Thoughts on life, leadership and the movement called the church by Brian C. Hughes, Senior Pastor

by Brian C. Hughes, Senior Pastor

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Reflections on an incredible weekend at PCC

EASTER SOUL PREP: In our study of John, chapter by chapter, as Easter Soul Prep., today is one of the days I'm skipping. My guess is that I'll do that on the Sunday's from here to Easter, but we'll see. In any event, I'll do chapter 4 tomorrow.

This weekend has been one of the best I've had in a long time. PCC was filled with all kinds of great and awesome events during the past few days. Let me highlight a few that I know about.
  • Dinner theater. Wow! That is a good way to describe it. First, there were around 250 people who came to the dinner. To have that many people eating at tables in the big room was an awesome sight to see. It was pretty packed. The food was awesome (Carrabba's), and the play was extremely well done, too - very well acted and very entertaining. For me personally, it was a unique chance to meet folks who were checking out our church. For many people, it was an opportunity to invite their friends and neighbors to see our facility in a very non-threatening way. I met several families who were in the building for the first time and who seemed genuinely interested in coming back for church. Plus, we raised a good bit of money for the Macedonia mission trip.
I also had the privilege of watching my 16 year old son, Daniel, wait on tables and serve people. I'm really proud of him and the young man he is becoming. Though, as a parent, I have some apprehension about him going to Macedonia (he's never been out of the country without us), I know God will do great things through him and the others there.

  • PCC's SECOND Saturday night service. Well, VCU was in the Final Four, and the game started at the same time as our service....AND 41,000 people ran in the 10K in Richmond, including a lot of PCC folks, that morning...AND many of our folks had worked in or attended the Friday night dinner theater. SO...We knew we wouldn't be setting any attendance records! Still, almost 130 people were there! And the service was good. And we were able to use the recording in front of a live crowd for our Westchester Campus. Normally, I record the message for them on Wednesday (which I did as a backup). But this week, we experimented with the Saturday night service recording, which I have heard went very, very well at WC.
  • Church today was outstanding. God really moved, and we've seen and heard about that from lots of people as the feedback keeps coming in. Today was one of those 'moments' that was life changing and which many of us will never forget. I'll never read Acts 10 the same way again.
  • 101 part 1 happened right after church. I heard one story after another from folks who testified to the unique, refreshing, life-changing work that God is doing through our church. It never gets old, and I was blown away (again) at what a huge difference PCC is making in our community. God is so good to include us in what He is doing.
  • The CORE meeting tonight was sooooo cool! Beth and Lindsay - they may not appreciate your songwriting abilities in Nashville, but we liked it just the same! The student band was very good and the refreshments for those who came out were excellent (special thanks to Cathy Rusch). Being online and being able to interact with a live crowd and an online community was very innovative. I felt like what we did tonight was creative, warm and casual, and really, really US! It was very PCC!
So many people work so hard to make PCC happen. Even as I write this, Jon Messer and Tom Lewis are still at the building taking down some lighting apparatus so we can make some maintenance repairs. It's humbling to be around such dedicated folks who believe so passionately in what we do.

So, after a long but fruitful weekend, I think I'm going to take the rest of the day off! See you tomorrow when we talk about John 4...

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