It was an incredible day for our church this past Sunday. We added a 3rd morning service and all three services were overflowing. For the day we had 63 decisions for Christ, and over 1500 people total. A great day for our church. Early on that Sunday morning while I was praying and thinking about the day ahead I was getting a little nostalgic because Sunday was the 5th anniversary of us moving into our building. It seems like a lot longer than that, but we only moved in 5 years ago on Easter Sunday. Here’s the amazing part to me. That first Easter Sunday in the building we had 300 people in service. We were pretty fired up because the weekend before our first service in the new building we only had like 175. The first 5 years of planting the church were extremely difficult - we just couldn’t get beyond 200. The last 5 years have been a pretty wild ride. I’m always feeling like we’re not as far as we should be, the church should be bigger, doing more, etc. But the reality is, we’ve pretty much grown by 5X in the last 5 years. I hope I always remember those first 5 years of labor and struggle. As difficult as they were, they produced good fruit in my life, our staff, etc. We’re better for it. But, honestly, I have enjoyed the last 5 years much more : ) What will the next 5 years look like??? I can’t wait to see.

The best part of the day was eating lunch with our staff and key leaders. I looked around the room at the great people God has given us. People who love what they do, and are over-the-top devoted to the cause. Many of them were up before 5a getting things ready for the entire day (the Starbucks by our church opened one hour early so all of our volunteers could get their fix. That’s pretty cool influence, or addiction : ) The strength of our church is in the hundreds of committed volunteers and leaders who make it happen every single week, but also step up big-time on weekends like this past one. Props to everyone who served and gave so much this past weekend to make the day great. Leslie and I love you all so much.