Calvary Cares

Calvary cares…This is an outreach we do as a church just to simply let our community know that our church cares. We gave out free water on street corners, doughnuts and hotdogs on college campuses, washed cars and grilled hotdogs at the local Walmart and many more locations. This is a way we show people, in spite of what the economy is doing that someone truly cares. As a youth church we took close to 20 to the local Walmart and grilled 500 hotdogs, gave out free cokes and bottles of water. People are shocked when they find out it’s free with no strings attached. We truly touched our commnity this weekend. I love being apart of a church that gets outside the walls of the church and in the lives of everyday people and touch them in a tangible way. Props go out to our outreach pastor she sets it all up and makes it a great weekend where anyone can do outreach. We even bring our 2 sons along to show them the importance of giving! Calvary cares!

campmeeting…2 amazing nights!

ok…i did not blog about last nights camp meeting. Tommy Barnett hit it out of the park with a message “the honor of wanting to quit” when you are near a person like tommy barnett you feel oh so insignificant. He is such an amazing man of God with faith and is doing so much. it makes you feel like you are not doing enough for Christ! wow what an amazing night! people that want to quit have something to quit! well it was truly a night of impartation. i got some great things last night. you left the building feeling better than when you came!

side note…parking crew (john, jeremy, mike, daniel, pedro and tony) it rained but you guys stayed with it and jammed the lot.

tonight tommy bates spoke and it was powerful. this was the first time i have heard him and if i could describe his preaching i would say it was a mixture of old time pentecostal powerful preaching mixed with relevance for today i.e…sound like yesterday but relevant for todays generation. in the end students were laid out on the stage speaking in other tongues. i got close to see him pray for a student that has been out for some time and he grabbed me and spoke over my life and pastor jon’s. powerful it felt like a blanket a heavy wet blanket was laid on me and i could not get up. God was big tonight. he said that there was change coming…not that i was leaving, but there was going to be a change in flow! i have been praying all week for God to speak to me about crave, life and the future…he spoke exactly what i have been praying for crave…God whatever it takes bring change to crave! i want the supernatural to be working, i want God to call students out of this group to do significant things, i want revival…i want all that God has for this place. I simply want God to be big.

I left tonight still carrying the effects of what God had done tonight…wow it was a powerful night. i am now looking with expectation for God to break out in crave! God is truly up to something big here…the harvest is coming!

customer service…

there are places you go and you can’t get anyone to help you and you wonder what in the world they do to stay in business, t hen there are places that you go to and you get the royal treatment. well not royal, but they know your name, know you like to order certain things and they even look out for your interests. you know the p[lace where you feel good about going to and glad you spent your lunch there.

now starbucks is one of those places that if you go often enough, then they will remember your drink and your name. I feel kinda weird when the guy behind the counter calls out my name and my drink. But there is a chic fila in our town where this lady passes out mints, and purell hand cleaner. she always brings over this huge pepper grinder knowing i like pepper on my fries and strips. she has a great smile and takes care of everyone. one time they place was so jammed there was nowhere to sit, i had the fam there and she grabbed one of my sons by the hand and ran him to the last table open to hold us a spot. i like this place! it’s chic-fila and it’s the service you truly don’t expect in fast food.

this brings me back to the church. customer service is all about the customer and when thousands of customers come through in a single day it can get kinda hectic. it’s really cool to look out for people that struggle getting in. there is this one lady that comes in every week and she use to never drive someone always brought her and she was real frail. well one sunday she came in driving and opened her window to say this it was the first time in years she had driven. working with a perking crew is not on the hit list for volunteers, but just helping customers out have the best possible experience is what the church should be all about. some don’t come in with a smile, but the what does a smile and a wave cost you anyway? hospitality is a gift, some people just don’t have it. so when you drive onto the church parking lot with all the cares of the world weighing you down, look for the guy smiling back at ya…his name is mike and he is always full of cheer!

the altar continues

they got this machine that just chews up trees and spits out dust on the property. it shreds…

you can feel the excitement everytime you drive on the property…

the beginning…

came in this morning and you could here this chomping in the woods, metal clanking, and then it came from behind the trees…a huge claw!

got this picture from pastor troy…gotta love it! we are on the way to getting a new building!

prayer is a powerful vehicle…

saturday we held a prayer meeting in the ocean center the day before alive 08.  hundreds gathered from our church and i got my weep on.  tears flowed as we prayed for the event that would take place the next day.  i walked around the arena holding hands with my 6 year old (right now he is singing hillsong united-tell the world that Jesus lives-in the middle of him sorting thru the loot he got in the family easter egg hunt)  well we walked and prayed and he honestly felt something as we gathered to pray for the event.  god is so cool!  i truly want my kids to experience a big God in a big way!  prayer is vital…without it nothing happens!  

freeze in the mall…

120+ calvary people  freeze in the volusia mall…alive 08 this is probably on of the funnest things we have done as an outreach…one moment the mall was bustling with noise and activity and the next it was still and onlookers were shocked and in awe of it all…