Pastor Vernon Britt baptizing his granddaughter, Abby.
July 2012 worship services at Vertical Church are in the books and we saw it go out with a BANG yesterday!
Every week as we gather I am blown away. I am constantly thinking, “we get to do this.” After feeling led for such a long period of time yet doubting the calling for many reasons it is so humbling to think that our Great Creator chose me to lead this. I can’t seem to get over that fact. I am just as amazed over that today as I was 16 months ago when we started.
Leading Vertical Church and experiencing what we do weekly just doesn’t get old. Here’s how July 29th went down:
- The vibe was pure electric today at VC! Our VTeams were on fire and not just because it was HOT outside (it was – thank you all for the way that you give to the Lord and Vertical). You could sense the excitement all over our church yesterday. It certainly didn’t feel the way it normally would on the last Sunday in July (normally not the most exciting time in the life of a church). The weather said July but the Spirit said “mid September”. Unbelievable.
- As @brandonmeadows said yesterday afternoon: Thank U every @lookvertical roadcrew vol who sets up/breaks down every sun! Lives R changed every Wk, and He is using you 2 set the table!
- Today was week 3 of our “Heart Attack” series. Today’s message was delivered by our Executive and Teaching Pastor, Donnie Paschall. Our heart’s are constantly under attack from sin and emotions designed to take our eyes off of God – today’s message dealt with jealousy.
- As always, Donnie did an incredible job digging deep within the scripture to present the truth of God’s Word. He did an even greater job of digging deep within his own heart to show that he is a fallible man forgiven by an infallible Savior. I love that one of the driving factors of the leaders of Vertical Church is that we DON’T have it all together. We will not put ourselves on a pedestal to make people think we have arrived at the place they need to be. We are sinners who strongly pursue our Great God and His righteousness but not without fault.
- With yesterday’s message most people probably thought, “I don’t deal with jealousy”. You do.
- At the heart of jealousy is another debt to debtor relationship, this time it is the heart response that says “GOD OWES ME”!
- One of the amazing things about this series is how these issues attack our heart. We often do not realize that we deal with them because they are hidden so deeply within that we don’t even understand they are there. They are cleverly disguised as other things. As Donnie said, “I hope we are all beginning to realize that since our hearts are constantly under attack that there is an incredible need for us to shift our attention away from just trying to correct our behavior to that of addressing the matters of our heart.”
- One of the problems in the church today is that so many have settled for behavior modification above true heart transformation. It is so easy to settle for acting right above BEING right in your heart. Remember (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV) says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
- “ESV Proverbs 14:30 A tranquil1 heart gives life to the flesh, but envy2 makes the bones rot.”
- You should check out the message on the download, podcast or from the Vertical app on your Android or iPhone.
- Speaking of the app, had a young man working at the restaurant I went to after church say to me, “hey man, I downloaded the Vertical app”. Incredible how many people have taken advantage of this technology.
- As you see from the picture above, today was baptism day at VC. We LOVE baptism day at Vertical as we have the opportunity to share in seeing people take their next/first step in their
- Excited to see that our Production director, Scott Shaver, was able to take the baptism experience to another level by putting the live video of the baptism onto the screen. Probably doesn’t sound as big a deal to you as you read it but I KNOW that it made the baptism experience greater as everyone in our BIG HOUSE had a great front row seat to seeing these people get baptized. I know there have been many times when people sitting far back from where our baptismal pool is have had a hard time to see the people. Great job Scott! Thank you for making this aspect of baptism excellent.
- btw… made announcement that we are looking for camera operators for our services. If you think you would like to man a camera hit up Scott here and say, “I’m interested in learning to run cameras at Vertical”.
- Vertical Worship was just great today. They opened with Hillsong’s “Go” (‘giving it all away!’) into “the Difference”. They introduced a new song, Matt Redman’s “Never Once”. Such a powerful chorus… i envision us singing that one a lot.
- 1st time guest galore this weekend… amazing how many people visit churches who expect 1st time guests. I believe that God honors preparation.
- Btw… we had one of our biggest days ever yesterday on the last weekend of July. All we can say is “thank You, Jesus”. He is Awesome!
So excited about all that God is doing around Vertical Church. This isn’t hype – #weC96 Have a great week.
