Invite a friend, save a life weekend in review

We had a great weekend at Connection Church.  Sorry this is posted on Tuesday, but I had to work overtime yesterday and could only get to it today.

Many people are probably wondering if we hit our goal of 200 people.  We didn't, but we did have a record number of people there (115+).  We also had one of the greatest number of first time visitors in a long time. 

What struck me was the amount of young people (under 30) who came out to our service.  It goes to show that this generation is passionate about social justice issues and want to play a part in making a difference.

All that being said, we are still going to supply 200 people (are original goal) with clean drinking water for an entire year. 

One last thing, I want to give a shout out to all the people who volunteered Sunday morning to make our "Invite a Friend, Save a Life," day a success.  You Guys Rock!

Invite a Friend, Save a Life

Did you know that 4500 children die from water related diseases every day? 

Did you know that unclean water kills more people every year than all forms of violence including war? 

Did you know that 42,000 deaths occur weekly from unsanitary water?

DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS COMING SUNDAY AT CONNECTION CHURCH?

This Sunday at Connection Church, we are having our last and our biggest Friend's day of the year, and we are partnering with Charitywater.org to make this an epic event.  For every person in attendance at our friend's day, Connection Church is going to provide clean free drinking water to one person in a developing country for an entire year.  Our goal is 200 people, so that means 200 people will have a chance at life that they didn't have before.

So Be A Friend and Save A Life by coming to Connection Church this Sunday at 10 am. at the AMC Veterans 24 movie theater.

Weekend in Review 11/07/2010

Wow! What a fun day at Connection Church yesterday.  We continued in our series "The Red Letters," as we looked at Mark 10:1-12, which is Jesus' teaching on divorce. 

Tracy and I taught on this together and had a lot of fun doing it.  We geared the morning towards singles and the thought that preventing divorce happens before you say "I do." The highlight of the morning was all the questions that were texted in.  There was a few moments of tension, especially when we challenged the single people to stay pure for their future spouses and not to make the mistake of living together. 

The challenge came from a question that we answered about living together being a way to know if you are compatible with your future spouse.  Here's the main thought we gave. "Compatibility doesn't breed commitment, rather commitment breeds compatibility."  In other words, it's not the compatibility of a couple that makes a good marriage, but rather their commitment to each other in the covenant they made together.

We will continue the discussion this coming Sunday as we talk about ways married people can prevent divorce.

Weekend in Review 10/17/10

Some quick random thoughts from Sunday at Connection Church.

• Daniel Sergio continues to do a great job leading our worship team.  You guys amaze me with how great you sound every week, and most importantly how you lead us into the presence of Jesus.
• We continued our RED LETTER Series this week and I spoke on three simple words of Jesus from Mark 4, "Peace! Be Still."  I really felt like God spoke into the hearts of many people to allow God to use the defining moments in our lives speak that peace into our lives.
• I promised that the podcast would be up by today, but we had a glitch and the recording did not happen...so sorry!
• We unveiled the theme of our next Friends Day (November 14th)...Invite a Friend, Save a Life.  We will be partnering with Charity Water and for every person in attendance at Connection Church that day we will be providing clean drinking water to a person in a developing country with clean water for a year.  Our goal is 200 people.
• We had a great turnout for our Discover Connection Church Lunch.  It was great to meet new people and share the vision God has for Connection Church.
• We showed the baptism video from the previous week.  If you missed it, you can see it here.

Baptism Video

If you missed the baptism video today at ConnectionChurch.me here it is.



If you can't see the video click here

This Sunday at Connection Church

The Tens comes to Connection Church this Sunday.  A Day of VISION, CELEBRATION AND BAPTISM. 

This day is going to be off the charts and I want to encourage to be there.  I will be sharing the vision God has laid on my heart for 2011 and beyond.  In the evening we will be baptizing anywhere between 15 and 20 people.  I can't wait to spend the day with you and share about the goodness of God!

See Ya Then at The Tens!

The RED LETTERS

On of the things we value at Connection Church is preaching through books of the Bible.  We are currently going through the book of Mark.  We've entitled this series, "J.C. Exploring the Man Who Is God."  Being that the book of Mark is fairly long, we are breaking it down into multiple mini-series.


This Sunday is the start of one of those mini-series entitled, "THE RED LETTERS."  In this series we'll look through chapters 3 - 4 and explore some of the parables, teaching and stories that Jesus spoke, bringing application in how it applies to our lives as well.

Tuesday reflections on 2 great weekends.

This past weekend was monumental in the life of Connection Church.  Well actually the past 2 weekends could fall under this catagory.  Here are some highlights.

•  We just past our two year birthday as a church.
• On our 2 year birthday we surpassed our original launch numbers by more than 25%.  We had 115 people, which may not seem like a lot to some, but for those of us at Connection Church it's a huge win.  The place was packed and the momentum was electrifying.  Let's keep it growing Connection Church!
• We wrapped up our series "Religion Kills," which is part of a bigger series on Jesus from the book of Mark.
• I was talking to a great friend who's family has been with us from day one and he told me that the week prior Jesus captured his heart and he surrendered his life to Christ...That's what this thing is all about!

• This past Sunday was our annual volunteer appreciation Sunday. 
• Dale Brooks, who has pastored Center Pointe church in Tampa for over 45 years, is largely responsible for the planting of Grace Family Church, and is a church father in Tampa spoke for us.  Man, did he ever deliver and challenge our people to go above and beyond the comfort of life to pursue the calling that Christ has for us.  Thanks Dale for speaking into our lives!
• We took all our weekly volunteers on a starlight dinner cruise in the bay.  It was a beautiful night and we had a great time eating, hanging out, dancing and loving life.  You can see some of the pictures on our facebook page.
• I want to give a special thanks to all our volunteers, who labor week in and week out for the Kingdom of God.  Your efforts and hard work are not overlooked.  I love you guys and I love being your pastor!

The sin of other people can't save you.

Religion kills because it teaches us to deflect.  Deflection happens when we mask our own sin through pointing out the sin of the other guy.  It's as if on judgment day, we think God will be too busy with the pedophiles, the drug dealers and the terrorists to deal with little old me. 

Jesus tells a story in Luke 9 that shows the silliness of this thought.  In the parable there are two people, one a religious leader and the other a tax collector.  The religious leader prays to God thanking him because he is so much better in light of other sinners.  The tax collector can't even look up to heaven because of his shame and beats his chest asking for God's mercy and forgiveness.  Jesus says it's the tax collector who goes away justified.

The sin of other people can't save you.  At the judgment we won't get to deflect our sin on anyone else, but will have to give an account.  The good news, however, is that Jesus willingly paid for our sin, and by trusting fully in him, he offers to take it from us.  This is not salvation through deflection, but rather salvation through impartation.  It's what Martin Luther called the Great Exchange.

"For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  (2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV)

Repentance and Forgiveness

There's a story in the book of 2 Chronicles that captures my heart like none other. It's a story about a wicked king named Ahaz. He was so diabolical and sinful that God couldn't put up with it anymore, so he sent him into captivity.

His captives really humiliated him. They put a ring through his nose and paraded him through the streets like a circus show. The punishment worked too. The Bible said he repented and God accepted his repentance.

Often in situations like this, the person only goes back to being evil after he is out of hot water, but this wasn't the case with this king, he really was sorry, and to show the fact, when he got back to Israel, he purged the land of everything evil.

I love this story because its represents the true heart of the gospel...repentance & God's forgiveness.

“I just can’t believe it…

I get to live this life I’m living!”   

I had a friend say those words to me the other night.  It wasn’t the first time I heard him say it, in fact, he says it quite often.  He also has a lot of reason to say it cause he’s got that kind of life that when you look in, what’s not to get excited about. 

I must admit in the times I’ve heard him say that, I have often thought to myself, “maybe someday, when everything lines up in my life, I may get to say the same thing.”  The last time I thought that the Holy Spirit dropped this verse in my heart,

“This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.”

God was wanting me to see my life in a different way than what I was. Instead of looking at it as enjoyable only when things “begin to happen,” I need to see my life as right where God wants me to be.

This is the day in history the Lord has given to me, I will rejoice and be glad in it

This is the plan Christ has laid out for me, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

This is the life God has granted me to live, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

I have since joined the chorus of my friend and can say with a joyful heart, “I can’t believe I get to live this life I’m living, all for the glory of God, may I find my joy in Him!”

I just want everyone to be happy.

A friend and I were talking about morality, political issues, and the like and he said, "I just want everyone to be happy." I thought about that and how nice it sounded and how I wanted everyone to be happy as well.

I couldn't shake the thought however, and I started realizing that, in reality, trying to make everyone happy probably isn't that great of an idea, because when you make one person happy, you will inevitably make someone else miserable. This is because our happiness is often, if not most of the time, wrapped up in our own selfish desires.

I guess this is why it's so important to pursue God's truth over happiness. Because God's truth is the great equalizer. If my goal is to seek his truth in all situations, there will be times when I'm happy and there will be times, because of my sinful nature, when I am not.

The Bible says that God no respecter of persons, which means his truth will not always make us feel warm and fuzzy. I guess when you look at it, one could says that God's truth isn't safe...but it is good and when we trust him in those areas in our lives, we will ultimately not be sorry.

Friends Day At Connection Church

is coming up in only 2 weeks.  July 4th to be exact.  So, here's the million dollar question...who will you be inviting? 

God at the Movies 2 Teaser

God At The Movies 2 starts in 2 weeks. Here's the official teaser that we are showing Sunday morning.

Operation Backpack Update

Will be given tomorrow at Connection Church. 
Some of you have been asking which school we are going to adopt.  We will be picking the one in the near future, and we'll let you know as soon as we know.  This is tough decision for us because there are so many schools that desperately this kind of attention.  We do know that we, along side of adopting a larger school, will also be taking on Metropolitan Ministries school as well.  This school has roughly 80 students, most of which come from homeless families.

Let me continue to encourage you to sacrifice in your own life in order to give to these kids that really have nothing in comparison to us.  It will be worth it!

This Sunday At Connection Church

we continue our series "One Prayer."  This week we are looking at "Unstoppable Comeback."

Perhaps those words ring true to your ears, and you realize how desperately you need a comeback in your life. 

Find out tomorrow what that looks like at Connection Church in Tampa!

I'm haunted

by these 2 verses in Acts 20.

(26) Therefore, I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you.  (27) For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.

From reading this passage, one can deduce that those who don't preach the "whole counsel of God" would be then guilty of the blood of those to whom he spoke...haunting?  In deed!

If I'm going to be truefuly honest, I would have to admit that I like when people like me.  While I'm being honest, I would also have to admit that preaching the truth of God hasn't always put me in high favor with those with whom I want to be liked.

Still, I wonder how many times I shied away from speaking God's whole truth in times when being favored by man was all too important to me?

May God's grace help me at the end of my life to be able to proclaim the same words as Paul.

Operation Backpack

If you've been to Connection Church recently, you know about our newest goal...Operation Backpack.  We are adopting a Title 1 Renaissance School in Tampa and are going to equip the students with backpacks stuffed with tools for learning. 

Title 1 Renaissance Schools are entitled such because they have over 90% of it's student population living in high poverty.  On the first day of school these kids will show up with nothing if we don't step up to the plate.

Each backpack costs only $10.00.  Couple that with the amount that we spend on our own kids, and I think you'll agree that this is an amazing deal.

Our total goal is 750 backpacks, which is a huge one, but we believe by God's grace we'll be able to pull it off.  If you would like to give, you can do so online through our website at www.connectionchurch.me/operation-backpack.  Please earmark your giving with the key words Operation Backpack.

Fad or Vision?

Too many times vision is seen as the means to getting success in the future as quick as possible. The problem with that outlook is when the "as quick as possible" doesn't happen quickly enough, the project either gets abandoned or another idea gets pursued in place of the original.

True vision is a picture of where you want to be in the future, yet it has very little to do with how fast you are getting there. If vision doesn't keep you going through obstacles, setbacks and slower than expected growth, then it's really not vision, instead, it's only a simple pipe dream that you'll quickly trade for another fad that promises something it really can't deliver.

Vision or Fad?

Too many times vision is seen as the means to getting success in the future as quick as possible. The problem with that outlook is when the "as quick as possible" doesn't happen quickly enough, the project either gets abandoned or another idea gets pursued in place of the original.

True vision is a picture of where you want to be in the future, yet it has very little to do with how fast you are getting there. If vision doesn't keep you going through obstacles, setbacks and slower than expected growth, then it's really not vision, instead, it's only a simple pipe dream that you'll quickly trade for another fad that promises something it really can't deliver.

Meet The Needs

If you haven't seen Connection Church's interview with Meet the Need on NBC's local news for Tampa Bay, you can do so by clicking the link below.

Meet The Needs