Farewell to Reel to Real . . . for now!

Well, we closed out our series, "Reel to Real" yesterday. The movie was "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer." The main idea of the message was that everybody needs a Fantastic Four in their life - everybody needs to be a part of a Small Group. The message came at just the right time as we are promoting our next series, "Just Walk Across the Room." It will be a four week church wide campaign, beginning August 12th on Sunday mornings, and then everyone coming to the church for four consecutive Wednesday nights, beginning August 15th, for a DVD teaching in a large group setting and then breaking up into smaller groups for discussion and application. It will be a great way to get new people into small groups and launch new groups for the Fall. It's also all about listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit to reach out with the love of Christ to the world around you. I can't think of a better series to close out the Summer and get us ready for the Fall.

But back to Sunday. Our attendance was back up a bit. Not only are we having visitors, but return visitors. Coastal, remember to park on the Fellowship Hall side of our campus and then sit toward the front of the auditorium and move in - up and in. This helps our guests, your friends, have a better experience when they come to Coastal. And as always, welcome those who are new and go the extra mile to make them feel comfortable. Last week, the Claude's seemed to connect with one of our guests, and invited them out to lunch after church! In other words, just like I said yesterday, when someone comes to Coastal, it's a team effort. When someone decides to make Coastal home, it's a team effort. When someone comes back home to God, it's a team effort. And when someone gives their life to Jesus Christ - it's a team effort!

We also gave away more stuff at the end of the service and I think we had a greater percentage of cards filled out than ever before. Now, I'm not stupid - I realize it was because we were giving away the Captain Jack Sparrow cut out, the Spidey cut out, and all the posters (next week we're giving away a car - my 91 Toyota Corolla that finally bit the dust for good last week). But what was cool yesterday was all the positive comments about this series. We even had one young child write, "I love our church." We also had a new family commit to the August 15th small groups at the church and others commit to baptism this Saturday! Way to go Coastal! Again, great team effort!

So, this series will definitely become a Summer tradition here at Coastal. But what this series has done for me personally is to remind me to be a better student of culture - again, not to imitate culture, condemn it, or to embrace it, but to engage the culture. I want to be like Paul in Acts 17:16-34. His heart was "deeply troubled" by what he saw, but he used their practices to point them to Jesus. He engaged the culture. Pastors are trained to exegete Scripture, but to rightly communicate it, I need to exegete the culture in which we live. I find myself looking at things just a little bit differently now. When I read, watch, or listen to something I wonder what does this say about our world? What is the trend here? What is the underlying need? How can I use this to point people to Jesus? Invite and bring someone to our baptism at the beach this Saturday, 5PM at Folly Beach County Park! This Sunday, our Missions Team will be reporting on their trip to Jamaica. It's going to be a great weekend! I can't wait!