I stumbled upon a great video on YouTube this evening entitled, “Walk Across America” – it seems to depict a guy walking from the East Coast to the West Coast. I knew there HAD to be more to the story.
This kind of stuff fascinates me!
The original video:
The “behind the scenes, rest-of-the-story video”:
The message I preached this morning was entitled, “New Life” and came from 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. It was my first sermon as the lead pastor of First Wesleyan Church, Shippensburg. I could tell all morning that friends and family across the country were lifting me up in prayer to the Lord. I know the Lord blessed the entire day.
I closed the sermon with an opportunity to respond by acknowledging a need for re-newed life in Christ and was pleased that a couple handfuls of our people responded. Praise the Lord!
After church we had a great fellowship dinner downstairs in honor of our arrival as the new pastoral family. My vice chairman, Dayton, closed out our time together by having the people gather around me, lay hands on me and pray for me. It was a powerful moment. We very much enjoyed visiting with folks and beginning to get to know a few people that we hadn’t yet met.
Attendance this morning was 50! That’s more than an 8.5% growth rate since last week (46)! :)
Keep praying for us and our new church as we continue to push through this transition and honor God with everything we do!
One of my favorite online tools for reading the Bible – YouVersion has just released a great promotional video:
Today was our first Sunday at First Wesleyan Church, Shippensburg with me as the new lead pastor. It was quite an historic occasion. I found out this morning that it was 11-years ago to the day that our church moved to its current location on Walnut Bottom (yes, this is for real) road.
I was thankful to have Rev. Lester Swope as our guest speaker this morning – it allowed me the opportunity to breathe a bit and to focus on helping Jess with the unpacking and home-making process that is so important to the stability of our family during this transition! I was grateful that the leadership at First Wesleyan made this a part of the transition!
I arrived early this morning to the church and made my way around to the various doors and light switches getting acquainted with the process of “opening”.
When folks began to arrive I quickly greeted them with an empty name tag and a Sharpie in-hand asking for their name and if they’d be willing to wear the sticker. I only had one humorous “no” – the rest were willing to go along with my cheat-sheet name tags! Even my one humorous “no” relented and she sported her name tag proudly.
I met Rev. Swope in the lower foyer of the church and began to get to know him a bit – I found out quickly that he was very involved with Haiti – having been a missionary there many years ago – I also got the quick-story of his association with our church and made sure to thank him again and again for being there this morning.
My vice-chairman, Dayton, began the service this morning with a greeting and announcements. He then helped lead a few worship songs and then dismissed us for the “meet and greet” handshaking time. I went up front to briefly greet and thank the congregation for their outpouring of love to us already in our first week – they had provided a “pantry blessing” in the foyer of at least ten bags of groceries from numerous families for us to take back home and stock our shelves! I also thanked those who helped us unpack on Tuesday and those who delivered us meals throughout the week to ease our transition!
After prayer and offering I welcomed Rev. Swope to deliver God’s Word.
He had us turn to Exodus 20 where he read a few verses reminding us that God commands us to worship ONLY Him. His message revolved around the question, “Who do you worship?”
Rev. Swope ended the message with a challenge to the church to surround me as their new pastor with support and prayer and he literally asked for those willing to accept God’s call on them to support me as their shepherd to stand. When he made the “ask” I was overwhelmed at the congregation’s response both audibly and by their standing. It was a powerful moment for both Jessica and me as we do feel the weight of our new charge – to know we are overwhelmingly supported by our new church family!
We thank God for today’s service and for Rev. Swope and his willingness to preach God’s Word and to encourage and challenge us at First Wesleyan!
I am updating my blog from the comfort of my bed and some borrowed WiFi from someone in the neighborhood (thanks, by the way) on our third night in Shippensburg, PA.
The last few weeks and especially days have been extremely busy, exciting, emotional, and even overwhelming. We thank the Lord for a safe and timely move from New Stanton to Shippensburg and plenty of help on both ends to make the move possible.
My mother-in-law left on Wednesday morning just after my parents arrived and we all enjoyed breakfast together. Her help over the days before our move and her one day with us here was incredible. We wouldn’t have wanted to do this move without her help!
When we arrived in the neighborhood late Tuesday afternoon you can imagine our surprise to find out that our new address was 317 Shepherd lane instead of 316 as we were previously told by our rental community manager. We are still working through the issues associated forwarding our mail to the WRONG address and then re-forwarding it to the right address. We pray we haven’t lost anything too important!
When I took my Ford Ranger pickup truck off of the trailer we found that I had two broken brake lines! What a mess. Nearly 5-hours of make-your-hands-change-colors labor and I have brakes again! Thanks to Allen Gamblin and his 40+ years of auto mechanic expertise the job was done in-house and saved me a lot of money! I’m thankful to have a guy like Allen in our church!
Sunday is just around the corner and I’m thankful that I don’t have to preach this weekend. I’m thankful that Rev. Swope will be filling in for me as we enjoy the worship experience from the pew this Sunday.
Next week will be overwhelmingly busy, I’m sure. Keep praying for the Sheets family as we continue to adjust to our new surroundings, life and ministry here in Shippensburg!
