We kicked off a new series, "Relationship Rescue" and the message was titled, "The Greatest Relationship Rescue." Everything was focused on the Easter message and God's desire to rescue us back into relationship with Himself. We did our best to communicate the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus clearly in a relevant way. We said as a team, "we want to make it hard to go to Hell today." We talked about the sacrifice Jesus paid which was motivated by His love for us. The service climaxed as we gave every person the opportunity to respond to this message of His love by placing their faith in Him. Kendall from our team painted a colorful scene of Calvary, at the bottom was painted the phrase, "He is risen! We are rescued!" All of this while the song, "How he loves us" was being sung by the band and scenes from the Passion of the Christ was rolling on 3 huge screens and 2 giant plasmas. When the phrase was revealed the crowd erupted. It was incredible!
This weekend Stacie and I were blown away with the sacrifice and commitment of our staff and volunteers. I am thinking of people who spent all day on Saturday helping with the Hunt, setting up for church and then would spend another 7 hours on Sunday serving. I think of David Dorflinger who spent his whole week building a frame for a piece of glass that would be used as an illustration at the end of the message, and our BayKids volunteers that spent an hour on their knees putting together flooring in our toddler area, and Aimee Kruger our amazing BayKids Director who jumped into a bouncy house on Sunday to clean up puke. Mmm! (you definitely get the "Humble Servant" award!)
I really am so humbled to be your pastor. You inspire me to higher levels of leadership. You make me want to pursue God more. Your enthusiasm for God is amazing and your diligence is unparalleled. In combination with the Holy Spirit, you made this weekend happen. Your prayers and hard work led to over 500 people coming to church 14 months after South Bay opened her doors, your sweat and sacrifice led to 18 people stepping across the line of faith, your smiles and love helped many people who have never been to church experience the love of Christ, your willingness to serve led to 2,500 people experience the serving heart of Jesus through the Hunt. Again, I couldn't be more proud of you. I am excited to continue to serve Jesus as your pastor and I cannot wait to see what He will do in the future as we continue to trust Him to help us reach and love the Silicon Valley and the SF Bay Area.
With love,
Andy
PS, as soon as I get some pics I'll put them up. :-)
