Last weekend was a winner—2,199 people attended at Spring Lake Park…and that’s with Halloween on Saturday night! Ninety-seven regular attenders enjoyed worship at the Corner this past weekend as well–thanks for using this one-of-a-kind Eagle Brook venue.

Feed My Starving Children

When winter winds pile snowflakes atop mounds of old frozen snow…and the sun refuses to press its way through thick gray clouds…and you begin to think I can’t take another day of this madness…you can put a smile on your face and warm your heart by participating in an event that will provide 2 million meals for those who are among the poorest of the world’s poor. Click here to get more information on an upcoming winter serving event that’ll be a burst of delight for all of us.

Just for Fun

How has the Eagle Brook worship experience evolved over the years? Click here for an enjoyable journey through EBC’s worship style transformation and go to “10 Year EBC Retrospect”.

Not Without Out You

The View From Here events have been an amazing success. If you weren’t able to attend one of the presentations, I’d encourage you to find someone who did and ask them about their experience. Click here to get updates on Not Without You.

Six weeks from now marks our second anniversary as Eagle Brook Church, Spring Lake Park. And we’ve learned a lot along the way. For instance, we’ve identified three growing seasons of the year, one of which began last weekend.

Last weekend 2,216 people attended services at the SLP campus. And we all worked together to make sure our guests had a seat in the primary worship center. Some regular attenders chose to attend on Saturday rather than Sunday. Others chose to worship at the Corner House Sunday morning. Thanks for suiting up and participating on the SLP team.

Not Without You

The Not Without You campaign is up and running. Here’s some information to help you get the most out of this series.

· You can stay up to date with the campaign by clicking here.

· If you miss a weekend service, you can click here to watch the message online or click here to watch On the Fly online.

· Be sure to bring your Journey Guide to church and use the weekend notes section to record message notes. If you forget your Journey Guide (as I did last weekend), we’ve provided blank message notes paper near the worship center entrances for your convenience.

Blaine Campus

As you know, opening the Blaine campus will give us an additional 800 worship center seats in our geographic area (800 seats multiplied by four weekend services makes room for 3,200 potential attendees). Until the Blaine campus opens, we must do our best to reach people for Christ with the resources God has given us. These resources include our primary worship center (564 seats) and the Corner House (150 seats).

I’m grateful for each of you who are choosing to worship at the Corner House at 9:05 and 11:05 on Sunday mornings. You’re making seats available for our guests, many of whom are experiencing church for the first time.

We’ve designed the services at the Corner House for regular attenders only. If you’re a regular Sunday morning attender and physically able to climb a flight of stairs, please consider choosing the Corner House at 9:05 or 11:05 this weekend. You’ll experience the entire service simulcast live from Lino Lakes, get to hang out with Pastor Greg Grimstad and enjoy a sense of community in Eagle Brook’s smallest venue.

And as always, if you’re bringing a guest, please choose to attend with them in the primary worship center.

God is at work in amazing ways at SLP—all glory and praise belong to Him.

It’s our pleasure to display the art of fellow Eagle Brooker, Scott Sample. Each picture is part of a series and two pieces from the Hand Series adorn a wall in our Café 5000. As you can see from Scott’s description below, the works are dense with detailed meaning springing from a heart of authentic worship.

The Hand Series by Scott Sample

The Hand Series

The Hand Series was created to be a visual metaphor and reflection on the active nature of God’s grace and timeless love— and it is through His hand that all things are created and with His hand is formed all of life.

It has struck me many times to think of the amazing grace, compassion, strength, power, and love that God enacts both past and present with His creation—this continues with God’s hand over us; guiding, protecting, and empowering us.

In these works, the rendering of each hand in it’s different forms is meant to reflect on the various ways that God interacts with us, and how we come to God with an outstretched hand—that in this relation it is active, never ceasing. This is the reason for the looser kinetic drawing style—it is in the energy of the strokes and marks that we get a sense of His unceasing and powerful love—it is always there and always moving.

The drawing style also conveys a sense of simplicity and honesty to the medium—actually being hand done and not meant on any level to look mechanical or like a photo impression leaving room for personal connotations.

Outward from the center drawing and in the backdrop is the actual Latin translation for Psalm 19:1-2—it is not meant to be read literally but as a centering paradigm to the hand of God coming from and over the “Word.” The font chosen for the background is also a timeless serif, based on Trajan Roman, which was the defining font used within Rome at the time of Christ.

Another aspect to the works is to convey an element of timelessness within the materials—the plaster and fresco style with layers of glazing is drawn from the artists of the high Renaissance. The hands are drawn in an active loose sketch style to reflect an active and kinetic grace, defined through God’s hand. The style of the works is created with layer upon layer to transcend any specific time, and let the viewer pull visual contextual cues from history, culture, and architecture.

The hope with this series is to pull the viewer in and let them sense and feel the timeless grace that is forever God.

Scott Sample 2009

Smiling faces, laughter and high-octane energy spills out of the hallways, worship center and Corner House as the Spring Lake Park campus transforms into a popular student destination each Wednesday. The evening opens with Ground Zero (Jr. High) and then morphs into Revolution (Sr. High).

Each age group has its own worship band, Bible teacher and numerous small groups. One highlight of the evening is the newly renovated student center at the Corner House. Check it out:

Student Center at the Corner House

For more information, please click on Ground Zero or Revolution.

Student Center at the Corner House

Go Vikings! A Corner House Opportunity for Everyone

An amazing phenomenon is occurring with each Vikings win—the 9:05 worship service swells in attendance whenever the Vikings play at noon on Sundays. An amazing coincidence indeed!

To accommodate more people at 9:05, we’ll have the Corner House available at both the 9:05 and 11:05 services this coming Sunday, October 11. If you’re a regular attender and physically able to climb a flight of stairs, please consider choosing the Corner House at 9:05 or 11:05 this weekend. You’ll get to experience the entire service simulcast live from Lino Lakes.

Not Without You

The countdown has started for the Not Without You campaign. Get ready—it’ll start soon—you don’t want to miss it!

Over the past few days I’ve listened to lots of positive comments from dozens of people who attended the Fall Kickoff worship services. Last weekend was a fabulous celebration of God’s work at Eagle Brook. And it was fun to reconnect as a church family after a long, busy summer.

If you were at Spring Lake Park, or any of our other campuses, you heard Bob talk about the vision of our church to reach others for Christ. You also caught a small glimpse of how we’re going to accomplish that vision through the multi-site strategy. In particular, you heard Bob mention that we desire to open our next campus in Blaine.

God is doing BIG things at EBC. And the next few months will stretch us all. This season of our church’s history is developing around the theme Not Without You—and it will require all of us to rely entirely on God and participate in what He’s calling us to do.

You can learn more about the proposed Blaine campus and stay current with the latest developments by frequently visiting the Not Without You website. The website will continue to expand as more details about the plans for EBC’s future become available.

For now, we’ll continue reaching people for Christ in the Spring Lake Park area by making sure our guests have a great worship experience when they attend our campus. I want to say thanks to those of you who are doing your part by attending weekend services on Saturday or choosing the Corner House as your primary place to worship. Your choices are making seats available when many of our guests are coming to try our church for the first time. Let’s continue working together to make a positive difference in our community.

As sights and sounds of summer morph into the splendor of autumn, the Eagle Brook, Spring Lake Park teams are gearing up for a fabulous fall kick off. This coming weekend, September 12/13, is one you’ll remember for a long time.

Come Early

This coming weekend we’re rolling out a brand new feature called On the Fly. It’ll begin about seven minutes before the service starts. If you want to be in the know, you’ll need to come early, otherwise you’ll miss it…and believe me, you don’t want to miss it.

Celebrate the Past

Together we’ll revisit highlights of this past year at Eagle Brook. God has been at work in many ways and we want to celebrate what He is doing through our church.

Peek into the Future

The next three months will potentially have more impact on the future of Eagle Brook Church than any other period in our church’s history. You’ll hear where we believe God is leading us…and it’s BIG. I can’t think of a more exciting time to be part of this church.

Sing a New Song

The Eagle Brook Worship pastors have been collaborating on a new theme song for this season of our church’s life. You’ll get to sing it with your church family for the first time this coming weekend.

By way of reminder, we need your help to make sure everyone has a great experience. In particular, we want to be sure that those who come seeking Christ have a seat in the worship center. Here’s how you can help: if you have flexibility in your schedule, please come at 4:05 or 6:05 on Saturday. If you need to attend church on Sunday at 11:05 and you are physically able to climb a flight of stairs, we need 100 people to choose to worship at the Corner House (at 11:05 on Sundays only).

In addition, we’ve added parking spaces by paving the overflow grass area adjoining our existing lot and we’re running shuttle service to the Rise parking lot to the south of our facilities on Sunset Road.

Thanks for your persistence as we work to provide permanent seating for everyone who wants to attend church in our area—God is doing amazing things through you!

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve updated my blog and people have been asking, “Where’ve you been?” In answer, I’ve been wringing the most out of the final days of summer.

First Exposure to the Boundary Waters

I took my first trip into the Boundary Waters with a group of EBC staff. It was amazing. To experience God’s creation without the many conveniences we’re all accustomed to was a highlight of my summer.

Enjoying God's Creation

 Jumping Out of an Airplane

I also experienced the thrill of skydiving. I’ve always wanted to jump out of a plane at 13,000 feet and I discovered why when I informed my dad of my plans. He said, “It doesn’t surprise me. You’ve been jumping off of things from the time you learned to walk. As a matter of fact, when you were a toddler you had to get stitches in your head because you jumped off the couch and slammed into the coffee table.” Would I skydive again? Absolutely.

What a Blast

LifeChurch.tv

EBC’s three campus pastors had an opportunity to experience a behind-the-scenes tour of LifeChurch.tv in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The trip provided great insight as Eagle Brook makes plans to add more campuses in the near future. LifeChurch.tv has 13 campuses across the United States in addition to one internet campus. About 29,000 people attended their 13 campuses while we were there last weekend.

An Amazing Church

I’m glad we’re heading into autumn. Perhaps it’ll slow down a little around here (I don’t think so!).

The parking lot project is far enough along that we may be able to use it soon! Check it out:

Nearing completion

I’m so pleased with the way our church is responding to the school supplies project. This past weekend, the SLP lobby was full of PowerPacks complete with supplies. Way to go SLP!

Putting smiles on children's faces

If you were at the Spring Lake Park campus over the weekend, you probably noticed the construction equipment, survey stakes and piles of drainage pipe. What does it all mean? It’s a sign of progress—we’re on our way toward the expansion of our paved parking.

The parking lot is one of the final projects from the God’s Amazing Church (GAC) campaign. People have been making generous contributions to the GAC over the past three years. And we’re grateful for those who’ve contributed.

When the lot is finished, we’ll have year-round use of the additional parking spaces that we’ve desperately needed since the SLP campus opened in December of 2007. We’re expecting the new lot to be available by the end of August.

Check out this picture of the project:

More Parking Spaces are Coming

People often ask me what pastors do with all their free time between the weekends. All their free time? I silently chuckle. The fact is, most pastors live a high-octane life, serving others, caring for their own family and squeezing in a little fun occasionally. For me, last week was full of serving, with a little mixture of fun and at least one first-time experience. Let me explain.

EBC’s First Outdoor Lake Baptism of the Summer

It all began with God working through the worship services to draw us close to Him and to one another as we celebrated communion. Throughout each service, we focused on Jesus as the resurrection and the life. We reflected on the reality that, as followers of Christ, we have everlasting life in Him.

Then, we gathered at Northwestern College for the first outdoor lake baptism of the summer. About 300 people publicly proclaimed their faith in Christ. Hundreds more gathered on the hill to observe. If you missed it, you really missed something significant. Perhaps you can be part of the next baptism at the lake on August 16^th. Check out the picture below:

Hundreds gathered near the lake shore.

 A First for Me—A Hot Air Balloon Wedding

This past week I was invited to officiate a wedding in a hot air balloon. Frankly, being surrounded by God’s beautiful creation and celebrating His gift of marriage thousands of feet in the air was one of the highlights of my life—truly a bucket list experience. Here’s a picture:

Up, up and away.

The EBC Pastor’s Fishing Challenge

I’m constantly amazed at the generosity of those who consider Eagle Brook their home church. This past week a group of individuals from the Eagle Brook amateur fishing league, Break Line Fishing, created an EBC pastor’s fishing tournament. It was fun to hang out with fellow believers and enjoy a day on the waters. Kenny Bristol took home all the trophies and is now the duly recognized champion. I’m certain he’ll lose his title at the next tournament! Check it out:

Clean Sweep Kenny