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Rock the Revolution was awesome!

Rock the Revolution, the premier event of our newly retooled student ministry, was a smash hit! Nice job Chip, Kristi and everyone else involved in the planning, promoting and execution!!! Check out Chip's review of the event.

PSA to everyone who thinks all Christians are fundamentafreakazoids:

Dear Skeptic,

The "Christians" in this story and this story do not represent typical Christians, and they certainly do not represent Christian orthodoxy or Christ's teachings.

If their deeds and creeds sicken you, know that most Christians agree with you. Avoiding this type of extremism isn't possible by rejecting the tenets of Chistianity, but actually by embracing them more wholly and more accurately.

Don't get me wrong, we Christians have our issues...but picketing funerals and plotting coups are generally not among them.

Just thought you should know!

Jesus in the Face of His Enemies

Yesterday at Calvary guest speaker John Rankin delivered a Palm Sunday message entitled, "Jesus in the Face of His Enemies." It is a message that he crafted over 25 years ago and has delivered numerous times since. However, yesterday it was fresh because he rewrote it in narrative form to examine Jesus' final week on Earth through the lens of an honest Pharisee that John names Baruk.

John did a fantastic job as always combining scholarly analysis and thoughtful reflection. The really bad news is that we cannot post the message via the podcast because we experienced a technical difficulty yesterday and thus the message was not recorded in its entirety.

However, do not fret, there are two things you can do!:

1. Purchase John's new book "Jesus in the Face of His Enemies" which will be released soon (possibly a movie too)
2. Come to Calvary Fellowship on May 2nd when John will conclude our "I Doubt It!" series by leading an open forum in which skeptics can ask any question about God, faith or the Bible.

Calvary Kids Video

Take a tour through Calvary Fellowship's children's ministry (Calvary Kids):

Community Outreach Slideshow

Some of Calvary's finest in action serving the community:

And thanks to Bec, Karen and all the other photographers behind the other side of the lens!

New Cover for "Not Now"

Just saw the newly updated cover for "Not Now" (the book I wrote a chapter for) which Mike Piazza just wrote an endorsement for. Pretty cool; check it out!

Easter is not about us!

(Originally posted on Calvary Fellowship's blog)

OK, of course Jesus rising from the dead is for us. Maybe I should phrase it this way; our Easter service is not for us! Why? Because it is the biggest opportunity that churches have each year to share the hope of Christ with the greatest amount of people. It is by far the day when churches are most highly attended; often by people who are not yet followers of Christ. So churches have a wonderful opportunity and a responsibility to maximize this special day.

I am convinced that in order to maximize this day, those of us that are followers of Christ have to embrace the idea that the Easter service is not about us; it is about our guests. That doesn't mean we cannot enjoy Easter or celebrate Christ's resurrection together, it means that we must be willing to be sacrificial that day (especially at our church service) in order to serve our guests.

This includes a financial sacrifice as money is invested to promote the Easter service and to provide tools (electronic and printed materials) for regular attendees to invite friends and family. It includes the sacrifice of hard work to plan a great service with unpredictable content (you can't keep preaching the same resurrection message every year) that seekers will find interesting and compelling. It includes the sacrifice of prayer as you ask God, to bless all of your efforts and do the part only He can do. And it includes the sacrifice of service from a body of believers who are willing to recognize the need to be servants instead of being served that day.

All of the above can be hard and there may be one or more areas in which individual people and some churches as a whole would rather not sacrifice. But here is where we have to take our attention off ourselves and put it onto Jesus and the guests that he will entrust to our care this Easter. We are praying and planning for 500 people at our Easter service this year. What if they come?!? Will we be ready to care for them? Will they have a supreme or sub-par experience as they hear about the hope of Christ? Will we maximize the opportunity or will we squander it? It all depends on the extent to which we as Christ-followers individually and communally embrace or reject the idea that Easter is not about us.

First post on Calvary Fellowship's new blog!

We've created a new blog where staff and some occasional guests can share some ongoing information and reflections about what's happening at Calvary Fellowship. Click here to read the first post called "Easter is Not About Us!"

The generosity of our community

I shared in my earlier post my thoughts on our community outreach today, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention one other thing...the generosity of our community! One of our projects was to collect needed food items for the food pantry (we got tons of food!) Both Stop & Shop and Waldbaum's were kind enough to allow us to stations teams at their stores, and Waldbaum's was even making announcements over their PA! And the people who were given a list of items the food pantry is requesting were extremely generous. Some came out with one or 2 items, others with a whole bag, and one couple even brought a shopping cart full! So we were able to "instigate" and coordinate on this one, but our community deserves much credit for partnering together to generously help out their neighbors who are going through some challenging times.

Volunteer Appreciation & Community Outreach

Normally on Sunday afternoons, I write a quick synopsis of the weekend message. That's out because we had no church service today, but there are two things that happened this weekend that I am pumped about!

On Friday night, we had our volunteer appreciation night. It was an opportunity to appreciate and celebrate the amazing people that serve at Calvary. We had dinner together and then we played a hilarious game of Calvary Jeopardy. Alex Trebek has nothing on Nicholas! At the end of the night, I was very moved when it came time to share a few thoughts with everyone. The facility we had the dinner in was the same place our church started in a few years ago. I was blown away as I considered that there were more people that serve in the room that night than we ever had in attendance while me met there. And then I considered not just the quantity of people that God sent, but also the caliber, and I was overwhelmed! I love the people at Calvary! And the truth is, Calvary Fellowship would be nothing without them.

This morning we had our community outreach day as teams of people descended on the community doing a variety of service projects. People were collecting groceries for the town food pantry, doing projects and spending time with residents in a nursing home, cleaning the grounds at a middle school, packing care packages for soldiers and more. It is exciting to know that in our own small way, we were able to make a difference today!

We also experienced an interesting dynamic. As we broke the huddle of our church community today and served the community we're in, it actually built up our own church community. A lot of people formed and developed relationships with people that they might not have had the chance to interact with otherwise. As a participant, I was thrilled to be a part of this event. As a pastor, I am so proud of everyone in our church for the selfless service. (God, thank you for the paradise-like weather we got to serve in!)

I am so glad that we mixed it up this weekend and did a few things out of the normal routine. At the same time, I can't wait to gather as a church next week to celebrate Palm Sunday together!