Over these 4 weeks we will have live art happening on stage during the worship and the message. This week we had Beth Witte and she painted on Jesus the Feeder. The art she completed after each service was up to silent auction and the proceeds went to start soup kitchens in South Africa.

Sunday, I discovered there is something unique that happens when you engage spoken word with live art. There is a new level of engagement that could appear as a distraction but turned out to be very effective.

Jesus Exhibition Pics

Today we focused on two ancient ordinances of the church…Communion & Baptism.

At the end of worship we took communion. I centered communion around what Christ has done for us by bringing us life change. As soon as we finished communion we went into today’s message which was the top 10 reasons People Don’t get baptized.

We followed the message up by asking people to get baptized. It was a spontaneous ask. We baptized 5 people today. It was great.

Having everyone in the aquatic center of the school was electric as we baptized these people who were making their next step in following Christ. Following the baptism was a great opportunity to cast the vision of why we are here in Olathe.

I’m looking forward to seeing God continue to bring Life change through the Olathe Campus.

Here are some pics from today’s baptisms.

Westside’s Largest Baptismal

What if the Church started 3 years ago with 3 churches and this year we had 24 churches in the Kansas City Metro. This year the Olathe Campus teamed up with the Westside Speedway Campus and Village Community Church in Kansas City, KS.

Today, I spoke and worshiped with my new friends at VCC. They meet in a Piper Elementary School. They are 3 year-old  church plant and have a great ministry to the Piper School District as they are engaging others in taking their next step towards Christ.

Our series was centered on the Prodigal Son story in Luke 15. Each pastor took one of the 3 characters – the younger son, the older brother, and the father- spoke on The Big Mistake, The Big Miss, and The Big Party.

The big idea of the series was: What if we joined God in His mission?

The Main Idea of my Teaching:
Let’s Give Heaven a Reason to Celebrate.

I enjoyed speaking and getting to do it various settings: a school theater, a movie theater, and a school gym. Since I hadn’t spoke in a while, it was nice to hone in on one message and communicate it 3 weeks in a row.

We have a worship night this Wednesday in Downtown KC on the South Lawn of the Convention Center. It will be a cool backdrop as we wrap up this series with the 24 other churches.

I’ll be taking some pics from that night (now that I’m a picture nazi!) and posting them as well as pics from our Serve day this Saturday.

More info about the What if the Church series can be found at whatifthechurch.net.

However, the last time I spoke, I didn’t have to get there at 7a to unload a trailer and set up church. That element alone made speaking more difficult than I anticipated because the morning was spent trouble shooting equipment problems and not preparing to speak.

We had a great weekend and my first message at the Olathe campus went well.

Looking forward to this weekend. Now back to the worship conference.

1. Our Finances (Giving our Money)
2. Our Salvation (Giving our Testimony)
3. Our Life (Giving a Legacy)

At each campus, we built a large “it.” We have many volunteer opportunities at the church and around the city during this holiday season. When our people sign up to volunteer, they will receive a gift tag that they will keep a portion of and then fill out their name and place it on the “it.”

Here are some pics of the “it”s at each campus.

Lenexa’s “it”

Speedway’s “it”

Overland Parks “it”

I was amazed at the detail of the animation and some of the realistic features they were able to generate. I would have never known it was Jim Carrey as the voices for so many characters had his name not been on the promotion. That being said, I was expecting it to be more humorous and it wasn’t at the level I expected. Not disappointing, just not expecting that.

The writers kept to the story line and portrayed it well in an hour and a half.

The only thing downside to me was how dark they made it. I would not have taken my kid to go and see it. It was along the lines of Coraline. I don’t know if I would want to have my kids influenced by that type of media.

Knowing how hard it is to find a replacement for the night before – especially with songs we were playing, and the fact that I love to be involved in the worship, no matter what it is – I didn’t want to call Jason, our Music Director, and tell him I was sick. So, lets say I played not feeling 100%.

After watching the video of the 10a service in our debrief the worship was great! Yesterday, all I was thinking about was – “don’t pass out,” “what’s up next,” “stay with the click,” “can’t hear the click – wait, my ear is clogged,” “hope my ear uncloggs – shew, glad it just unclogged.” Okay, maybe I exaggerated a little on the pass out thought, but the ear clog thoughts did happen.

I watched the message from yesterday again this evening: Prayer means to join God’s agenda and give up our agenda.

A great part of the day was before the message when Dan talked on the reason why we play a secular song every now and then in our weekend services. He referenced that Paul would quote the modern philosophers of his day and some of the philosophers of our day are songwriters. It’s the way we connect our message with the unchurched.

I’ll post the segment tomorrow of what he said.

Set list

Alive And Running (Kristian Stanfill: Attention)
Marvelous Light (Christy Nockels: Life Light Up)
How He Loves (David Crowder Band: Church Music)
Rise (Robbie Seay Band: Give Yourself Away)

Saturday Band

Bass: Steve Palmer
Drums: James Wooten
Electric Guitar: Troy Kennedy (Worship Leader)
Electric Guitar: Alex Gingles
Keys: Lori Klahn
Vocals: Debbie McNeil

Sunday Band

Bass: Jason Mills / Jeff Bangs
Drums: Kasey Robinson
Electric Guitar: Troy Kennedy (Worship Leader)
Electric Guitar: Matt Anzalone
Keys: Lori Klahn
Vocals: Christina Estes

Pics

The first week of “Get Wired,” our series on Prayer, was wired with energy. The new series had a vibrant set and an enthusiastically led worship set.

We had a pretty tight set with a great intro into the series with the Vocal Team doing Allison Krauss’, “Down to the River to Pray,” from “O Brother Where Art Thou.” We mashed it up with Bon Jovi’s, “Livin’ on a Prayer.”  It was electric.

And oh yeah… we had a talk box. Here’s a pic of Jason rehearsing in his office with the talk box.

I’ll see if I can get a video of the Bon Jovi tune and post it later this week.

Set List

Happy Day (Matt Redman: Holding Nothing Back)
All Because Of Jesus (Fee: We Shine)
Desert Song (Hillsong United: Across the Earth)
Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus (Public Domain: Arrangement by Jason Mills – Not Recorded)
Down To The River To Pray (O Brother Where Art Thou Soundtrack)
Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi: Cross Road)

Utilizing Text Messaging

Thanks to Moblico, a mobile enterprise company, we are using text messaging to encourage and remind people to be in prayer daily. The idea is to send out a prayer focus each day for the next 6 weeks for Westside to be praying together.

Our goal is to Double the amount of prayer at WFC.

We had 400 people sign up after our 1st week of sign-ups. Not a bad consensus according to John Styers, President of Moblico.

Big kudos to Jason Morris, our Overland Park Campus Pastor, for having the vision for this and initiating the contact with John.

The service is pretty convenient. You can schedule the daily texts via their web interface. It can update a twitter account. You can appoint multiple cell phone numbers to be the phones to send out the texts. You can manage groups. Pretty good stuff for churches/enterprises who want to utilize texting.

Prayer as Connection

Dan talked on having a constant connection with God. He opened this series up with the precursor to the Lord’s Prayer:

John 6:5-7
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.

He debunked the myths that we have put on prayer and painted the picture that we are to have a constant connection with God that doesn’t hang up or is ignored. Prayer is this conversation that is continuous.

Weekend Pics

We had a good weekend. There that’s it. Told ya short.

Okay, I’ll give a little more detail.

Today was a fun day. Troy led and I was on drums. We started off with Salvation is Here, but we added a twist. We put in a verse of “Carry on My Wayward Son” and the solo and outro section of the Kansas tune too. It was enjoyable watching the different crowds respond to the song.

After that we went into Troy’s song, “Better Than Life.” Then we did “How He Loves” and “Song of Hope.”

Dan preached the 3rd part of a series we’re in called “Stuffed.” He talked discerning authenticity.

He had a pretty good analogy. When a boat’s engine isn’t running well you will be able to tell that something’s wrong if there is something left in the wake. A boat that isn’t running well will leave an oil residue behind.

He paralleled that to our lives. We leave behind a wake with every person we meet and interact with. Are we living a life that is authentic with what we believe and speak?

Set List

Salvation Is Here
Carry On Wayward Son
How He Loves
Song Of Hope (Heaven Come Down)

Saturday Team

Bass: Tom Casey
Drums: Caleb Baker
Electric Guitar: Troy Kennedy (Worship Leader)
Electric Guitar: Jimmy Nickelsen
Keys: Jason Morris
VOX: January Lare

Sunday Team

Bass: Jeff Bangs
Drums: Kasey Robinson
Electric Guitar: Troy Kennedy (Worship Leader)
Electric Guitar: Jason Morris
Keys: Lori Klahn
VOX: January Lare

I had the priviledge of leading worship at our Speedway Campus. It is always awesome to be with these people. Their volunteers come early and stay late every week. Even when they are short of help, like today, everyone kicks it up a gear and their attitudes don’t change and they pick up the slack. I love that. A great team attitude.

We only were able to have 3 songs for the set because today is the SERVE Expo and with a message about “Getting in the Game.”

Pastor Schaun talked about getting in the game and getting out of the bleachers. We ended 10 min early so people could sign up for ministries to serve at.

Message Highlights

• (1) Get out of the bleachers and into the locker room
• Never confuse the locker room for the game itself.
• Watching the game is not our calling. God wants us in the game.
• Acts 2:42ff
• God blesses teamwork
• (2) The game is played on the field
• Ephesians 2:10; Jeremiah 1:5
• the heart of the Christian walk is to serve and to give
• Knowledge produces pride. Service produces humility.
• Spiritual maturity is relational.
• Spiritual maturity is transformational
• Spiritual maturity is missional.
• 1 Timothy 4:1ff

Speedway Song List

Salvation’s Chorus (North Point: Louder Than Creation
Everlasting God (Chris Tomlin: Everlasting God)
Take My Life (Passion: Hymns)

Lenexa Campus Song List

Salvation’s Chorus (North Point: Louder Than Creation
Never Stop (Michael Gungor: Ancient Skies)
You Never Let Go (Passion: Everything Glorious)