If you want to meet the next mother Theresa read this blog: http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/ She is 20 and serving the poor in Africa.  Please read her blog.  It will move your heart!  Her story about Josie-Love is amazing.

Serving children who have needs is something that always grabs my heart.  I started sponsoring a child several years ago and it is one of the best decisions I have ever made.  To be honest it is a sacrifice.  Even though it isn’t a ton of money every month, its only $38 a month, it still is a sacrifice to care for someone else.  To be a good compassion sponsor you need to open your heart to someone else.  You need to pray for your child.  You need to write them and let them know who you are.  Sadly, I don’t do a good job of keeping up with my compassion kid.  But today I watched this video that challenged me.  If you have 5 minutes today please watch it.  It is so worth it.

Green Hills Church made the news.  Fox 17 (the local Nashville affiliate) asked to do a feature on us this past sunday.  The piece aired September 20th on the evening news.  It is a really cool piece that gives a good look at our church and why we are in Nashville.  You can get a good look at what our worship environment, music and teaching looks like.

Check out the video here:  http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/top_stories/wztv_vid_1460.shtml

Here is the excerpt from Fox 17′s website

Local Church Congregations Worshiping in Non-Traditional Places – Blair Simmons

It’s a growing trend — congregations are finding off-beat places to meet. It’s partially because of the economy, but in large part, their aim is to reach a different crowd.
Churches are getting creative. They’re meeting in coffee shops, business complexes — there’s even a “Cowboy Church” that meets in a rodeo arena… but if you think that’s unorthodox, check out Green Hills Church. They meet in a bar.

Ok!  So I have a confession to make.  I just joined Twitter last week.  I feel kind of like a sell out but I think it will be a cool instrument to continue reaching people through this blog.  If you are into Twitter you can follow me at Mike_Harder or http://twitter.com/mike_harder

See you online!

For those of you who came to Green Hills Church this Sunday you know that Josh played an amazing song after the Sermon.  Josh is a really talented song writer as well as being a stud worship leader.  Anyway, the song is called wake up.  If you like Howie Day, or Ben Folds Five, you will love this song.  Check it out here at  http://www.myspace.com/joshbronleewe  Let me know if you like the tune!

If you are interested in what we talked about on Sunday, Brad Dunlap, taught a great message about living a life in God’s light.  I think it is the best message I have heard him teach.  You can check out the podcast here.  

Just click the link to listen: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927

As promised, here are pictures from our picnic and baptisms!  What a special day.

Yesterday was a historic day at our church plant.  We have been meeting for about a year and were able to see our first baptisms.  On Sunday we were able to baptize 7 people at Percy Priest Lake.  It was an incredible experience.    We were praying that the weather would hold because it had been raining for 3 solid days and it was forecasted to be thunderstorms all afternoon.  Brad, my copastor, and I prayed about it and decided that we needed to go ahead with our original plan of a cookout and baptisms at the lake.  Surprisingly, although it rained mildly, we didn’t have any torrential downpour or thunderstorms.  We had a large turnout for the baptisms.  It was awesome.

I will try to post some pictures tonight, but for now, here are 2 videos from Mike and Mandy: 2 of the 7 people who got baptized.

Mandy’s Video

Mike’s Video

Sunday  morning at church was a great day for us too.  We dedicated 3 families who had just recently had new born children.  The message I taught was on Going Public, based out of Acts 8:26-39.  If you want to hear the podcast, just click the link to listen: http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=274809927

So we are in an exciting time at Green Hills Church.  About 6 people are going to be baptized on May 3rd.  We have been showing their faith stories on Sunday mornings and I am putting their stories on here because they are so inspirational.  This is Sarah’s story.  You got to watch it, she is really funny.

One of the cool things we are able to see at the Church I am a pastor at is life change.  We are going to be baptizing several people on May 3rd.  Baptism for us is going public with your faith.  Baptism doesn’t save you, but it has a powerful role in the life of a Christ-follower.   Its a powerful experience that shows the world that you love Jesus and are not afraid to let people know.  As a pastor, it’s really interesting to see people really have to wrestle with their faith before they get baptized.  Going through the process of getting baptized seems to make people take their faith more seriously.  We have been posting the people’s stories who are getting baptized on the web and showing them at church.  Their stories are unscripted and pretty raw, but Its amazing to see what God has done in their lives and how they love Jesus.  

Here are Dawn and Charity’s stories. 

Ok its been a while I know but I am back in the blogosphere.  No crazy excuses just been crazy busy.

Church planting has been going great.  Just moved locations from John Overton High School to one of the coolest locations in Nashville, Cabana Restaurant.  Yes, our church is meeting in a bar.  You can see the place at www.cabananashville.com

We also had an article in the Paper about us.  You can check it out at the Tennessean webpage or clicking here:  http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902180326  

Its been amazing to have a place like this fall in our laps.  It really helps us as we live out our vision of calling people back to God here in Nashville.  I love how it screams louder than any words we might say that we love people who are far from God and we accept people just as they are.

By the way if you want to hear the message I taught our first week at Cabana just click here:  http://greenhillschurch.org/podcast.html or Go to Itunes and type in Green Hills Church