Questions are up!

So the questions are now on the website so vote now on which questions you want answered for our June series. Go to www.communityhope.org and click on the Q and A link. We have been getting in quite a few votes already so it's been interesting to see which ones will get the top votes. The series begins the first week of June so vote now.

Fishing Day

Saturday was our Men's/Children fishing day. It was a great day and the bluegill were biting which makes things fun. Here are a few pics of our day.

Money Raised

Yesterday was Possibility Sunday and just wanted to give everyone an update that yesterday we raised a little over $63,000 for the building project. This is definitely a miracle offering and I praise God for the amount. With the money raised yesterday and the current amount we had already raised, we currently have $117,000 raised towards the $250,000 match. I want to thank everyone who sacrificially gave yesterday towards this project. With God-it's possible! We are seeing this come to pass right before our eyes. With this amount we can start pushing ahead to break ground this summer. God is good!

Q and A questions

The questions are in so now it is time to place your vote. I'm hoping to have everything on the website soon. We will have four weeks in the series but I will probably have one Sunday where it is more of a round table discussion for some of the questions that may not take a whole message. Here is what we have so far.

- Does everyone go to heaven? What is the unpardonable sin?
- Why is prayer sometimes so difficult?
- What is speaking in tongues and how to seek the gifts of the Spirit?
- Why is it unChristian to curse?
- Why did God want a blood sacrifice for sin?
- Why is Christianity the right religion?
- Would God send someone to hell if they've never heard of Jesus? What about those in the Old Testament that never heard of God?
- How do we know the Bible is accurate?
- Why do we take communion only once a month?

These are great questions so far. It is still not too late if you want to get your question in. We will have the cards on the information table this Sunday and you can still put your question in the Q and A box. Looking forward to our series in June.

Possibility Sunday Video Two

Weekend Reflections

1. Kicked Sunday off with Baccalaureate service at the school. Pastor Chuck did a good job preaching and so did the Barnes City worship team. It is always good to worship with other churches in our community.

2. This was graduation weekend so we had no first service and no Sunday School. Numbers were definitely down but still had a good service. Started a new series called 'Judgment Call', yesterday we talked about the 'tale of the two trees.' In the Garden of Eden, there were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve decided to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil over the tree of life. This is where sin originated. When we partake of this tree, we are saying that we no longer need God but came become our own god of sorts. Satan the accuser is still trying to get people to partake of this tree. When we do this, we try to become a judge. We often judge ourselves, judge others and judge God. If you were not here, I encourage you to listen to the podcast on the website.

2. This year we had eight kids graduate from our church. It makes me proud as a pastor seeing our kids excel in their school and also get up in front of their classmates and give glory to God. 2010 class was a great class and we will miss many of these kids.

3. Sunday afternoon was all about eating cake, more cake and did I forget to mention cake. I think my stomach still hurts from the cake. (And oh yeah, pork sandwiches as well.)

Possibility Sunday Countdown

Possibility Sunday is just a little over a week away. We are believing God for the impossible this Sunday as we want to kick start our building project with a love offering. Our goal is to break ground this summer. If we can do this, it is possible to get the shell up and start working on the interior for the winter. Please be in prayer about what you can possibly give towards this special offering. Here is the breakdown of the numbers;

We have a matching gift of $250,000
So far we have raised $53845.83 of this match
Goal for Possibility Sunday is to raise $100,000- This would get us half way towards the match.

After Possibility Sunday we would like to take pledges for monthly gifts and or pledges of people's gifts and time. Let's say you have experience doing dry wall, then you can donate your time to help dry wall when it comes time. Or maybe you have done electrical work, than you can donate time to do some of our wiring for the new building. Whatever gifts you have, we can use them for the building project.

I know these are big goals but I know we serve a big God. God has called us to live in the area of faith and I believe that this is where God wants us as a church. Please be in prayer for Possibility Sunday on May 23rd.

In the month of June we are doing a Q & A series based off your questions you may have about God or the Bible. This will really be an exciting series so fill out a question form in the bulletin and put it in the question box. We will list the questions in the coming weeks on the website and you can have a chance to vote on the ones in which you would like to hear a sermon on. Time is running short, so get your questions in as soon as you can.

Weekend Reflections

1. Crazy week we had last week as we went to Springfield MO for a couple days for Evangel University graduation. Had a good time seeing some of our students who are doing really well with college life. I also had the chance to visit James River Assembly for the first time. Was pretty amazed by their facility. Starbucks coffee anyone?

2. Great services yesterday at Hope. Talked about the three characteristics of a godly mom. We had four people get up and give testimony of how their mom made a great difference in their life. I don't think there was a dry eye in the building in first service. A godly mom is one who knows how to pray, she is a woman of strength and a woman of love. Thanks to Vanna Bushong, Ashley Meyer and Derek Bates and Taren Young for sharing about their mom.

3. Mothers Day is bitter sweet for me as it has been a year since my mom passed away. I know my mom is in glory celebrating with Jesus.

4. Spent the rest of the day with the family and took a walk at Diamond Lake. It was definitely a beautiful day and a great day to spend with my wonderful wife who is a great mom! The kids made a special book for her that they colored and they also got her a plant and a book by Karen Kingsbury.

Breakfast Club

Today was our Breakfast Club for late start at the school. We served over forty kids this morning pancakes, cereal and bread. We had some good help and Jennifer always does a great job keeping the kids occupied with her games. This will be our last Breakfast Club of the school year.

Weekend Reflections

1. Saturday was the Ladies Tea. Jennifer told me there were over fifty ladies that attended our event and many of them were not from Community Hope. I saw the decorations and they looked amazing. The ladies did a garden theme and it looked great. Rhonda Minner filled in as our speaker and did an amazing job. We have some amazing ladies at our church that organized this event. Way to go!


2. Got hang out with some amazing guys Saturday night in Des Moines and ate some good steak at Texas Road House. Yum!


3. Sunday was another amazing day at Hope. Our worship team rocked the house. I love the new version of 'It is Well' by Todd Fields. Great song! We wrapped up our series on Fearless talking about the 'fear of the end.' We covered what Jesus had to say about end times and how we are not to be troubled by what we see in our world. Instead, the church's mission is to expand the kingdom. Jesus used the parable of the talents to illustrate this by teaching us that when things get tough we are not supposed to hide our gifts, abilities and resources but instead we are to go out into the world and use what God has given us. Jesus made it clear that the Gospel would be preached to all the world and then the end will come. That's His plan, so lets get to work!


4. Sunday night was full of meetings. We had a great Sunday School meeting with all our teachers. We are heading into the next quarter in a couple weeks at Hope University with some great seminars. I will be teaching one on the Holy Spirit. In August we are going to have Family Sunday School. This will be an opportunity for parents and kids to sit together and worship as a family It should be lots of fun. After the Sunday School meeting was over we went right into a leadership meeting with our department heads. What a great team we have!

Possibility Sunday