The first four-service weekend went extremely smoothly, and I want to thank all our regular attenders for helping with this transition.  I was concerned that the 10:30 service would be crowded, but in the end all three services were evenly attended and we topped the 2 000 mark for combined attendance at all four services (not including the children in Promised Land and Kids Klub Church).  Remember that we will now continue with the new weekend service times of 6pm on Saturday, and 9am, 10:30 and noon on Sundays.

During the next five weeks we will continue our new series, Awaken.  We will see how Scripture tells of lives that were changed when a connection was made with the risen Jesus.  And this weekend, you will actually hear more than one account…

This week I read that the Gospel of Luke speaks about the poor and our responsibility towards them an average of one in every seven verses.  Now, I haven’t counted the verses myself, but I will definitely be studying them further.  And if it is true, then it’s an issue we need to think much more about as a church.  If you want to join me in your own personal study to see what Scripture has to say about the poor, I’d welcome the chance to hear about your findings: send me email me at bloghannold@princetonalliance.org or just hit reply if you received this entry in your Inbox.

I’ll be enjoying time with my family next week.  I probably won’t post another entry for a little while, but you are always in my prayers.

We have been experiencing tremendous growth in the number of people who walk through these doors.  The Sunday services, particularly at 11am, have become so packed that we’ve had to break out extra chairs in the café!

Realizing the need to address this, we considered a number of alternatives: adding a Sunday evening service, an earlier service on Sunday mornings, or even a service on another weekday.  After much prayer and thought, we chose what we believe to be the best option, took a straw poll, and decided on our new service times:

• Saturdays — 6pm
• Sundays — 9am, 10:30am, 12pm

This weekend we begin the new schedule.  We trust that it will let even more people encounter Jesus firsthand.  In fact, I would be thrilled if we continued to grow beyond even these four services, and had to talk about our next set of options…

Now, we expect that 10:30am will continue to draw a crowd (just as 11am did), so we’re asking that you try the 9am or noon service for a few weeks to see whether it works for you.  And particularly this Easter, when we expect many visitors to join us at 10:30.

Speaking of, I am very excited about Easter this year!  It is one of the few times when we can talk about the foundational truth of our faith to so many, and afford everyone the very real chance to meet a very real Savior.  (Besides that, I just love to celebrate, which is exactly what we’ll be doing!)

Join us for Good Friday at 6pm or 7:30pm (both services are identical), and for our Easter services during one of the newly scheduled times.

See you then.

A survey of thousands of individuals by The Barna Group found that the three most common perceptions of present-day Christianity include:

• that we are anti-homosexual,
• that we are judgmental, and
• that we are hypocritical.

Among young people (ages 16-29), these numbers were found to be particularly high: 91% said we are against homosexuals, 87% saw us as judgmental, and 85% felt we are hypocritical.  We have become known for what we oppose, rather than what we are for.

If these statistics hold for our area, where literally 100,000 young people are attending colleges within driving distance of PAC, then we can assume that 80,000 - 90,000 of them will never be interested in attending our church.  And that doesn’t include the young professionals in our area.

So, how do we address this?  The answer is not as complex as we may think.

First, we have to leave our facility to reach our community.  If their perception of us deters them from approaching us, then we need to find them where they are.

Once outside our walls, we need to live and speak in such a way that people can experience the true nature of Jesus.  We will never change someone’s mind with a sermon — they have to see us in authentic action. They need to see that our love and concern for other people is real.  They need to see that we are open to talk about and struggle with difficult issues. They need to see that we do not consider them as objects to win to Christ but that we are interested in them as people.

They need to know us by our love.