Easter Weekend

I woke up at 5:00 am this morning with great excitement and anticipation.  I know, that sentence doesn’t sound right to alot of us.  However, i cant’ wait to see what God does at Palm Valley Church this weekend!

I know so many of you have been praying, preparing, inviting others, and are ready to serve this weekend, and it’s going to be awesome. It’s not too late to invite others. I encourage you to pray and ask God is there are neighbors, friends, relatives, anyone around you who doesn’t know Jesus, and invite them to join you this weekend.

By the way, i’ve run into so many Palm Valley’ers who are coming to Saturday night or Sunday 8:00 am to help make room…Thanks so much for your heart!!  I’m always saying, “the people of Palm Valley Church are always willing to do whatever is needed to reach people for Christ and grow them up in their faith.”  Thanks for loving the Lord, and loving people.

See you this weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord!

Date Night Tonight

If you’ve been around Palm Valley a while, you know i’m a huge proponent of dating your spouse.  Lori and I do date night every week, and nothing gets in the way.  I laugh that everyone knows Thursday night is “date night” for us.  I guess i’ve mentioned it a few times.  Hey, all I know is i love hanging out with my wife, she’s my best friend.

I get asked alot, “what do you do for date night”?  Well, we try to mix it up.  Sometimes we’ll go to dinner and a movie, although we usually don’t have time for a movie.  Other times we’ll go to Barnes & Noble, grab a tea and sit and talk.

Lately, Lori and i have made some changes in our lifestyle.  We’ve really embraced eating healthier and working out.  So, the last few weeks we’ve gone to the gym for date night.  It’s a blast to work out together, and Lori gets awfully competetive on the elliptycal machine

Tonight we went shopping.  We went and got new easter outfits.  Rest assured, no pastels.  However, I guarantee you will be shocked at what i’m wearing this weekend.  Rest assured it’s something you’ve never seen me wear before.  But Lori said I looked “hot”, so i’m going with it!

Whatever we do for date night, we keep it light and fun.  We also try to go where we can be alone.  Guys, i’m challenging you.  If you’re not currently dating your spouse, START NOW. Trust me, it will make a huge difference in your marriage.

What A Day

Today was a loooong day.  Started at 5:00 am with a video shoot.  We shot an intro video for this week’s service.  The shoot went well, with a beautiful sunrise setting.  There were also some great “bloopers”.  I’ll be posting a blooper video here on Monday.  I guarantee you’ll get a good laugh.

Put the finishing touches on this week’s message, i’m really excited to share about forgiveness this weekend.  Make sure and invite everyone you know who doesn’t konw Christ.

I’m so proud of the staff this week.  They’ve worked very hard at preparing everything for Easter weekend.  With four services they’ve had alot of extra prep this week, and the attitude in the office has been great.  I think we’re all just very excited to see what God’s going to do this weekend!

Caring For Volunteers

People who serve are the heart of our church.  They answer the call every week, and give of themselves to reach people for Christ and help them to grow in thier faith.  I want volunteers to know what a difference they make!

In January we launched a new way of caring for our volunteers.  The “Volunteers Ministry” is headed by two incredible ladies, Jillayne Payne and Nancy Mondzak.  These gals are flat out off the hook.  I’ll blog more about them another time, but suffice it to say there’s nobody like Jillayne & Nancy!

In short, the volunteer ministry ensures that every volunteer at Palm Valley is cared by by a volunteer leader, who oversees a team of no more than ten.  These leaders manage schedules, contact volunteers, and care for them and there families as needs arise.  I believe our volunteers are going to enjoy serving in a greater way, and last longer as we help them avoid “burning out”.

If you’re serving at Palm Valley, please know how valuable you are.  We couldn’t do this without you.  If you haven’t gotten plugged in, I encourage you to get off the bench and into the game.

This weekend we’re launching Volunteer Central.  This is a place on campus where all weekend volunteers can come and find their resources, grab a drink and a snack, pray together, and catch a breath.  So, if you’re serving this weekend make sure you stop by and enjoy being pampered at Volunteer Central!

From The Mouths Of Babes…

It’s amazing how kids see us.  The other day, my youngest son Joshua was staying with some friends.  After playing quietly in another room, he walked into the room where the adults were hanging out and loudly proclaimed “my dad doesn’t know anything“!  He then added on “except about food“.

I now know how my 4 year old views me   Oh well, at least my baby Brooke still thinks i’m the man!

Finishing Touches

It gets more fun each day as we approach Easter weekend.  Everyone’s a little more excited, so there’s tons of action around the office.  We spent the day putting finishing touches on the weekend services, i’m pumped about celebrating the resurrection at PVC this weekend!

If you’re coming to Palm Valley this weekend, you’re going to be blown away by the worship service Brian has put together. I believe this weekend is going to be an incredible milestone for each of us, as we move closer to understanding what God means when He labels us “FORGIVEN”.

Please plan to arrive early, as we expect all 4 services to be full.  If possible, attend the Saturday 5:00 pm or Sunday 8:00 am, as the 9:30 & 11:00 will probably be standing room only!

Unsung Heroes — Weekend Prayer Team

One of the things I really want to do on my blog is to shine the spotlight on people who serve faithfully at Palm Valley without recognition.

One of the most faithful teams we have is our weekend prayer team.  These folks arrive an hour before services each weekend to pray for everything that’s going to happen on our campus.  They meet together and simply take our church before the Lord in prayer.

They pray for the parking team, greeters, safety team, worship hosts, worship team, children’s team, youth volunteers, refreshments, Celebrate Recovery, and me.

I love these folks, they’re faithful.  They don’t get any glory, most people don’t even know they’re around, yet they are vital to our church. So thanks to the prayer team, PLEASE keep praying, we need you!

If you’re a prayer warrior, I encourage you to hook-up with this team, you can email Pastor Mark for more info.

Easter’s Coming

I’m so pumped about Easter services this weekend!  The staff and I have been fine tuning the worship service, the message, and other odds and ends.  I believe God’s going to do something great this weekend at Palm Valley. 

Here’s some great ways you can help reach people for Christ this weekend…

1. Pray, pray, pray — for people who don’t know Christ who will be coming, for the worship team as they lead, and for me as I teach.
2. Invite, invite, invite — invite people. You can use the invite cards, doorhangers and mailers.  You can also send an e-invitation from here.
3. Attend either the Saturday 5:00 pm or Sunday 8:00 am service.  This will free up seats for the 9:30 and 11:00 am services.
4. Greet everyone you see.  I think it’d be cool if we all did this every week, so why not start this weekend.

I can’t wait to celebrate the resurrection with you this weekend!

Thoughts From The Weekend…

This was an incredible weekend for me, both personally and as a pastor.

On the personal side…I took the weekend as a study break as Lori and I got away for a few days.  It was great for me to be able to spend time alone with the Lord, read Scripture, listen to other teachers, and prepare my heart and mind for our Easter series on forgiveness.  It reminded me again how thankful I am for the forgiveness we have through Christ.  I’ve learned it’s critical for me to take a few weekends a year as a study break.  For the first 3 years of the church, I never missed a weekend.  I nearly burned out, and I think my teaching got pretty tired.  I think our church benefits from me being away.

It was also awesome to be away with my best friend Lori.  Every time we get some alone time I’m reminded just how lucky I am to be married to her.  She’s also one of my best sounding boards for message ideas, so I love having her around to tell me when I’m way off base

On the pastoral side…this was a great weekend for our church.  A number of incredible things happened…

1. We multiplied our kids classes and hallways.  We added 50% more kids space this weekend.  It was a crazy idea we felt led to do, based on our conviction that every time we make space, God brings more people to fill it.  I think so many churches approach growth from the other side…when God fills our space, we’ll find a way to make more.  Anyways, thanks to all the leaders and volunteers who made it happen this weekend.  You guys and gals put in a ton of work, and went way above the call.  The result was awesome, as our childrens attendance (birth through 5th grade) was 603 this weekend, an all time record at Palm Valley.  Teachers were already asking “when are we going to multiply again?” 
2. Ryan taught this weekend, and I heard he did a great job.  I can’t wait to watch the tape.  He wrapped up the series on the life of Christ with a talk titled “Love Wins”.  Ryan’s grown so much as a communicator.  It was wonderful for me to know that when I’m gone the teaching level stays consistent (many say it gets better).  I love that we do ministry as a team, and that means it doesn’t all revolve around me.
3. The church picnic was awesome!  I received so many emails thanking me for the picnic.  Funny thing is, I wasn’t even there.  Dave and his team made this thing happen.  Thanks to the hundreds of volunteers who set-up, served, monitored games, set out 15,000 eggs, cleaned up, and did everything else it took. One thing we know how to do at Palm Valley is throw a party!

 

Welcome…

Welcome to my blog.  After nearly a year of toying with the idea, I’ve finally jumped in.

The purpose of this blog is for me to communicate with the Palm Valley Church family.  I will be writing about things that are happening at PVC, people who are making an impact in our community, stuff we talked about during weekend services, and other fun stuff.  I believe this is going to be a great way for me to share my heart with our growing church body.
 
So stay tuned, as I’ll be posting on a regular basis…