weekend reflections

A technical glitch kept me from posting last night, but I’m still rejoicing over this weekend.  Here’s a few quick highlights:

• Even though the Sunday after Easter is historically the lowest-attended Sunday of the year (for all churches, including CLC – there’s a reason for that, but it’s too long to explain now), we welcomed 1,671 people at our 3 campuses yesterday!
• I’ve never seen a service at the Tinley campus as full as the 11:15 yesterday – the entire lobby was filled and the stage was full and it appeared every seat was taken (after rushing here from the Shorewood service, I walked up front to find even my chair was occupied!)
• I guess we’ll have to add “Baby Dedications” to the list of what some have called “CEO Christians” (Christmas & Easter Only
• Have we ever dedicated that many babies in one service before?  CLC is growing!
• In Shorewood, we had 7 people who prayed to receive Christ, including a mom and her adult daughter who attended church together for the first time in over 30 years!
• Also in Shorewood, we had a married couple receive the Lord & I later learned that their family had been praying for them for years – and (get this) they came to the service because of a baby being dedicated!  (Go God!)

and then we celebrated our 18th birthday with my pastor last night: (if you weren’t here, none of this will make sense until you get the CD)

• who knew a “flying, freaking, scroll” was in the Bible?
• Did Bishop really say “freaking”?
• You know, when you put an Alfred Hitchcock soundtrack behind it, even a “flying, freaking squirrel” sounds scary!
• When was the last time you laughed so much during a message about tithing?
• (Seriously now) that part about generational benefits is something I want to dig into and we’ll talk about it again this year – awesome insight!

Happy Birthday, CLC!

new sermon series

I’m really pumped about the new sermon series we begin this weekend at all 3 campuses – in fact, it’s more than a new series, it’s really a campaign to “Paint the Town Red”.

 

I don’t know what that idiom means to you, but I can tell you it’s the most ambitious undertaking we’ve ever tackled at CLC.  After all, we’re past our 18^th birthday now, and it’s time to move on to important, grown-up stuff, right?

 

So here’s the deal: make it a point to invite someone to be your guest this weekend….no, make that invite about 3 people to be your guests this weekend.  We’re going to get off to a great start, and I promise some exciting stuff coming right up this April!  Can’t wait until the weekend-

 

 

Ask the pastor

I want to begin a new feature today – “ask the pastor”.  I already get questions from time to time, and it dawned on me that perhaps others of you would like to ask a question about the Bible or some aspect of church life or whatever, so this will be your opportunity.  Simply comment on any of my posts or email me and I’ll do my best once a week to answer you.

For this first installment, I’ll post my answer to a CLCer this week who asked about cremation – what does the Bible say about it and is it compatible with a Christian view?  Since I’ve been asked that several times over the past few years, perhaps this will help others:

as to your question regarding cremation, this is my opinion (keep in mind that there are Christians who disagree with me): I cannot find anything in the Bible that would forbid or discourage cremation.  Probably the strongest argument against it would be the fact that the Jews, who were God’s covenant people in the Old Testament, never practiced cremation; they always buried their dead.  But my understanding of Scripture is that in the resurrection, no matter what has happened to our earthly body – lost at sea, burned, or decayed back into dust – it will be ‘transformed’ into a glorious body like Jesus had after His resurrection.

Since the Bible is ‘silent’ on this issue, my personal belief is that each family or individual can choose for themselves how they want to handle this.

Hope that helps – and more importantly, I hope you’ll ask the pastor. What’s on your mind?

Family weekend

I know this is ‘Spring break’ for a lot of CLCers, but this weekend also promises to be one of the best Family weekends we’ve ever experienced!  Props to Joe & Sarah Dascenzo, our Family Ministry Directors for the terrific job they’re doing to help resource and encourage parents to help pass their faith to their children.  They and their entire team at each campus have gone all-out to make this coming weekend especially helpful – plus we’ll have baby dedications at each campus (I think there’s about 12 or more babies involved – that’s one way to grow a church!)

Of course, we’ll also celebrate The Lord’s Supper as families during our worship time together, so it’s truly going to be a special weekend, topped off at 6pm at the Tinley Campus with our 18th Anniversary Celebration with Bishop Joseph Garlington.  Have you invited anyone to join you yet?  There’s still time!

knowing your strengths

I’ve had 3 different conversations in the last couple of days about how important it is for us to function in our area of strength-

• the first was yesterday as our combined Youth (“Wildfire”) and Adult dance teams ministered so beautifully in each Easter celebration – I leaned over to my wife and said, “I’m so glad that CLC gives people an opportunity to develop and use their gifts”.  Honestly, I’ve never been a part of a church that had a dance team before.  (In my background, dancing was a forbidden evil!)  I’m not too sure that many Caucasian churches offer dance ministries even today.  But for the men & women, boys & girls who have a gift and a bent in that area, I think it’s terrific that they can express themselves to the Lord in worship through that medium!
• This afternoon I declined an opportunity to appear on a TV broadcast here in Chicago – and I really wanted to do it.  I’m always interested in any opportunity to gain more influence for CLC or to help lift up the name of Jesus.  But I knew in my heart that the subject matter and format of the broadcast would not be in my area of strength; in fact, it would probably have displayed my weaknesses for anyone tuned in.
• Then later in the day I had an email exchange with a missionary friend – the whole conversation is immaterial, but the bottom-line is important for all of us – we need to recognize our areas of strength and focus on using them for God’s glory, instead of trying to force ourselves into someone else’s mold.

How ’bout you?  Do you know your strengths?  Are you using them in serving others?

Easter reflections

I’m as tired as I ever recall on an Easter Sunday night, but I’ve still got goosebumps thinking about the wonderful weekend we’ve just had at CLC!  I think it was the second-highest attendance in our history, as almost 2,100 people worshipped with us at our 3 campuses!  Specifically:

in Shorewood, almost 300 people worshipped with us, and our Campus Pastors reported a terrific Youth Drama illustrating the power of His Blood and a brand-new dance team that closed the service with emphatic worship!

at our newest campus in South Bend, we also had almost 300 people in attendance and our Campus Pastors said there were many new attendees and more diversity than ever in the congregation (Go God!), and best of all, 4 salvation decisions and numerous recommitments!

meanwhile, here in Tinley Park more than 1,500 folks gathered at one of our 4 celebrations, with salvation decisions at each service – and I don’t think I’ll ever forget the huge number in our final service who not only prayed to receive Christ, but then came forward to seal their decision – there must have been 25-30 people, including some entire families, newcomers and regular attendees alike, who were determined not to be cheated from their inheritance in Christ!  It was awesome!

Special kudos to every volunteer who made this great weekend possible: ushers, greeters, children’s ministers, security, guest services, and all the hospitality people who came early before dawn to put on a great pancake breakfast for our early service today.  You’re the best!

I can’t wait for our FAMILY service next weekend and the 18th Anniversary Celebration with Bishop Garlington….but for now, I’m going to grab a bite to eat and then veg on the couch until sleep comes…which may not take long.

18th Birthday Celebration

Can you believe it?  CLC will be 18 years old next week!

And to celebrate, we’ve scheduled a one-time-only, extra-special celebration for Sunday, March 30 at 6pm with my pastor, Bishop Joseph Garlington!

I know this is short notice, but I hope you’ll make plans now to set aside everthing else and join us for a PAR-TAY in the house of the Lord!

Meanwhile, it’s NOT too late to invite someone to celebrate EASTER with you this weekend – remember 82!

politics & CLC

That’s a subject that most churches/pastors avoid, and I understand why – it’s fraught with all sorts of landmines that can blow up a ministry.

But I do think the latest news about Barack Obama’s speech dealing with racism in America – in fact, the whole attention that race has received in the Democratic party nomination campaign to me has just emphasized (again) why there’s such a need for churches like CLC in our country.

And make no mistake about it: multicultural churches like us are springing up everywhere, and growing by leaps and bounds! The largest church in America, Lakewood Church in Houston, is reportedly comprised of one-third Caucasian, one-third African-American, and one-third Hispanic membership. There’s even a network of churches, Mosaix Global Network, that specifically and intentionally seeks to raise up multicultural churches around the world. (I’ve corresponded with the founder and look forward to meeting him next month at a conference I’m attending). For that matter, the ministerial fellowship to which I belong, Reconciliation! Ministries, under Bishop Joseph Garlington, has multiculturalism as one of its core values.

I hope every CLCer will embrace our values – we’re not multicultural by accident; we’re multicultural by design – specifically because our community, and our nation, needs the example that can only come from God’s church who understands that “red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight”! There’s a huge need for us, CLC, and our best days are yet to come!

Easter Chair Hunt

Lots of churches sponsor Easter egg hunts at this time of year (I’m still trying to figure out how decorated eggs got into the Easter story.  But I gotta admit, I like those chocolate bunnies…)

At CLC-Tinley Park, we’re sponsoring a different kind of ‘hunt’ – it’s the parking spot and auditorium chair hunt that many families will experience at our 9am and 11:15am services this weekend UNLESS we get some great volunteers to step-up and help us by making your Easter celebration this Saturday at 6pm or Sunday at 6:30am.

Seriously, we know that our last 2 services on Easter Sunday are likely to be jam-packed with curious seekers and interested guests, along with many of our church family (that’s a good thing!) – but we also hate to see people turned away from those services because they can’t find a parking spot or a chair in the auditorium.  So I’m appealing to all CLCers – especially if you don’t have someone visiting this Sunday as your guest – would you be willing to get a head-start and celebrate Easter early by attending either of our first 2 services?  You won’t miss out on anything; you’ll just get your celebration ahead of the crowd!

One of the things I love about this church family is how you always step up and cooperate when there’s a need, so I thank you in advance for your help this weekend.  And don’t forget – 82% will accept an invitation from a friend – so it’s not too late to invite someone to be your guest.  It just might make a difference in their eternity!

I love our TEAM!

No, not the Bulls (at least, not this year). Definitely not the Cubs. Or the Sox. (I sorta lost interest in baseball after the strike of several years back, unless you count being a ‘fair weather fan’ when Sox won the Series). And right now, I don’t even have da Bears on my mind.

I love our CLC team!

If you’ve been here for any length of time at all, you know this is NOT “Jerry & Chris’ church”. God has given us a great team of men & women who serve with us in ministry here, week after week, and this church wouldn’t be the same without them.

Our Tinley Park campus pastor, Doug Neal, stepped-up in a huge way during the recent community memorial service here for the Lane Bryant victims, and as a result of his message, doors have begun to open in the community. Last week he was able to speak to the students at Tinley Park High School, at the invitation of their principal who was impacted by Doug’s message at the memorial service.

His message was later printed in the Tinley Junction newspaper, and as a result, they’ve asked him to do a weekly column. Here’s the link to his first message.

So glad you’re on our team, Doug & Shanna, and we’re praising God for new opportunities for influence!

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