Sunday Mind Dump - July 11, 2010

• Church was good today. Attendance was 449 – pretty good for the dead of summer.
  
  
• Preached from Romans 12:1-2 on the topic of surrender. The message title was “A Living Sacrifice & the Heart of Worship.” We learned from this text what God expects from us. After saving our soul He begins His work of sanctification – working from the inside out – and expects that we surrender our Body to Him, our Mind, and our Will. This is all-encompassing and is what a surrendered life looks like.
  
  
• After the message someone told me that they really enjoyed the illustration of surrender – i.e., That everyone surrenders to someone or something. If we don’t surrender to God, we’ll surrender to the opinions or expectations of other people, money, lust, pride, ego, etc.
  
  
• Another couple told me they really liked the thought of dethroning yourself and putting Jesus on the throne of your life.
  
  
• Several people picked up CDs of the message and told me they were going to give them to friends or family members who needed that Word.
  
  
• I just got home from a workers meeting where we talked about security issues related to the Sunday morning services. It was very productive and I especially liked seeing the high level of interest being demonstrated by everyone. This is very encouraging to me. We’ve got some good people at PCC.
  
  
• We are taking a three-pronged approach to security: (1) The Children’s Environment (2) A Background Check for all children’s workers (3) and All-Building Security.
  
  
• Here’s how it fleshes out: (1) The children’s ministry environment is now a totally secure area with new check-in & check-out procedures – Ann Lewis is the team leader. (2) All children’s workers are filling out applications and must pass a background check – Gene Tharp is responsible for this process (3) We are implementing an Emergency Response Plan in the event of a medical emergency, a combative person, fire, bad weather, etc – Wayne Orr is the team leader.
  
  
• A lot of summer colds are going around right now.
  
  
• Today was a good day at PCC for me.
  
  
• I’m not only thankful for the friends God has placed in my life, I’m also thankful for the mentors I have learned from.
  
  
• I am specifically praying for three things regarding PCC. I can’t say what they are right now; they have to remain unspoken for now. But I would like to ask you to join me in prayer. God knows what it is.
  
  
• PCC could not exist if it were not for all the key people who make it happen.
  
  
• More and more every day I am learning the importance of honoring the boundaries that I have established in my life. They do me no good if I don’t observe and enforce them.
  
  
• I hope to take a 1-or-2 week vacation in August. That’s anniversary month for Renae and I.
  
  
• I’m thinking about getting around to doing something that I have considered doing for more than a decade: a once-a-month leadership training and development event. It might be called Leadership Summit, or S.A.L.T (Strategic Advanced Leadership Training), or C.O.R.E, or Leadership Advance. This is how it would work: once a month on a Sunday evening we would gather for an hour or two of intense teaching on the importance of spiritual leadership. It would include testimonies and reports from the field and ministry departments at PCC. There would be vision-casting by the pastor, skill-development and leadership training. Also included would be teaching on the Biblical requirement for elders and church leaders, as well as the commissioning of new lay ministers. The benefit for you personally would be enormous, and it would be very good for our church too because we would raising up new leaders for PCC.
  
  
• Would you be interested in something like this? Let me know. Leave a comment.
  
  
• I’m excited about the potential of PCC. I don’t know what to expect, but I do know that God is doing some awesome things right now and it’s only going to get better.
  
  
• My mind is racing like wild about all the things I want to blog about.
  
  
• We need to make some changes in the SCHEDULING of all our VOLUNTEERS who serve on our ministry teams. There are at least ELEVEN ministry teams in our church that are dependent upon volunteers to serve in the rotation. More than ¾ of these teams CHANGE workers EVERY SINGLE WEEK. This is killing us. It is a nightmare for the department head (or team leader) trying keep warm bodies plugged-in every week, and it also creates a lack of consistency (even instability) in the ministry teams. Very often they feel “wobbly.” In response, we are going to be moving all of our ministry teams towards a MONTH-LONG rotation instead. With this kind of consistency our performance would go up exponentially. This CAN be done. Four Sundays in a row is not too much to ask. And given the fact that we offer two services each Sunday, it means that no one would EVER have to miss church.
  
  
• Our motto: ATTEND ONE and SERVE ONE.
  
  
• I’m also thinking about restarting something we used to do, but stopped about three years ago. It was called NEWCOMERS COFFEE (or sometimes called “Pastors Chat”). This was a once-a-month informal coffee in my home for all guests and newcomers who had visited PCC in the last month. The first 25 to sign up would be invited to my home on a Sunday night It was always a lot of fun and highly successful for us. But we had to stop it when the event got too big – my home simply could not accommodate the crowds. I’ve been rethinking this and thought we might could host the event in the atrium on Sunday night.
  
  
• What do you think? Would it be helpful? Let me know. Leave me a comment.
  
  
• Ron & Carole Bryant are doing an excellent job with our hospitality services on Sunday morning. Be sure to tell them so.
  
  
• I enjoyed the song service today. The last song we did (You Are God) is a song we used on our very first Sunday in 1998.
  
  
• Going to get up early tomorrow morning and run 3.5 miles.
  
  
• After the two-week painting project our house is slowly going back together. Next Saturday we are having a major garage sale.
  
  
• As excited as I am about PCC, I am really excited about the fajitas I’m fixing to eat.