Clutter-Free Christianity

Check out this new book that just came out...

When did the Christian life become so complicated? Your greatest desire is to please God, but with each passing week, your spiritual to-do list grows longer. As you strive to fulfill a never-ending inventory of requirements for being a godly parent, spouse, voter, employee, and more, you feel increasingly disconnected from the God you’re trying to serve.

It’s time to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of what it means to please God. In this liberating look at the core principles of faith, Dr. Robert Jeffress reveals the truth about what God really wants from you–and what He wants to do for you.

Through solid biblical teaching and practical insights, Dr. Jeffress points you toward a revitalized faith centered on becoming more like Jesus in action, attitude, and affection. You’ll learn how to partner with God in the process of spiritual transformation as you choose to follow Christ in forgiveness, obedience, trust, contentment, service, and prayer.

Through a renewed focus on experiencing the kingdom of God right now, you’ll find your to-do list shrinking and your spiritual life deepening. It all comes with embracing Clutter-Free Christianity.
Includes a Bible study guide for personal growth and group discussion.

The author is Dr. Robert Jeffress. He is the senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, one of the most historic churches in the Southern Baptist Convention. The author of sixteen books, he is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary and Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition, live broadcasts of Dr. Jeffress’ weekly messages reach millions of listeners and viewers each week, while his daily sermon series airs on 1,100 television stations and cable systems nationwide. Dr. Jeffress and his wife, Amy, are the parents of two adult daughters.

Find out more about this book or how to purchase it: Random House.com

By the way, I'm giving away a FREE copy of this book to the 7th person who emails me at my address: dpandreasen@comcast.net (Are you ready to win?)

Love to all.

Going Over 10,000!!!

Looks like I'll pass the 10,000 hit milestone with my blog after only about 13 months online! (Plus, would you believe that we will have 10,000 eggs + for our Easter Egg Hunt here @ CFA...the city's largest!!)

This blog has created the medium for me to reach people around the United States and the world with news about our flood rebuilding project at Columbus First Assembly. Literally hundreds of pictures have been posted here giving daily and weekly updates since the Flood of 2008 struck our church back on June 7th, 2008.

Today I'm posting the dates for our return back to CFA in our completely rebuilt Regional Worship Center. Are you ready? Here we go...

• First Wednesday Night Family Ministries Night: April 15th @ 7 pm!
• First Sunday School Classes: April 19th @ 9 am!
• Dedication Sunday Celebration: Sunday, June 7th!
  

We are ecstatic about coming home to CFA for weekly ministry classes, ministry groups, outreaches, fellowships, etc. Nine months is a long time to be spent in a borrowed church facility...though we are extremely grateful to the friends at MBC for their kindness and hospitality. It's time to "reclaim" our spacious regional worship center!

Soon we will have our commercial-sized appliances and renovated kitchen space in action once again. Awesome updates and improvements in this fellowship hub of our church. You must check out the size of our refrigerator, freezer, stove and ice machine...plus all those new cabinets! Betsy, are you ready to organize your workers into putting our kitchen back together?

Soon we will have a much larger space for our church library. It will be placed in the old Youth Pastor's office. Helen, are you ready to get started moving all those books, tapes, videos, and resources into our new library?

Soon we will have a much more open ministry space for our Toddler Church. Two rooms will be opened up into one massive area with a folding accordion door. Lori, are you ready to let those toddlers loose in this new space?

Soon we will open up our nursery room complete with new carpeting, paint and cabinets. April, are you ready to love on our babies in this renovated space?

Soon we will have a brand new custodial room as compared to the custodial cabinet. Martha and Kevin, are you ready to organize this new space for all your cleaning supplies, paper products, light bulbs, paint, vacuum cleaners, brooms, mops, trash bags, etc, etc.?

Soon we will house our Kid's Church in the renovated kid's commons area in the large, high-ceiling room in the basement of our church. Tammy, are you ready to set up your ministry space to teach our children week after week?

Soon we will open up 12 newly renovated classrooms for our Sunday School program and Wednesday night family ministries. Shawn, Phil, Ted, Jeff, Jennifer, Candy, Debbie, Tess, Tammy, Pastor Joel & Holli and all our teachers...are you ready to teach your classes back home @ CFA?

In the near future, we hope to reopen our Hope Outreach Center to minister to people in our community with food and clothing and other supplies. We believe that God would have us to touch our community with compassion ministries in reaching our city for Jesus Christ!

This past Sunday I preached on "Maximizing Your Marriage!" Click on the sermon title to go to our website to listen to this needed message! Husbands and wives need now more than ever encouragement and truth in this culture that we live. Plus we showed the movie "FIREPROOF" Sunday night as well! Powerful film.

Still believing and praying for God to lead us to our DEBT FREE miracle before or on Dedication Sunday. Let me encourage you to make a generous contribution on our secure online giving site: www.columbusfirstassembly.org

Much love to all!

Break's Over...Back to Work!

Washing Grandma's car...a family tradition!

Tammy and Ashlyn with Neena!

Two huge commercial kitchen appliances!

Heavy dudes (the appliances that is!)...one about 480 lbs. and the other 400 lbs!

Bathroom partitions...

Got showers!

Temporary walls came down...

Stove has to go in the kitchen...

Since coming back from Spring Break I've been busy catching up on lots of things around CFA! (Why is it when you go away you've got to work twice as hard to make up the ground that you lost when you were gone....oh well, it's all good!)

Last blog entry I was in Missouri on Spring Break. We had a blast! Got to spend time with my mother and also my oldest son who is a sophomore at Evangel University. While on his campus we were able to stop by Dr. Spence's brand new office and and also the new board room. Wow...impressive! What a beautiful building to finalize the campus' long-term building plans. The last of the hospital barracks will soon be torn down. What an amazing journey this university has had over the last 20 years or so.

On Sunday we had a great day. I preached a strong message entitled, "The Stark Reality of Sin" in the morning service. God has been speaking to us about holiness, righteousness, purity and standing clean before a Holy God. You can listen to this message here by clicking on the sermon title above. Watch out...it just might hurt...but you need to hear this!

Then I chaired two committee meetings in the next couple of days. Trying to stay on target and stay on task with all the duties and responsibilities. I have great supporting team members who are running with the vision. BIG THINGS are just up the road. The CFA Vision for 2009 cheers us on: This is the Year to Rebound!! Praise God for His encouragement and motivation.

Today was mostly spent with assignments connected to the flood rebuilding project. Lots of items to take care of on Wednesday. Happy for what the Lord has helped me to accomplish. I hope to be able to give you the date soon for the return to utilizing our Regional Worship Center. Lord willing, you'll either hear about it in church on Sunday or in my next blog posting.

I've included some new updated pictures for you to get a glimpse of how things are shaping up around CFA. Would you believe I'm having problems again with our carpet company? The carpet that we received from the mill was defective so they are working to resolve it. Plus, the installers are giving me fits too! What is it with my carpet company? Are they all like this? Grrrrrhhhhhh!!

Continue to pray and believe with us that we will dedicate our Regional Worship Center on June 7th DEBT FREE!! We're still praying. We're still trusting our Great God. Miracles still come in all shapes and sizes. Just this week we received a check from friends in Colorado. Thank you Lord for promising to take care of this huge need! Yes, All things are possible with God!

Please enlist in this faithful army of concerned and compassionate Christians who are helping us reach the promise the Lord gave to us! You can contribute online at our church website or send it to our church office address: CFA, 2100 10th Street, Columbus, IN 47201. Thanks so much!

Gotta go...I'm getting hungry...been a long day!

Love to all!

Spring Break!

We finally got to take a little break this week and visit some family in Arkansas and Missouri. It's been a great trip thus far with beautiful Ozark scenery. Enjoying my time with the family!!

First stop on the Spring Break Journey was down in Conway, Arkansas. We were able to visit with Tammy's parents, two brothers and also her sister and nephew. Weather got up to around 82 degrees today. Amazing! You could see the trees budding and the start of some new green grass too. Wonder what it's doing back home...will my grass need to be cut? Kinda doubt it...

Next we drove up I-65 into Missouri and are staying with my mom here in Nixa. This part of the round trip journey is one of the toughest to conquer...twisting roads, hairpin turns, up long winding mountains and also down them too! Thankful no one got sick on this trek...though we haven't been so successful in the past!

We will hook up with our son Jordon in Springfield tomorrow at Evangel University. He enjoyed his Spring Break a couple of weeks ago...though working at the Hut most of his week off probably wouldn't earn the most fun award during break...except for the paycheck!!!!!!

Back at CFA carpet and cove base are being installed this week; plus plumbing fixtures, bathroom partitions, electrical work and other final construction details being completed as our Flood Rebuilding Project begins to wind down. Everyone is waiting to get back into our Regional Worship Center and begin using it for our weekly small groups and other vital ministries and outreaches.

This past Sunday we were blessed with the ministry of Dr. Robert Spence, President of Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. He preached a powerful message out of the Book of Jeremiah on the prospect of HOPE. God has a glorious future for every one who will follow His plan and live according to His Word. You can listen to his message right here...

We continue to pray that our Mighty God would miraculously meet the financial need of our total FLOOD REBUILDING PROJECT. Our prayer is that God will supply the funds to dedicate this facility totally DEBT FREE! It's a big prayer...but we've got a BIG GOD! You can help us by donating at our church website. Thanks for doing your part in this amazing miracle!

Check back for an update early next week with some new pictures. Thanks for following along on this historic faith journey with our church, Columbus First Assembly. It's been an incredible RIDE!

Love to all....

From your Spring Break Pastor!

9 months and counting...

Ceiling panels installed...

Prepping for the ceiling acoustical spraying...

Lots of prep work before the spraying...

Mixing the spray and ceiling material...

...it was quite the mess...

Ceilings are done...

...kinda looks like a fluffy cottage cheese...

Finished!

Installing the doors...

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Before...

After!

Hard to believe but it's been nine months and counting since the Flood of 2008. We can't and we won't forget the date: 6.07.08. But we will also forge some beautiful new memories with the planned Dedication of our completely restored regional worship center: 6.07.09. Just think...that's less than 3 months away!

The last seven days since my last post has seen measurable progress on our rebuild:

• The walkway from the new 10th Street entrance door has been poured and formed.
• The ramp off the new toddler wing east entrance door has been poured and formed.
• The old walkway to the old entrance by the mailbox has been broken up and removed.
• The basement floors have been finished with colored chips and a top clear coat.
• Just about all of the doors have been installed...however, we are still waiting on the door handle assembly packs to arrive!
• Plus, the basement ceiling in the commons area was recently sprayed with a unique acoustical insulation blend...this provides us with more open space between floor and ceiling and lends a warmth to the overall ministry space.
• The electricians continue to install bathroom lights, fans, switches, kitchen outlets, and a host of other electrical details.
• The painters are in and out with their continuous touch up work.
• The HVAC guys were in finishing up the ductwork and vents in the drop ceilings.
  
• Finally, we received an overhead ceiling inspection which allowed the drop ceiling guys to finish up the installation of all ceiling acoustical tiles.

As you can see, there was a lot of action on our flood rebuild this past week. But there is still a LOT OF WORK to go before we are finally finished. We continue to press on and push forward in order to reclaim our entire ministry space once again!

Last Thursday night my wife and I attended our Area Minister's Meeting in Greenwood. Great chance to visit with friends and fellowship together. It was a good breakaway.

On Sunday I preached a message entitled, "Standing Before a Holy God!" It was another one in a series the Lord is having me preach concerning holiness and purity. It is a message the Lord is speaking to His Church today. I also heard this reiterated at my minister's meeting. Lord, I pray that your message is welcomed, received and accepted with open hearts. Continue your work in me! Cleanse our hearts and purify our lives.

We started Chapter Two in the Study of John in our mid-week service. Great beginning to the miracle ministry of Jesus...with lots of good discussion on how his first miracle came to be. Remember, Jesus turning the water into wine. This specifically was used to reveal His glory to the disciples and those that were watching.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to take a full day off...but you never know when I'll be called back to the church to help answer a question or provide direction in a matter.

Looking forward to having Dr. Robert H. Spence from Evangel University as my special guest this coming Sunday, March 15th. It is such an honor to have this distinguished leader ministering God's Word to us. If you are in the area, we would love to have you join us for this special service!

Our current project is securing funds for the chairs, tables, and classroom supplies needed in our church basement. We won't be able to reclaim our ministry space without them. If you could help with a gift, please send it to CFA or make an online donation here - click on the "Giving" button. Thanks so much!

Until next time, be encouraged in the great things that God is doing right now...in your heart, in your home and in your church! Look up...your redemption draweth nigh!

God bless you!