RobEdwardsLive.com

Archive for the ‘Sunday Summary’ Category

Well….we’re back with a Sunday Summary after several weeks’ absence! It’s been an intense couple of months, and they’ve flown  by!

• Today was a great day of worship!
• We had Greg & Rebecca Sparks with us today leading in worship through song.
• After the led us in song, I preached the second message in our Lenten series on the Seven Word of Christ from the Cross.
• Converted on a Cross is based on Luke 23:34
• It was a powerful service!  We had several visitors, and had one person make a decision to follow Christ as her Savior, and two more moved their membership back to our church!
• Since the first of January, we’ve had 8 new members at Cradock!
• Today I announced our first CBC411 our membership class for new members and people who are considering church membership!  It will be held on March 21 & 28.
• I also announced that we will be having baptism on Easter Sunday. The Early Church always baptized new believers on Easter Sunday, and we are going to take our stand amidst that great tradition!
• We’ve also been having between 20 & 30 children and youth each week.
• We are very close to announcing our first two interns–yes, two!  One will be working with our Children’s Ministry, and one will be working with our Youth Ministry!
• God is definitely up to something in Cradock!
• This coming week is going to be totally crazy!
• I’ve got several exciting phone calls on tap with pastors around the country who are doing some amazing ministry! I can’t wait to hear what God is doing where they are!
• Got an exciting meeting on Thursday with Ben Arment to talk more about The WhiteBoard Sessions, which is coming up May 21 in Virginia Beach.
• I’m also excited about several other events coming up over the next several months. I’ll share details as I can, but I really would appreciate your prayers as we are planning!
• Got some exciting book reviews coming soon, too!
• Much to do…gotta run!  Catch you later!

Due to the weather we didn’t have services today. So, in lieu of a Sunday Summary, here’s a really cool video on the missional church.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve posted a summary, but I couldn’t let today go by without bringing everybody up to speed on things.

• This was a great culmination to the past week!
• Last Thursday, I flew to Nashville for the World Changers Coordinators’ Retreat.
• Friday night, I flew back home to be here for our AngelFood distribution on Saturday.
• We processed just over 17,000 pounds that was distributed through about a dozen churches across the region.  This never gets old!
• Saturday evening, we hosted a Night of Worship, led by Raizya Praize Ministries (RPM) from Livonia, Georgia.
• Got home last night utterly bushed, but still excited about what God had up His sleeve for today.
• Just before the service this morning, I was handed a note that we had the largest non-holiday Sunday School attendance in two years.
• We had 29 youth & children in Sunday School today! That’s up from 5 four years ago.
• We had more children come with their parents to worship, so we had over 30 in Children’s Church!
• Worship attendance was good and the energy in the service was awesome!
• Today I preached on ReJesusing the Church, based on Revelation 3:14-22.
• We talked about Laodicea. I learned a ton of things I never knew before!
• At the invitation time, we had four folks come go join our congregation! One of those wants to follow Christ in baptism!
• I’ve already heard that two more folks are going to be joining next Sunday! I’m pumped!
• This infusion of children and youth means we are desperately seeking someone (or ones)  to work with our children and youth ministry.  If you want to come to the mission field to work with us, please contact me right away!
• Catherine’s brother has been in town this weekend, so after lunch today we went to see Avatar in 3-D.  Awesome movie! Still processing the themes…..
• I’m working on a review of Neil Cole’s forthcoming book Church3.0: Upgrades for the Future of the Church.  Watch for it soon!
• I’m also really getting excited about being at Verge2010 in two weeks!
• I’m beat,  and I’ve got a full week ahead, so I’m outta here! Peace!

It was great to be back at Cradock after a few days away for the holidays!

• The cold wind and various illnesses kept a lot of our older folks away today.
• But several of our regular families were back after holiday travels.
• We also had 22 kids in church.
• I know I mention this a lot, but for a congregation whose average age is somewhere around 70, this has to be a God-thing!!!
• Today I did something I rarely do: scuttled everything I had planned for worship and went a totally different direction.
• Here’s the backstory:
  • If you’ve followed my Twitter feed, you’re aware that Bob Smith, who has served as our Financial Administrator for about 4 years, died this past week.
  • While Bob had been in declining health for a while, it still came as a shock to us all.
  • The night after Bob died, they had a fire in their house, too.
  • And over the past couple of years, we’ve lost several key folks in the life of our church to death, and several others now are less active due to health concerns.
• The bottom line today is that we are a grieving congregation! And it’s a compounded grief, layered loss upon loss.
• So we sang different songs, pushed communion out to next week, and we just huddled up as a family and prayed and let God’s Word speak into our hurting hearts.
• We focused on the question what do you do when you don’t know what to do?
• You can catch the audio from it here.
• So, this coming week is going to be an emotional time for our staff. We’ve got to close out 2009 and set up 2010 and do a ton of other things that we haven’t even thought of yet.
• We’d appreciate your prayers!
• On a more positive note, I’ve got a couple of meetings coming up this week that I’m really excited about. Both of them have the potential to open up a lot of opportunities for partnership and ministry.
• This past week, Ben Arment announced that The WhiteBoard Sessions will be returning in May–this time at the Sandler Center in Virginia Beach!  Sign up today! I predict it will be sold out! Get your tickets early!
• Tonight is the last night of freedom for the kids–it’s back to school for them tomorrow. I know I’m ready for a return to the routine!
• It’ll be bedtime before we know it, so I’m outta here!

Our Advent journey continued today at Cradock!

• The gray, wet day was a great backdrop for talking about Joy today!
• We talked about how the fish–the ichthus–was the identifying  mark of the early Christians.
• Interestingly, the early believers also used the fish as a directional sign–the head of the fish always pointed in the direction where the believers gathered.
• What would the identifying mark be for believers today?
• Are we better known by what we are against?
• Can we be identified by our joy?
• Do  our lives serve as directional signs that point others to Christ?
• We also had some first-time guests, and we had 22 children in worship this morning!
• Yesterday was our AngelFood distribution, and we had a great day processing almost 18,000 pounds of food.
• I always marvel at how well about 12 churches from several different denominations work together so well to make the distributions happen! This is what the Kingdom of God is all about!
• Catherine and I did some Christmas shopping this afternoon, then we came home and put our tree up. (Pictures will follow soon!)
• Tomorrow I’m headed back up to DC with some friends to hang out and talk to the folk at Ebenezer’s Coffee Shop and learn more about their ministry.
• I’d appreciate your prayers later this week, as I’ve got a meeting coming up on Friday that will be pivotal in determining the direction of ministry at our church.
• It’s late and I’ve got to be up early, so I’m gonna hit “post” and then hit the bed.
• Peace y’all!