– All reports  indicate that the Exit Seven youth ministry is having an incredible week at “The Getaway” youth camp at Panama Beach, Florida.  They’ll be returning to church on Monday.  We’re believing that the spiritual refreshing our teenagers experience will spill over into our entire church body.

– We had one of the strongest attendance of the year on Sunday.  This strong crowd happened with a lot of our core people missing for various reasons.  I met several visitors and I’m continuing to meet newcomers since Easter.  Summer really is a time to grow as a church body!

– Our first Encounter was such a special time of deep worship and intercession.  We’ll do it again this Friday at Noon.

– If you noticed a lot of cars at the church Sunday night, Grace Church was using our building for a leadership dinner.  Grace Church meets at the movie theater across the street from our building, and is only a few months old.  They are led by some great guys, including the senior pastor Ed Stetzer, who was on my recent tour to Turkey.

– Speaking of Turkey, I plan on blogging about my trip, soon.    You can review our group experience with Upstream Collective.  Currently, they have posted information from Ephesus at http://blog.theupstreamcollective.org/2011/06/02/jet-set-turkey-ephesus/   On Ed’s blog, he featured a great article on Ephesus written by Upstream Collective’s co-founder Caleb Crider.  You can read this article by clicking here.

– Today’s service was strong.  Worship was so heart-felt, and the worship team closed with a beautiful rendition of the classic hymn “How Great Thou Art.”  Today’s teaching from Mark 7:14-23  was a continuation from Wednesday, and was a rare time I spoke without an outline for you to follow.  However, I wanted to emphasize what Jesus was communicating through this passage, and through all of Jesus’ teaching.  The take away from this message is:

God care about more than our actions.  He examines our heart.

By the time we came to communion, we all had a reason to repent.   It was such a special time of concentration on Jesus.