Christmas Eve

It has been a great Christmas Eve so far. Yesterday we kicked off two of our 4 Christmas Eve services well. Some highlights for me:

• Seeing a Mom come to the morning and evening services. She did this because her grown children couldn't come to the same one so she came to both in order to encourage them to be there;
• Seeing a couple sitting together who were on the brink of divorce 2 short months prior;
• Seeing someone worshiping knowing that just this week she found out her mom will need hospice care;
• Experiencing worship of our King with my Suncrest family.

Elders

I just have to say that Suncrest has the best Elders! We had an Elders meeting last night so it is fresh on my mind. I have served many churches with many good men serving as Elders, but as a group of men committed to do what it takes to see God work through Suncrest, our Elders rock. We talk about their responsibilities being to guard and guide the church and they do it well.

I'm so grateful to work in an environment with such outstanding leaders.

The Suncrest Office

Here's the first installment of The Suncrest Office. Okay, it will probably be the only installment, but it was fun. The premise behind this is that we have a ton of people who do not know how to download a message from our website and are afraid to experiment, so I put together this video to show them how. Please know I created this in about 40 minutes and it shows, but I think it will serve the purpose and maybe, just maybe cause a chuckle. Unless you really want to know how to download a message you will only want to watch the first couple minutes. Click here to go to You Tube where you can get full screen viewing.

Reading in Church?

So I sat in the back yesterday during one of our services and as Greg was preaching I noticed this guy reading. I thought, "that's cool." He's reading the text from the message...but NO he was reading The Five Dysfunctions of a Team! I couldn't believe it. I mean it is a good book, but c'mon, in church! My first thought was really, why even come if you are just going to ignore everything that is said. I was amused as I continued to watch him how he would pop his head up occasionally as if it made him look like he was paying attention. I suppose there are several reasons he could have been doing that:
1) Already made his mind up that he did believe in God. Message was on how we can trust that God is real.
2) Already made up his mind that he did NOT believe that God is real and came only to appease his wife.
3) Was really wanting to find out how to build a team.
4) Had a bad case of gas.
5) Was just rude in general.

Whatever the reason I actually did pray for him. Something in his life is not right. He in essence was blocking the Spirit from working and I prayed that God would break through the wall.

And then there was Susan (not her real name). I met her after the services and she shared how she came to Suncrest last year after moving back closer to family. The reason for her move was the fact that she had lost her husband and moved back so she could pick up the pieces and move on. Her mother, who does not attend Suncrest, suggested she try it out, she did and she has been coming ever since. She loves it and expressed how much God has used Suncrest.