A Short Week

Memorial Day

Short weeks are always a challenge for me. Whenever we have a Monday holiday, my mind’s out of sync the remainder of the week. For instance, all day Wednesday I’m convinced it’s Tuesday. And just when I feel confident that there’s one more day to get ready for the weekend, I wake up and it’s Saturday morning!

Regardless of my frustration with the manner in which short weeks mess with my psyche, I do enjoy the Monday holiday. This past Monday—Memorial Day—my wife and I visited the Minnesota History Center to experience the new Minnesota’s Greatest Generation exhibit. We left with a renewed sense of appreciation for the men and women who’ve served in our armed forces.

And, as I mentioned in last weekend’s worship services, we owe a debt of gratitude to those who’ve made personal sacrifices to protect the freedoms that we enjoy in the United States of America. I’m grateful that our church family joined with me in recognizing some of those individuals and their families in our services.

Looking Ahead

It’s rewarding to serve with a skilled team of pastors and leaders. As most of our volunteers know, our Gifts Pastor, Chris Luk, resigned her staff position to get married in June preceeding her move to Wisconsin. This weekend I plan to introduce our new Gifts Pastor, Heath Vosberg in the worship services.

We appreciate the role Chris played in helping to launch the Eagle Brook Spring Lake Park campus. There were many tears when we gathered to honor her achievements. Here’s a picture from Chris’s ministry appreciation party.

 

By way of reminder, our new series titled John’s Best Friend begins this weekend. Be sure to invite your friends and family to come along on the journey as we spend the summer learning about Jesus.

SLP Corner House…Thanks!

As we near the end of the marriage message series—Truly, Madly, Deeply…Stuck—and take our first steps into the summer ministry season, I’d like to say thanks to everyone who chose the Corner House as an 11:05 Sunday attendance option. What you did opened seats for our guests, and some of those guests are now regular attenders.

This coming Sunday will be your last opportunity to choose the Corner House for a while. If you haven’t had the opportunity to experience it yet, it’s worth the investment of your weekend worship hour.

I’m interested in your feedback. If you’ve experienced worship at the Corner House, please let me know how it went for you. Also, any ideas you might have to improve the Corner House experience for future attenders would be helpful.

Summer Days are Coming

The warm, lazy days of summer are finally within reach. Here are a few suggestions for getting the most out of your weekends at SLP over the summer months.

•­ If you’re married or a parent, continue strengthening your family relationships by logging in to Eagle Brook’s Marriage and Family blog.

•­ If possible, come to church on Saturday. Saturday services will have the most open seats.

•­ There will be additional opportunities to serve. If you’ve completed the volunteer requirements, choose to serve as often as possible. If you’re new to serving, take the appropriate steps to become a volunteer. You can begin here.

•­ Summer is a great time to reach others Christ. Invite your friends, family and out of town guests to attend worship services with you.

It’s going to be a fantastic summer of ministry at SLP. I’m delighted that you’re along for the ride.

Relevance…Will You Be There?

The Eagle Brook Leadership Team gathered at a local conference center on Mother’s Day afternoon for our annual retreat. After many hours of prayer and planning for the year ahead, we left on Tuesday afternoon with a renewed sense of urgency to do all we can to reach others for Christ. That includes helping other churches prevail. And that’s what Relevance 2009 is all about.

We’re just a few days away from Eagle Brook’s biggest annual homegrown event for church leaders—the Relevance Conference. And for the first time, everyone in our church family is invited to attend. Better yet, the guest speaker at Relevance is Bill Hybels. Bill is the founding senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church as well as the founder of the Leadership Summit.

The opportunity for you to attend Relevance 2009 is unprecedented. And, if you register with the special code for Eaglebrookers found in this weekend’s program before the end of the day on May 18, you’ll get a significant discount. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

I’m eager to see what God is going to do at Eagle Brook in the months ahead. Pastor Bob will unveil some of the plans for this coming fall in his message on the weekend of June 6/7. You don’t want to miss it.

God is working in an extraordinarily powerful way at Eagle Brook Church and at the Spring Lake Park Campus. I’m grateful to be part of it…and I’m pleased that you’re part of it too. We’re serving God together to reach others for Christ.

Marriage Series a Big Hit

I took some time off last weekend. Often I’ll visit a church on my weekend off to see what others are doing in order to discover ways we might improve our ministry. I also want to be an encouragement to the churches in our area.

While I was visiting a nearby church this past Sunday, my wife took two of our grandkids to worship at Spring Lake Park. Afterwards, we met at home to discuss our morning.

“How’d it go at SLP?” I asked.

Jolene replied, “We’ve got an assignment. We’re supposed to give each other a six-second kiss every day.”

As you might imagine, both of us are taking great delight in completing this assignment!

We’re half-way through the marriage series, Truly, Madly, Deeply…Stuck. For many couples, the marriage series has affirmed the health of their relationship. For others, the series has revealed areas of need. For a few, the series has provided hope and practical next steps to salvage their marriage.

In addition, many of our singles are making adjustments in their personal lives to set the stage for healthy marriages in the future. Divorcees, widows and widowers are benefiting as well.

With only three weeks left in the marriage series, we have an opportunity to share this message of hope with individuals and couples outside our church. As you invite people, you might want to encourage them to catch the previous messages online at eaglebrookchurch.com (check it out by clicking here).

Did you know that we’ve got a marriage and family blog where you can find helpful information and have an opportunity for interaction? Click here for the marriage and family blog.

By the way, you have three more weeks to experience worship at the Corner House during the 11:05 service on Sunday morning. Come on over, enjoy a free cup of coffee or bottle of water and participate in a presentation of the entire worship service from our broadcast campus at Lino Lakes.

I’m looking forward to being with you this weekend—Spring Lake Park is a fabulous place to worship and serve.