Pastor’s Blog

We started a new teaching series called, “Got Junk?” last weekend at Daystar. This opening video describes how the “junk” in our lives weighs us down and seems to follow us around everywhere we go. What about you? Got Junk?

There is much talk today in church circles about the “ills” of Mega Churches (defined as a church with average weekly attendance of 2,000 or more). Some say they have watered down the gospel to gain the affection of larger crowds. Other say they offer gimmicks to get people to come, but are short on truth. Many say that there is no real discipleship in these larger churches.

I’m sure that no one reading this blog would be surprised to know that I disagree with those assertions about most larger churches, especially Daystar Church. I have been the pastor at Daystar when we had as few as 75 people and now that we are in that “Mega Church” category and I can say with assurance that we both work harder at and do a better job with discipleship now than we ever have before. And we are still working at making it better because we have much, much more to do. Enough of my soap-box…

Barna Research recently released some data that stands in opposition to those who discredit the discipleship efforts of larger churches. They say that “attenders of large churches were more likely than those engaged in a small or mid-sized congregation to give an orthodox biblical response – e.g., the Bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches, Satan is not merely symbolic but exists, Jesus led a sinless life, God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of th eworld who still rules the universe, etc.” You can read more about it here.

The article goes on to debunk another myth out there that larger churches are “taking away all of the members” from smaller churches. In fact churches of 100 or less constitute 41% of church goers. 23% are found at churches from 101-200, 18% go to bodies of 201-400, 9% go to churches from 500-999 and only 9% of church goers attend “mega-churches.”

Recently my family spent several days at beautiful Orange Beach, Alabama. While riding the waves in the ocean we drifted out farther than I realized. The whole family was floating on inflatable tubes and I didn’t notice that we were actually out so far that even I (at 6′3″) could not touch the bottom. I decided that we should head back in, but found that task more difficult than I imagined. As it turns out, swimming against the tide and pulling a family of 4 with you on floats in quite difficult.

A couple of days later, Abigail and I were parasailing (a process where a parachute is pulled behind a boat in the ocean and the riders are attached to it and taken over 100 feet into the air). Everything was going just fine until the wench designed to reel us back down to the boat broke and we were dropped into the ocean. We survived (which is more than I can say for my camera).

In both of these cases I came face to face with just how BIG and POWERFUL the ocean is. Afterward I thought about how casually the book of Genesis depicts God’s action to create such amazing things. If our Father was able to create something as awesome as the oceans by only speaking them into existence, then I ask you…..HOW BIG IS GOD???

None of us is able to answer that question completely, but one thing is sure: God is big enough to take care of you and me no matter what we are going through. I challenge you to trust Him in everything you do and everything you are facing. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or imagine!