Summer Crazy!

I am back in town from vacation. We are hitting the ground at full speed with MEGA Sports Camp this week and leaving for Youth Camp at Lake of the Ozarks on Sunday afternoon. So, I will be gone next week Sunday night through Wednesday afternoon.

There is no Wednesday night church this week due to Sports Camp.

I will also be gone Monday and Tuesday, June 27 and 28.

We are preparing for Kids Camp in July and already have a great group bout would love to take more students. Catch Pastor John for more info.

Lastly, we are starting to prepare for the Fair Parade, July 31st! If you want to walk with the float please contact me. You will need to be able to walk three miles in the heat, but it is a TON of FUN!

Grim Reminder

Yesterday was a grim reminder of how painful our world can be. I used up all my cell phone battery by 4:45 p.m. due to the huge number of calls and responses that needed to be made. So many people with so many hurts. Even in the family of God, in God's church, there is much healing needed. God loves his people and will never forsake them. Even people who love Jesus with all their heart have times of deep pain. God created our world to be a place of perfect peace for his people to live in relationship with him. But sin has destroyed that peace. God is redeeming that peace and he is redeeming you and me.

Perhaps you, your children, your family, your work, your life, has been injured by other peoples' sin. Often we injure ourselves and must face the consequences and pain that occurs on the way to healing. It is amazing how fragile the human spirit is, how fragile the mind can be. We love stories of people who overcame great odds to beat an impossible situation, but more often I personally hear the stories of wounds from life's trouble that seem to never heal. The truth of these stories that make the news, is that many hurts remain and questions are unanswered once the cameras and lights move on to the next sensation.

As I think about these things, I am reminded that Jesus took up our iniquity (guilt), our infirmities (sickness), our transgressions (wrongs against God and others), and HE CARRIED OUR SORROWS!

I can't imagine the weight Jesus carried on the cross. I can't imagine all the types of prayers he must hear every day. Yesterday was a grim reminder that our world needs Jesus more than ever!

At 5:00, with my cell phone dead, I went to run on the river front trail. It was a great time of prayer! I took all these needs to the Lord. For an hour I ran and focused on God. As I ran the Lord rearranged some of my own feelings of despair. As I prayed the Lord reminded me that I would be preaching this Sunday on the "Be Attitudes" and "Blessed are they that mourn, for they will be comforted." Now I am trustintg that God will move and that many of the stories that I encountered yesterday will have a different ending than expected, an ending written by the power of the Holy Spirit in God's people and the love of Jesus, the redeemer of mankind.

Pray for Leaders

Tonight is our board meeting. The board will be taking care of some great business tonight. So, please keep the board in prayer. Please keep praying for your church. We want God's house to be a place of salvation, deliverance and healing.

While you are praying for leadership, don't forget the instruction of the Scriptures to pray for kings, leader, rulers and those in authority. Please keep our President and our leaders in prayer.

A Fire!

Today I read the passage in Jeremiah where he describes the urgency in sharing God's word as a "Fire shut up in my bones." He goes on to say, "I am weary from holding it in."

Can you imagine how many people would hear a testimony or receive a conversation about Jesus Christ if just a hundred people from First Assembly had this urgency to share God's Word!

Jeremiah's response to persecution was, "I can stop telling!"

Business Meeting

Last night was our business meeting.


1. We presented two nominees for Elder, Jonas Temple and Mark Knickmeyer. Mark was selected to serve. What a great pair of people to choose from! We actually had a tie on the first ballot! The church broke into laughter. It was great.

2. We voted to put our building up for sale.

3. We voted to give the Elders authority to create a building committee and put offers on other property and present them for approval by the congregation once the negotiating process is completed.

I have already begun some of the work pertaingin to these decisions. The board will be working on some of the other items later this week.

Please keep your leadership in prayer! We must continue to pray about the decisions our church makes in the growing process.

Reading

I just finished the book, "The Real Estate Gift" by Jim Wootton. I am now reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is not a religious book. I just received it as a gift from John McHaffiee. I read "Outliers" this winter and so I was interested in another Gladwell book.

If you want to read the Bible in 90 days, another group is forming at church. They will read the Bible in 90 days starting on June one. Call or talk to Brent Nissen for more info. I can get you a reading schedule!

Keep learning.

Sad News

We have some sad news. The oldest member of our church, Ursula Wallmeier, passed away Sunday night late. Services will be Friday at 10:00 a.m. at church. Visitation is Thursday from 4 to 8 p.m. at Nieburg and Vitt Funeral Home.

Ursula has an amazing testimony. She was a young woman in Nazi Germany. Her first husband died in the siege of Stalingrad. After the war she married again and lived in East Germany. She and her husband escaped shortly after Joseph Stalin died. They were sponsored by a family in Washington, Missouri and made their home here. She had four children.

Ursula was saved in the early 1980's. While walking down 8th street, she fell and cut her knee. At the time our little church was not air conditioned so the windows were open on that hot Sunday evening. She heard singing from the building and came in to get some care for her knee. The ladies tended to her and she sat down for the preaching and was saved that very night. Her commitment to God has been extremely strong ever since. Just before her husband Heinz died, Pastor David Snodderly led him to Christ.

Each Christmas for many years, we have made a family trip to visit Ursula at Christmas time. We always took her Springerle Cookies. I always had her quote the 23rd Psalm or the Lord's Prayer to my kids in German on those visits. I want them to remember this lady. She may be their link to understanding that the horrors of the middle 20th century were not fictitious. She also loved the Lord and that is worth remembering!

Weekend Rewind

Sunday was a great day for church. We celebrated communion and had two great times of worship. A lady who has not visited our church in a long time came to second service and was saved. She was greatly emotionally moved. It was also great to have some new visitors Sunday.

The rough part was that my throat was killing me Sunday and my wife Stephanie had to leave early with Benjamin who started running a high fever in the 10:15 service.

The Journey

I want to give you an update on our capital campaign, The Journey.

We have received just under $283,000 in pledges for the campaign. We have received $74,788 of those pledges so far. In the next few weeks I will give you more info on who money is coming in from the pledges.

If you did not make a pledge or give in the First Fruits Offering I am going to ask that you consider doing so in the next two weeks. I will have pledge cards at church on Sunday mornings and you will be able to give to the capital campaign using our offering envelopes.

Finally, I want to make sure that everyone knows that we have changed our offering envelopes to include the capital campaign. To give to the campaign simply designate your offering on the front of the offering envelope.

Easter Rewind

This Easter was a record day for our church and a great morning in the presence of the Lord!

We had our first three service Sunday! I love preaching three times. A lady was saved in the 10:15 a.m. service and what a beautiful experience it was!

Our attendance was a record, 245. Attendance the last four weeks has been record setting each week actually. Each week has been a new record.

Along with these number records I am very happy to say that God is working in people's lives. I am trying to organize some of the testimonies from the last few weeks so that people will be ready to share their story with you. Numbers are often deceiving, unless there are individual stories of what God is doing in people's lives.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the Sunrise Service. I was so glad to see so many friends who attended. I think I like having an Easter Sunrise Service. I have not been to one since I was a child in the Lutheran Church.

Blogger Probelm

I am sorry that the previous post is all one paragraph. Blogger is doing something very weird. I have tried to fix this since yesterday afternoon and can find no remedy. Sorry for the crammed blog entry.

Celebration Sunday Report

Celebration Sunday was really spectacular! Here is a run down of some of the offering and pledge totals for The Journey Capital Campaign. Total Pledged: $282,460.00 Total in the First Fruits Offering: $74,708.15 I went over to the church this morning only to find that someone who could not be at Celebration Sunday today had sent a check to me in the mail. It was for the building fund. It was $51,500.00! I knew that was a good start for celebration Sunday. It was only a check, no pledge was enclosed. When I announced the First Fruits offering, it included that gift. When I announced the pledges, it did not include that gift because it was not in the form of a pledge. However, considering it as a one time gift and the completion of a three year pledge up front the above numbers are correct. We had an absolutely amazing morning. Here are some of the great highlights. 1. So many people helped to make this an amazing day! Mark Knickmeyer and Tim Willard had perhaps the most time consuming and stressful jobs of the campaign with huge amounts of organization accomplished. 2. So many others helped I don't know where to start. Many people almost 20 gave an entire day of work to this project this week. 3. I am absolutely proud of The Stand Youth. First, they beat the $1,000 goal I set for them. zThey raised $1,000 in one month. Second, when worship started, over 30 youth hit the front of the room, lifted their hands and began to worship God. What an amazing experience. 4. It was amazing to see our entire church at one time! Today was a new all time record attendance of more than 220. 5. Two young ladies responded to the opportunity to be saved. One of the young ladies has responded before. The other, who was younger, was responding for the first time in an adult service. Her mother had never seen her accept Christ in a public way. We have now seen 22 people saved on Sunday mornings in 2011. 6. The enthusiasm of our church is a huge blessing to me. I am thrilled to be a part of what God is doing for us. From young people to older people, there is a real excitement in all of our hearts.

Runners

We have had a recent visitor who was training for the Go St. Louis marathon. Running through town this person kept running past "Nothing's Too Hard For God" signs. The theme of the signs kept them going in their training. Then, they decided to come to church. Pretty cool. Thanks to all who put out one of our yard signs. We are actually growing in the number of runners in our church. We actually have a good size group that could start meeting to train for a marathon together. We could pick a race in the fall and all have fun running together. With a group, we could do some very creative runs too. Talk to me if you want to get started.

RSVP

We need you to RSVP for Celebration Sunday! RSVP cards are at church and will be in the bulletin on Sunday again. Worst case, call the office! All RSVP cards must be received by Sunday morning. We have to give the caterer our count on Monday morning, April 11th.

RSVP This Week

We need all our responses for Celebration Sunday in by this Sunday morning! RSVP cards will be in the bulletin again. Please come to Celebration Sunday even if you have only been a visitor to our church. This is a weekly church service for us and we want to you attend and be in God's presence! Invite friends and RSVP for them too! Invite a friend to church on the day that we will feed them lunch. We are over 170 at this time, but have plenty of space for a whole lot more!