.Real.Greg.Lee.

Hey Suncrest — Do you still remember the verse we memorized on Sunday?  “God did not give us a spirit of…”  Can you finish it?  If not, look it up in 2 Timothy 1:7.

We decided to announce the Exponential special offering with that interactive element about our story at Suncrest.  In a couple of the services there was even an expressive response. 

·         When I asked everyone standing who has already been generous in our history, “Was it worth it?”  I wasn’t expecting the audible “yes” I heard.

·         And when I asked everyone sitting if they were grateful for those standing, there was this spontaneous applause.

For me, it was one of those moments I treasure thinking… “We get it.  Our church really gets it.”  Following Jesus is about giving of ourselves so more people can connect to Him!!  Or, said another way, being used by God to change lives.

I was early getting my taxes done this year – April 13!  Right before I printed them, the program reminded me that later this spring, Jenny and I are going to get a nice check from the government…money we weren’t counting on.  For us (and maybe for you?) we couldn’t imagine a better place to use it than to this Exponential offering.  We haven’t totally decided the final amount of our gift, but starting with that amount will let us be even more generous than we hoped.

I need your help as we plan our teaching themes for the next year.  I’m hoping to finalize it in the next week, but I don’t want to do it without hearing from you.  If you have anything…ANYTHING…you would be curious to hear us teach on, I’m collecting the comments on my blog.  Scroll Down to leave your comments onthe post below.

This Sunday, we keep unpacking “Fearless.”  Have you ever heard, “God will not give you more than you can bear”?  I think this week will shed some insight on that concept.

Posted in Suncrest

This should be among the most useless messages I’ve posted for those who already subscribe.

I used to check guys blogs I like to read every day or so, wasting lots of time and missing half their stuff in the process.  I have a link to subscribe to this blog by email in the upper right corner of the page, but for some reason people still tell me they can’t find it.

If you would like the subscribe and get this in your inbox whenever I post, here is the actual link to click:

http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/emailverifySubmit?feedId=1093954&loc=en_US

Posted in Suncrest

Whenever we invite people to follow Jesus, we know there is potential for an eternity-changing day.  Leading up to Sunday, many of us prayed and fasted for people to respond to the decision…and they did.  We had people come in all three services and in student life worship down the hall, though most actually came down front right after the service.  In all 8 people stepped forward and 3 of those were clearly a first-ever decision to embrace Jesus as Savior and Leader.  Like I said…eternity-changing.

You’ve probably noticed the fullness of our 9:30 and 11:00 services…and of our children’s ministry.  Someone mentioned in our staff meeting this week that though it isn’t unusual for our attendance to be over 1000, we’ve had a consistent run there recently where it has been for 5 of the last 6 weeks and the only exception was 995 on a spring break weekend. 

Some might think numbers don’t mean much, but I think they are wrong.  Every number is a life.  It is someone’s husband, neighbor, co-worker, friend, or daughter who is being exposed to Jesus.  Since our mission is to be used by God to change lives, we pay close attention to how many lives God is reaching through Suncrest.

This Sunday we will have an important announcement about “Exponential”.  That is the name of our special offering this spring.  We’ve promised no more than one special offering like this a year to keep us expanding our ministry without tackling another long-term capital campaign…and the response to this always blows me away.  This year’s offering is even more exciting than the last 2 years…I can’t wait to tell you about it.

Pray for our middle school students this weekend.  Jared is taking a huge number of them to a conference called “Believe” and these experiences always help large numbers of students take defining steps in their faith.  If you have a middle school student, I hope yours is on the trip.  I’ve committed to pray for them regularly from now through the weekend.  Would you join me?

Love ya, Suncrest.

Greg

PS…I’ll launch a new three week series this Sunday called “Fearless”.  I’m super-excited to talk about how God meets us at our points of fear.

Posted in Suncrest

I got the chance to speak for an event at Community Christian Church Saturday night.  Suncrest is part of the NewThing Network that has its roots in Community Christian Church (actually we lead one of the networks  — our network includes church plants in the Chicago suburbs, Milwaukee suburbs, and Minneapolis suburbs).

I was speaking to a large group of people who were preparing to make financial commitments to NewThing above their giving already to CCC.  That’s inspiring to me – people who “get it” about the importance and urgency of reproducing churches – and are willing to put their money where their mouth is.  I told them some of the huge ways being part of NewThing has benefited Suncrest…

1.        We are transforming our model of leadership development to focusing on leaders reproducing leaders.  You’ll hear the terminology around here of coaches, leaders, and emerging leaders.

2.       In large part because of reproducing leadership (and Mary Beth Stockdale’s leadership), our % of adults in community groups leaped from 40% to 70%.

3.       We are launching our East Campus in September as our move to being a multi-site church becomes a reality.

It was a crazy weekend for me to do it, but totally worth it.  And,  CCC’s lead pastor Dave Ferguson, is coming to speak at Suncrest for an event of ours in May.

Posted in Suncrest

Sorry I haven’t posted for a while…trying to find a rythm again.

Hey Suncrest,

I waited about 11 years too long to do this:  On Sunday, I served in our children’s ministry all 3 hours.  I learned a lot of things:

·         This is a huge ministry!  Every Sunday it takes dozens and dozens and dozens of volunteers to do this and the number of “moving parts” makes me dizzy.  More than 50 workers each weekend means more than 2500 workers this year…you can see why it is so valuable to have people commit to serve for an extended period of time instead of just randomly.

·         This is a life-changing ministry!  Kids are formed by their experience EVERY Sunday.  The 4 years olds I served with had memorized a verse by the end of the hour…and now know God loves everyone…even people hard to love.

·         This is a well-led ministry.  Sue Hertzfeldt, Julie Coons and Scott Coons have a huge responsibility and they are all champs at it!!!

·         This ministry thrives with great volunteers.  I was so impressed with Jinny Mitchell and Lynn Schweitzer who taught the classes I was in the first two hours.  They were well-prepared, genuinely cared for the kids, knew how to put parents at ease.  I was just so impressed…all of you who teach our kids rock!!!

·         This ministry has energy.  About 100 elementary kids were worshipping together in the group I was with during the 11:00 service.  It was incredible…Great job to Fred Ewing and Mary Gentry leading the worship time!

·         This ministry could use you.  Whether it is in the existing areas or helping create the same experience when we launch the east campus, there aren’t many opportunities where you can more directly be used by God to change lives.  You can worship one hour, serve one hour and use your one and only life to really live beyond yourself.  Email sue.hertzfeldt@suncrest.org or julie.coons@suncrest.org today.

Personally, thanks for all your prayers for my Dad.  I mentioned in a couple of the Q&A times on Easter that he has been diagnosed with Lymphoma.  Any cancer diagnosis is hard, but my Dad is strong, confident, faithful to Jesus, and prepared for anything.  Chemotherapy and radiation will start soon and the prognosis for that seems to be positive overall.  I do welcome your prayers…thanks for that.

At our staff retreat yesterday, we prayed for you.  Where ever you were sitting at about 10:45 yesterday morning you were prayed for.  We prayed for God to walk with you through difficult times, for Jesus’ presence to be real in your lives, for you to have positive influence where-ever you were sitting at the time…work, school, home.  We all love this growing church family!

I’m continuing our Jesus in High Def series on Sunday with a look at how Jesus encountered religious leaders of his day.  Fascinating stuff…maybe what you would expect…or maybe not.

Greg

PS…it’s probably worth noting that a lot of people are 60 days into the 90 day commitment you made to “test God by tithing” back in February.  I’d just like to say “Way to go!”.  I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I imagine as you are taking this step of faith…God is being faithful…he is providing…and you are finding that generosity to God is a GREAT feeling. 

Posted in Suncrest