This was a spontaneous song from the IHOP Prayer Room that got released on one of their limited edition CDs.  Stephanie kills it right here.

2.  Go get tickets to the Christmas Party.  You don’t want to miss it.  I know it’s a Sunday night but sin will wait for another day.

3.  We had the leaders Christmas Party tonight and had a secret Santa gift exchange.  I don’t know where anyone else shopped but I clearly gave the best gift.  Ask anybody that was there.

4. (ok Four quick things)  Did you see the baptism teaser? 

But instead of going into all that I wanted to say a formal “Thank You” to people I don’t actually know.  This list is not exhaustive but represents some of the folks who have poured into my life and have not gotten anything in return.  I am fully aware they most likely will not actually read this post.  Nevertheless here it goes:

Steven Penn – Father of my bride. Can’t wait to see your mansion.

Peter – For giving me an endless supply of preaching material from his message on the feast of weeks.

Reinhard Bonnke for showing me it is not possible to dream too big.  Proof?  Lagos prayer for the Baptism in the Holy Ghost.

Mel Tari – Like a Mighty Wind.  Haven’t read it?  And you call yourself a revivalist? I read this book when I first got really hungry for a move of God.

Leonard Ravenhill – Why Revival Tarries

Charles Finney – One page of his autobiography would be an endless stream of videos, emails, and pleas for support today.  Finney just collected souls.  Finney’s relentless quest for souls and genuine conversion stamped my early walk in a way that won’t let me compromise in my ministry.

John Arnott – I went to Voice of the Apostles last month. It is the Revival Alliance conference basically.  Their tie?  Toronto.  I saw their worship leaders Jeremy and Connie Sinnott in south Florida and it completely changed my life.  I met him and told him as much but surely lots and lots of people have told him the same.

Barak Obama – We have a President that has repeatedly told his story of conversion to Christ, his baptism, and the baptism of his children.  In that sense I don’t think we have ever had a President that evangelical.  That should be enough, but when he talked about how his mother would wake up early to prepare him for school tests it challenged me as a parent.  There is not enough of that in America today.  (Most Christians feel they must qualify positive statements about our President.  I feel no such pressure. Be offended if you want.)

The 400 folks who download The Mission Delray podcast each week – The people of The Mission may come Sunday morning for my good looks but you can’t get that on the podcast.  You make me think I am preaching something worth listening to.

What about you?  Who are you thankful for?

Watch the videos to see the difference.

They ran this for the first time during the Super Bowl. I don’t remember what year.   Every time I see it I laugh. 

Wonder what would happen if we had one for the setup team?

Randy was a hardworking church planter that eventually saw that what He was doing was not exactly what God wanted him to be doing. Following Jesus cost Randy “his” church.  The church is still there, with Jesus, but Randy is not.  Randy is for the local church and as far as I know IHOP is as well.

Randy is writing a book about this whole process which I guarantee you is both funny and enlightening. 

When I first met him online I was more curious about what happened to his church plant then I was about his job at IHOP, his adoption agency, his work at burning man, his work at The Call, and his coffee abundance (truth be told I don’t think the adoption agency was around when I met him but it is worth mentioning).  Though all these things are worthwhile, I really wanted to see how the church plant dream collapsed.  Don’t act like you don’t think the same way.  FailBlog is popular for a reason.

Normally when you write a book you bang out the first chapter or two, shop it around, get some loot, then finish writing.  That is exactly what he is doing except instead of shopping it around to publishers, he is shopping it around to you and me. 

Go buy the book and you will get the first audio chapter now.  Then, when the audio book is done you will get that.  When it is published you will get that.

We are going to meet Wednesdays at 7:00 a.m. at the Panera Bread in east Boca.  If you are interested buy the book, read the first chapter, and join us.

If you don’t have the book, get it here, or here for your kindle.

My thoughts are less on Amanda then her parents.  They never stopped fighting for their daughter against all odds.  They have gone pretty much flat broke traveling back and forth to Italy, hiring lawyers, and attending hearings.  During the appeals they sat in the courtroom showing support while having no idea what was being said.

Was Amanda guilty of murder?  Who knows.  I guess Amanda knows.  And that poor girl who was killed.

But we all know the job of the prosecutor is to present the case given them by the police and the job of the defender is to argue their side.

But it is the job of a parent to give unconditional love to their child.  To let them know that when the whole world calls you a she-devil and crazy things are brought up from your past we, your parents, will be in your corner giving our everything for you.

There is plenty of pain in this case to go around.  But chalk up one for parental love.

Between putting a new head usher in place and revamping that ministry, launching pre-service intercession, expanding the greeter ministry, building a guest reception area, changing the leadership of Next Steps, and launched the Evangelism ministry PLUS we had a huge shift in children’s ministry.

As excited as I am about all the changes, I am the most excited about the new Mission Kids.  Sarah Pagano is going to be leading the room.  She currently works at Spanish River Christian School and is getting her bachelors degree in teaching. She has a bucket load of ideas and enthusiasm.

We also put out a bunch of new signs.  Corey Pagano headed that and the usher changes up.

Lidia put in work in the greeter, next steps, visitor welcome and intercession areas.  And a bunch of folks are serving in all these areas to make them great.

We want to do everything with excellence to honor God.

I am so excited about Pastor David Copeland coming this week.  Can’t wait to spend time with him and Pam.

I need to write about this more but on Rosh Hashana I had a series of prophetic dreams.  On Friday night in intercession we had a prophetic word that lined up with the dreams exactly.  That gets me really, really excited.

Last night I posted,

“I have gladly abandoned the church growth model with the payoff of the anointed church model. I love the presence of the Holy Ghost!”

I mean that.  I want to run farther and faster after the anointing of God.  This Sunday that salvation is free but the anointing will cost you everything and it is completely, one hundred percent worth it.

This week is gonna be great. 

Make room for the anointing in your life.