Week One = DONE
{ June 6, 2016 }
Well, already, my first week on staff at Grace City is over. So much has happened already!
I went through New Staff Orientation which was absolutely amazing- I literally cried over how much I love this church and how grateful I am to be a part of it.
I began to get settled into the office stuff and helped plan for a ton of worship events that will be happening this summer!
Already, I was able to lead worship three times! First, at the Flamingo Campus at our Wednesday community night. Every Wednesday, Grace City takes buses over to one of the parks in town, where many homeless people are, invite anyone and everyone to church, and then we have dinner with them and then we have a worship service and time of teaching.
This is one of my most favorite services at Grace City. Many of the people who attend this service are homeless or impoverished. Eating dinner with a homeless person will flip your world upside-down. And leading them in worship does something deep in your soul. This week I lead them in a song called, “The Simple Gospel.” And it simply says, “I will rejoice in the simple Gospel! I will rejoice in You, Lord!” Many of them have a different view of a song like that than many of us do. They get it! It is simple- He loves us and He’s all we have. Wow!
I also had the privilege of leading worship at a Grace City Ordination Service! Three of our staff members became ordained pastors! It was amazing to see their callings confirmed in such a powerful way.
Lastly, I was able to play guitar on the Sunday worship team! Our morning service is at Silverado High School and our evening service is at our Flamingo Campus! Our evening service kicked off our BURN week! We meet twice a day, everyday, for a week and pursue the Lord and His presence and ask Him to set us on fire!! It is such an incredible, and life changing time! I cant wait to write another post in a week and tell you about what the Lord has done!
Lastly, I want to tell you about a moment from yesterday! My Dad and brother are in town, helping me get all settled in. After church in the morning, we went to the strip for just a bit and walked across one of the bridges and walked by about ten homeless people, panhandling, in the blazing hot sunshine- one of them talking to himself, one man had a bra on, many just looked broken down by the world. Once we passed them and entered the casino I began to weep. It was such a whirlwind of emotion- it wasn’t all sadness for the people I had just seen, though much of it was! After seeing them I began to pray, “Lord rescue my city.” After praying that, my heart was so overwhelmed that I can finally really pray “LORD, RESCUE MY CITY!” It hit me how important it is that there are Christians here. It hit me how important it is to walk on to the strip and say, “Holy Spirit! You are welcome here!”
This place is so sin ridden. It’s so full of darkness. It rejoices in evil; it exalts it! So many Christians (I absolutely used to) look at Vegas and compare it to Sodom and Gomorrah and I’m sure there are similarities, but one difference is pretty great. The Lord isn’t about to destroy Las Vegas. His wrath isn’t about to shower fire down on her.
Jesus loves Las Vegas.
Did you catch that!?
Jesus loves Las Vegas.
I can’t get over it!
Jesus loves Las Vegas.
So, as challenging as this transition has been, as hard as it is to leave home, as hard as it is to live in the blistering desert- Jesus is worth it and so are His lost children.
Please continue to pray, every single day, for salvation to fall all over this place. Pray that the Holy Spirit would baptize this entire city!! Pray that there will be a day when people look to Vegas and see the glory of God!! We can pray big audacious prayers like that because we have a HUGE God who is crazy about us!!!
He loves Las Vegas.
He loves you, too.
