We take a break from the steady stream of Mia photos to give you a glimpse of the bumper we are using for our new series called “Encounter: A Meeting with God”. Our new video dude, Omar brought his Emmy award winning skills (he’s won 4 of them actually) to the party and gave us this great piece. I loved it. I thank God for the incredibly talented he’s brought to CF to use their gifts for God’s glory. Enjoy!

Starting this weekend…

I had a great meeting with John our other teaching Pastor, and we finalized our preaching calendar for the first 1/2 of 2007. It’s great feeling to know where you’re going. I usually work ahead, but I was challenged to put together a calendar and I’m do glad I did. I’ve been praying and thinking about this for the last couple of months, so it’s nice to see it all on paper. I see a nice mix of topical and exposition. I’m looking forward to our January series that will cover a couple of minor prophets (Does anyone else have … Read More

This link from the Catalyst blog really got me thinking today about how we as Pastors should teach. The number of movies with morally uplifting content have become the more popular films over the last seven years and are increasing in popularity with each passing year. What does this tell me? It tells me that people need hope. People need to be uplifted. People need reality, but to know that there’s a solution to the problem. I hear too many messages (and unfortunately taught too many) that just make people feel like crap. There’s something to that whole “Speak the … Read More

We continued our Spotlight series this morning and evening and I used 4 Bibles as a prop to talk about my own spiritual journey. I brought the 4 Bibles that I have used over the last 13 years. The KJV Hebrew-Greek Study Bible – My brother gave me this right after I prayed to ask Jesus into my life. I hadn’t opened it in years but I found a flyer that had some course selections for the Bible College I ended up attending and later running. NKJV personal Study Bible – The Bible I used all throughout Bible College. It … Read More

(Attention: long post ahead) My buddy Chuck Land asked me to put together a blow-by-blow explanation of how we put together a series at Calvary Fellowship. I’ve never actually wrote this down, so this might be more helpful to me than anyone else… #1 – I start with questions – What scripture text do I feel led to teach? What does the church need to hear? What are we going through right now as a church? These are all questions I ask myself in deciding what to teach. #2 – I find the text – For Colossians, I looked at … Read More

We just finished our “Colors” series this morning, which focused on stewardship principles. I was amazed by the response that the series got. The main idea was that colors are always communicating something. So we focused on 4 colors that say something about us as managers of God’s resources: Week 1 – Pink – Ownership Week 2 – Black – Tithing Week 3 – Red – Debt Week 4 – Yellow – fear I started thinking about what has changed over the last 6 years in my presentation of a tough subject to teach on. A couple of thoughts… #1 … Read More

Since we had full power back today, we continued our series on stewardship that we’re calling, “Colors” and I talked about being in the black. The thrust of the message was that when we tithe, God gets involved in our finances and takes responsibility for providing for us. Anyway, I taught from Matthew 6:24-34, but I referenced Haggai 1:2-7. When I went to read it however, it didn’t sound right. Here’s what I read, “Bring charges against your mother, bring charges; for she is not My wife, nor am I her Husband! Let her put away her harlotries from her … Read More

Christine, our Children’s Ministry director, forwarded me an article about how 3 different generations learn. It’s the question that colleges are asking themselves and it’s a good question that those of us who communicate should be asking ourselves as well. You can find it here.