Holy Hangover

Monday’s are rough for me.  I like to joke that I suffer from a Holy Hangover every Monday.  My normal Monday consists of my head hurting, my voice being shot, my eye lids feeling like they way a thousand pounds, me not wanting to talk much, and just overall feeling very tired.  I remember when I first started preaching, I literally couldn’t get off the couch on Mondays.  I think people who have never stood up and preached God’s word underestimate what is involved in it.  Besides hours of studying, the rigors of standing and teaching in multiple services, there is a spiritual warfare aspect that I can’t explain.  To know you are going to get up and teaching and there are people at the end of their rope and ready to call it quits is an awesome responsibility and one that wears you out physically.

However, today is different.  Yes, I am suffering from Holy Hangover, but I can’t stop smiling.  I am so proud of our church and the way we kicked off our RevolutionaryLove.tv series yesterday.  We gave back an entire week’s offering to our people for the simple act of them being a blessing to others.  We aren’t the first to do this and we won’t be the last, but it truly made for an awesome Sunday.

I am loving the stories coming in already on the RevolutionaryLove.tv website and I know there will be more coming as the week goes on.  A friend who doesn’t attend our church called me today to let me know we were literally the talk of the YMCA this morning.  Today at lunch, I got to be a blessing to someone with my envelope and it was just a great feeling.

There is an amazing buzz in our church right now.  We are to the point we can track “growth” patterns by looking back over the last 3 years.  Normally, August and September are HUGE months for us and we level off around November and December is actually one of our lowest attendance months of the year.  So we decided this year, we would do some “insider” focused series instead of things that would be a draw to those who don’t normally attend our church.  We thought it was a good way to take those who have had their live changed at Revolution take the next step in their walk.  So we launched a financial series and we are doing a series now about the church being missional and loving our community.  So what happens?  We are having our highest numbers of the fall and there are so many new people that is insane.

God is up to something big and I am loving the ride!!!!!