This was an outstanding week for me. Not preaching this weekend meant less sermon prep this week (I did work some on next weekend’s message but with little pressure). I worked about 2 hours on Wednesday and then I was done through the remainder of the week… It was amazing! I am refreshed, renewed and ready to go which is a huge improvement from the previous week in Anderson, SC and Chicago which had me totally worn down.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday – plenty of turkey, pie, football all wrapped up with some black friday shopping. Today’s services at Vertical Church was an incredible way to end the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Here are a few thoughts on this Sunday Nite before I hit my comfy bed:
- I LOVE OUR TEAM! Let me begin today’s rundown with a shout out to the Sunday nite Leadership meeting we have on the last Sunday of the month. This meeting is kind of an “all-staff” type of meeting where we get together with all of our ministry leaders, collectively share the wins from the previous month throughout each ministry, hear any necessary ministry reports from my lead team. We end the meeting by me sharing a little vision with the leaders hopefully as a preventative for “vision leak”. Tonight’s message was kinda heavy (in a good way). Thankful for the leaders God has placed before me. Definitely feel unworthy to lead such an amazing group.
- Now onto Sunday AM…
- This week was week 3 of our Elijah series. Our KidzMin, Joey Autry, brought this morning’s message. Dude straight up brought it!
- I love the fact that God has clearly given me quite a blessing in the area of teaching and preaching to Vertical Church. I share my pulpit a lot because I truly feel called by God to raise up preachers and leaders. One of the areas I believe we are failing in towards the last generation has been the raising up of preachers through the church… I want God to use us to raise up a generation of powerful men of God who believe and stand upon the promise of God with the anointing of God to proclaim the sufficiency of His Word! I want Him to use me in that way…
- Joey’s transparency through today’s message was just life-changing. God is using Him in a great way at Vertical Church and I was very proud of the job he did. I am very thankful to have him on my team and for Him to call me Pastor.
- I WAS THE DRUMMER THIS WEEKEND AT VERTICAL CHURCH!!! We have such an incredible group of worship leaders, instrumentalist and singers… so, so blessed. I joked this week that the only reason they let me play is because I’m the pastor and they don’t wanna hurt my feelings (grin). That might have been a joke but I tell you this, Vertical Worship is no joke!
- Today’s worship music was just outstanding… DANG! HOW GOOD CAN THEY BE?!?
- Our numbers were outstanding for it to be Thanksgiving weekend. We were quite a bit off numerically this morning but just to show you how much we have grown over the past month this morning’s numbers, though off, were the size of a really good week in the beginning of October. Praise Jesus!
- I heard reports of people praying big prayers, interest in receiving Christ and wanting to serve. Much love and praise to the Father.
- My brother John David Cox, his wife Tanya and children Johnny and Paige attending Vertical for the 1st time today (they live in Moore County). JD and Tanya were 2 of our first friends after coming to Jesus in ’97. They were SO IMPORTANT in my growth in Jesus Christ. Being with their family today reminded me just how much I miss them. Can anyone say, “Vertical Church Moore County”?
- Speaking of Vertical in other locations… I had some really good Bladen County conversations this morning. God is doing a work…
- Tonight at the leaders meeting Bree gave me a slammin’ collage type picture of different shots of me she’s taken at Vertical. So cool and thoughtful! Now to decide where to put it…
GREAT, GREAT SUNDAY!!!
