Highlights From 2008
If you are reading this in RSS you are missing the video.
I have been provoked by a friend to do my own list of highlights from 2008 for The Mission. I knew that Jesus wanted to do a work in Delray Beach and without any financial support we started a work with 11 people in my living room.
I have no training in church planting, am not in a denomination or church planting network, have not been to a conference or anything else. Fortunately the Holy Ghost was in our midst and we were smart enough to yield to Him. The above video is our year in review.
Since I am going to do this with absolutely no forethought this list is neither complete or in any order.
1. A whole bunch of folks saved, baptized, filled with the Holy Ghost.
Here is our first baptism, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth
2. My family, marriage, and relationship with Jesus has flourished this year.
3. Worship. I talked to Sergio about a year and a half ago about a new sound of worship. It was just a vision. God was leading Sergio in the same direction. Check this out. This is live, not a studio, not mastered. We did not even have monitors. It is just raw worship. Who said you can’t lead worship with an MPC 1000? YouTube.com
4. People are joined to the vision God has given me.
5. People are growing in the Lord.
6. Communion. Both in service and in life.
7. 4th of July Cookout and The Christmas Party Lots of fun.
8. The Hatian church we had our first preview service in . Wish it would have worked out there. We have never met anywhere more hood than that.
9. Found our permanent location in August. No longer nomads.
10. Announced we are moving to Sunday last week. Time for a new location.
In the end, this year was great because I saw Jesus do His thing in Delray Beach. I have gotten lots of testimonies this year. This is a sample of one.
Just wanted you to see how the Mission has changed lives… as if you didn’t already know.
The day after I met the living God, Jesus Christ, I went and wrote a 7 page journal entry about what I experienced that night. That was in June of 2oo8. With this new year just beginning, I went back and started to read that same journal, noticing the difference between the entries before I got saved and after. This is just a small part of that 7 page entry
“Even though I can try and fight it, for some reason, something changed last night. I felt something leave me… something lift off my skin, off my shoulders… off my heart and this tingling sensation came over my arms and my head, and my insides started to jump… then my hands and arms started shaking and the whole time, I was so confused as to what I was supposed to do. I wanted so badly to let go of myself, let go of my mind and be touched, but I was inhibited… by fear of what was happening and what I might see…
The power that God forced into me, it made me feel like I was going to fly. Like any second, I was going to rise up into the air and feel His grace upon my entire body… like nothing on this earth could hold me down and I was free to fly to Him and be in His arms…
From the moment we began worship, I felt my body tingling and I didn’t know what was going on with me. I didn’t know if it was my nerves. It felt like the blood in my body wasn’t reaching my brain and my arms were going numb… I remember stretching out my fingers, trying to regain feeling…
I want to go back, only this time, really let go and if my feet rise off the earth, I won’t care where I am going to land as long as I land with You and You are there to catch me… I started with you and I will end with you…
I went into that house expecting to cry and beg for forgiveness… expecting to ball and have the pastor put his hands on me and make me feel like I was forgiven. But I didn’t cry and he didn’t make me feel forgiven. Instead, I felt you. I felt you in my veins… I knew you were with me..
This is the reason why we do what we do. This is why Missionaries invite their friends and family. This is why we show up early to set up and stay late to tear down. Lives changed for the Glory of God.
2009 is going to be increadible. I just can’t wait! We are scheduling our first baptism now and we are just going to keep reaping the harvest Jesus paid for with His blood!
It’s crazy how that was only 7 months ago and so much has changed in that time. I was raised and baptized Catholic, and with confusion and searching for God, I ended up getting taught by Jehovah’s Witnesses, soon to become one. After realizing that that road was not for me, I went back to a crazy and sinful life, still wanting but not actively seeking God. I met one random person who invited me to the Mission and my whole life changed. In one night, my view on my life, my friendships, my relationships, and everything in between was flipped upside down. I was convicted and literally quit the life I used to live after just one night at the Mission, regardless of the location, the music, or the young people there. God really moved and still moves in the Mission, filling people with His love which He manages to make new and fresh every time we are willing to seek Him.
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