Hold on to your fork!

06/23/08 10:01 PM
fork
Wow - it's been quite a wild and crazy week since my last post. I left for Senior Week of Camp last Sunday (Father's Day) and spent the week with 142 students (a record at Camp Edisto). It was a great week. Several students gave their lives to Jesus and many rededicated their lives to Him. Camp is a great place to make new friends and see old ones. It keeps me young. The weather was surprisingly bearable as well. One major change at Camp Edisto - no Churn! It was destroyed along with City Hall, Ott's Grocery Store and several other buildings by a tornado this year. The Churn is a local restaurant (ice cream, shakes, burgers, fries, and anything fried) in Branchville. It's more of an icon than anything else. We've been going there for milk shakes during and on the way home from Camp since I was 13. The Subway and China Fun (yes Branchville does have a Chinese Restaurant - scary) just doesn't cut it.

When I got home on Friday, I hit the ground running. I borrowed a trailer from my good friend C.W. and went and picked up a new playground for our church from Sam's Club. On Saturday, Delma, Matt, and Otis spent about 5 hours putting the new playground together. They probably have another 5 or so to go this weekend. It's going to be awesome (but no where near as awesome as the friend who donated the money for the playground and men who donated their time to put it up)! Later that day I had a wedding at Kiawah and still had a few things to get ready for Sunday.

I know what you're thinking, "Chris, you didn't have to preach, what did you have to do?" Well, Sunday's for me is a lot more than having to preach. That being said, I've really enjoyed the preaching break. I needed it. And on top of that, it came at a great time with me at camp. I have never not preached at our church for two or more weeks in a row in the history of our church - 18 years. And the messages have been phenomenal. It's been great exposing our church to other great preachers and ministries around the country during this series.

I have the gift of faith. I have always been a "the best is yet to come" type of Pastor. But you know what? I truly believe that! We are on the verge of something big here at Coastal. It's so real to me I can almost reach out and touch it. First of all, there is something to be said for faithfulness and perseverance and keeping your eyes on Jesus and His vision for our church in the midst of pain and difficulty. But more than that, a lot of little things have been happening that I believe are simply preparing the ground for a great harvest. As Perry Noble said on Sunday, "Hold on to your fork!"

Pray, build relationships, live the life of Christ in your world, and invite like never before. We are going to fill the two services we have and be forced to add a third. Our Student Ministry is getting ready to grow in ways never seen before at Coastal. Our Praise & Worship on Sunday mornings is going to be the talk of our community and friends. Our Children's Ministry is going to have kids begging their parents to bring them to Coastal (by the way - how many kids are you bringing to VBS?). After we add a fourth service, we're going to enter a Building Campaign and expand our campus by building an 800 seat auditorium. Our current campus will be our children and student facility. And after we go to two services in our new facility we're going to have to figure out what to do next - multi-site? plant a church? Those are the things I've been praying about lately. Join me in that prayer. The best really is yet to come! Lord make us obedient, make us audacious, and make us dangerous! I can't wait to preach!
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