother church, Grace Church in Powell, partnered with their local YMCA and the Liberty Township Fire Station to put on a 20,000 candy filled egg hunt at Liberty Park. They even had a helicopter come to drop several hundred of the eggs in each of the age group zones. I took my three girls who gathered a couple dozen eggs each. It was really fun bumping into so many of the people I know. They put a lot of hard work into making the event a success and from what I saw they did it. There had to have been a few thousand people in attendance. The kids were like locusts ravaging the land sweeping it clean of colored eggs.

Last Sunday Service at Grace Church

Yesterday was not only the final Sunday of 2008, it was also the last time I'll likely attend a service at Grace Church. That is unless they have me come as a guest speaker:-) The entire service was dedicated to people testifying about the goodness of God. I also was given the opportunity to share about our next steps and introduced those from the launch team who were in attendance. I hope to add a video clip from the morning once they send it to me.
I will always cherish the years I spent learning the ropes of ministry from my friend, mentor and boss Rick Nuzum. I am so grateful for the time he spent pouring his godly life and advice into mine.
Of course there are many others that have also influenced my life over the last ten years. The Elders and other pastors of Grace Church, friends who partnered in leading ministires like Neighborhood Bible Clubs and the family campout in the summer; Sunday School, UPSTREET LIVE, and AWANA throughout the school year; and of course my wife Melissa who always ends up having the greatest influence on me. And why not, she is my best friend!
Next Sunday, January 4, 2009 our launch team will celebrate by having communion together as we meet for the first time in our rental facility Eli Pinney Elementary. I'll be excited to share about that next week.

Middle Hour Celebration / My Last Sunday at Grace Church

This morning the Spoelstra family arrived nice and early for the 10AM Middle Hour Celebration at Grace Church. The summer is officially over and this day marks the first Sunday back to the three hour morning (8:45-10:00-11:15am). To start the '08-'09 year off Grace has a review of the summer ministries that took place. They kindly allowed me to share about our summer and how things are progressing with the launch team. I also had a few pictures from our meeting last week and the shot of the entire launch team in front of the church from two months ago.
I realized later that this morning just might have been the last Sunday morning service I attend at Grace Church. For the next five months we will either have meetings with the launch team on Sunday mornings at the YMCA or will be visiting a some other church in Columbus. After the five months are over we will begin preview/practice services at Eli Pinney Elementary that role right into our Grand Opening month of April '09.

After church I had the chance to speak with a bunch of people who asked more in depth questions and then we went out to lunch at Bob Evans with Jeremy & Erica Hart and Rob (formerly know as Gordo) & Carolyn Dubois and their boys. It was a fun, loud time as the twelve of us talked and ate.

A Generous Gift and a Productive Meeting

I got home today from one of my other offices...room 210 in Grace Church...and there was a card with my name on it. I opened it up and saw it was from the North Central Ohio (NCO)Women of Grace. There were some encouraging words and a generous gift collected from five different womens groups. What an encouragement! Thank-you Women of Grace.

Last night I had another meeting with my accountability elders. Ron Kuck is front left, Fred Stults back left. Jim Wilson front right and Alan French who chairs our meetings is back right. I'm grateful for these guys. Two of them, Ron & Fred, have church planting experience in their pasts. We quickly overviewed chapters 7-9 of "Planting Missional Churches". The author is Ed Stetzer, an authority on church planting, and speaker at the conference Melissa & I went to called Exponential '08. Then the guys helped walk me through filling out an Employment Identification Number (EIN) form. I need to soon apply to be incorporated with the state of Ohio and open a bank account in Dublin. I forgot to tell you, but two weeks ago I got a PO Box for the church. Here is the address should you want to snail-mail anything:
Encounter Church
PO Box #731
Dublin, OH
43017