I love our TEAM!

No, not the Bulls (at least, not this year). Definitely not the Cubs. Or the Sox. (I sorta lost interest in baseball after the strike of several years back, unless you count being a 'fair weather fan' when Sox won the Series). And right now, I don't even have da Bears on my mind.

I love our CLC team!

If you've been here for any length of time at all, you know this is NOT "Jerry & Chris' church". God has given us a great team of men & women who serve with us in ministry here, week after week, and this church wouldn't be the same without them.

Our Tinley Park campus pastor, Doug Neal, stepped-up in a huge way during the recent community memorial service here for the Lane Bryant victims, and as a result of his message, doors have begun to open in the community. Last week he was able to speak to the students at Tinley Park High School, at the invitation of their principal who was impacted by Doug's message at the memorial service.

His message was later printed in the Tinley Junction newspaper, and as a result, they've asked him to do a weekly column. Here's the link to his first message.

So glad you're on our team, Doug & Shanna, and we're praising God for new opportunities for influence!

recession worries...

Unless you're fasting all media, you're bound to have heard all the recession reports of late, from the dollar dropping in value around the world, to stock market scares, to the housing market and mortgage foreclosures, and even the President's admission that the economy is facing "challenging times". What does all of this mean for you and me?

Well, I'm no prognosticator, but I am a pastor, and my reading from the Word today sure spoke to me. If you'll notice those verses in 1 Cor. 7:29-31 at least 4 things jump out at me:

1. Time is short - for all of us. So, from now on, Paul says we should recognize that:
2. If we buy something, remember that it's not ours to keep, and
3. If we use the things of this world, we should not be engrossed in them, because:
4. This world is passing away

Don't know about you, but that helps me keep things in perspective. As the old-timers used to sing, "This world is not my home; I'm just a-passing through; my treasures are laid up, somewhere beyond the blue!" May sound corny in 2008, but it's still true.

Don't worry....keep your eyes fixed on truth.

weekend reflections

Just a few thoughts about this wonderful weekend:

• Preaching at our newest campus in South Bend today was a blast! I think I met almost as many brand-new guests today as on the opening Sunday a few weeks' ago, and it was neat to see how the postcards are still working. We're continuing to unpack our CLC vision there, so I was teaching about Connecting, specifically on the essentials of small groups - and so many told me afterwards that they want to be a part of that. Best of all, we had 4 people who publicly received Christ - and (get this) 3 of them were men!
• Pastor K.L. Dickson was in Shorewood today (Pastor Dan Johnson was preaching in Dakar, Senegal before his return home this week) and the reports are a full house and a powerful move of the Spirit, with Pastor Dickson praying for people who needed healing or deliverance for over an hour after the service had concluded!
• My best friend and companion for the past 35 years was on fire in Tinley Park all weekend. I was able to enjoy the entire service last night, and I returned from South Bend in time to experience the altar time after the 11:15 service today - what can I say? You really had to be there! Needless to say, I'm excited about people who were healed, set free, filled w/the Holy Spirit and who-knows-what-else this weekend!

After that final service we had perhaps our largest-ever Newcomer's Reception, and I really enjoyed getting acquainted with some of our newest guests, hearing some of their stories as to how God led them to CLC. Pastors Doug & Shanna Neal and Nana Brayboy and her connections team do such a terrific job of hosting these receptions, and today seemed extra-special.

I've got to admit, I'm pretty pumped about Easter coming this weekend - and I hope YOU will do your part by inviting some friends to join us!

Easter services at Tinley Park campus

I'm not sure how it happened, because we went over every detail carefully, but evidently the email blast that went out this week has incorrect information about Easter services in Tinley Park (the upper part of the email is incorrect, the lower part is accurate).

At any rate, we apologize for any confusion, and, so to clear the air for everyone, here is the correct schedule in Tinley for next weekend:

Saturday - 6p.m.
Sunday - 6:30a.m. followed by a pancake breakfast
Sunday - 9a.m.
Sunday - 11:15a.m.

So that's 4 good opportunities for you to worship with us and invite a friend, too!

WHY should you?

Why should you invite someone to our Easter services? Or any other weekend service for that matter....





Someone responded to my last post with a great question: if we're inviting all those folks, why do we have only one service at 10am (I don't know if the comment was from SB or SW, and since I don't know how many of you read the comments, I decided my answer might be helpful as a separate post:)

Great question! The simple answer is that the overwhelming majority of people will NOT respond to a mass email (or postcard, or telemarketing call, for that matter). For instance, we mailed out about 20,000 postcards in the South Bend area, with 3 different cards to the same mail list, for a total of about 60,000 postcards sent out - yet only about 150 people responded - which is less than 1% of the households we mailed to. (That's almost exactly the results we had last year in Shorewood, too)

BUT, an incredibly-high percentage of those same people WILL respond to a personal invitation from a friend, which is why we're encouraging CLCers to invite their friends for Easter.

We did seriously consider adding a service at both Shorewood & South Bend, but we decided it would be better to pack it out, wall-to-wall rather than have 2 services that 'feel' like a poor attendance. (I don't know if that was a good decision or a poor one, but it's what we decided on as a pastoral team)

I hope you'll do your part in this tag-team, and invite someone to join us next weekend as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus!

another tool for you

We sent out 500,000 emails this week to invite people to our EASTER services at CLC, and I thought some of you might want to use the same email for your friends. Each one is interactive and links to our website.

If you want to use to reach out to your friends or family, just go to these links and then simply forward the email to your friend or family members electronically - click on the campus nearest them:

South Bend

Shorewood

Tinley Park

I need you!

Well, that's a broad statement and I actually need you for many reasons, but today just 1 is on my mind: EASTER weekend!

We're making plans for an incredible Easter celebration with great worship, special music, and a message guaranteed to get folks saved and moving closer to the Lord. (Actually, I've got 2 red-hot messages prepared, and I'm trying to decide which one is THE one for Easter - if you wanna vote, one is called "Cheated" & the other is "No Sweat" - feel free to comment below)

So what's the problem? We need non-CLCers to attend! That's where YOU come in.

I view church as a tag-team sport. When you arrive for a weekend service, you tag us and it's our job to worship the Lord in Spirit & truth, with excellence in all we do, and then preach the gospel in a compelling way so that people will respond. But now we're tagging you, and we need your help in inviting your friends, co-workers, family members and basically anyone you know who isn't attending a Bible-believing church.

Would you make it a point to invite 3 people to join you this Easter? Here's an easy way-
Thanks for the help - I really do need you!

And if you live in the South Bend area, I'll see you tonight with Pastor K.L. Dickson for a special healing service!

laughing w/Scripture

Sometimes the Bible makes me laugh! Yesterday's reading in our daily Bible reading guide made me chuckle out loud - Exodus 32:22-24

Not only is Aaron's excuse laughable, it's even more so because I've been just as guilty myself - trying to sell God some farfetched reason for why I did or didn't do something. How 'bout it - have you ever thrown something into the fire and "out came this calf"?

Unfortunately, God wasn't fooled - then or now - and we already know the truth about the calf. Come to think of it, most all of my failures have been the product of my own hands, too. And that's no laughing matter.

Had a good laugh while reading Scripture lately? Share it with us-

Monday morning survey

For years I've noticed that the Spring Daylight Saving Time change Sunday always has a big affect on church attendance, and I'm curious as to exactly why. Here's the perfect opportunity for us to conduct an unscientific poll, and you can be completely anonymous, so please respond -



if you were absent yesterday, was it because:



A. You learned about the time-change after you awoke, and figured you didn't have time to even try to come to church



B. You learned about the time-change while driving to church, and turned around and went back home.



C. You knew missing an hour of sleep was hard, so you planned not to attend yesterday.



D. None of the above (please write in your own reason)



Nobody's in trouble; I'm just curious...so humor me, please. What was your reason?

weekend review

What a great weekend we had at each location:

• in Tinley Park, K.L. Dickson ministered with such simplicity, yet managed to hit everyone in the room. After the final service he personally laid hands on people and prayed for over an hour after dismissal. Wonderful!
• in Shorewood, my wife reports that the Holy Spirit moved in, as several were filled with the Spirit and virtually the whole congregation was inundated, and people continued to pray and respond to the Spirit for 60-90 minutes afterwards!
• in South Bend, despite a nasty flu-bug that hit that area as well as the affect of Daylight Saving Time, we still had many first-time guests and returning guests from the week before, and Pastor Dan Johnson hit it out of the park w/his message. Campus Pastors Chris & Amber Payne report another encouraging day just 2 weeks into our launch there!

The full ministry of the Holy Spirit is one of our core values at CLC, so I'm encouraged!

come apart & a blast from the past

2 things on my mind right now:

• Jesus once invited His disciples to "come apart and rest a while" (well, in the KJV that I grew up with here) which has prompted me to say, if you don't come apart and rest, you will come apart! I see that more than ever because of the pace that Chris & I have kept for the past few months, but we finally got away for the past couple of days and I feel like a new man! Your marriage needs it; your body needs it; your mind needs it; even your spirit needs it - take a break now & then!


• talk about a blast from the past - this morning, just before I left to pick up Pastor Dickson at O'Hare, someone said "there are some men from WI in the lobby who said they know you". It was the founding pastor of CLC's origin (First Apostolic Church), Derrald Hilderbrand, and several men from the church he pastors in Wausau, WI. I hadn't seen Derrald in over 10 years, and haven't really talked with him in about 15 years - but he was the man who originally invited Chris and I to come to Tinley Park to pastor! I gave them a quick 'nickel' tour of the facility and then rushed off to O'Hare, but it sure brought back memories of my days in the denomination!

always trying to help

You know by now that I'm always trying to help CLCers :-)



I'm concerned for some of you this weekend, with the Daylight Saving Time change occuring earlier in the year than ever before. I know that missed hour of sleep on Saturday night is important to all of us - not to mention that for years I've observed how many churchgoers just can't function without it, so attendance usually drops significantly on that Sunday morning.



Eureka! (At least for CLC-Tinley Park)



This weekend we're entertaining the ministry of Pastor K.L. Dickson at all 3 weekend services. So, the truly wise ones among us will no doubt come to church on Saturday to enjoy his dynamic ministry, then sleep as late as you want on Sunday and adjust your clock that afternoon in order to be on-time for work Monday morning - isn't that brilliant!

For Shorewood and South Bend CLCers, the best suggestion I can give is to go to be earlier than usual Saturday night, so you'll still wake up refreshed and ready for a great Sunday with your guest speaker as part of our March Madness series-that's-not-a-series.

Whatever you do, at all 3 campuses - don't let Daylight Saving Time keep you away from what promises to be a wonderful weekend of blessing!

CLC-SOUTH BEND NEWS FLASH!

I'm very excited to report that we're scheduling a very-special, one-time-only-service at our newest campus with Pastor K.L. Dickson on Wednesday, March 12 at 7pm. You can read my previous post about Pastor Dickson here, or even more importantly, read this wonderful testimony from one of our CLC members.


If you live in the greater Michiana area, I hope you'll invite someone to be your guest for this very special service - I'm already expecting miracles!

K.L. Dickson

When K.L. Dickson was a teen boy growing up during the Idi Amin reign in Uganda, a team of students from ORU made a missions trip to his country. On the final day of their visit, they came to his school and gave a Gospel presentation. When they gave the salvation invitation, because of the fear and intimidation that prevailed during Amin's brutal reign, only one person responded publicly in the classroom: K.L. gave his life to the Lord that day.

The team of students from ORU left Uganda the next day, and I'm sure none of them had any idea what would become of the 'seed' they had sown in that Ugandan high school.

K.L. didn't just pray a simple prayer and go back to his old ways. He followed Jesus. Devouring God's Word and responding to God's call, he soon answered a call to ministry. From the beginning, his message of simple faith in God has been characterized by numerous healings, signs and wonders. Over the past 25 years, that ministry has led him to establish a congregation in Ft. Portal, Uganda of more than 10,000 members. In addition, he provides apostolic oversight to another 1,000 churches in Uganda, and, with the help of CLC, now owns a radio station that broadcasts the Gospel throughout Uganda and even other nations of Africa.

K.L. has been a guest at CLC several times over the past eight or nine years, and we've seen some wonderful healings and answers to prayer through his visits here.

He will be in Tinley Park for all 3 services this weekend, March 8-9 and in Shorewood on Sunday, March 16 as part of our "March Madness" series at CLC. I urge you to invite a friend to join you in hearing this dynamic man of God!

better than I thought

Our South Bend campus pastors gave me a report yesterday that the opening service was even better than I thought. It seems our attendance count didn't include some latecomer's, who brought the final tally to 300 (which is the number I had prayed for!) AND, better-still, when we compiled the connection cards, instead of 7 people praying to receive Christ, it was 9! Go God!

Before anyone writes about "all you're interested in is numbers", let me quickly point out that the reason for my excitement is that each one of those numbers represents an eternal, living soul for whom Jesus died - so the numbers do matter, because people matter to God!

A Word for the opening day...and more!

It's already been 24 hours since our official launch in South Bend, IN - and I'm still jazzed! I'm so thankful to the Lord for several things today:

• I'm thankful for the Campus Pastors, Chris & Amber Payne, who are new to CLC themselves and who are being stretched way out of their comfort zone by all the changes, but who did an incredible job of motivating & mobilizing the volunteer efforts that produced an absolutely unbelievable makeover of the Christian Tabernacle building to get prepared for yesterday's launch!


• I'm also thankful for the way CLC has embraced the vision of multi-site! To see so many CLCers drive to South Bend for the service, not because they were 'assigned' a role to fill, but just because they were excited about the launch, was incredible. Alan Franklin told me on Saturday when he drove onto the property and saw the CLC sign, it brought tears to his eyes - just to realize that we're really doing it - and his response brought tears to my eyes!


• I've already posted about how nervous I was about the launch, but I saved this for now: in my devotions early yesterday morning before the service, this was part of my reading from our 'through the Bible in a year' chart - is that awesome or what!

Statement of Faith

To make it easier for anyone who's read the latest comments - the statement of Faith was there on the website all along, so we apologize for any difficulty in finding it. Here's the link, but if you have specific questions about doctrinal matters, feel free to email me.

Ups and Downs of Ministry

I guess I could say ups and downs of life, because probably all of us experience it - but seldom have I had a weekend where the highs were so high and the lows so low and so close together.





Yesterday we came together as a church family to support one of our own: the Stephon & Rachel Parker family, in a memorial service for their 4-year old son, Ariel who was killed last week in a tragic auto accident here in Tinley Park. In a perfect world, parents should never have to bury a child, and this funeral was a difficult as any I've been a part of. Stephon & Rachel are doing as well as anyone possibly could, but they certainly need our continued love, prayers and support.


Then today we officially launched our 3rd Campus, this time in South Bend, IN - and it was simply an awesome high! As I posted yesterday, the 'launch team' from CT did an absolutely incredible job in an extreme makeover of the building there, to prepare for the dozens of brand new people who walked in this morning. You've got to see it to believe it!


Seeing and greeting those new folks today, some of them with postcards in hand, brought back memories from our Tinley Park launch in 1990 and certainly from last year's launch in Shorewood where each time we've seen people who had no other contact with us whatsoever join us in worship. That spells hunger in my book!


Altogether, we had 280 people in attendance (just shy of my personal goal of 300), with probably half of that total being new to CLC. (Speaking of which, it was such a pleasant surprise to see a few dozen CLCers from our other campuses who came today just to show their support for the launch - I love this family! I mean, driving one-and-a-half to two hours just to say 'we're part of this' is awesome!)

Best of all, I counted 7 precious men and women who prayed with me at the close of service to receive Jesus into their lives and begin a personal relationship with Him! That's why we do this, and it brought tears to my eyes to see such fruit on our very first day. There were some other great conversations after service with a number of open and hungry people, which leads me to say it again: there's no telling what God is going to do in South Bend!

Hats off to Pastors Chris & Amber Payne for the splendid job they're doing to lead the charge in Michiana. I'm excited about what God is doing at CLC, and I can't wait to see what He's up to next!

Anticipation!

Shortly after my last post I went to bed to get some sleep before our launch service in South Bend today, but I didn't get a lot of sleep - in fact, I woke up at 4am EST (which is 3am in Chicago), with my head filled with every detail of today's message and the folks that we hope to reach with it.



From then until I got up a couple hours' later, it was thinking of those details and dozing, thinking of details and dozing, until I awoke from a nightmare that we had the service but only about 5 or 6 people showed up....yikes!



That's kinda how it is when you're chasing a lion - it's a big RISK, and there's no guarantee - despite the fact that we spent thousands of dollars in marketing and new audio/video equipment to upgrade the church and the incredible amount of time and money giving the entire facility an extreme make-over (see my last post about the unbelievable job the folks from the former Christian Tabernacle have done with all volunteer labor), and despite the above-and-beyond efforts of our Campus Pastors and our Worship Pastors and volunteers from both Shorewood and Tinley Park - there is no way of knowing who or how many people will come today.

But I'm expecting the best....in fact, I'm expecting God to do exceedingly abundantly above all my expectations today...and the fun begins in just over 2 hours. I'll keep you posted this afternoon - until then, if you're reading this, believe with me!

Blown away!

I posting from South Bend, IN tonight after attending a prayer meeting on the eve of our "Grand Re-Launch" here tomorrow morning, and I'm simply blown away!

If you could see what the folks from the former Christian Tabernacle here have done with their building in preparation for tomorrow.....well, it's almost unbelievable. They've transformed a 20-year old nondescript building into a gorgeous, contemporary, state-of-the-art facility that all of CLC can be proud of! I can't even imagine the hundreds of man-hours that have gone into this transformation, and my hat's off to our Campus Pastors, Chris & Amber Payne and the entire team of volunteers from CT that have made all this possible!!!

Best of all, in less than 13 hours we're expecting dozens and dozens (hundreds?) of brand-new guests to walk through our doors to enjoy this facility, and eventually to find the life and love of Jesus here through our efforts. I can't wait!