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

District Council

I spent the last two days in Des Moines at our Assembly of God District Council. Here are some of the highlights:

1. It is always good to hang out with other pastors. It is fun to share stories and hear what God is doing all over the state.

2. I got to see my old youth pastor John Masachio. John is a missionary to Guatemala and I had no idea he was going to be there. John has started a youth skateboard outreach in which they bring portable ramps into towns to attract teenagers and then share the Gospel with the kids. They have also been able to get into the schools as well with this outreach. What a great way to be culturally relevant! John brought a young man with him who has been changed by this ministry. This young man is leading a Bible study of over sixty students each week as a result of the skateboard outreach. God is doing some great things in Guatemala and through my old friend John.

3. Doug Clay was the speaker over the last two days. I really enjoy Doug as he is really down to earth. Doug was the pastor of a great church in Toledo, Ohio while I was in Cleveland. He later became the District Superintendent before moving to Springfield at the National Office. I'll never forget the time I was in a workshop with Doug at a Ohio function when we heard the news that the twin towers were hit by two planes. At that point, we really didn't know what was going on. They ended up canceling the event so we could go home and be with our families. That was definitely a scary time in our nation's history and a drive home I will never forget.

4. I am really excited about the leadership we have as a Network in the Assemblies of God. These are trying times and many denominations are straying from the truth. I thank God for our leaders who want to be led by the Word of God and be led by the Holy Spirit. I believe that if we do these two things, God will continue to lead us as a denomination.

Weekend Reflections

1. Great weekend of NBA basketball. The Spurs are up 3-1 against Dallas. I have doubted my Spurs all year but they are beginning to look like the old Spurs that won the four championships. There is still a long way to go but if they keep it up, they could go a long way.

2. Pat Cashman gave his testimony on Sunday of the events that happened to him regarding his near death experience. Pat is such a great guy and he is a testimony to the power of prayer.

2. Sunday we continued our Fearless series and talked about worry. For some reason we tend to accept worry as a part of our everyday life. When you look at Matthew 6 Jesus taught something entirely different. Our big idea for the day as 'our point of worry often points us to our greatest devotion.' We only worry about the things we are devoted too. For example, we worry about the things we have invested in like our jobs, our marriage, our children, our money, etc. We worry about these things because we have devoted our self to them. Jesus' answer to this; don't be devoted to stuff. Life is not all about stuff. We don't add any value to our life by worrying about the stuff. Instead Jesus' answer was to "Seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness." Don't seek the kingdom of this world, seek the Kingdom of God. When we pursue after God's Kingdom, we know that God will take care of the stuff. That is the promise Jesus gives, 'seek the Kingdom and all these things will be added to you.' It is not that Jesus isn't concerned with our needs. But what Jesus really wants is our devotion totally to Him and not the cares of this world.

3. Ken and Trudy Moeckel was with us last night for our Family Potluck. Ken and Trudy have a great ministry of taking the Word of God to countries that do not have the Word or are not trained in the Word of God in their particular language. Ken in particular distributes Fire Bibles which are Full Gospel Bibles with commentary along side of it. Ken and Trudy have distributed Bibles all throughout Africa, China, and Europe. It was a great time of fellowship and learning what God is doing throughout the world.

Thursday Download

It is going to be another great Sunday at Hope. We will be in part four of our series called "Fearless." We will be talking about the little brother of fear, 'worry'. For some reason we accept worry as a part of our every day life. I would beg to differ that worry should not be a regular part of our life. We will be looking at some things Jesus had to say about worry. I am also excited because Pat Cashman will be sharing his testimony this Sunday from some of the events that has happened to him last month. Pat is a living, breathing miracle and I know as Pat shares, God will use him greatly. Invite a friend and see you Sunday.

Weekend Reflections

1. Friday and Saturday our youth were in Des Moines for Spring Youth Convention. We ended up taking eleven students this weekend. Many were last minute which meant they all had to cram in two hotel rooms. We are so blessed to have such great leadership with our youth. Derek does such a great job with the kids. I pray that things they learned will truly impact their lives to make a difference in their families and in their school.

2. Friday was Spring Cleaning day for the Jones family. We threw away a lot of stuff and bagged more to give away. It feels good to get rid of so much clutter.

3. Jennifer's cousins stayed with us this weekend from Des Moines. Went to Williamsburg to do some shopping and got some good deals.

4. Another great day of worship at Community Hope. We had 181 in attendance on Sunday. Thirty nine were children in children's church. God is doing some great things. We were short-handed on the worship team but our team still did a tremendous job. They did a remix of the Doxology and closed the service with the Jeremy Camp song "Walk by Faith'. Way to go team!

5. Sunday night was our monthly Missions Team meeting. Our team decided to support Rural Compassion on a monthly basis, and give $1000.00 to the Iowa Camp project. What a great group of people to work with. We also discussed ways to reach out this summer. Loved some the ideas that came from the meeting. Talked about a single mom, widows free oil change for the community. Also talked about a date night for parents and also the 4th of July weekend. As a church we constantly need to be outwardly focused and be visible in the community. It is great to know that our missions team has this heart.

6. Finished the day watching the Spurs lose by six points in their first playoff game to Dallas. I think it will be a tough series but I'm not for sure if the Spurs can pull it off. Sure hope so!

Pray for our Youth

Just a quick post to please pray for our youth this weekend as they will be going to the Spring Youth Convention in Des Moines. We have nine teenagers going and many of them are unchurched. Pray for Derek and Samone as they will be leading this trip. Pray that God would truly touch these teens and we would hear many testimonies of what happened this weekend. We desperately need a Jesus Revolution in our school and it has to start with a few teenagers that get on fire for God. Please Lord, let it happen this weekend!

Don't be that couch!

OK, so growing up my mom and dad had the ugliest couch you could ever dream of. I believe they got it in the seventies when orange was the thing. It had orange and brown flowers all over it. I would bring up to my mom every once in a while that it was probably time to get a new couch. After all, she had new carpet, new blinds and a new chair. Right before she passed away she even had a new LCD television. But for some reason, she wouldn't give up the couch. It didn't match anything in the house and stood out like a sore thumb. Now I realize why my mom wouldn't give up the couch. There were lots of memories on that couch. My dad sat on that couch, all of us children sat on that couch. We celebrated Christmases, birthday's and other special occasions and the couch was there for them all. Good memories that go along with the couch.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for One Day Catalyst and Andy Stanley was speaking on that old couch. I had to laugh because as he was illustrating the old couch to old ways of doing ministries, I could relate as I thought about my moms couch. What Stanley said makes perfect sense. Here are some thoughts on a few of his points:

1. Church programming always began with an answer to a question, over time though the answer becomes a part of the churches culture. Here's the problem, as the culture changes, many of the questions remain the same but the answers don't. For example, we still need couches to sit on but probably not orange and brown ones from the seventies. Many churches are still doing church like it was the seventies. We no longer live in the seventies and that means church may look a little different. The message is still the same but our methods have to change with the culture.

2. We must be more committed to our mission than our programming. Programs are never the mission of the church. Winning the lost is the mission of the church. Sadly, some churches are more concerned about their way of doing church than reaching the lost.

It is easy to get comfortable on the old couch. Over time we get used to the old couch that we don't even notice that it sticks out. The funny thing is, when new people enter your home, they notice it right away. They think, how strange. I wonder why they kept that old couch over all these years. I wonder how many people who enter the church wonder the same thing. Here is the question I think we need to be asking ourselves as a church body and a good question for many churches today; 'Are we falling in love with the methods of doing church that may not be effective in reaching people anymore?' Remember, mission not methods wins people. The mission is to reach the lost. The message of the Gospel never changes but methods must change with the culture. Let's not be that old couch!

BGMC Hair

If you were not here on Sunday, you missed the unveiling of the colored hair for the kids BGMC fundraiser. Since the kids raised over $900.00 the great surprise was Austin Young coloring his hair rainbow colors. What a great group of leaders we have for our kids. They are absolutely awesome!




Jennifer's green hair for $300.00

Lisa's pink hair for $400.00

Kyra's purple hair for $500.00
















Austin's Rainbow hair for exceeding their goal!

The Unveiling!

Last month we gave everyone Buddy Boxes to put their change in as our kids set a BGMC goal to raise a certain amount of money. If $300 was raised, my wife Jennifer would color her hair green. If $400.00 was raised, Kyra Smith would color her hair purple and if $500.00 was raised then Lisa Huff would color her hair pink. Everyone participated and I am excited to say that we raised over $900.00 for the month of March for BGMC! That is truly incredible. This Sunday we will unveil the new hair dews with another special surprise. Don't miss out!