MONDAY (Evening) MIND DUMP

Sorry it's so late but I had a bit of tent-making work to finish up for Monday morning last night. Too sleepy to write after I got done. Here's a few quick takes from the weekend:

1. Eight people rededicated their lives to Christ yesterday!
2. The Lobby looked and worked fantastically well!
3. The crowd was super late (and that scared me a bit) but we had a good crowd for the Sunday after Easter...but we pushed back service start time 7 minutes to accommodate the sleepy heads.  Got us out later, but was exacerbated by the fact that my message was WAY TOO LONG.  Sorry guys, I promise it was 35 minutes when I ran through it Saturday night.  Must...stop...blabbering and rambling.
4. The Sunday before Easter is Palm Sunday, then Easter Sunday, and in the church world they call the Sunday after Easter "Bomb" Sunday.  It is traditionally the lowest attended church service of the year.  It's funny, 'cause attendance seemed great to me in the main sanctuary.  But we were down 30% under our average attendance, I think the children's areas felt it a bit more.  TONS of kidless 20-somethings BROUGHT IT yesterday!  Thank you!  
5. Plenty of donuts left over for the Christian Mission.
6. Thriller?  To open the worship set?  Really?  And it TOTALLY worked!  It was great.  And I thought worship was real good yesterday top to bottom.  Sounded great, totally connected for me. Watched one guy dance, and rock, and sing, and praise, and groove more than anyone else in the building and he never got out of his seat.  It was AWESOME!
7. Seriously, TONS of great comments from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd -time attenders!
8. Crossroads vibe and God's message of LOVE is resonating with people. 
9. Even thought yesterday's message (on guilt and confession) was one of those that can kind of make your butt itch, most people seemed to respond to it really well (even if it was 15 minutes too long).  Had tons of positive comments at the door.  
10. I wish we did church at Crossroads EVERY DAY!
11. Small groups ROCKED last night.  Heard from many how cool their group experience is.
12. Okay, now a bit of whining: What was the deal with tech stuff yesterday?  We had an amp go out in the main sanctuary, we had a cable disappear in the Filling Station and video problems galore back there.  Just one of those (really aggravating) things.  It's such a BLESSING to get to use the College Cinema for church, but we definitely pay a price in not knowing until showtime what our gear is going to do (or where it might be) from week to week.
    
13. I am really looking forward to having our own 30,000 square foot building!  I think the Office Depot building at the crossroads of Rucker Blvd. and BWC would be a FINE location for Crossroads in the future.  Though I wish Office Depot no harm and only success and blessing, I think that particular building would look much better with our church in it.  Just sayin'.

Much LOVE to all!  Look for announcements and email blasts this week and get the word out.  Because Beach BBQ and Baptism is on the 17th of May (and there is also a big honking family reunion taking place at Henderson Park this weekend) we are going to CONSOLIDATE our church picnic, with the Beach BBQ and Baptism Event.  Details to follow.

Go love on someone this week.  Invite an atheist to church.  Peace.