Long time comin'

Okay, okay, so maybe I haven't been too consistent with my blog updates. I guess that's the beauty of only having told a few people about it. But I think it's time to go public, which also means, it's time to keep up with it on a regular basis. I suppose the great thing about starting off a blog by only updating every month and a half is that anything will look like a great improvement!

So, here it is... my first entry, err, my fourth entry, but my first "for-real" entry. So... um... uh, yeah. Umm.. how bout those O's? Weather sure has been nice the last few days. Aha! I just thought of something to write. Please keep reading. Don't give up on me yet.

Easter Sunday has got to be the best Sunday of the entire year! Here at Daybreak (the church that Laurie and I currently attend), we go all out for Easter. Each year, we rent a huge tent and set it up in the parking lot to hold the services in. Meanwhile, the worship center gets converted into a huge dining room with an awesome buffet and tons of seating. In our services this year, Pastor Joel delivered a great message about heaven and what it is going to be like. We also did baptisms during the service this year and that is absolutely mine and Laurie's favorite part. Let me tell you about it.

A few weeks before the service, we recorded interviews with each of the 22 people that were getting baptized. We asked them two simple questions: 1) Tell us about when you let Jesus be the leader of your life. 2) Tell us why you want to be baptized. From those two questions, we edited together a 7-minute video that gave everyone in the church a chance to hear the heart of every person being baptized (even those who would NEVER want to talk in public!) While the video was played in the service, the pastors (youth pastor - John and pastor of maturity - Shawn) got into the baptismal tank along with the first person to be baptized. At the same time, the worship team made it's way back onto the stage. As soon as the video completed, the worship team began to play and when the first person was ready to be baptized, we went to a live video feed of a roving camera that we had right next to the tank. So, everyone got to see the expression on the face of each individual as they came out of the water. As soon as that person exits the tank, they cut the video feed and go to powerpoint for the current song that the worship team was singing. I love baptisms at Daybreak! They are presented as an act of worship and it allows everyone (not just the people in the tank) to participate. It is so exciting to see and hear what God has done in the lives of real people through the ministry of this church!

I guess my point is... church needs to be exciting, and not just because of great music, funny pastors, high-tech stuff, etc. I love all of that but what really brings me excitement is seeing lives that are changed. I truly believe that SRC will be a place where we celebrate what God is doing! The cool thing about taking this step of faith together is that every single victory we experience, every prayer that is answered, every life that is changed will result in this kind of excitement! There is no way that Pastor Ben or I or any of you that have partnered with us can do any of this ourselves. This is definitely a God-thing and I am excited to see what our "changed lives" video is going to look like by this time next year!

God bless.

Matt and Laurie