Carpet Day

Its finally here. Carpet Day! The installation guys are working hard laying the new carpet for our sanctuary. It's really going to give our building a fresh, new look. God has blessed us so much this past year. He's so good!

Spiritual Awakening Services

I'm starting to get really excited about our upcoming Spiritual Awakening Services June 8-10. These will be a great chance for us as a church to take some time to devote to nothing but pursuing the presence of the Lord. I'm believing for a powerful outpouring of God's Spirit to renew, empower, and transform us.

I'm a firm believer that breakthroughs in our lives come first and foremost from time spend in the presence of God. No amount of information, or self-help can ever substitute for personal encounters with God. All of the life-defining moments for me personally came from times where I was immersed in God's presence. I'm praying for life-defining moments to take place in people's lives next weekend!

One of my best friends from college, now a youth pastor and evangelist, Daniel Day will be our guest speaker. Daniel is a gifted preacher with a passionate heart for God.

The services will be June 8-10. Friday and Saturday at 7pm and Sunday morning at 10am @ ACC.

Memorial Day Weekend

Just had a great Memorial Day weekend. My wife Jessica gave an incredible message on Sunday morning called Preserving Our Relationship With God. Her message was very timely. Each of us should be willing to do whatever it takes to preserve our relationship with God at all costs. She is a very gifted speaker and communicator with a tremendous heart for God and people. It's a dream come true to minister side by side with a spouse who has a calling and heart for ministry.

Monday I had the privilege of giving the invocation and benediction for the annual Ambridge Memorial Day Service held at P.J. Caul Park in the center of town and sponsored by the Ambridge American Legion and VFW. It was an honor for me to participate in a service with so many heroic veterans. Pretty much spent the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out with friends. A little much needed R&R in due season :)

Workday

Last night and today a group of us are doing work on our building. We're sanding the wood floor in preparation for carpet installation next week. We're also doing some painting in our soon-to-be coffee cafe area.

It's so exciting to be part of what God is doing in the Ambridge area. I'm so thankful for all of the people who have invested their time and energy into God's work here.

As much as I like working on our building, my heart is for the people in this community. If better facilities help us reach more people, I'm game :)

Wisdom From Edwards

Jonathan Edwards, the famous 18th Century pastor and theologian has been very inspiring to me in the little I have been able to study him. He includes in him memoirs a list of 70 resolutions to guide his life. The passion, focus, and seriousness of his life is contagiously inspiring. Thought I'd share a couple of his resolutions that he listed which particularly stood out to me (they are all awesome though, and worth reading). Following is a preface he writes followed by five of his resolutions:

"being sensible that I am unable to do any thing without God's help, I do humbly entreat him, by his grace, to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ's sake."

4. Resolved, Never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God, nor be, nor suffer it, if I can possibly avoid it.

6. Resolved, To live with all my might, while I do live.

7. Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life.

17. Resolved, That I will live so, as I shall wish I had done when I come to die.

28. Resolved, To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.


I have enjoyed studying and would recommend for further study The Works of Jonathan Edwards, 2 Volumes.

5 Keys To Self-Leadership

Check out Jeff's post on self-leadership. Really good advice for anyone in leadership.

Cleared Out

Our sanctuary is all cleared out as we're gearing up for carpet installation next week!

This has been a long time coming. It's really exciting for all of us since we've known nothing but old, somewhat ugly wood flooring.

This Friday night and Saturday morning, a handful of us are going to be filling the cracks in the floor and sanding it smooth. The good stuff goes down May 31st! Can't wait to see the finished product.

N Days Pics!

...As promised :)

Nationality Days!

Wow! Definitely one of those whirlwind weekends. We had an awesome time at Nationality Days meeting people and eating chimichangas. God blessed the entire event. It was definitely more than worth the effort to participate. I'll post some pictures later on.

Dead Mentors

In my Bible reading plan right now I'm going through 2 Corinthians. As I was reading I found myself thinking about the Apostle Paul and his life. He has left us such a wealth of material! and that's an understatement! Then I started thinking how I wanted to be his student. I know it sounds corny, but bear with me.

I believe each of us should have mentors and coaches in life. People older and wiser than us who can challenge and encourage us. Some of our mentors should be living and some should be dead. What I mean is that we should have mentors in our lives who are living, but we should also have dead mentors who shape our lives by their legacy.

A cool dynamic takes place when we view ourselves as students of people like Paul, Peter, and most importantly Jesus. They have given us so much and I think we would be wise to become their students and allow their lives to speak into ours.

I think that in much the same way that teenagers tend to ignore their parent's wisdom and think they know everything (we've all been there:) so we would be unwise to ignore the wisdom of people who have lived faithful lives before us. These need not be limited to biblical figures, though they are the best, but also great people of the past like Augustine, Athanasius, Francis of Assisi, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, Henri Nouwen, J. Hudson Taylor, George Muller, and on and on. Though far from perfect, we would be wise to learn from the lives of great people from the past.

ACC at Nationality Days!

This Saturday, for the first time, we will be joining the festivities for the 42nd Annual Nationality Days Festival! We will be joining 33 other food booths this year and distinctively adding homemade chimichangas and nachos.

This is an incredible opportunity for us to meet new people and share God's love!

DNA of a Hero 2: After God's Own Heart

This is the second message in our series DNA of a Hero called After God's Own Heart. It is a message centered on insights from the life of David.

One of our theme passages for this series is Daniel 11:32, "But the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits." Spiritual impact is released through people who know who their God is and who they are in him.

Really Good Wisdom

I encourage you to read this post about John Piper's advice to college students. The best part is when he gets into what he calls "Four Mistakes I Hope You Don't Make." It applies not only to college students, but profoundly to people in all walks of life. Check it out here.

Methods and Power

Something I've been thinking about recently is the balance between engaging good ministry methods and the power of the Holy Spirit. There are two extremes. The first is an overdependence on techniques and methodology that leaves ministry as nothing more than a purely man-powered attempt at achieving eternal impact. The other extreme is an approach that devalues the use of the mind and creativity and using the Holy Spirit as a cover up for sloppiness. I think both are dangerous.

Ultimately it is only God's power that changes lives. True eternal impact is the result of God's power being released in our weakness. This however, does not negate the fact that God is honored by our diligence since we are called to love him with all of our mind and to be diligent to present ourselves to him as "workmen that need not be ashamed, correctly handling the word of truth."

I think the balance is found in the heart. Good ministry methods must serve the heart and the truth of the power of God in our lives, but they must never become a substitute for them. The moment our methodology is void of Spirit-dependence we have begun to do things in our own strength, which as said before, can ultimately accomplish nothing. Good ministry methods are a way of honoring the Lord by being responsible, yet they must be used with absolute Spirit-dependency.

The slickest methods, void of spiritual power is nothing but wheel spinning. However, God has given us minds to be stewarded well for his glory. He is not honored with sloppiness. When his eternal, life-transforming power connects with our weak yet heartfelt attempts to reach people, his power is released in a way that that glorifies him because we are not dependent on our methodology, but on his Spirit.

Any thoughts?

Weekend Reflections

We had an incredible time at the retreat. There was so much great, practical teaching about spiritual warfare and signs and wonders. Here are the notes from Jeff Leake's talk on his blog. It was an incredibly inspirational and equipping retreat.

We also made it back in time for Mother's day! I had the privilege of doing my first baby dedication! It was a wonderful privilege for me. As I was praying for the baby, I almost got choked up just thinking about the awesome honor it is to dedicate a child to the Lord!

Spiritual Warfare Retreat

Today Jess and I head off with a bunch of our leaders to a retreat center in Ligonier, PA. We will be joining the other churches associated with the Allison Park network for a Leadership and Spiritual Warfare Retreat. I'm really looking forward to this much needed time away. I like what Mark Batterson says, "Change of place + change of pace = change of perspective." The retreat will be led by Pastor Jeff Leake from Allison Park Church and Johannes Amritzer , an evangelist from Sweden. It's going to be great!

Happy Clean Up Your Room Day!

That's right, today is Clean Up Your Room Day. My beautiful and amazing wife Jessica was kind enough to inform me of this holiday... not sure what to think about that :)

In case you are room-cleaning challenged like me here are a few tips that may prove helpful!

New Series: DNA of a Hero

This week we began a new message series called DNA of a Hero. In the coming weeks we'll be looking at various men and women of Scripture and the characteristics of their lives that made them great in the sight of God.

While we're not talking about flying faster than a speeding bullet, being more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, we are talking about living to the fullest the life we were created to live - a truly extra-ordinary life.

This past Sunday, the introductory message was called "A Heroic Life" from Hebrews 11 which is now available for streaming or mp3 download here.

Welcome to Bloggerdom

Everybody welcome my friend Nick Poole to the blogosphere! Nick and I both went to school together. He was actually my RA the second semester of my freshman year. I'm looking forward to following his thoughts and ponderings!

The Case for Continuationism

Dr. Sam Storms, a former professor of theology at Wheaton, posted some good points building a case for continuationism over cessationism in his Enjoying God Blog. Sam is a biblical scholar with awesome insights into the present ministry of the Holy Spirit. My first encounter with Dr. Storms' writing was his section in the excellent book Are Miraculous Gifts For Today?. Check out his blog entry here!

Softball

We are now, for the first time in history, officially part of the Beaver County Church Softball League! We're off to a bit of a rocky start with a 0-2 record, but at least we're all having some fun and getting some exercise!

Nationality Days

I'm getting really excited about participating in Nationality Days in Ambridge this year. N Days is the largest festival in Beaver County drawing an average of 50,000 people over a 3 day period.

We will be running a booth on Saturday, May 19 serving homemade chimichangas and nachos!

The chimi's are my Mom's own recipe handed down to her from Grandma Santistevan herself representing years of Spanish heritage and culinary tradition. Needless to say, they are amazing :)

I'm looking forward to meeting new people at N Days and praying that our interactions with them will bring them one step closer to Jesus!

Cultivating a Spirit-Filled Church

I am currently attending a breakout session called "Cultivating a Spirit-Filled Church" by the conference host Jack Stepp, Pastor of South Hills Assembly. I'll be blogging notes as he teaches. Here goes:

Cultivating a Spirit-Filled Church

Beginning in the mid 1990s came what we might call "the relevant church movement."

The charismatic gifts are an integral part of the New Testament...,and Paul considered spiritual languages a desirable and delightful part of personal Christianity.

Can we merge the two? The relevant church movement and the charismatic movement? How can we be Pentecostal and still reach out with a cultural sensitivity?

Cessationists say that the gifts and languages of the Holy Spirit ceased with the close of the New Testament.

Are we Pentecostals becoming practical cessationists? Not doctrinally, but practically.

The disuse, misuse, and abuse of the gifts, along with immersion into the relevant church movement, can turn us into practical cessationists. In our attempts to adopt the valuable principles of the relevant church movement, we must be careful to not neglect our Pentecostal calling and heritage.

There is a road between two ditches. The ditch on one side is where we no longer encourage or operate in the Biblical manifestations of the Spirit. The ditch on the other side of the road is sensationalism. The ditches are to be avoided.

We should not think that the postmodern culture could not be interested in spiritual languages or the gifts of the Holy Spirit. More than likely they would like to experience God's power in their lives.

Our goal is to cultivate a Spirit-Filled/Relevant church.

To cultivate the Spirit-Filled/Relevant church, we must believe that the Spirit-Filled life is the key to the better life in Christ.

How can we develop a Spirit-filled/Relevant church?

1. Dig deeply into the life with the Holy Spirit
2. Give people consistent and regular opportunities to experince God.
We must continually ask the Lord to use us in his gifts.
3. Cast the vision of what a Spirit-Filled/Relevant church looks like.
4. Guide you leadership in strategic planning and include numeric goals for the infilling with the Holy Spirit.

He references Jim Collins' hedgehog concept diagram.

The intersection of 3 circles determines your "sweet spot" as a church. These are 1. What you're best at (as a church), 2. What you are most passionate about, and 3. your time , energy, and resources (different from the business model which would be "what drives your economic engine").

This was a very good workshop. Lots of great insights into building a Spirit-Filled/Relevant church.

Penn-Del Ministry Summit

Today I am attending our Penn-Del District Council. This is the time of the year when as many pastors as possible from our fellowship in Pennsylvania and Delaware gather together for prayer, ministry workshops, and business sessions.

This morning began with a prayer service led by pastor and blogger Paul Grabill, of State College Assembly of God. The service was a powerful hour of worship and prayer in the presence of God. I'm really looking forward to connecting with some fellow pastors and leaders from our district.