A day in the life of...Mark Williams

Great Day

Now today is how you want to start off the year as far as Sundays go.

356 in S.S.
402 in Worship
194 in our first Sunday back for Discipleship Training
        12 in our new members class.
        13 in our Parental Guidance Required parenting class.
        18 in our "This is My Story" scrapbooking Bible study class.
        19 in our "Spanish For Missions" class.
        This only counts the adult classes, and not any preschool, children, youth, and other adult ministry teams, etc. 

The kickoff to Accelerate 2008 was today.  This will be our year-long theme.  You can check it out at www.acceleratechurch.com. 

We are gearing up for our Tuesday night Super GROW.  I am hoping that we have over 50 people attend this time of outreach. 

We have been called to be the Church of the lost.  Not just the Church of the saved.  We can be content with where we are and who we are....or we can ACCELERATE and move forward by reaching people who need to connect with Jesus Christ. 

Our "greeter team" added another volunteer today.  It's this "grasping of the vision" that begins to make the necessary movement forward. 

God's hand is on everything that happens.  The orchestration by the Holy Spirit to bring people into our fellowship, allow others to move on, give opportunities for people to plug in, bring people into a relationship with Him, is an awesome thing to see.  Our God is an amazing God who cannot and should not be placed inside a box.  He is a God of wonder, creativity, and glory.  He deserves only the best.  It's part of my challenge for the new year to give Him my best, and not just what is left. 

What a great day!!

I have to say that yesterday was a great day of corporate worship.  It was a great day focusing on Romans 12:1-2 in the morning worship (one of my favorite verses of scripture).  The evening worship was excellent.  We focused on the 10th commandment, which was Do Not Covet.  It was really good.

4 people were baptized.  We had 2 additions to our church yesterday.  One was a profession of faith by a girl, and the other was a lady who joined our church, and is ALREADY plugged in and working for the kingdom.  That's what I call assimilation.  The combined choir sang last night, and IT WAS GOOD.  I love being in a church that is growing. 

We had 354 in Sunday School.  This is a 28% increase over the same Sunday last year!!  Dual Sunday School has allowed us to have more room for people to be involved in small group Bible Study.  Praise God!! 

Great Sunday

We had a great Sunday.  The official unoffical total for Sunday School was 396.  Check out our other box scores here on Tommy's blog.  We had a great celebration night in the evening worship service.  It was a great time to hear from all of the staff, the combined choir, and just a pure celebration of what God is doing at our church.  The sermon was about these 4 questions from Tommy:
If not the Bible, then what?
If not Jesus, then who?
If not heaven, then where?
If not now, then when?

Excellent time!!  There was just a great spirit among God's people last night!!

A Great Day

We had 402 this morning in Bible Study.  That is our preliminary number We had 189 in the first and 213 in the second hour of Bible Study.  That is a 47/53% balance between the two S.S.  Our balance is really working out great.  I am excited about us continuing to be over 400 in Bible Study.  I believe that this proves the 80/20 rule true.  When you hit 80% capacity, people stop coming because they don't want to be crowded.  As soon as we hit that 80% again, we'll have to make more adjustments.  That next 80% number would be just over 600 in Bible Study.  There are other factors, though, that would push that number below 600.  Some such factors would be nursery space, size of rooms, number of large rooms,  quality of space for Bible Study groups (once again we would have to put people in sub-standard space if we keep growing, which we will). 

We have church-wide outreach Tuesday night, so I expect we will have a greater number of people here next Sunday.  What a great day to worship God!!  I can't wait until tonight!! 

Great day

Today was a marathon day.  Our schedule was packed from the time we got to church at 8:45 A.M. until I got home tonight at 8:30 P.M.  Check out our schedule at The Rurban Church, our pastor's blog.  While you're there, check out the box score for 3/18.  I believe we were at 323 for small groups.  Our morning service was great.  We are going to be taking some major steps in our church over the next few months.  Wow!!  I'm ready for the ride!!  God is challenging me to take some big steps too. 

Tonight, during DT, our students continued preparation for our mission trip to Atlanta, GA.  We will be in Atlanta from April 10th-14th.  We will be doing service projects in the mornings, prayer walking in the early afternoons, and after-school programs in the apartment missions in the late afternoons.  We partner with Tim Cummins of Whirlwind Missions.  Tim has his act together when it comes to reaching people in apartment ministry.  Check out his website on the above link.  It is extensive with info, and is the model for web based missions prep and info.  He is a NAMB missionary, that is faith based...meaning he raises his own support.  Tim describes the work he and those he partners with like a special forces team being dropped behind enemy lines.  He's awesome!!