A powerful day today

Worship this morning was very powerful! It seemed like we started a bit slow but ended on a real strong point. I try to do it every Sunday but I felt like I was preaching my heart out today.
We had some extended relatives there today that are regular members of another church and several of them gave me some high praise on my preaching. There's not much of a better compliment than, "we can tell you really studied." The only compliment better than that is seeing people respond to the message - as we did with the paper shredder. It's so much work every week, but I really enjoy this preaching gig.

We had a new family here this morning. They were invited by their neighbors, Scott and Debbie Sidusky. Folks, that's EXACTLY what it's all about!

There was a lot of shredded paper in the trash cans afterwards. That pumps me up, too. It's great to see people able to be so honest. To be able to walk up in front of the whole church and admit, "I struggle with some temptation." I hope we can always have that type of honesty in our church. I had someone, with tears in their eyes, hug me afterwards and thank me for the response time.

I meant to tell the congregation at the end of worship, but forgot. The sin I wrote down was bitterness. There are some things I've been holding onto that I need to let go. Quite a bit of today's message was directed right at the preacher! I kept half the sheet of paper to remember to tell my accountability partner.

The best line from my sermon was "evil does not have the final say. Perfect example was last night's defeat of Roy Williams and the evil empire." Some of us are talking about going out to Lawrence tomorrow to watch the game. If KU wins, I want to be in the huge street party!