Fellowship -Fantastic.... TGIFridays Bar Champs

Hopefully all of you had a great weekend. Well let me start off by sharing... the summer months at FC are really a slow down for the staff, and they work all summer preparing for the new year. The 2nd weekend of August is when the DFW school systems start back up and summer is officially over. The first week of August is a all staff outing, and the 2nd week all the big wigs of the pastoral staff go on a retreat and cast/catch the vision for the next year from/by Ed. Well I should of known that this was going to be a big series, from the newly designed e-invite and the mega-mass mailing that FC did throughout the metroplex. I picked up my friends who have never been to Fellowship. When I get in the area of FC, all of my stress leaves me and the excitement hits me, like nothing else. I live each day to go to this church on the weekends. Well, after the 4th parker, (and we are not even in the lot,) one of my friends, makes a comment, that was pretty funny, "are they going to park the car for us?", well I said, "pretty close", as the guys was directing us into our stall. (we have 30 parkers per service, in the front/back lots of 30 acres just for parking) We walk in and they hung 8 huge banners in our living-room/atrium, that of course corresponded with the new series. The greeters said a brief hello and give us our worship guide, which they reorganized, and then we found our seats. The set was amazing, the stage was set up as a castle, complete with windows, drawbridge type opening, and it was really cool. It was11:12am and the "service will begin in" count down clock is already going, and then all of sudden, the whole stage fills with smoke. All of my friends eyes got so big, it was quite funny. Right at 11:15, Ed's son EJ started the service with a drum solo on plastic buckets, by the time the prelude was over, and they opened the series, and service with "Let's Get It Started In Here", by the Black Eyed Peas, they had 15 drumsets arranged (like the Blue Man group in Vegas) on stage, they normally only have 2 screens, this series they had a total of 5, and a total of 30 musicians and singers, just for the opening number. IT ROCKED, before the first chorus, the crowd jumped to their feet and the place went crazy. Our new worship pastor Michael Higdon and Yanci Yarbrough-(Miss Texas-2001) wrote a new song "who do you think you are?", which was high power, high energy, it was awesome, this series is going to be very deep, dealing with the Authority figures God puts in our lives. Well the service ended and we were walking out, and they were making comments on the service, one said, "I can't even believe that was church, it was cool", my second friend said, "the worship is like a rock concert, I cant believe this church is so passionate with their music, that they have smoke, foggers, and a set", and the last one said, "Bro, I hate church, but this is nothing what I was brought up in, will you start meeting me here, this is awesome." My friends, I am just merely a clay pot, who is still being formed, but my existence and role in life is to just introduce them to church, God, and Christianity-through the greatest venue-Fellowship-the local church. As the wrap, this is all the new things that Fellowship kicked off for this new year. New cameras, new camera guiding track, 2 new jumbo high-def screens, more lighting, a bigger lighting tracking truss in ceiling, a sound system upgrade, a newly designed worship guide, banners in the atrium, new Fellowship Church logo, signage for the highways, and new interior signage of the buildings, and a lot more to come. Go online and watch the message opener, and realize that video and all the videos we do - in house. It will blow your socks off.

We had our yearly TGIFridays for the DFW Int. Airport Bar Champs competition to see who has what it takes to go to nationals this fall in Vegas. Congrats to one of my old friends from E17 BRAD, you definitely have the "Friday's Flare" as a bartender. I watched all of them, and the 5 rocked.