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.

3rd Grade Seder Feast

Yesterday I spoke at the 3rd Grade Seder feast for Worthington Christian Schools. Three years ago I was given the same opportunity when my son Zach was in third grade. I done it every year since and this year my twin daughters were in the room as well as my wife Melissa.

I was asked to talk about the Passover meal, the Seder feast, that God instructed the Jews to eat as a memorial to them being set free by Pharaoh in Egypt. The feast was first eaten on the night of the 10th plague God sent on the land of Egypt: the plague of the death of the first born. It's found in Exodus 12. The Jews were to kill a one year old male lamb without defect and use its blood to mark the top and both sides of the doorposts so that the angel of death would "pass-over" the home. A very clear connection can be made about Christ being the last sacrificial lamb when we read John the Baptist's words in John 1:29, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!".

After I spoke we parents joined our children and re-enacted some of the meal as the children read some of the symbolic themes off cue cards.

Looking forward to Celebrating Easter

This coming Sunday is Easter. I can't remember the last time I anticipated celebrating it like I do this year. I have the privilege of preaching/teaching from I Corinthians 15 on the resurrection. Our launch team anticipates many more visitors than usual esp. since many of them have been inviting co-workers and neighbors specifically to our Easter service. I'll let you know how things went on Sunday or Monday.
Pray that we will be faithful to the Lord in the preaching and hospitable to our guests.

A great Palm Sunday morning service

Honestly I was more nervous for yesterday's Sunday service than any of the other nine before it. Part of it was living in the unknown. How many people would show up? Not having the same amount of time to prepare the message b/c it was Spring Break week leading up to Sunday. All these things factored into it. And in the end it all turned out great.
From what I know, everyone showed up to play their part and we had five visiting couples and a single young adult. The testimony was encouraging, the worship was powerful, the announcements were done well and the 1st-5th grade Ekids came in and sang a song at the end of the service while holding construction paper palm branches. If you want to listen to the message click here. This whole month we're talking about our core values: Celebrate, Grow, Serve, and Multiply. We're calling it You 2.0 , taking our walk with Christ to the next level.
I had someone come in to take a bunch a pictures so no one on the team had to do it. I'll be sure to share some of those with you in the future.
This coming Sunday is of course Easter and celebrate is the core value. What a great thing to celebrate: He is risen...He is risen indeed! Who knows who God will bring through those doors. I'll be sure to let you know:-)

LC #2 Review

I really enjoyed spending time with our leaders this morning. The set-up team, A/V guys and the hospitality team got everything set up before leadership community started at 9:00am. It's so nice that the school allows us to keep everything in its place overnight. It really takes the pressure off of us for the Sunday service. Our worship was led by our complete praise team consisting of a keyboardist, two guitar players and a female vocalist. They did great! They would like the team to grow though so if you know of anyone who plays the drums, electric guitar, or bass guitar let me know:-)

I had the opportunity to speak into the teams life and celebrate some of the blessings God has provided for us. We even sang, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow", off the cuff. I hadn't sung that in years.

Two entries ago I mentioned that we'd be doing something with our small group leaders and our "Give Away" money. Well...with our two small groups multiplying into four this month, and with the consent of our finance team, I handed each small group leader $250.00 to give away to a person, family or group of either that are in need. They are to get together as a small group and prayerfully consider how to do this before the end of May. Then we'll hear back from them and celebrate it publicly. I can't wait to hear the reports.

Lastly, Jeff Ruetty led the team in discussing how we will use our contact piece in inviting neighbors and friends to ENCOUNTER. The piece looks great and I'm proud to give it out. A big thank-you to the guys at Brown Cow Design for all the work they've done for us over the last

year. I look forward to seeing them again in three weeks at Exponential.