Widsom Part 1

This is the first message in our short 2-part series on Wisdom from Proverbs 2:1-11.

A Blogging Pastor's Crutch? :)

Celebrate God's Work

I praise God for the awesome ways he's been working recently. At our City Reach services we saw roughly 90 people make decisions to give their lives to Christ! It really is awesome to watch God work like that because it's obvious that no one else could ever take the credit for it. It's amazing how God takes our feeble, yet sincere efforts at spreading his love and breathes power on them and works miracles in people's hearts!

One of the great privileges we enjoy as a church at ACC is the relationship we share with the church that started us, Allison Park Church. For those of you who may not know, our church was started by APC nine years ago and was the second of six church plants in the Pittsburgh area. This past weekend at APC they had spontaneous baptisms in their morning services in which 82 people decided on the spot to publicly declare their faith in Christ through water baptism! All these were baptized in a swimming pool set up in their concourse area. Check out the full report here!

Hearing reports and testimonies like this is important for us because it strengthens our faith. In church life and general life there are ups and downs. In some of the down times it can be difficult to stay encouraged. Sometimes we can be tempted to lose hope. That's why Gal. 6:9 says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." Celebrating the good things that God has done helps us to stay the course until we reap a harvest again!

Listen To God First

The amazing thing about the age we live in is the accessibility of information. We are constantly bombarded with tons of words, ads, commercials, songs, shows, movies, etc. It seems like everywhere we go there is a constant stream of words. Henri Nouwen observes:

"Over the last few decades we have been inundated by a torrent of words. Wherever we go we are surrounded by words: words softly spoken, recited, or sung; words on records, in books, on walls, or in the sky; words to be heard, read, seen, or glanced at; words which flicker off and on, move slowly, dance, jump, or wiggle. Words, words, words! They form the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of our existence" (The Way of the Heart, 31).

We definitely live in a culture with a challenge that people of past ages did not have to deal with as strongly as we do. That challenge is: what voices do you listen to? Which ones do you really pay attention to? With all of the new books, blogs, and websites popping up every day, which ones do you really allow to speak into your life?

The answer to that question is both difficult and easy.

It's difficult because there are so many worthwhile books and blogs, etc. that have the potential to greatly enrich our lives that we could never actually absorb the useful good out of all of them. We would be wise to avail ourselves of the best of them.

It's easy because, when you boil everything down, there's really only one source of information that really matters. You guessed it...God. When it's all said and done, it's great if we benefit from all the good, practical information out there, but nothing is more important than allowing the primary shaper of our lives to be the voice of God.

In the end, it's really the only thing that matters. If we can make our priority listening to the voice of God and shaping our lives around his revealed will in the Scriptures, we will find in the end that we have built our lives on the only true and lasting foundation.

Block Party Pictures

Check out this link for tons of pictures from the Block Party!

Desiring God Video Posts

Here is a great link to a bunch of videos from past Desiring God conferences.

More City Reach Pics

Here's a few more pics!

Debriefing Meeting

Just wrapped up our City Reach debriefing meeting. It is amazing to hear story after story of all that God did this past week! God has definitely proven that he is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that we could ask or imagine. We saw roughly 90 people make commitments to Christ this week! God is so good!

City Reach 3

We had another great night last night. I gave a message about the prodigal son. I shared about how, apart from God, we've all made a mess of our lives, but when we turn to him with all of our heart, he will forgive us and give us a new start. We had about 15 people respond to the invitation to give their lives to Christ. Looking forward to the Block Party tonight!

City Reach 2

Last night was incredible. We were packed out again despite the threat of rain. Chris Gilkey shared his powerful testimony with us and over 50 people responded to the call to give their heart to Christ! Praise God! Just about every ACCer in attendance became an altar worker handing out New Testaments and praying with people. It was absolutely incredible!

Tonight we'll be having a special appearance by Ambridge Police Chief Mark Romutis. He will be sharing with us briefly some of his vision for our community and I will be giving the evening message later on. We will also be giving away free pizza from CiCi's! It's going to be a great night!

City Reach Pics

Here's a few pics from last night!

City Reach 1

Last night was amazing! We were completely maxed out! That's a good problem to have. Over 35 people responded to the altar call to give their lives to Jesus Christ! Jeff Leake gave the message last night. For a good summary of the night, check out his blog post here!

Our guest speaker tonight is Chris Gilkey. Chris is the youth pastor at Victory Christian Center in Youngstown, Ohio. Chris has a powerful testimony of how God completely changed his life.

Tonight

City Reach officially begins tonight! This evening our special speaker for the adults will be Jeff Leake from Allison Park Church. Jeff is a good friend and personal mentor of mine. It's actually because of his vision to plant churches that ACC was planted 9 years ago. He is a gifted teacher and communicator.

Leading our Vacation Bible School for our children this week is our children's minister, Pastor Cal. Cal was also instrumental in the start of our church. He had been doing sidewalk sunday school's in Ambridge for years before our church was ever started.

I believe more than ever that God has called us to this community with a special purpose, "for such a time as this!"

City Reach Is Finally Here!

Today I spent a good part of the afternoon walking up and down through the streets of Ambridge passing out flyers for City Reach. If even one person's life is changed forever it will have been worth it!

This is our biggest outreach event of the year. Last year we had an average total attendance of 300 each night with 30 total salvations. I'm believing that God is going to do even more amazing things this year.

City Reach is not about building up our church, it's about building up the kingdom of God. It's about being filled with God's compassion for his people and making His love known. It is about being faithful to Christ's command to go into all the world and preach the gospel. This is about the mission God has called us to.

If you're unfamiliar with City Reach, it's basically three nights of special services for adults with music, giveaways, and a message, and Vacation Bible School for children with games, music, prizes, and exciting Bible stories. Also, I don't want to forget that there is FREE FOOD provided for everyone, every night following the festivities. On Friday the 17th will be our annual Back-To-School Block Party. We will be blocking off the street behind the church and filling it with all kinds of games, food booths, and a moonwalk. We will also be giving away free backpacks and school supplies to students.

I'm so excited about this week! I'm really looking forward to all that God is going to do.

General Council

If your interested in reading up on any of the elections and resolutions from General Council in Indianapolis this year, you can find some good summaries here, and here.

Indy

I arrived earlier today in Indianapolis for the 52 Biennial General Council of the Assemblies of God. Perhaps the biggest business item this year is the election of a new General Superintendent.

General Council is a great time of reconnecting with old friends. The fellowship really is the highlight of the conference. I love receiving encouragement from fellow pastors and to hear what God is doing in their communities.

Tonight at the service, Thomas Trask gave his final sermon as AG Superintendent. He stressed the importance of preserving the authentic Gospel, having authentic messengers, and facilitating an authentic experience.

Keep us in prayer as we elect our new leader tomorrow!

Yesterday

I spent my entire day off yesterday with my brothers David and Mark at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. We had an amazing time. It would be an understatement to say that Cedar Point is the best theme park in the US. They have a total of 17 major roller coasters!

I think the highlight for me was riding the Top Thrill Dragster. This ride shoots you up a 420 ft vertical track and down the other side at 120mph! I have to admit, it felt like I was being executed.

It was awesome to just spend time together as brothers since Mark is getting ready to go back to college next week.

Cedar Point rocks. It's a roller coaster lover's paradise (except for the waiting lines!)

Sunday Reflections

We had a great service this morning. I believe that God has a specific purpose for every gathering we have. This morning there were two prophetic words that confirmed almost exactly the message that I had prepared!

The message was the third in our Jonah series. It was all about God's mercy in ch 3. As part of the message, I identified 5 elements of repentance. They're real simple, all from Jonah 3:

1. Believe God- v. 5

2. Humble yourself- v. 5b-6

3. Fasting- v.7
a. Fasting is a way of silencing your earthly, fleshly desires to make you more aware of spiritual realities.

4. Call out to God- v.8b

5. Turn from evil ways- v. 8c

This is certainly not 5 steps to perfect repentance and God does not require that we fast every time we repent. All repentance is really an issue of the heart before God. These are just some pointers to assist in the process.

Access Elevation

I've really been learning a lot from this blog. It is an amazing resource from Elevation Church in North Carolina. This church plant is really having a huge impact in their city. From a numerical standpoint God has blessed them with tremendous growth as they have gone from 121 at their first service to almost 2,000 in 17 months. There is a lot of really good articles on issues that face every church plant or established church. From accounting to assimilation to leadership and more. Check it out here.