Connersvine Concert - May 15

I met with Chris from Connersvine Thursday and I'm SO ready for the concert now. He was a great guy with a heart for ministry first. It was refreshing to talk with him about the band and their thoughts on music and playing. It should be a great night.

If you haven't bought tickets yet, please call the church office to let them know you want them. 317-814-4252 $5 for a professional Christian Concert!! ($7 at the door) This is a bargain for a concert. We want everyone to come. The Crossroad youth band will open from 6:15-6:45PM, and there is food being served from 5:30-6:30PM.

Giving at Church

Tithe? Heard of it? I'm sure you have, it's the principal of giving 10% of your income. It turns out that the biblical principal is to give 10% to your local church ministry (period). In our current age of individualism we have gotten away from the "general" giving and started going to "specific" giving to places or organizations that fit what I WANT to support. No problem there, just don't call it a "tithe" because by definition it is not. Specific giving would be considered "offerings" which are over and above tithe giving. Scripture clearly says that you first support God's work through local ministry. Look at Malachi 3:10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

This is the only commandment that God says that we should test Him in, because God is always faithful. Sounds like a challenge that we should all take, not to test, but to just trust God in.

Low Sunday?

So it's called "Low Sunday"!? Here's my BIG chance to preach for the weekend services and I find out it's called "Low Sunday"!

Looks like God is trying to make me humble from the start. I think He needs to work overtime on my humilty. As some cartoon character in a "Pond" video I saw said, "I'm really good at humble."

Good Friday?

Good? Was it really good? Is it a "good" Friday?

Without Friday, we are still lost. When Jesus died on the cross, He brought death face to face with God, and crushed it! To skip past Good Friday is to miss the power of what happened on Friday. There is no Sunday without Friday. We preach Christ and Him crucified! It was there that the battle was won. Don't pity Jesus. It was why He came, He submitted to the Father's will and died FOR US!

We are not like those who mourn without hope. We know what His death meant for us. And we now know what our death has in store for us. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Is it GOOD Friday? Absolutely!

Spring Break

It's cold here for Spring Break, but I hear that even our Spring Breakers in Florida are wearing winter coats at Disneyland. It's not a sure thing anymore that you can go south for good weather over this break.

It's unfortunate that all the people who leave Carmel for Spring Break miss the best week of the year to be in Carmel. There's no traffic. You can park at church on Sunday. You can find a machine right away at the gym. You can zip right through O'Malia's without a wait. You can drive right through school zones without slowing down. I love Spring Break!

We're Full

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the church is full (at least on Sunday AM during the "late" worship times). You would notice that if you could find a parking space to go inside during the late-service time slot. What a great problem to have, but it is a problem. I don't want to stop at "Wow! Isn't this great, we're full!" I want to move on from there and say, okay what do we do now?

One thing that research shows is that there is no such thing as being stagnant, you are either growing or declining. Are we content saying "We've reached 1300 worshipping on a weekend and we're satisfied"? I haven't found the bible verse yet that says "Go and make disciples till you reach x-number of people, then hunker down into maintenance mode."

It's going to take a church-wide effort to continue to grow the disciples at CLC. Here are some suggestions...

1. Go on Saturday to worship. There are over 100 people on each side (Sanctuary and Worship Center) that worship on Saturdays now. Imagine if those 200+ disciples were on campus for Sunday AM services!!
2. Get up earlier and go to the 8:00 or 8:30AM services. Families seem to have no trouble getting up early on Saturday for any number of child-related activities/sports. What makes Sunday different, especially when you consider the discipleship vs. membership aspect to what we do at Carmel Lutheran Church. Services are basically identical in both venues to what happens in their late-service counterpart.
3. Do either or both of the above suggestions 1 or 2 times a month, mix it up, meet new disciples.
4. If you do happen to attend early services, and then go to bible class, try to leave soon after class to give a parking space to someone just arriving.

If you can't go on a mission trip, or are afraid to talk to your neighbor about Christ, you CAN make a slight adjustment to your schedule to help as we seek to REACH OUT to our community.