Greg Peters Live

For probably 2 years now I have wanted to do a sermon series entitled, TGIM – Thank God it’s Monday! I just have not had peace about the series or the timing of it and the Lord has just led me in different directions along the way – but this is a series in waiting. These wouold be good texts Ephesians 6:5-8 and Colossians 3:22-25.

I personally think that if you are not the best employee in your department you ought to be asking yourself why not! Not because your reputation rides on it, but more importantly the reputation of Christ is at stake! You don’t need to be a workaholic but you need to make yourself irreplacable and invaluable.

Tim Stevens, had a post recently that had some great tips on how to serve strong in the workplace and how to be the employee that your boss needs you to be. To read Tim’s great post click here.

Today was one of those days that I was reminded of all the talented people that the Lord has placed around me. If the congregation could really see it from my viewpoint they would see that I am not as talented as some think I might be. If they could see the amazing leaders around me they would have an ah..ha moment and discover much of the reason for our success. But something encourages me far greater than the leadership around me and that is the friendship that runs ahead of the leadership. The Lord has blessed me with leaders around me that are such incredible friends. They careand they show it – as a leader what more could you ask for when the talent is deep but the friendship is deeper!!

• Denise and I were talking this afternoon about how everyone made us feel so missed. In such a loving way, so many people expressed how glad they were to have us back. We felt cherished and treasured.
• The faithfulness of our church has been so encouraging! Thank you for being faithful in your attendance, ministry and giving.
• Our staff once again showed why they are such an amazing team.
• This has been our best summer giving ever! Thank you for investing in life change!!
• Dr. Randy Poyner spoke this weekend and did a wonderful job, each service just kept getting better. I forget how old he is at times – he told the last service that he is 74. What a privilege it is to watch his ministry produce such fruit at his age!
• I believe I counted 15 people raise their hand saying they trusted Christ this weekend. I can’t wait for us to be able to follow up on those decisions and help them on their new journey of faith.
• What a great response to the preaching of God’s Word!!
• We have 36 jr. campers at Word of Life camp this week! Please be faithful in praying for them!
• So excited about so many things coming our way!
• Next weekend I will be giving a building construction update.
• Tomorrow begins a re-energized conditioning program. I only ran once while I was on vacation.
• The only down side to vacation is that it takes me out of my routine. I realize that is a good thing but I am also a person who likes a certain degree of routine.
• Last night I was so excited about things that I could hardly sleep. Hope I find it easier to get to ZZZZZZ tonight.
• I love my job!!!!!

• Great weekend in so many ways!
• Light attendance Saturday night – heavy summer attendance in both Sunday services!
• Loving preaching through Romans 1-4 verse by verse!!
• Wonderful worship! Band, praise team and entire congregation!
• Tremendous drama! Our drama team works so hard and bring it with excellence.
• We had a very nice Discovery Pointe luncheon with new friends.
• Had a missionary guest visit our 11 am service. I had him and his family stand. I then shared a little about their minstry and we took a spontaneous offering for them. The offering totaled just over $550! Thank you so much for your generosity!!
• I am always impressed with the diligance and excellence by which our volunteers serve! THANKS to everyone who is partnering with us to take turf for the Kingdom.
• Please be sure to pray for your “three” as they attend Big Stuff this weekend.
• God is doing some awesome things at Parkview.
• Thank the Lord that we received our Development Order and are applying for our Building Permit Monday morning!!
• Have a God-filled week!

• This saturday night will be a night our church and city willl never forget!!!!!!
• Campus opens at 5pm
• Bring your food, chairs and blankets
• Inflatables are free
• Balloon man works for tips
• Dunk tank is $1
• Parking will be on the grass/dirt area adjacent the South of our building, the front parking lot and the park property immediately adjacent our property to the North.
• Patriotic service at 7:15pm
• Outdoor stage
• Gospel recording artist Channing Eleton
• Military Color Guard
• Veteran’s testimonies
• Looking forward to having one combined weekend service
• We will worship through the act of giving and be receiving an offering
• Patriotic message
• FIREWORKS SHOW following the service
• This is a professional, high quality show just like you would see at Disney or Sea World!
• Invite your friends and family!!!!!!!!

A number of people in our church have read the book, Crazy Love, by Francis Chan. In fact, I think a couple of our small groups have read the book and done the accompanying study. I read the book with a mentoring group and was really challenged by the read.

Just a couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to hear Francis Chan preach live.

I also stumbled across this clip and found it to be interesting, thought provoking and challenging. Click here to view an explanation of the middle road.

• God is good!
• Really good!
• Really enjoying preaching verse by verse this summer through the first 4 chapters of Romans.
• I love the way our people respond to the preaching of God’s Word!
• I always love preaching at Parkview – well, except for the times that I just feel like I do a lousy job.
• I said this weekend that I am a hypocrite.
• Hypocrisy is condemning in someone else what I am excusing in my own life.
• Done that way to many times in my life!!
• It is always easier to see another person’s tooth pick while missing my telephone pole.
• To stop judging others is hard – to start judging ourselves is probably harder.
• There are 2 categories of sin: My sin and your sin. Your sin is always worse.
• Forgiveness is conditional. God doesn’t forgive if we don’t confess.
• There is no statue of limitations on your sin – God doesn’t just forget about your unconfessed sin because a certain amount of time has passed.
• I was very straight forward in speaking about the fact that some people don’t want close relationships in the body of Christ because they don’t want anybody pointing out the blind spots in their life. They would rather run people off the road with no accountability.
• I think all of us could use a little more accountability in our lives – I know I could.
• Really looking forward to our July 3rd event.
• We really don’t quite know what to expect for our first event of this kind!
• Be sure to invite your friends.
• 5 is when the food and fun starts
• 7:15 is our service. We will worship in song, prayer, testimony, giving and preaching. It will all have a patriotic theme – In God We Trust.
• Fireworks will be shot off at dark.
• Today was a long day but a good day
• I started with a 3 mile run and then a swim with Seth at 7:30 this morning.
• We got home tonight at just after 11pm.
• In between we went to 2 Parkview services, lunch with some new dear friends from church, drove to Jacksonville to hear a friend preach, out to dinner after and then home.
• It was a good God-filled day.
• Seth and Denise were able to really enjoy themselves with friends.
• The Lord is good.
• It is now just after midnight – good night!
• One last thing – thanks for letting me be your pastor.

Just a few random things I am thankful for – no particular order

1. God’s grace and truth in my life
2. Eternity
3. My family. Denise and Seth’s love is so life giving.
4. The homemade pie a friend gave us for our 19th anniversary the other day.
5. Some real good friends!
6. A hard working, sweet spirited staff.
7. Tremendous leaders who have embraced our mission
8. Cold a/c in summer florida heat.
9. The opportunity to expand our building and reach more people.
10. Summer vacation

• Loved so much about the weekend!
• God was at work and His Spirit was moving!
• Great to see some returning guest families!
• The video was great – honoring my dad and challenging all dads to be the hands of Christ.
• Darren Peterson read the piece that was written by his dad and Derek did a great job producing the video.
• It is sad to me how on Mother’s Day, all that moms want is their family to go to church with them and on Father’s Day, many dads think of things to do so they don’t have to go to church.
• We had our lowest attendance of the year on Father’s Day weekend and about 125 less people than we had just the weekend prior.
• That grieves me!
• I am extremely grateful for the 80% of men in our church that were in church with their wives and children.
• It is one thing to talk it and it is another thing to model it!
• It reminds me as go the men so goes the church.
• It reminds me to speak more directly to the men of our church.
• Although it was hard, I really enjoyed preaching Romans 1:18-32.
• One of the reasons I love preaching at Parkview is because our church family loves truth.
• In almost 13 years, that was the first time I ever taught on the passive wrath of God – Romans 1:24,26.
• I had another first this weekend – it was the first time I ever pulled a muscle while preaching. Pulled the muscle from my neck to my shoulder in the 9:30 service. If you were present, you can probably guess when I pulled it. This would be very funny if it wasn’t killing me. Wasn’t bad yesterday, but a night of sleep made it alot worse!!
• Felt it was helpful as we talked about our envy toward the pleasurable sin of others or our “white-knuckling” our faith until rewarded in glory.
• I am so grateful for the privilege of pastoring Parkview
• I loved my own personal experiences on Father’s Day!
• Seth decorated the house with streamers and wall signs and a balloon.
• Denise bought me some very nice pants that didn’t fit in the waist – I refuse to go to the next size, so I am officially on a weight loss regimine.
• God is a Father who is beyond words!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes in ministry we get overly focused on bigger. Nothing is wrong with bigger, in fact, I think bigger honors God. Not that small churches don’t honor God, but if you can grow and God has put you in a place to grow, then when you do grow that obviously honors Him. In other words, the more people we reach, the better. The bigger we are the more life change we are able to actualize. I do see value in numbers because ultimately numbers equals souls.  Empty seats never get saved!  With all my heart I want to reach as many people for Christ as possible. While I am all for bigger, I do think better is better. Let me explain – If we keep getting better, better at first impressions, better at campus beautification, better at loving babies, better childrens ministry, better at empowering students, better at preaching the Word, better at the excellence in our tech team, better at the quality of worship, better at the way we fellowship, better at the way we build stronger believers, better at our outreach events, etc, etc, etc. If we keep getting better – bigger will take care of itself!!!  If we determine to be better then the community will dictate bigger. By the way, better is normally not working harder it is just working smarter. If somebody is not interested in better then there is a bigger problem – pun intended.

If you are leading or serving in ministry, ask yourself, “what one thing could I do just a little bit better?”.

A favorite quote of mine is – excellence honors God and God honors excellence.

May we get better for His glory!!!