When you come to church on Sunday morning, what will you be anticipating? A great worship set? An awesome sermon? A quick service so you can get to Easter lunch? I hope you’ll anticipate a lot more than that. I hope you’ll anticipate tons of lives being changed for eternity!

This entire week at the office has been geared toward Easter Sunday – putting together the worship experience, an Easter Bunny Photo Outreach Event, and preparing for what will be a record number of people at OneLife! Also, the office has been buzzing with mid-week volunteers who are preparing extra handouts, stuffing tons of first-time-guest tubes, prepping Kidz curriculum and working on the production equipment in anticipation of ONE thing:all the people who will accept Christ on Easter and in the weeks to follow! I can’t wait to look back in a few weeks and see what God did over this coming weekend!

Every time we celebrate a life change story or a milestone for our church, I celebrate knowing that God has only given us a taste of what is to come. The “good ole days” for the church always lie ahead, never behind, because God is always able to do way more than we can think or imagine (Ephesians 3:20)!

I encourage you to show up Sunday anticipating a fresh movement of God in our church and in the lives of countless others. Spend the days leading up to Easter praying for the people that you’re inviting and expect God to write a brand new life change chapter to their story.

Hundreds of names were written down of the people we will be BEGGING God to bring to Christ this Easter and beyond! Let’s anticipate their lives being changed!

I’m laying here in bed at 8:09 a.m. – something I never get to do (or let myself do) – the day after one of the most incredible experiences in my life. My mind is racing, thinking about the fact that 19 months ago, OneLife church didn’t exist. But yesterday, 440 people made it their place to celebrate the resurrection. At least 23 of those (that we know of) gave their hearts to Jesus.

OneLife – this is not normal (read this if you are dorky like me and want to see what normal is in a new church). And it’s not because we have a great band, cool stage set, awesome children’s ministry, and an incredibly good looking pastor. Although all of those things are true It’s because God – for whatever reason – is choosing to use us as his tools and vessels to impact this community.

So on this day after, we celebrate what God has done. But I can’t help but wonder what Jesus and his followers did the day after he walked out of the grave and defeated death. Do you think they sat around and celebrated? I sure don’t. Because Jesus told them immediately in Mark 16 to go into ALL the world and preach! Don’t sit here and celebrate, go reach people! And when you do, you’ll be UNSTOPPABLE!

OneLifers, you were used yesterday. You invited people, prayed, fasted, volunteered, worshipped, and supported this vision and dream. But let’s not stop here. Follow-up with those you invited and came. Follow-up with those who didn’t come and let them know that we have church all year long – not just on Easter! Think about those people you didn’t get to invite this past week and get them there this Sunday. Let’s keep the pedal to the metal! Because we are…unstoppable.

Here are some behind the scenes reflections of what made yesterday an incredible experience.

• Because we’ve worked so hard to have a good relationship with the school, they are incredibly gracious to us. They let us set up on Thursday night to tweak a new stage set, come back Friday night to focus lights, and then mow the yard on Saturday so it would be looking nice!
• 114 volunteer positions were filled yesterday. Amazing.
• For the first time ever, automated check-in worked on both computers for OneLife Kidz. Those things are persnickety! And it was great because we had more kids than ever!
• We got to help a homeless gentleman who came by needing gas and clothing. He got a OneLife shirt, gas, and some food. And attended worship with us.
• Our new custodian who unlocks for us surprised our band and tech teams by providing a table FULL of breakfast for them when they arrived! Doughnuts, bananas, coffee, orange juice, and Gatorade. Then he and his son attended a service.
• Our first impressions teams made coming to OneLife an incredible experience yesterday. Parkers made it easy to find a spot in the parking lot (which literally filled completely up between services!), greeters were more engaging than ever, and ushers helped people find seats in the auditorium…which also filled up first service!
• Our staff had an incredible prayer time on Saturday afternoon that I believe had a huge impact on the number of lives that were changed yesterday.
• The bumper video that was played before the sermon yesterday is one of my favorites we’ve had yet. And it is a OneLife original. Check it out on the service video that will be posted this afternoon.
• From what I hear, OneLife Kidz was more rocking than ever. That team of volunteers has really made it something special…and it gets better all the time!
• We had 14 first time guest families fill out a connection card and tons of prayer requests. Follow-ups with them and new believers are already underway!
• This next Sunday will be great for everyone…new and old…to learn more about how to be unstoppable in practical ways. I can’t wait!

Easter Sunday is our Super Bowl, and we’ve been treating it like that, too! It’s a HUGE deal to us. So here’s our game plan to make Easter 2011 the best we’ve ever had! (yeah, yeah…we’ve only had one other Easter service, but you get my point! )

First, it’s a big deal because without Easter, we wouldn’t have Christianity. So we have a celebration scheduled for this Sunday that will blow your mind! More importantly, it will serve up an incredible opportunity for you to give thanks to Jesus for what he did for you. Videos, songs, a new series, and an announcement about this summer (which is just a month away!) are just highlights of what we’ve got. Our teams have worked hard to make this our best offering of worship to Jesus yet. I can’t wait!

Second, we’ve pulled out all the stops to fill the place up. Why do we want it full? Because Jesus said HE wants it full! (check out this parable to read more) But this year, our approach to filling up His house was not to host a big community event. Instead, we want to equip OneLifers to be the chief inviters. So this past Sunday we equipped everyone with some Peeps to invite their “peeps” (thanks to Elevation Church for the idea and video), we have a Facebook Event that has invited nearly 2,000 people and counting, our OneLife Communities hand-wrote personal invitations to every family that has ever visited our church, and we have challenged EVERY OneLifer to invite someone to come with them.

I can’t wait to see it pay off! On top of that, we are going to our community this weekend to make connections and invite them face-to-face. On Friday and Saturday, we’ll be providing free photos with the Easter Bunny from 11-2 at the Clinton Highway Chick-fil-a (save your email about the Easter Bunny being pagan because it won’t get read First of all, if you truly believe that, you better not take your kids to Disney World to see Mickey or to a UT football game to see Smokey. Second, God redeems ALL things and through this event with the Easter Bunny, we will see people come to church who wouldn’t do so otherwise!) This event is COMPLETELY volunteer-driven so sign up here! There are only a handful of openings left so you better act fast!

All of this to say, OneLifers we’ve given you every opportunity to make a huge difference for eternity this weekend. Now the ball is in your court! Don’t let us down. More than that, don’t let Jesus down! He wants to use YOU to make a difference. The people you invite might say no or not show up, but don’t let that stop you. Invite them, pray for them, and watch God work! You’ll be amazed. I promise.

Let’s do this! It’s game-time!