An Incredible First Night!

I've prayed about this night for years now. I never knew quite what it would look like or how it would run. I didn't know if anyone would come or if people would catch the vision. Now I know the answers to most of those questions. It was an incredible first night!

We had 43 adults in attendance (including the 5 of us that just moved out here and about a dozen out-of-towners), which was incredible! Many people came that we met last weekend at Riverfest and a few people came that we'd never seen before. On top of the 43 adults, we had 20 something kids (which, by the way, if you're looking for a place to serve in the church, Awaken Kids might be a great place to start). It sure is a good thing we're not in our first building - we would've been over-capacity already!

Although the curve ball of getting booted from our first building 18 days before our first service really threw us for a loop, I see it now as God saving us from a building that would have never worked and giving us a very hands-on lesson that He has all the details worked out. This building is exactly what we need and I'm so excited to see it continue to grow from here. It's been 3 very long, hard weeks turning this old office building into a church-worthy building. It had been sitting there for 2 years till we came along, so as you could imagine, there was plenty of fixing to be done. We just posted some before & after pics of the building renovation on the website, so make sure to swing by and take a look at how bad it used to be.

I preached a topical message tonight called "Are You Awake?" from Romans 13:11-14 (which you should read as soon as you get a chance). It was a call to action for Christians who are spiritually asleep and those without Christ who are spiritually dead. We had one lady respond to the Gospel invitation tonight as well. So, since the angels were partying in heaven, we closed with a fast song and partied with them!

We start the book of Acts on Wednesday, which I'm really looking forward to. As Awaken Church begins, we'll take a look back at how the entire Christian church began. Next Saturday, we'll start the book of Philippians - "To Live is Christ."

The first service is in the bag. Many, many more to come. What a ride this has been already and it's only the beginning!