Mike Edmisten Follower of Jesus. Husband of Nicki. Father of Ryan & Brock. Communicator of the Word.

Easter at ACC

You know that person that you've been meaning to invite to church? That, "I'll invite them someday" person.

Someday is today.

Easter at ACC this year is going to be off the hook, off the chain, off the charts, and off the…you get the point.

Seriously…everything is going to be awesome. The staging, the videos, the worship music, the message…God is going to do some special stuff this Sunday.

Someday is DEFINITELY today!

Unleash Website

The new Unleash site is now live. It's got tons of content (video, pics, notes from all the breakout sessions, etc) from this year's conference. Also has some details about next year's conference. I'm definitely gonna be there!

If you want more info than I'm posting on my blog, check out the site.

Unleash Website

Unpacking Unleash 3

In a special session called Seniors Pastors Only, Perry Noble took over an hour's worth of questions from a few hundred senior pastors. Here are some of the gems that I took out of that session…

Dave's Prayer

I had the opportunity to visit with some brand new members of our church today, but the setting wasn't that great: the pre-op room at a hospital.

My buddy, Dave, had major surgery today. (He came through with flying colors. Thanks God!) It was big time serious stuff.

I prayed before they wheeled Dave back for surgery. But then Dave said, "I want to pray, too." Here's part of his prayer.

"God, we will glorify you…whatever happens today…we will glorify you."

This prayer came from the mouth of a man who was facing a very risky surgery and a possible life-threatening diagnosis.

Dang.

All I can do is stand in awe of a faith with that kind of depth.

Chick-Fil-A Office

I never write sermons in my office at church. Never, ever, ever. I always use one of my other "offices."

I have my Starbucks office. Worked there this morning, as a matter of fact.

But I started getting really hungry, so I decided to try out Chick-Fil-A as an office. It's the first time I've ever worked here. It's a pretty impressive set up, for a few reasons…

I would never try to work in a place like McDonald's. Most McD's have none of the above. In fact, I've never seen any fast-food restaurant that does…until today.

Easter: Arrival or Explosion?

The great day does not merely arrive, like a date on a calendar; it explodes!
(John W. Lynch)

Unpacking Unleash 2

Here are some of my notes from the first main session at Unleash with Perry Noble.

Perry challenged us to answer three questions.

1. What is it that God wants to do in my church?

Answering this question requires time and effort.

Time – This is the only way to get God's vision for a church. Spending uninterrupted time with Him. Time in God's Word. Time in prayer. Time seeking Him. This is where God's vision for a church comes into clear focus.

Effort – Once you have the vision, go all out. Give it your very best effort. Work hard for the vision. Spend money to support the vision. Hire toward the vision. Communicate the vision.

It's a dangerous question to ask. "God, what do you want to do in my church?" When He tells you, quit telling Him that it can't be done.

2. What are the barriers that stand in our way?

Perry talked about three common barriers that keep many churches from moving toward God's vision for their church.

3. What do we want to celebrate?

The answer is simple. We celebrate people meeting Jesus. That's when a party breaks out in heaven, so that party needs to carry over to us. We celebrate grace. We celebrate forgiveness. We celebrate every time someone comes to Christ.

We've got to keep our focus laser sharp. Don't sell out to another agenda other than Jesus.

Early Easter

Feel like Easter is really early this year? It is. It hasn't been this early since 1913. It won't be this early again for another 220 years.

Wanna know how the date for Easter is chosen?

Check it out here.

Unpacking Unleash 1

I'm going to take some time this week to unpack what Brian and I experienced at the Unleash Conference.

The conference is hosted by NewSpring Church in Anderson, South Carolina. NewSpring really is an incredible story. This church started as a Bible study 8 years ago. Today, they are a church of 8,000 people! And what really blew me away is the location of the church. There are a lot of mega-churches (I don't particularly care of that term, but anyway…) in our country, but almost all of them are located in or very near a major city. Not NewSpring. Anderson is a small town located in a rural county of 175,000 people.

This was so encouraging to me. Anderson really reminded me of the Amelia area in a lot of ways. Our area is interesting. Sort of suburban (25 minutes from downtown Cincinnati), sort of rural (not far from lots of farmland). But I was reminded that it doesn't matter. God will raise up his church in every area, reaching every demographic of people until Christ returns. Period.

I was also struck by the simplicity of NewSpring's ministry. Their building is one of the most simple, functional facilities I've ever seen. I walked in for the first time and I immediately knew where to go. There were volunteers and signs pointing the way very clearly.

Beyond their building, their programming and ministry are super simple. Perry Noble, senior pastor of NewSpring, said that they spend their money on children's and youth ministry. I had all kinds of bells and whistles going off in my mind. That's exactly where we're heading at ACC.

They also focus on planning and executing an excellent worship service, week in and week out. Again, ding, ding, ding! The bells are ringing! It's not that they don't have other important ministries. They do. But NewSpring's primary focus is to develop a top-shelf children's and youth ministry, and a worship service where people can connect with God through worship and through the deep, unfiltered preaching of God's Word. Right on!

In the next post, I'll get into some of the specific things that encouraged and convicted me at Unleash.

Great Day

I thought that cancelling our services last week because of the snow would hurt our church's momentum.

WRONG!

What a great day at ACC today! I don't know what the attendance was exactly, but I can tell you that it was bumping. Our worship was cooking and it really felt like the message connected. It was more teaching than preaching, but God still did his thing through the message.

Today was also our annual picnic/Easter egg hunt. We had a ton of people hang around for the event. Big props to Jackie Jump and everyone else who worked hard to make today's event a success!

Now it's on to Easter! But first, a little sleep.

Goodnight John Boy.