A dream come true!

Actually, it was a vision, not a nighttime dream. My wife just shared it with me yesterday afternoon, and I remembered her original 'vision', back in 1990, when we were in the process of launching CLC through a series of telemarketing to 14,000 families and follow-up mailings to about 1,900 who expressed interest in this 'new church' starting at Tinley High School. During a time of prayer and fasting, the Lord gave her a vision of automobiles lined up, one after another, all waiting to turn into the parking lot for one of our services. She shared the vision with us back then, to encourage our little group of 50 adults that God was going to honor our efforts and that people were going to respond by attending. In fact, we thought the vision would soon be fulfilled after the opening at the High school.

Of course, that was not to be, and even though we tripled our little group on the opening weekend, our growth as a congregation was slow at best in those early years and didn't really accelerate until the late 1990's.

However, yesterday Chris was here at CLC Tinley before service, putting the finishing touches on her sermon to be delivered in Shorewood. She left the office here just after 9am and walked into the parking lot to drive to the Shorewood campus, when, to her amazement, she saw a line of cars on Ridgeland Avenue, one after another, all waiting to turn into our parking lot for service. As she drove around the lot to enter 183rd street and head towards Shorewood, it was more of the same - as far as she could see, one car after another with their blinkers on, all waiting to turn into CLC's parking lot for service (all a little late for worship, I should add!)

Besides her excitement of seeing all those cars lined up, it hit her - the vision from 17 years earlier - is now being fulfilled every Sunday!

I wonder how many other 'visions' God has given you that perhaps you've forgotten or thought were never going to come to pass, since there's been such a long delay from the time you received the promise until now. Maybe you've given up hope of ever seeing it fulfilled. But we would urge you today to keep the faith - because of this!

Now if God is fulfilling visions from 17 years ago during this season of acceleration, what do you think He's going to do here next? I'm ready to GO!

Sunday afternoon reflections

What a weekend! I don't remember when I've been this tired, but it's all good.

After that incredible Leadership Retreat on Friday & Saturday, we went right into the 3 weekend services in Tinley and all 3 were bigger than usual - I'm sure by the time I get the reports tomorrow, we will have been near 1,500 folks here worshipping in the middle of summer vacations!

Not only that, but the energy level in the services, especially when we introduced the Kim's (see my previous post about the Korean-language outreach we're beginning) and perhaps even more so when we announced that South Bend is now our 3rd campus!

It was also a service packed with unusual stuff, including the KidsTown presentation for Family Sunday and the testimonies from our newly-returned teams from Peru, and China/Mongolia - awesome stuff!

By the time I got to preaching, we had precious few minutes left (and you guys graciously gave me some 'extra'), but I sure did enjoy talking (yelling) about the treasure hid in the field - it's so awesome to know how much Jesus values us! (if you don't know what that's about, get the CD or download the podcast!)

CLC, the accelerator is on - the pedal is to the metal, as they say - we're about to GO!

I lied.

Well, kinda. In my last post, I said the adrenalin was starting to wear off about 2 hours after our MEGA retreat opening session had ended. The truth is, when I awoke this morning before 5am, the adrenalin was still there.

I can't help it - I'm pumped. When I think about how far we've come in the past few years, and especially about how much the pace has accelerated this year, I can't help but be jazzed about where we're about to GO!

A few minute's ago I was reading in the Gospel of Mark (I'm reading thru the New Testament with you by Sept. 9) when I came across this passage: Mark 10:27

Then I remembered: that's how all of this got started! Just before our First Love Conference in January, I was struck with the verse in Genesis and the idea that the word of the Lord came to him, and I sensed that the word of the Lord would also 'come' to us during those meetings. Sure enough, when Pastor Gordon Banks ministered that Sunday morning, he read Mark 10:27 and I was immediately arrested - because for the past few years, I had 'stopped' at the first part of the verse: humanly speaking, it is impossible. In my personal life, in my finances, and especially in my leadership of CLC, I had often thought, 'it's impossible'. But that Sunday morning, I saw the rest of the verse: not with God, for with GOD, all things are possible!

I'm not sure this adrenalin is going to wear off.....I think it may be Holy Ghost adrenalin.

CLC, we're getting ready to GO!

MEGA leadership retreat, part 1

We kicked off our annual MEGA leadership retreat for CLC tonight. The first session ended over 2 hours ago, and the adrenaline is just now starting to wear off! I laughed (a little), and I cried (a lot) with the largest group of leaders we've ever assembled - not sure the total count, but there must have been between 150-200 people in the room.

The main reason I cried so much was because tonight we took a little stroll down memory lane as I reviewed how we got to this place in our history as a church, and we heard a few stories from some of the folks who are now helping make it happen. Probably the highlight of the evening was when we saw and heard from the newest members of our CLC family - the delegation from our newest campus in South Bend, IN (read my previous posts to get that story) AND especially when we heard from the pastor of our Korean-language congregation, Kim Do Yoon, just hours after he and his family arrived at O'Hare!

We talked about all the times God has said "GO!" to us at CLC, and how the pace is accelerating now. What gets me so excited is that One GO always leads to another! In fact, I neglected to mention the latest example of that: John Nordstrom, Sr. had put his house on the market in South Bend several weeks ago, in anticipation of his retirement and upcoming move to Southern Illinois to work closely with his son, Phil and the church he pastors in Murphrysboro. However, he had not received any 'nibbles', despite several showings. Then last Sunday in their service in South Bend, they officially announced to the congregation the decision to dissolve their corporation (of more than 50 years!) and transfer all their assets to CLC, to fully become our 3rd campus. That evening John received an acceptable offer for his home, and he is closing on the sale in less than 2 weeks!

I can't tell you how excited I am about what God is doing here and we're dreaming BIGGER than ever before in our lives. I can't wait until tomorrow, when we share the plans we have for our future - but I promise you, CLC - it's gonna be good. Buckle your seat belt and get ready to GO! You'll hear more about it beginning August 25/26.

What a wonderful techno world!

I know some of us 50-somethings are entering the 21st century reluctantly, kicking & screaming as we go - but I'm not one of 'em. (Well, I am in the 50-something group, but I like technology). Today I had one of the neatest surprises of the year:

Between the 2 Sunday services I was standing in the atrium greeting folks, when I met a neat young couple who were visiting CLC for the very first time. When I asked my standard question, "How did you hear about us?", the husband replied, "Been listening to your podcast for this series, and decided to come today to hear it live".

Now get this: they live over 40 minutes' drive away from CLC and had no other contact with our church family whatsoever! In fact, he explained that he often watches Joel Osteen on television and noticed that Joel has a free podcast of his sermons. He thought, 'hey, that'll be something to do when I'm mowing the lawn - I can listen to the Word at the same time". After trying that for a while, he thought, I wonder who else has sermon podcasts, so he did an internet search, and CLC popped up on his screen!

He said we were about halfway thru the Old Testament portion of our "Road Trip 4 God" series when he & his wife started listening, and they enjoyed the teaching so much they went back to our website and downloaded the earlier messages, before deciding to drive up today to get the Word in person.

How cool is that? I've noticed for a few months already that virtually every newcomer I speak with in the atrium tells me that before they visited the church in person, they visited our website - but this is the first time someone has told me they were already listening to the messages via podcast.

This 21st century technology is giving us the opportunity to get the Word out to people all over the globe, in ways we could only have dreamed of before. My new friend, Mark Batterson has actually said that he now ministers to more people thru his podcast each week than hear him live in his church in Washington, DC!

Don't talk to me about the "good old days" - I'm living in them, right now!

Read thru the New Testament in 7 weeks!

Boy, I dunno when I've enjoyed preaching/teaching as much as I have this summer during our "Road Trip 4 God" series -- and all your comments have blessed me, too -- I love knowing that people are 'getting it'!

This weekend I felt impressed to ask us all to commit to a 7-week sprint rather than the year-long marathon we promote every January. If you weren't here, it's simple: start in Matthew and read 30 minutes a day or less for the next 7 weeks ending on September 9, and you will have completed the entire 27 books of the New Testament!

More importantly, as you're reading the LOGOS over these next 49 days, I believe God is going to speak RHEMA words directly to your spirit! Make sure you have a notebook & pen nearby, to capture His thoughts to you.

Are you up to the challenge? Please add your comments to this post as you hear from God thru the pages of the New Testament-

it's official: a 3rd campus for CLC!

At last it can be told: I just now hung up the telephone, and this morning we 'officially' acquired our 3rd campus - in South Bend, IN!

Many of you know John Nordstrom, Sr. who has served on our Board of Directors since it's estabishment in 1993. John & his wife Phyllis have been in pastoral ministry for over 40 years, most recently serving Christian Tabernacle in South Bend. At our CLC Directors meetings this past April, he asked to have a private breakfast with me, and there he related his desire to retire from the senior pastorate (he's 67 years old) and move to southern Illinois to assist his son Philip, who is leading a growing church in Murphrysboro, near the SIU campus. Then he dropped the bombshell: would we consider taking over the South Bend congregation as our third campus?

Our of my love and respect for John, I promised to pray - although I confessed that while the "multi-site" approach is definitely our vision for CLC, I had never considered the idea of taking over an existing congregation, and certainly not one 90 miles away!

Over the past 4 months we've had much prayer, discussion, meetings and visits with our staff, his leaders, and even a congregational visit a few weeks ago. All of us have come to the conclusion that this is indeed a "God-thing" and that we were simply being obedient.

So today, they decided t0 offically dissolve their corporation (this is a church that's been in existence for over 40 years!) and transfer all their assets to CLC, in order to fully become a part of our family: "one church, multiple locations"!

I'll have more to day in the days ahead, and we're planning some opportunities for all of us to meet together soon so you can see the newest part of our growing family. I can tell you that the South Bend campus is about 125-strong, and is already multicultural, with at least 3 or 4 African nations represented in the congregation. The folks who are already there will become our "launch team", as we spend the next several months training & preparing them for a major "grand RE-opening" in January of 2008, when we hope to see over 400 people in attendance!

If you're a part of our Shorewood or Tinley Park campuses, and you feel the Holy Spirit nudging you to be a part of helping us on the ground floor of this new venture, we certainly welcome your involvement. Just shoot me an email or talk to us at any upcoming service.

How do you spell a-c-c-e-l-e-r-a-t-e?

Did you know you can subscribe?

Some of the recent comments, both here and in the halls of CLC have made me think perhaps you don't realize that you don't have to manually come to this site to see if I've posted anything new and interesting (I'll give you a hint: sometimes even when it's new, it's probably not so interesting - unless you're in love with this local church like me!)

At any rate, with modern technology what it is, you can actually subscribe to this blog and whenever I post something new, it automatically appears in your inbox. How cool it that?

So, if you're tired of checking in from time to time and wanna make it easy to get the latest on what's going thru my head, just click here and follow the simple instructions.

Are you sitting down?

If not, please do; this is a bombshell:

we're about to open another church!

No, not the one I've been writing & talking about for the past several weeks. A Korean church, right here at CLC!

We were approached in December of last year about the possibility of opening a Korean-speaking church, to be pastored by a Spirit-filled Presbyterian pastor from Seoul who has sensed a call from God to come to America as a missionary. He and his family are fully-funded, and only needed the right 'fit' for a sponsoring church here in the Chicago area (that's us).

Even though there's been several emails back and forth since their brief visit early this year, I've honestly had so much else happening so fast that I had kinda forgotten about this one until this evening, when I received an email informing me that they are arriving at O'Hare next Friday, July 27!

Of course, they'll have some 'settling in' to do, what with buying a house and a car, enrolling in English language school, getting their 2 children enrolled in school, etc. - but they're already asking how soon they can start early morning prayer meetings at CLC, as they're custom is in Korea!

So, in just a few months we'll be holding 9 weekend services in 3 different campuses and 3 different languages - which is pretty amazing when you consider we started this year of 2007 with 4 weekend services in 1 location and 2 languages!!! Would you call that acceleration like the prophet spoke over us in January?

Buckle your seat belt, CLC - we're getting ready to GO!

More books a'coming!

We've been promoting Mark Batterson's visit to CLC next month (August 11-12, all 3 weekend services) lately and I didn't realize until yesterday that we had already SOLD OUT of the 2 cases of his book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. So today we ordered 2 more cases for all of you CLCers who haven't had a chance yet to read what is simply the BEST book I've read in the last year.

I promise that it will challenge & inspire you. And it's a real page-turner, an easy-read (I literally couldn't put it down, and would have finished the whole book in one sitting over the Christmas holidays had my wife not insisted I turn the light off when I was in the next-to-last-chapter!)

So get your copy this Sunday and mark your calendar for August 11/12. His visit is SO timely for CLC - because we're ALL gonna need an extra shot of courage to GO where God is taking us next!

3rd campus announcement

Well, sort of. Actually there was a miscommunication last week. The church that has asked us to consider taking over their operation scheduled a vote for next Sunday, not today. However, the current pastor assured me by phone this afternoon that it is a 'done deal' (his words) and that everyone is on board.

So, for the sake of integrity, I'll delay my announcement here until the vote is taken and the decision is official. Meanwhile, I'm pretty excited about the imminent opening of our 3rd campus in an area that's prime for growth for the Kingdom of God! Stay tuned next week for more details.....in fact, perhaps you should begin praying now - is it possible that the Holy Spirit may nudge you to get in on the ground floor to help us launch this new campus in early 2008?

Weekend reflections

I'm tired....but it's definitely a good tired. All 3 services in Tinley this weekend were energetic in worship, with a tangible anointing on each one. And I preached harder (read that: louder) than I have in a while. I couldn't help myself - the passage in Joshua 3 really exploded in me this whole week.

In case you missed it, let me summarize: the story of the priests bearing the Ark of the Covenant and stepping into the Jordan River is one I've heard since my Sunday School days. However, I always thought the water stopped at the point where the priests entered the river, as soon as their feet touched it. Instead (as you can see if you read the text), the waters were cut off about 30 miles upstream! Since the speed of water flowing in a river varies between 1-4 mph, those priests must have stood in the river for somewhere between 7-24 hours --- and all that time, it appeared that nothing was happening and they were just looking foolish.

So the next time you do something the Lord told you to do and it seems like nothing is happening - don't doubt and don't be discouraged. Just keep standing in the river by faith, knowing that God has already done His part, and eventually the water will get to where you're standing!

That was fun preaching!

Smile a while....

I don't often just repeat other pastor's stuff, but my friend Perry Noble has done it again. If you could use a good laugh and learn a lesson about criticism at the same time, read this & enjoy!

3rd campus for CLC???

OK....well, it's not quite official, so I won't give all the details just in case. But the church that has asked us to consider taking over their ministry as our third campus met yesterday and heard the formal proposal from their current pastor and leadership team to officially dissolve their corporation and transfer their assets to CLC in order to become our third site - and the pastor told me last night that there was no a single voice of dissension when they opened the floor for discussion.

They have scheduled a vote for next Sunday, July 15 to make it official - so hopefully I'll have the full announcement for you next week.

Just think where we've come from this year - from one church meeting in one location to possibly soon being one church meeting in three locations with seven services in two languages!

Remember the prophet who spoke 'acceleration' over us in January? It's happening - and the best is yet to come. Get ready to GO!

You guys know how to party!

As a general rule, Sunday nights at the McQuay household are pretty lame - by the time we've preached, prophesied and prayed with folks in three services, we're usually brain-dead, stretched out on the couch to let the TV put us to sleep.

But last night was Alan Franklin's 40th birthday bash, and since Alan has been a key part of our CLC family since 1996 (he joined us when we were just over 100 in attendance), Chris and I decided to go.....and we had a ball!

It was great seeing so many CLCers in one place (felt like the church picnic!) and I thoroughly enjoyed 'Name That Tune' from the 70's along with Gospel goodies from the 80's (it was 'interesting' to see who all can sing the lyrics from that far back!)

Terrilyn and all her helpers sure did it up right, and I was moved by the presentation from Alan's second-grade piano teacher and the number of other dignataries who send their congratulations on this milestone in the life of a humble servant, whose business is blessing other musicians and churches all across Chicagoland. I'm glad to be Alan's pastor, and just as glad to serve a group of folks like him who are making a difference every day!

weekend reflections

Another great weekend at CLC! I can remember when I've had more fun teaching than Saturday night when we had a great attendance (especially for summertime!) and I led the group from Israel going into Egypt all the way through 'God's object lesson', The Tabernacle (for a look at the pictures I used, click here) If you weren't here, you can get the podcast or get the CD next time you're here.

Then on Sunday at Tinley Park (from what I've heard), Pastor Dan preached the lights out! My wife tells me it was an incredible message & I'm looking forward to the CD on my drive time this week.

I was in Shorewood for one of the largest single-services I've preached there, and it was great to meet so many newcomer's to our campus there. Our whole launch team is doing a great job and it's exciting to see that campus taking shape so well so soon.

With one team ministering in Peru this week, and another leaving for China/Mongolia next week, it's a good season for CLC, and you can't believe what's coming up this Fall - it's gonna be bigger & bolder than anything we've ever done in our entire history - so buckle your seat belts and get ready to GO!

Are You Thankful on the 4th of July?

Happy Independence Day, CLC!

I suppose the title is a little misleading, because even though every American should be grateful for our liberty and blessings in this country, that's NOT what's on my mind this morning.

You see, I just returned from a trip to Loyola Hospital to visit our brother/member/trustee, Venu Menon. Most of you know that Venu was in a horrible auto accident a couple of months ago that resulted in several internal injuries and the amputation of his left leg above the knee. He has been in ICU since May 1, and only recently regained consciousness. He has developed infections several times while being hospitalized and is still dependent on hospital staff for virtually all of his needs.

Yet today as I talked with him, every sentence was punctuated with "thank you, Jesus"! Those of us who know and love Venu know that this is nothing new; he's always had such a joyful spirit and constantly gives praise the Lord who delivered him from many years of idolatry and filled him with the Holy Spirit. But today I was moved to tears to see such an attitude of gratitude in the midst of his present circumstances.

I want to be like Venu when I grow up! How often do I grumble and complain about the slightest inconvenience or frustration of the day. Yet here's a man whose life was almost taken in a moment on the road - whom even the doctors are acknowledging is a miracle that he has survived that crash - and despite everything that's happened to him, he's still praising the Lord. He even smiles! (In fact, one of his doctors told the family, "I like coming here to see him, because of that big smile he always gives me!")

How 'bout you? Do you have any stories to share of friends or family members who maintained their joy in the midst of difficult circumstances? Have you 'kept your praise on' through dark times? It would bless me and others to hear your story - so add your comment today. And together, let's ALL be thankful on the 4th of July!

weekend reflections

From all the reports I've heard, my wife did a terrific job at the wheel for our "Road Trip 4 God" yesterday, and we had a ton of new guests in addition to what sounded like a genuine move of the Holy Spirit at both services. All of that is hearsay with me, because I was ministering in another city with about a dozen CLCers who provided moral support (and some great music!)

The church where I ministered has asked us to consider adding them as our third campus and yesterday was intended to be a 'face to face' opportunity to explore those possibilities. So after lunch, we reconvened for several hours and they asked me every question imaginable (and some I hadn't imagined!) - not from a negative, critical viewpoint, but just sincere questions from good folks who are concerned about the future of their church and the transition after their senior pastor retires.

Today I've already heard from the elder in charge of that transition team as well as their senior pastor, and it certainly feels like this is a "God-thing" that will likely happen quite soon. I'm deliberately not giving more details in this posting because I want to be sensitive to the fact that the final decision has not been made, but we'll keep you posted as things progress from here.

If all goes well, we'll be announcing the opening of our 3rd campus soon!