I’ve heard from several CLCers since this weekend who all have a similar ‘theme’ – namely, “we’ll make this safe commitment that we know we can do, but we really hope to be able to ‘do more’ later”.
If you’re thinking that way about this coming Sunday, could I challenge you for a moment?The truth is, [...]

No, this isn’t a post about da Bears again (although the shoe does fit, you gotta admit).
It’s about this “Focus on 5″ Conference at Seacoast Church that Chris Payne and I are attending. Monday night’s sessions included “First Impressions” and “Telling Your Story”, and each speaker took us back to the basics that every church [...]

I’ve heard GREAT reports today from both our other campuses as to the response on Sunday to our missions message about GOing to the Ends:

in Shorewood, we had our best attendance since Opening Day, with 227 people present and Pastor Pat reports some who said the message yesterday was the best of GO – reminding [...]

I’m leaving this morning for a quick 32-hour trip to Charleston, SC and a ‘coaching’ opportunity with our newest Campus Pastor, Chris Payne. We’ll be attending a conference at Seacoast Church, one of the early ‘pioneers’ in the multi-site movement. They’re leading the way, too, with 11 campuses and 15 venues doing who-knows-how-many [...]

If you weren’t present at our 11:15am service on Sunday in Tinley Park, you didn’t have a chance to witness the sweet new approach we’re taking to “Baby Dedications”, thanks for our new Directors of Family Ministry, Joe & Sarah Dascenzo.

With their help, we’re moving into a more family-focused approach to Children’s Ministry, with the [...]

Ever heard of mixed-emotions?
That’s what I’ve got today (feeling a little like a roller-coaster):

weekend started with an incredible response from our leaders, who stepped-up BIG to commit $1.87M to the GO! campaign

got some bad news from some close friends, with loved ones near death, etc.

GREAT services in Tinley as we focused on GOing “to the [...]

Just in case you haven’t heard, some of our leaders gathered Friday night to ’set the pace’ for the GO! campaign by making our commitments first. Now you also should know that in our entire history, the largest commitment we’ve ever made for a project was $500,000 pledged to help us construct the present building, [...]

Take a trip this weekend…..into the world of MISSIONS!
I’m so pumped about this coming weekend when we’ll conclude our GO! series of messages with a “1-day Missions Conference”! If you’ve been around, you know that every Fall we do a whole week of missions, spanning two full weekends, with special music, videos, flags, dance and [...]

One of the neatest things we’ve done during our GO! campaign is the 40-Day devotional guide we gave out at the beginning of our 40-Day GO Fast. Those daily readings and prayer suggestions have been getting me through these last 4 weeks with no desserts, Diet Coke or popcorn!
Today’s reading was especially good, as [...]

As I was driving to church tonight for our Newcomer’s Reception, I was listening to the Bears game on the radio (after having watched the first 3 quarters at home), and when I pulled into the parking lot, there were only two-and-a-half minutes left to play, with the Eagles leading by a score of 16-12 [...]