C.H.D.P...Vince

Sunday Nights at Harvest
Making a Difference In Our Culture

Message by Pator Josh Thompson

Guest music from Leeland
Worship with Raymond Gregory
1400+ In attendance
25 Professions of faith in Christ
1000 Drive Through Difference Flyers Distributed

What an inspiring night at Sunday Nights at Harvest! We had worship that would drive you straight to the throne room, toll free. Guest music from Leeland that would awaken any heart. And a convicting message calling out all idols to be crushed under the weight of the love of Christ and a desire for revival. Talk about a perfectly wrapped present!

On top of that we bagged an idea that our friends at KSGN use to get people connected with their ministry, its called The Drive Through Difference. We created an invitation to Sunday Nights, put the gospel message on the back, and printed 1,000 copies. The challenge went out to our church family and visitors to take the invite and pass it along with some cash to a drive through attendant, paying for the person behind them and asking the attendant to pass the invite along to the person they paid for. It’s a brilliant way to show kindness and compel someone to check out what the Lord is doing in peoples lives at Sunday Nights at Harvest. If you would like to download the flyer, check it out here. The people at them up!!! I cant wait to see and hear of the fruit of this challenge!

It is obvious there is a hunger among the people for practical ways that they can reach out in addition to straight up preaching the Gospel. May the kindness of God through a simple act of generosity draw many to repentance!

Sunday Nights at Harvest
Making a Difference In Our City
Pastor Josh Thompson
Worship and special music with Raymond Gregory
800+ In attendance
11 Professions of faith in Christ
877 New Testaments sold that are filled with words that will not return void

So our second evening of the Making a Difference series has come and gone. I believe God is going to do something amazing each week and I have not been disappointed yet!

Last Sunday we were exalting God for great attendance and a powerful response to the Gospel being preached with about 200 coming to the altar. This Sunday we didn’t experience the attendance we were praying for but something else happened…something I expected to be good but not great.

Tonight we talked about making a difference in our city and an exhortation went out to purchase copies of a New Testament and get it Into the hands of someone who needs to read God’s word. We had prepared 1000 New Testaments just in case we happened to have 2000 people come out thinking that maybe half of the saints would step up. Now when I saw that our attendance was only about 800 people I expected to be returning a lot of Bibles but the Lord overcame my imagination with His will and we sold 877 copies of God’s word! That’s more than one per person!

This blesses me because it is not just a minority of the people saying that they need Jesus (although that is the ultimate difference in a persons life), it is the great majority of people saying “I need to serve Jesus!” showing that they truly do realize what Jesus has done for them.

We are not here to grow our church, we are here to grow believers. Our purpose as gifted ministers is to use our gifts to equip people to offer service to God (Ephesians 4:11-12) and the church showed that God is doing just that. Tonight many in our fellowship said here I am Lord, send me. I don’t want to be related to people who got it (salvation), I want to pastor people who get it!

Sunday Nights at Harvest
Making a Difference In Our Nation
Pastor Josh Thompson
Kutless
Worship with Raymond Gregory
2000+ In attendance
107 Professions of faith in Christ

We have just dropped into the barrel of an amazing wave that we will be riding for the next seven weeks or so at Sunday Nights at Harvest! Actually I would like to unloose the bonds of my narrow vision and say that we could ride this wave until it crashes on the shore of eternity. Maybe it will be seven weeks…or mabe seven years, whatever the case, I want to ride it so furiously that when it finally takes me home I will have nothing left but to crawl up on that endless sandy stretch and collapse before my Creator.

Paul said that he would “very gladly spend and be spent for [the] souls” of those that he ministered to (2 Corinthians 12:15). I hope that we will allow God to wring us out for His glory and when we appear to have been completely dispensed that we would allow Him to unwind us and wring us out again and again until we have been purged of every drop of potential. I want my glorified body (see 1 Corinthians 15:51-53) only when this body is completely spent and rendered useless.

Today some men gave all they had for a ring. But my brothers, sisters, and I, we laid it down for the King! And still there are others that did nothing… I pray that we would be among the athletes that run for the golden glory of God; this is what we were made for, this is what He is pleased with, this is what will endure for eternity!

In reading from Acts 9 today I was ministered to by the Apostle Paul’s response to his conversion;

“Immediately he preached the Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God…But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who dwelt in Damascus, proving that this Jesus is the Christ” (vv.20, 22)

What a wonderful response to redemption! Paul was Christian slayer turned Christ’s servant. He could have been paralyzed by guilt in remembrance of Stephen’s death or overwhelmed with fear that the pharisaic pack of wolves he ran with would turn on him (which they did) but he chose to stand up “immediately” in the forgiveness, power, and calling of His new Lord. God took this willing servant and lit the world on fire for Jesus.

I think many of us struggle with being used by God for various reasons; fear, timidity, piety, etc. Don’t be hindered today, God has forgiven, empowered, and called you! Rise up in the name of Jesus and share the gospel, pray for someone, maybe even a non-Christian, invite your neighbor to church, love the unlovable, be a Christian!

NAILS ON CHALKBOARD!!

As I perused the Target ad this morning my wife tried to engage me in conversation; “Have you noticed that everywhere you go they’re wishing you a ‘Happy Turkey Day’?” To which I inattentively responded “Actually I was just noticing these flannel sheets for $14.99…we should get there at midnight.” After some more meaningful reflection the unsurprisingly progressive hijacking of another holy-day irks me. But what can I (we) do? We can make a higher offering for observation to our own friends and family before we suit up to run the good stewards gauntlet at the midnight hour.

In a short ammount of time I was able to conjur up three considerations on the object of my greatest appreciation which far surpasses any happiness had over a repulsive looking (but yummy) creature. I am most thankful for God’s “indescribable gift” of Christ (2 Corinthians 9:15)! Consideration number one; It’s impossible to describe how much Christ paid for us. Not only did he lay aside heaven for us but then He laid down that life He took up (Philippians 2:5-8). The value of Christ for us is inexhaustible.

Consideration number two; It’s absurd to attempt to reduce to words how far removed from Him we are because of our sin. Our relationship with Him cost Him so much yet we are worth so little. We are truly wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17) but He is our source of righteousness, joy, wealth, sight, and comfort. We don’t deserve Him!

Consideration number three; It’s futile to try and grasp a plan to be reconciled to Him…so He made it free by His grace. It makes no sense why a just God would stretch out His arms to meet our needs but couple His justice with His love and I can fathom it…it is simply because He loves us (Romans 5:8).

A poor man can pay nothing but a Rich Man can give Him something. In fact He can give that poor man everything if He wants and indeed He did…and for that this poor man is thankful on this THANKSGIVING day and everyday.

Consider these verses from 2 Kings 22:11-13;

“Now it happened, when the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, that he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded…”Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

Twenty-six year old King Josiah was a man of conviction. Despite the fact he had been raised up under the evil King Amon it appears he had a sensitivity toward our God (vv.3-7). But once the actual word of God flowed into his ears it had maximum impact producing repentance (vv.11-13) and his own deliverance (vv.19-20).

We may be generally sensitive to the Lord but I think it would be good for us to pray the Lord before our Bible reading asking him to make His word “like a hammer” (Jer. 23:29) producing repentance and therefore deliverance.

Let’s further pray that the next time we hear the Word preached it will produce lives changed, beginning with our own.