Mike Edmisten

Man, there is a ton of stuff going on in our church family right now! Here’s the short list:

1. APEX is this Saturday at 6:00 pm. We took a break in January for the holidays, so I’m pumped that we’re ready to roll again. We’re kicking off “Building Blocks,” our new APEX series this week. I’m also really excited about the worship experiences that we have planned for this Saturday. If you’ve never been to APEX, there’s never a better time than now to check it out! See ya Saturday evening at 6:00.

2. Our Hearts Dinner & Dance is coming up on Friday, February 9 from 6:30-10:30 pm. The event will be held at Receptions in Eastgate. We’ve got a DJ booked and a great dinner lined up. Check it out: roast beef with gravy, grilled chicken breast with tomato basil salsa, garlic mashed potatoes, southern style green beans and mixed greens salad. Yummo! (Pardon the Rachel Ray reference.) Cost is $18 per person for the entire night. You’d spend more than that for dinner in some impersonal restaurant and you wouldn’t get to see your preacher do the macarena. (Kidding on that one. It ain’t gonna happen.) It’s going to be a great night. The event is open to singles and couples from high school to age 100. The deadline to sign up for the banquet is this Sunday!

3. Our 40-day adventure entitled Developing a Servant’s Heart begins next week! I’m really jazzed about what God is going to do in our church family through this faith journey. The devotional book reading starts on Monday, February 5. Attention all procrastinators: We ordered more devotional books this week. If you haven’t purchased your book(s) yet, there’s still time! You can pick them up in the foyer on Sunday.

Wow. Lots going on. And like I said, that’s just the short list. If you’re looking around for a loving church family that’s got it going on, look no further! Check us out on the web. And then we’d love to have you check us out in person.

It all started with our leadership session on Saturday, which I already blogged about.

Then this morning came and God’s Spirit was on a definite roll in our church family. Our auditorium was about to bust at the seams. Not only was our attendance bumping, but we intentionally shook things up in our service. Everything was flip-flopped and rearranged…and it was great. Just an awesome morning.

And then tonight we had our final practice for APEX. Honestly, it could be the best APEX worship set we’ve ever had. No exaggeration. Can’t wait to see what God is going to do through APEX this Saturday! You won’t want to miss it.

All in all, it was a slam dunk weekend!

Had our third Saturday morning session with our elders, deacons, and ministry staff at Woodland Lakes Christian Camp this morning. Gotta love guys who are willing to get up so early on a Saturday morning because they care deeply about their leadership role in our church family.

Good stuff.

Thanks to a church-run hospice, one disabled man was granted his dying wish: to lose his virginity. It happened through the Douglas House Hospice in Oxford, England. Nick Wallis, 22, has muscular dystrophy. He told the hospice staff that he wanted to experience a sexual relationship before he died. Sister Frances Dominica, who runs the hospice, agreed to his request. A prostitute was contacted and Nick was granted his wish.

I think his reaction afterward sums it up. Nick said, “It was not emotionally fulfilling…”

There are millions of people who would echo Nick’s sentiments. They may not share his situation, but they have experienced very unfulfilling sexual relationships. They are unfulfilling because they are contrary to God’s design and plan for sexuality. I have counseled countless people whose lives have been wrecked by poor sexual decisions. There are the obvious problems of STDs and unplanned pregnancy, but it goes even beyond that. Sex is designed by God to bond two people together for life. There is an emotional tie that happens, and so it stands to reason that there is great emotional pain when that bond is broken.

Instead of standing in judgment of people who have been hurt by poor sexual choices, the church needs to be ready to throw open the floodgates of God’s grace. A second-chance is available regardless of what’s in our past, sexual or otherwise.

Our two-year-old son, Ryan, ran smack into the corner of a wall last night and put a pretty decent sized gash in his forehead. We were at Children’s Hospital Urgent Care for almost 3 hours last night. Ryan needed four stitches.

I was so proud of my little boy. Pardon the bragging here, but Ryan handled the situation better than a lot of grown men would have. He really just had one question. “Am I going to be ok?” Throughout the evening, he kept asking this question. He continually sought this reassurance from us. As long as mommy or daddy said it was going to be ok, then that was good enough for him.

I’ve been teaching through 1 Corinthians 15 at church this month. (Brian Morrissey was in the saddle this past Sunday as I was on vacation.) This Re:series is all about Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Jesus went through a hellish death on the cross, but death couldn’t hold him down. Three days later, death was defeated. And God now extends this same overcoming resurrection power to our lives.

That’s not to say that we won’t experience rough times. God, in fact, said that we would. But the resurrection is God’s promise that we will overcome the tough times. It may not happen until eternity, but it will happen. God will stitch up our wounds. Through the resurrection, our Dad has assured us that it’s going to be ok.

That’s good enough for me.

My wife, Nicki, and I watched the movie Walk the Line this past weekend. The movie chronicles the life of Johnny Cash. If you know any history of “the man in black,” you know that his life was filled with hurt and pain, largely self-inflicted through his addiction to amphetamines.

I won’t sugarcoat this. The movie was very well-done…and fairly difficult to watch. It’s hard to watch lives destroyed through someone’s stupid choices. It was harder to know that the movie was pretty true-to-life. It’s not a documentary. The movie did take some artistic license. But on the whole, it accurately portrayed Cash’s life, deriving much of its content from Cash’s two autobiographies.

At one point in the movie, Johnny declared that he was “nothing” because he had hurt everyone around him. The film is a great reminder that our choices don’t just affect ourselves. They affect everyone around us. Even the stuff that seems harmless, the choices we make in secret, have a very real and long-lasting effect on the other people in our lives.

Just so it’s clear, this movie has some rough stuff in it. Some rough language. The graphic effects of illicit drugs. The death of a marriage due to neglect, drug abuse, and adultery. You may not want to show this one to your Sunday School class.

But the movie is real. It portrays real people, real mistakes, real consequences, and real grace. If you’re wondering about the grace part, you need to know that Cash recommitted himself to his faith later in life (not portrayed in the film). Even with all that he had done, all the people he had hurt, and all the mistakes he had made, he wasn’t beyond the reach of God’s grace…and neither are you.

Got an email from Brian Morrissey, our youth/worship minister. He confirmed my suspicions about our attendance. It was about half of what a normal Sunday would be. But he also said that the spirit among our people was very good and that God was still moving in our church family. Good stuff.

It is great to take a Sunday off and not worry about anything at church falling apart. Props to Brian for preaching in my absence today. Thanks also to Josh Young for leading worship. And I’m sure we had a lot of people working hard to clear snow, help our older members into the building, etc. Again…good stuff.

The church is bigger than any one person. It rolls on in my absence…and even in the presence of Old Man Winter.

Ok, so I wished it would snow in an earlier post. I guess I should have been more specific. Any day except Sunday would be fine. But it is cracking down snow this morning. I heard a meteorologist on TV say, “Sunday is the best day for this kind of snow.” Maybe that’s true for a TV weatherman, but not for a pastor.

I know attendance will be down at our church today. I won’t be there today since this is a vacation day for me. But I know a lot of other people have stepped up and worked hard this week prepping for today. I feel bad for them. I’m still praying for God to do His work in our church family today. I know a little snow won’t stop him.

Had the second of our leadership team building sessions this morning. I’m actually on vacation right now, but I took some time off from my time off to go to this session. (Does that previous sentence make any sense at all?) I am so glad I did.

It was obvious that God had an agenda for us this morning. We landed on some key issues that weren’t necessarily on our radar before we started. I heard more forward-thinking, visionary conversation during this session than any other leadership meeting that I’ve been a part of in recent years. Just more proof that God is up to something in our church and in our leadership.

I’m now back to a few more days of vacation. Although meetings like this actually make it a lot more exciting to return to work next week.

I’m in the early hours of a little vacation. Got no big plans for this vacation. Just hanging out at home, playing with my son, going on a date with my wife, and completing some half-finished house projects. Actually, I guess I do have some big plans.