I talk a lot about how thankful I am to be serving Asbury Church.

I talk a lot about how proud I am of the church, how excited I am to be serving this church, and about how much God is doing.

I speak vaguely on Facebook and Twitter and other social media sites.  I don’t go into much talk about numbers and things like that, for several reasons.

One is because numbers are not the end all and be all of a church.  A church is more than worship attendance or offerings or any of these things.

These things paint a picture of the overall health of a church, but don’t tell the entire story. So, while these numbers matter, they don’t describe everything.

That said, I want to brag on the people of Asbury Church.

I was appointed pastor of this church in June, 2010.  I don’t know the actual numbers, these are just an approximation. But, we were worshiping close to 180 each Sunday. Roughly 120 adults and 60 children.  Like I said, not 100% positive of those numbers, but that is close.

As of right now, we are worshiping close to 400 on Sunday.  Roughly 280 adults and 120 kids.

We have literally seen our worship attendance double.

We have gone from approximately 5 Small Group Connections to 11 with over 70 additional people plugged into our small group ministry.

We’ve seen our Wednesday night Family Meal grow from roughly 50 in over 120.

We’ve seen our finances stabilize and grow to being the healthiest they’ve been in years.

We literally have every chair we own in the sanctuary so that people will have places to sit. We are having to park on the grass because we are out of parking spots on Sunday.

We are seeing more and more people join the church or express and interest in joining the church.

But, most of all, there is a spirit of life in this place. There is spirit of joy and hope and of grace. There is the expectation that God is doing great things and God is going to do great things here.

There is an excitement about what God is doing. There is a desire to be a part of what God is doing and to invite others to be a part of what God is doing.

I’ve never seen folks so on fire to invite their friends and neighbors to church.

And it’s awesome!

And, it’s all about God.  As I’ve told folks, I’ve been in ministry for several years. And I’ve never seen happen what’s happening here.  God deserves all the praise and all the glory. Those of us that serve, we are trying to be useful do what He wants.

But, He deserves ALL the praise for what is happening at Asbury Church.

It’s about Him.  And His grace.  And His life.

I couldn’t be more excited to serve and lead this awesome part fo the Body of Christ. And I can’t wait to see what God is going to do in the coming weeks, months, and years!

Greater things are yet to come!