Focus on Life Campaign

Our "Focus on Life" campaign is in its second week and things are going great. This past weekend, we began achieving our goal of touching every residence within a 1.5 mile radius of DaySpring Church. By Sunday afternoon, we had touched 394 of the almost 1500 residences within that radius. That means we have achieved 26% or just over 1/4 of our goal. Thanks to all those who participated in the outreach project.

We will continue the project on Saturday, April 10 from 930 - 1200 noon. Please make plans to be here that morning if you are not assisting with the concert in the afternoon. Remember that we have 1000 invitation cards to distribute. To distribute them, we need twenty people to give out 50 cards each or maybe 50 people give out 20 cards each. Either way, the project is certainly one we can do without any problem if everyone continues to be faithful. Take them to work or school or shopping or to the track - wherever you go over the next week and a half.

The ALIVE music concert begins at noon that same day and goes until about 900 PM. This promises to be an exciting time for our church and you are encouraged to come and to bring as many guests as you can.

There is much to be done this year with our theme of Focus Forward. Click here if you would like to download a revised edition of the Focus Forward Calendar of Events for 2010.

Sermon 28Mar2010

This is the second sermon in the series entitled "Focus on Life," part of our year-long theme for 2010 of  "Focus Forward." We had a slight glitch in the recording process, so the recording of the sermon has a few popping sounds in it. For some reason, the player would not download correctly, so I left it out this week. You can still listen online by clicking on the mp3 link below.

Sermon 28Mar2010 mp3
Sermon 28Mar2010 Word
Sermon 28Mar2010 pdf

Focus on Life Campaign

We kicked off the Spring high attendance campaign, "Focus on Life," yesterday at DaySpring. We are looking forward to the next four weeks of fun activities and outreach in the community.

It all began last night with draft night. The crowd was small, but we had a wonderful time of worship and selecting teams, followed by pizza, ice cream, and great fellowship.

We continue on Saturday with our first outreach project. We will be blitzing neighborhoods in a continuing effort to touch every door within a mile and a half radius of the church. On Saturday, the time is 930 AM - lunch. On Sunday, Mar 28, the time is 530 - 730 PM. The next outreach activity will be on Saturday, April 10, 930 AM - lunch. Please make plans to be part of your team and part of the effort to reach our community for Christ.

One idea is to download the invitation card and email it to as many friends, family, and acquaintances as you can. Right click on the link below and attach it to an email.
Invitation Card pdf

If you run out of cards and need more, you can use the template below to print your own. I suggest using a heavy paper like card stock. I made the models we showed at church on Sunday using photo paper and glueing the fronts and backs together. Works great.
Invitation Card Template pdf

Sermon 21Mar2010

This Sunday we began our Spring high attendance campaign which we have entitled "Focus on Life." This is part of the year-long theme of "Focus Forward." The first sermon in this series is "The Pursuit" based on Paul's testimony from Philippians 3:13-14. He determined that all things in the past were loss for the purpose of gaining Christ. As a church, we must do the same thing. We must keep our eyes focused on the goal of becoming like Christ, which is God's purpose in our redemption (Romans 8:29). Click on the links below to listen to the sermon or to download a printed copy. By the way, the book I made reference to in the sermon by John Piper is Desiring God.


The Pursuit, Phil. 3.13-14 mp3
The Pursuit, Phil. 3.13-14 MS Word
The Pursuit, Phil. 3.13-14 pdf

One of the things I discussed in the sermon was concept of target fixation. If you would like to see a video demonstrating what happens when you are a victim of target fixation, watch the one below. I warn you that it might be a disturbing video for some of you, but it certainly speaks volumes for what happens when we focus on the wrong target - when we get our eyes off of Jesus.

Sermon 14Mar2010

This is the third sermon in a series entitled "4-Letter Words," dealing with specific words from Scripture. The first sermon was entitled "Love." This sermon did not get recorded. The second sermon entitled "Hope." This last sermon is entitled "Life." There was so much to say related to this subject, I left some things out. At the end of the printed sermon, there is a paraphrase of John 15:4-11 where Jesus explained to His disciples what it means to be alive in Christ.

Sermon 14Mar2010 mp3
Sermon 14Mar2010 Word
Sermon 14Mar2010 PDF

Acts Study, Lesson 7

In our study of Acts on Wednesday evenings, we have now completed Chapter 2. If you wish to read the notes from Lesson 7, you may click on the links below.

Lesson 7 Formation MS Word
Lesson 7 Formation PDF

Ugandan Thunder

Jerriann Pope's daughter, Jessica Lewis, took quite a few pictures during the Ugandan Thunder concert last week. they are really great. If you are interested in downloading some of them, you will find an album of the pictures here.
Ugandan Thunder Concert

Or you may just wish to watch this slide show of the pictures.

Ugandan Thunder

Ugandan Thunder sang and danced their way into the hearts of everyone gathered at DaySpring Church on Tuesday night for a night of celebration of faith in Christ that was both spirit-filled and lots of fun. Before the concert, Ted Moody, known as "Big Daddy" in Uganda because of his love and service to the orphans of that country, asked the kids to whom they were singing. They answered that they were singing to one person - God. And they did just that with songs in English and Lugandan and with all of the enthusiasm and energy of youths ranging in age from nine to sixteen. I don't believe anyone left the concert who was not totally inspired by the witness of these African youth. I wish you all could have been here. (Click on each image for a larger picture.)

New Steeple!

By now, most of you have probably seen the new steeple. It really looks good. Thanks to everyone who worked to get this project completed. Click on the thumbnail to see a larger picture.

What About the Children?

On a couple of occasions lately, the question has come up about the eternal destiny of children who die before they reach an age of responsibility - an age where they can understand about sin and make a decision about the lordship of Christ. Recently, I listened to a sermon on this subject by one of my favorites pastors, David Jeremiah. If this is a question that you have asked, visit these links to listen to the sermon which is in two parts.

What About the Children? Part 1

What About the Children? Part 2

Sermon 07Mar2010

Sermon 07Mar2010 mp3
Sermon 07Mar2010 MS Word
Sermon 07Mar2010 pdf

Bible Study in Acts - Update

I am leading in a study of the Book of Acts on Wednesday evenings at 7:00. We are now in the eighth week of that study. This week we will continue our study of the birth of the church in Acts 2. Last week, we finished Lesson 6, a two-week venture through Peter's first sermon following Pentecost. We recorded the first night of this study, but did not get to record the second night. You can download the mp3 of the first lesson here. Or you can listen here by clicking on the player below.



If you prefer to read the entire lesson, you can download a copy of that also. Just remember that this is my teaching guide and is written for teaching, not so much for reading.   MS Word Version     PDF Version

On the second night of Lesson 6, I gave out a listening guide. I know we went through the lesson that night very quickly so that some may not have gotten all of the answers. So here is a listening guide with the answers filled in for you.   MSWord Version   PDF Version

If you missed Lessons 1-5, you can click here to go to the earlier blog to download them as a zip file. These are all in pdf format. If you have difficulty with any of this, let me know and I will post them separately or email them to you.