+ This has been an excellent day and of course the heart of it was the time we spent with all our friends at Church At The Movies this morning.

+ Our Celebration Sundays are invariably very special times and this was no exception. There was an expectant, party atmosphere from get-go and the energy just built.

+ We baptized twelve people this morning, shared communion and generally had a great time praising God for his goodness to us.

+ I love baptisms because they are an indicator that with God’s help we are doing what we set out to do – bring people to faith in Jesus.

+ If you’re wondering how we baptize by immersion in a movie theater, that’s easy, we use a horse trough!!

+ Time is always at a premium on Celebration Sundays, so there’s a far smaller teaching slot. As my friend Danny pointed out, I did a masterful job of packing a 20 minutes message into just 30 minutes!

+ We received a special offering for the launch of our Mastic Campus. Not totally sure of how that finished up, but it looks like we’re off to an excellent start.

+ Tomorrow night we have an open meeting at Island Cinemas in Mastic to introduce the church to the community. So tonight I’m doing the old church planter trick of wondering if anyone will show up! Just kidding, really wondering how many will show up.

+ Mets won again, had a reasonable workout at the gym, life is good.

+ Final word for today is from one of the woman baptized this morning – “I was lost and now I’m found.”

Saturday night. Shot. Full day.

And tomorrow is a very full morning indeed. Great service in store, with so much to pack into it that we’re starting at 9.45.

Don’t be late!

Just got back from an hour with a friend from church. I opted for Dunkin Donuts which lacks the character of Starbucks, but is also devoid of a hundred college students and their laptops, which means there’s a place to sit down.

We chatted a bit about sharing vision and people grasping it and I mentioned an epiphany I had a few years ago, that I could not expect people to grasp in one hearing what it had taken God several years to get me to take on board.

Vision needs to be stated over and again and there will generally be one of four responses -

1. There are those for whom the light goes on immediately and they’ve got it straight away. I like these people!

2. Then there are people for whom the light dawns gradually and they eventually get the point.

3. There are those who don’t have a clue what the leader is saying or why, but they trust the leader and commit to helping make things happen despite not being able to cross all the “t’s” in their own minds.

4. Some people get enthusiastic when the vision is actually becoming a reality before them, which is always preferable to never getting it at all, but they miss all the excitement.

The most important thing for leaders is to cast vision over and over and over again.

+ I should be sleeping and not typing, but I can’t let my readers down!!!

+ Really full day, starting with a good hour in the gym and ending with watching the Mets sweep the Nationals.

+ Worked through some good stuff in our pastoral team meeting this evening – Mastic, Celebration Sunday and the One Prayer series.

+ We finally decided which guest preachers to have share with us during One Prayer. If you were with us last year, you’ll be glad to know we’re going for Craig Groeschel and Perry Noble again. The newcomer with be Dino Rizzo from The Healing Place, somewhere way down south that I can’t recall right now. Top notch speakers with great messages to share.

+ Looks like we already have a dozen baptisms lined up for Sunday. It will be a very special day – don’t forget we start a bit earlier on Celebration Sundays, 9.45am.

+ Getting on well with the owner of Island Cinemas in Mastic. I had a good chat with him tonight and am happy that we are developing a good relationship. Tonight he okayed us doing an End Of Summer Festival right out front of the place on Labor Day. Superb! That’s just six days before we launch our campus there.

+ Did I say that The South Shore Press gave us a free quarter page ad to announce Monday night’s public information meeting, First Look? God is opening things up for us.

+ Saturday we’ll have a team of people handing out invitations near Pathmark and also Kohls in Shirley.

+ I love challenges, especially new ones.

+ Anyway, as I said, long day. I’m outta here!

We’re kicking off summer in a big way at Church At The Movies. Things get under way this coming Sunday with a whole bunch of baptisms and a load of other good stuff that will make up our Celebration Sunday.

Plus, of course, we’re receiving our special offering for our new Mastic campus that we’re starting up in September.

As we head into June we’ll be joining with hundreds of churches worldwide as we join One Prayer. When Jesus gave us some guidance on prayer, he said we should start by reminding ourselves who God actually is, so it’s fitting that throughout the four weeks of this campaign we’ll be looking at ways to complete the phrase “God is …”

With the help of the good people at www.lifechurch.tv in Oklahoma, we’ll be hearing from three great church leaders as the series develops. I’m teaching the first week and then we’re having these three guest preachers and hearing how they would finish the statement “God is…”

Some great preaching, faith-inspiring, life-building stuff. Good times ahead!

The first part of Memorial Day 2009 has been very demanding as I have been called upon to make decision after decision.

+ The first decision had to be made at around 5.20am. I woke up then and had to make up my mind whether I would get up or celebrate the holiday by staying where I was. I chose the latter and remained horizontal, dozing on and off until 6.50am.

+ Having successfully planted both feet on the floor, the next matter that demanded my undivided attention was whether I would exercise in the gym today or go for a run outside. I wavered over that one a bit, finally deciding that I’d take advantage of the decent weather and get some fresh air into my lungs by running the intermediate circuit I have mapped out from my house.

+ My time for the run would not win any records or impress even a slightly serious athlete, but it was a good one for me. As if my morning exercise did not wear me out enough, once showered I was faced with yet another decision – what to wear on the beautiful day the forecasters had promised. It’s great to get back into shorts after such an awful wionter, so I grabbed my greyish/ washed out black ones and started looking through t-shirts. What message did I want to send the world today? – I have run a 10K race? These are my church clothes? I work for WeightWatchers? I drive a Mustang? Tough choices. In the end I just grabbed the one shirt that is good for any occasion – my black Mets shirt with Santana’s name and number on the back.

+ Then it was down to the kitchen and breakfast. Man, so many choices. I opted for a bowl of fresh fruit.

Here’s my point, because for a change there is one! Having choices and being able to make decisions are part of living in freedom. This morning I could choose for myself when to get up, what to do, what to wear and what to eat and that process will continue throughout the day.

It would not have been that way if principled and dedicated men and women had not made the decision that their freedom and mine was worth fighting for. They chose to engage the enemy. They knew they might not return home and from the beaches of Normandy to the back alleys of Kirkuk, they died defending my right to determine my own destiny. Their decision means I still have the ability to decide.

What has made this country great is the millions of, mainly young, men and women who have protected it and us.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.   Laurence Binyon

+ Had a good morning at Church At The Movies today. The crowd was thin because of the holiday weekend, but I learned years ago to focus on the people who are there and not those that are not.

+ Band did a great job – excellent selection and all of them done well.

+ I can’t get over how early folks show up at our church – of course the cafe does offer a quality selection that means you don’t need to pause for breakfast at home.

+ Looking forward to Greg Laurie being at Jones Beach in three weeks – and of course to POD, Kutlass, Jars of Clay and Delirious.

+We started a new series today – Living Beyond Ourselves – and I taught on Focusing On The Essentials, which I was pretty pumped about as it meant simply preaching our vision.

+ Next week is Celebration Sunday which involves baptisms, baby dedications and communion, plus the special offering to help us launch our new campus in Mastic in the fall. I’m looking forward to it already.

+ Went for a run earlier this evening and my eyes are now itching like crazy. I guess pollen has a purpose, but I’d love it if we could live without it.

+ Mets lost today, but won the series – can’t complain!

+ During my teaching today, Melissa Ingino shared a bit about the work of the folks of www.invisiblechildren.com It’s disturbing, though amazing stuff!

+ Talked to a formerly unchurched guy who had come for the first time on Easter Sunday and hasn’t missed a week since. I like it when I see we are reaching our target.

+ Sitting, vegging now. Tired but thankful to God for the privilege of being part of what he is doing.

It’s that time again!

The longest night of the week!

I’m sitting at home with friends, watching some baseball and counting the hours until tomorrow morning. I love Sundays. I love our church. And it seems like for ever since I was there last, even though I only missed one Sunday.

I’m waiting to see everyone in the morning and really looking forward to seeing what God will do as we start our new series Living Beyond Ourselves. I’m nearing the end of my 39th year of pastoring and can honestly say I’m more excited about things now than I have ever been before.

This is a good year. It’s the year that we move from being just another local church and start to move into our God-given destiny. I’ll be talking about that a bit tomorrow – if only it would hurry up and come!

During my recent visits to the UK, a number of people were asking questions about our church – seems we’d be a bit of a novelty over there just as we are on Long Island.

One of the questions that came up fairly often was what programs and activities we have running mid-week and of course the answer was “not a lot”.

The second Sunday in our church’s brief history, I explained very clearly that we were not going to be another over-programmed church with stuff going on every evening that pulls people away from two important areas of life.

One of those is family. It amazes me how so many churches preach family and then do their best to separate them by making unbelievable time demands on family members that pull them out of the house way too often.

The other area of life that is neglected when churches have a whole mountain of mid-week activities is social interaction with the unchurched. God never intended us to isolate ourselves in countless services of one kind or another with fellow Christians, he rather expects us to be salt and light in this world. That means we need to have the time to be out there.

So what do we do mid-week?

Small groups. Three times a year in six to eight week segments.

Celebrate Recovery. For those who are dealing with hurts, habits and hangups.

That’s it – no men’s group, no ladies’ fellowship, no prayer meetings, no special Bible studies, nothing but the basics needed to enable our congregation to be as effective as possible in influencing others for Jesus.

And if you don’t think that’s enough, check out the research in the book Simple Church, which offers irrefutable evidence that the healthiest churches in America are those that have stopped pulling their folks in a hundred different directions.

It has been a long day of traveling, so I’m not planning to write anything scintilating. Headed to bed any minute. Good, very busy trip. Met up with a lot of family and friends – all good stuff – relationships are the stuff of life.

Glad to be home. Looking forward to a night in my own bed after five different beds over the past seven days.