Tuesday, March 23, 2004

3:56 PM Doreen Mahlstedt informs me that we just sent the following shipment of An Anchor for the Soul books: Georgia State Prison, Reidsville 1200 copies Mission New York City 400 copies Andrea Shelton, Atlanta 50 copies Andrea will mail her copies to prison-related ministries. The copies for Mission New York are part of our ongoing post-9/11 ministry. Special thanks to Jeff and Claudia Eaton for spearheading this outreach. 3:49 PM Have you been told that some people are “born homosexual” and can never change? Focus on the Family is promoting the truth that homosexuality is preventable and treatable – a message routinely silenced today. They are sponsoring a series of one-day Love Won Out conferences on understanding and preventing homosexuality. Highly recommended for anyone interested in ministering to those trapped in a homosexual lifestyle. Focus also sponsors the Pure Intimacy website for those struggling with online sexual temptation. The site received more than 366,000 visits in 2003. 3:42 AM We started our new service schedule on Sunday—and as Pastor Andrew reported below, the results exceeded our expectations. The Upper Room Service came off without a hitch—although as John Robson said, “We gave God plenty of chances to work a few miracles for us.” For those who interested in such things, here is the attendance breakdown for the four services: 8:30 AM Traditional (Sanctuary) —325 10 AM Contemporary (Sanctuary) — 399 10 AM Upper Room Service (Gym) — 241 11:30 AM Contemporary (Sanctuary)— 324 These numbers show a fairly even distribution. The Upper Room can only hold 250 so we were basically at capacity on the first Sunday. Note also that these numbers do not include children from birth through kindergarten. 3:34 PM This was nice: When I came to my office this morning, I found a glass jar with a note saying that during the 11:30 AM worship hour on Sunday, our children wrote notes to say Thank You to their pastor. Inside the jar were the notes—written on brightly color paper. Here are a few of them: “Amy Hopp thanks you for teaching me about God.” “May Jane thanks you for serving God.” “Jeremy thanks you for teaching us about Jesus and the Cross.” One card showed two stick figures side by side with the words, “I love you,” carefully printed next to the two figure. Reading the notes put a smile on my face. I can’t imagine a better way to start the day.