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No excuses, just plain forgot to post the recap yesterday! And, since the moment has passed, I’ll keep the recap short.

We kicked off One Prayer with a message called Unstoppable God. An unstoppable God working through obedient people produces supernatural results.

• Tyler Patterson led worship, and it was like old times but in a new place! Songs were Happy Day, Sing Sing Sing, Hosanna, How He Loves, and Unstoppable (Rascall Flatts, incredible job by the band).
• So excited to unveil some One Prayer initiatives we’re working on as a church over the next couple weeks.
• We’ve postponed our Picnic Baptism because someone (me…) can’t read a calendar, and the previous date was Father’s Day. So, July 18 is the big day. If you’ve recently come to faith or never been baptized before and are considering whether baptism is for you, the answer is yes! Contact us at the church (info@arrowheadchurch.com) for more info.

Week 2 in our new place! I think the energy level reflected that we all felt a little more at home. Honestly, I thought that our numbers would be really low coming off a big week straight into Memorial Day weekend, but that didn’t happen at all.

• We wrapped up our Punctuation series with this idea: When God wants to add something to your life, something else has to go away. If you want to add something this summer, something else will have to go. We’ll generally press the delete key on our devotional plan, our relational efforts, our professional life, or our moral boundaries.
• Worship set was incredible. Songs were: Salvation is Here, Everlasting God, Blessed Be Your Name, Glory to God, and Lead Me to the Cross.
• Kids are coming out of the woodwork at our new space! I think a bunch of them were just hanging out here waiting on us…ha. Love seeing kids connecting with God and the local church. Traci Bishop and her team are doing an incredible job.
• So ready for One Prayer next week! Stay tuned to the blog for more info.

It is very surreal that we worshiped today in our first permanent facility for the first time. We never thought we’d be in a place of our own so soon, but the Lord had other plans. It was so fun today to see the stunned look on people’s faces as they saw for the first time what we’d been talking about for several weeks. I’m so grateful for the team God used to pull all of this together so quickly.

• I’ve never been prouder of the work of God because He did it all through His people. Our contractors, Total Property Management, worked really hard to make it all happen, but it couldn’t have been completed without volunteers. Over the last 2 weeks we made memories painting, cleaning, sticking on vinyl baseboard in what seemed like mile-long rolls, and in just doing whatever it takes. I’m so humbled and blessed.
• Just the environment that has been created in the lobby is enough to help us fulfill our relational mission. Loved seeing people sitting in our lobby and hanging out before we opened the doors.
• Songs were Today is the Day (Lincoln Brewster), Awesome is the Lord Most High (Chris Tomlin), Hosanna (Hillsong), How Great is Our God (Chris Tomlin), and Reign in Us (Starfield).
• God changed the message on me on Saturday morning. We talked about milestones. Some milestones come naturally and some have to be chosen. Choose salvation, baptism, repentance, and connection to a church.
• We’re baptizing in the lake on June 20! If you know you need to do it, now is the time. Send us an email to sign up at info@arrowheadchurch.com.
• Huge kids crowd, and I think we laid out the space well. So glad to be able to add a class to our lineup starting today.
• Just a few odds and ends from today: the sign isn’t permanent (it’ll get bigger), we’ll get the lights right eventually, and there’s a student room for 6-12 grade that I don’t think anybody even went in!
• Largest non-Easter crowd we’ve ever had filled up the room nicely, but remember that Carson Newman is gone home for the summer. Stay tuned for talk about 3 services this fall (or sooner if you keep inviting!).
• Sara and I are getting some time out of town this week as I teach at the beach for FBC Sevierville’s College Ministry, so pray for us and for the rest of the staff as we recuperate from the madness of the last few weeks.
• Thank you for your commitment to help people take their next step with Jesus! And praise God that He’s moving through us!

If you just dropped by for the first time or the first time in a long time, this Sunday is the first week in our new location! Join us at either 9:30 or 11:00 at 6111 W. Andrew Johnson Highway in the Fred’s shopping center. See you there.

So surreal that this week was our last Sunday at Rose Center. Walking out was very odd, but it was an amazing day. I am so thankful for that place. They opened their doors to us when we had no other option, and it was the perfect spot. I have no doubt that our growth can be partly attributed to the location and visibility of where we were.

All that to say, I’m so pumped about our new location this Sunday!

Here’s a recap of the day:

• Continued our Punctuation series with a message called @. Yes, I know @ isn’t punctuation, but just roll with it.
• Talked about the building of the Old Testament temple. Our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Spirit, but we can still learn from the respect the Israelites had for the place where the glory of God dwelled.
• Songs were Solution (Hillsong United), O Praise Him (David Crowder), The Stand (HU), and God of This City (Chris Tomlin).
• Reading quotes from people at Arrowhead about what the Lord is doing in their lives just about puts me out of commission to teach every week. We simply cannot manufacture the activity of God in the lives of people, and I am so grateful.

It’s gonna be a wild week! Don’t miss next Sunday!

One of our core values is Biblical Teaching. A church isn’t a church without the Bible. Heck, many churches have a hard enough time living out what a church should be even if they do believe the Bible. I can’t imagine trying to stand for God without being fully convinced of the truth of His Word.

We believe the Bible is fairly simple to understand. There are many mysteries and we surely can’t understand everything about God, but most of the basics are black and white, so we try to teach it that way. The Bible speaks to our everyday lives - our homes, habits, friends, finances, fears, and struggles.

Day in and day out we are sustained by the simple truths of God’s Word.

Mother’s Day is such a funny church phenomenon to me. Either a mom wants everybody to come to church with her and so the whole family is gathered together or mom wants to sleep in so lots of people are absent!

• Kicked off a new series called punctuation. What goes between your quotation marks when you say “I’ll pray for you,” is a big deal.
• Do you pray casually or desperately? Do you pray whenever or are you persistent? When you pray, are you hoping or believing?
• Songs were You Are (Todd Fields), Hands of the Healer (Fee), Mighty to Save (Hillsong United), Jesus Paid It All (Kristian Stanfill version), and The More I Seek You (by…I don’t know!).
• Great to meet a few extended families of people who traveled in to come to church today.
• The big move is 5/23! The energy is building!

May 23 we are in our new location! Can’t believe it, but it’s going to be incredible. You do not want to miss it! Construction is nearly the close and we still have lots of cosmetics to do, but it’s just around the corner.

This space is going to give us room to see more people continue to take their next step with Jesus. I can’t wait to see what the Lord is going to do.

We need people to come work on Saturdays May 8 and 15 and probably the week in between at night. Don’t you want to be able to say “I painted that bathroom” every time you see someone go in to do their business?!

We’ll still be in two services at 9:30 and 11:00.

Pure madness from 6:30-1:00. Sometimes that’s all you can say to describe a Sunday at Arrowhead. Absent band members, sickness, a double-booked Rose Center…wow.

• Wrapped up The Dip. Sometimes God puts us in places to say something we could never hear if we were anywhere else. AW Tozer said, “It’s doubtful God can use a man greatly until He’s hurt him deeply.” Hard to get our minds around, but true.
• Acoustic worship set…out of necessity (remember the absent band members part…). Still things went great. Songs were Glory to God (Fee), You Said (Hillsong), Here I Am to Worship (Chris Tomlin), and Hands of the Healer (Fee).
• Proud to pastor a church where people really feel welcome. There’s no way to coach or prepare that before a Sunday. It’s just awesome people.
• College Cookout after the service was fun. We’ll miss the CNC students but the WSCC people will rule the summer!
• Shared the move-in date - MAY 23!  More to come tomorrow.

I get asked a lot: So where do you all get that stuff on Sundays? Meaning, where do you get all the graphics, promo stuff, etc. It’s a good question and we have no secrets.

Our sermon series are a mix of graphics designed by Tyler Patterson (on our staff) and from other churches across the country who give away their stuff for free. TP is very talented and learning more all the time, but we use programs like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Final Cut to create graphics and video. We also utilize free resources from great churches with large media departments who are so kingdom minded that they realize they are blessed with resources that many other churches our size don’t have. So, they publish their stuff online for free. That means as a pastor and worship team we can decide what we want to talk about, write the sermons and choose songs then go out and look for graphics to “brand” the series.

Why is this necessary? The short answer is that it really isn’t. The Bible speaks for itself. But, we believe the Bible speaks specifically to our culture, and our culture speaks the language of media. We want our Sunday worship experience to match people’s throughout-the-week experience. That doesn’t mean we water anything down or try to look like the rest of the world. But, it does hopefully help communicate that our faith is relevant to our culture.