This Parkview Thing is Unbelievable

It has been four weeks since we started our fourth service, and yesterday I had a meeting with executive staff about what we were going to do, because we have a full 11 am service - AGAIN. That’s no surprise except for the fact that we had 600 people in our new 5:45 pm service! So what basically happened is that we started a new service to offload people to make room for more, and then we instantly grew by that amount of people! We had 5325 people this weekend, which was a record by several hundred (non-holiday or Jesus-JimJ).  They had a record number of kids and the most ever at Lockport. We asked you to pack the house and pack the pantry – and you came through!
 
And all that means is we only solved our space problem for about 10 minutes!
 
Now what am I going to ask?  Anyone? Anyone? Bueller??
“Come on Saturday!”  Good answer, good answer.  Especially at 5:45, it’s got the most room.  
 
“Why would I inconvenience myself?”  Because of the Prodigals!  For whatever reason most of our new people come in through the portal of Sunday morning, and most of them at 11.  It’s just the normal church hour, and that’s when they usually decide to come whether they have church background or not.  So what happens is when someone who has been away from the Father – maybe even all their lives – comes a little late to the11 am on Sunday, they find no decent parking spaces. And if they finally decide to come in, the kids’ classes are full and they get an “obstructed view” seat for the service.

When Jesus told the story of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15, he said that even though the Shepherd had 99 safe sheep, he felt so compelled to find the lost one that he left the 99 in the uncomfortable situation of the “open country.”  They were inconvenienced and actually put in harm’s way – that’s how important the one lost sheep is.
 
I’m not asking you to get eaten by a wolf or wander off a cliff.  I’m asking you to come on Saturday night and sleep in on Sunday.
 
I know that everyone can’t do that.  But if you can, please consider it.  I don’t know these 600 new people that just showed up yet, but I’m guessing that if you met them, they would be very grateful for the space we just made for them. Let’s make more!
 
This place is unbelievable!

Tim

Comments

[Paula]

AMEN. AMEN! AMEN AND HALLELUJAAAA!!!

[db]

what an awesome God we serve! He was just waiting for us to make a move & then look at what He did!