Archive for December, 2008
Dec
27
Posted under
Interesting Stuff Thought I’d post some links to some funny stuff over at stufffchristianslike.blogspot.com. Hope you enjoy.
Remix #53 – Saying “I’ll pray for you” and then not
I liked this one because I taught at a Christian High School for a few years a while back.
#391 – The Holy Sounding Mascot Game
#385 – Always sitting in the same seat at church
#369 – The magical things that happen on stage when you close your eyes to pray
This one’s pretty good.
#356 – The 7 Types Of Christian Camp Counselors
Now this one is hilarious.
#345 – Hand Raising Worship – The 10 Styles
Funny, funny, funny.
#295 – Singing the 1st and 3rd verses of hymns
Good stuff
#323 – Trying to look cool at church
#336 – Praying with our hands on people
Thought some of you pastor friends might like this one.
#325 – The superhero guide to famous pastors
Part 2 – The Superhero Guide to Famous Pastors
Thanks you say? Well…you’re welcome!
You can read all of his posts you want, but these were some of my recent favorites. I’ll post again sometime with a few of my older favorites.
Dec
23
Posted under
Church Here are some pictures that Jamie got at our recent Home Groups Christmas Gathering. Len and Sylvia always do such a tremendous job hosting an incredible party…East Sider’s just exude such an amazing joy! I also want to give a shout out to everyone who plugged into our first year of Home Groups…thanks for investing your time to help build a system for healthy spiritual and numerical growth at East Side. 2009 is going to be even more awesome!
Dec
22
Posted under
Church Thought I’d post some of the pictures Jamie got at our annual Adult Christmas Dinner. What a blast hanging out with such a great family! Bob certainly stole the show with his Willie Nelson impersonation and performance. Thanks Debby and everyone else who had a hand in putting together such a wonderful night.
Dec
09
Posted under
Church,
Family,
Leadership I got the Olson family off to the Portland airport yesterday. We had a great time hanging out with Phil, Heather, Grace, and Anna all week. They stayed with our family…so we had many great discussions and the kids had a super time playing together. We are so excited for their family to move back here in January and work with our church on staff in the areas of discipleship and outreach. Pray for them as they spend time in the Chicago area for the Christmas season before coming back out. I know they are going to bring a great mix to East Side’s leadership and future…particularly with the depth and passion of their faith.
Phil and I met six years ago while teaching together at Lifegate Christian School. He was fresh back from the mission field of Mexico and was in the States for the year to get married (he and Heather met on the field in Mexico) and prepare for moving to South America. While hanging out that year with us at East Side we were able to develop a great friendship together. They then spent the last five years serving as missionaries to Ecuador. In his (their) new role at East Side they will help us become even more effective in the areas of discipleship (a large part of their ministry in Ecuador) as well as outreach (specifically Hispanic outreach as he is pretty good in his Spanish and has a passion for those cultures).
Here’s a few quick pics…for more check out Jamie’s blog as she did an incredible job with a photoshoot for them.
Dec
09
Posted under
Church,
Travel I had the wonderful opportunity to serve as the President of the 2008 Northwest Baptist Convention Pastor/Layman Conference in Portland last month. East Side’s worship team led during both the afternoon and evening sessions and they did an awesome job! I so appreciated their hard work leading up to the conference and their great presence that they brought to the environment. I thought I’d post some video that Dan got of them leading one particular song. We had a great time of fellowship and worship and I am so proud of our East Side team. I heard an amazing amount of feedback from attendees about how much they were impacted by what our team “brought to the table.” So, I give a shout out to Wayne (he’s in the back…you just can’t see him), Dan, Len, Rob, Bill (he’s in the mix too…can’t see him either), Jamie, Estella, Gena, Katie, Opal, Barb, and of course Liz who did a great job helping out with running the computer off camera. Thank you guys!
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I themed the conference SHINE because that’s what the people of the Northwest need, the churches of Jesus Christ to SHINE brightly as we hold out the word of life.
Dec
08
Posted under
Church We had a great day at East Side this morning. Our Hanging of the Green services were awesome and we had a big turnout…haven’t figured the exact number yet…but it was in the 220-230 range. That’s good…every year our attendance for these services has been increasing by about 20-30 people…I think last year we had right around 200. I just wanted to say what an awesome job the Choir, Praise Team, TeamKids, Busy Bees, Team Twisters, Wayne, Greg, Andrew, Jamie, and everyone else who played a part did! Thank you guys for all of your hard work!
I’m loving studying the Book of Ruth and I hope God is using it to stir your devotional life. It was awesome doing some study on and talking about our Goel (kinsman-redeemer) Jesus Christ and God’s Hesed (lovingkindness)…two great Hebrew words. 2:20 is definitely a verse full of some rich imagery…”the Gospel in a nutshell in the Old Testament”.
And read ahead again…preaching verse by verse through chapter 3 should be fun/interesting this next Sunday!
Dec
05
Posted under
Church This post on our recent Celebration Sunday from November 16th is a little late in coming as well…but I thought you might enjoy some pictures. We celebrated all that God had done through “The NEXT Level” Campaign at East Side, specifically remembering that God “Guides, Gives, Grows, and Goes” as well as announcing the more than $325,000 that was pledged to the Campaign in Faith Commitments. We stacked bricks in a special announcement time after 2nd service with each brick representing $10,000 committed to the expansion of our ministries and facilities. It was a pretty awesome time! Enjoy the pictures.
Dec
05
Posted under
Church Thought you might enjoy the video of the Advance Commitments Announcement at the Vision Banquet on November 2nd for “The NEXT Level” Capital Campaign.
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Dec
04
Posted under
Church Of course…this post is a little late, but I thought you all might enjoy some pictures from our Capital Campaign Vision Banquet and 50th Anniversary Celebration which was held at Lane Community College on November 2nd. It was a time to “honor the past, celebrate the present, and imagine the future.” On this incredible night we ended by sharing with the 152 East Sider’s in attendance that the leaders of the church had already made 36 Advance Faith Commitments totaling more than $224,000 to be given over the next three years toward “The NEXT Level” Campaign! It was an exciting moment to be sure.
