Thursday, April 24, 2008

AOK launch was a Huge success


What an amazing day. AOK (Acts Of Kindness) came out of seeing the mayor of our city uniting the churches in prayer for 40 days. As I stood in the meetings I felt happy, yet sad the same time. Happy that the church had come together but sad that it seemed that "the Church" would only come together to pray and not serve the city. So AOK came out of that frustration. Its a simple concept.

Take 10-15 areas of the city with high Poverty and crime rates
Take churches who want to serve the city and surrounding areas
Mobilize the churches, into the areas, every 8 weeks with different events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr4Dx--s0Xk

http://www.dreamcenterpeoria.org/aok.php?218,124

So we launched this weekend with Spring clean 08.
The day started with a little rain but by 9:30am the rain had stopped and people were all over the city and surrounding areas serving their cities and showing the love of Christ to a world in need. As I drove from site to site, I was seeing a dream come true. I saw a united church working and serving one another and their own communities. I saw friendships being established. I saw doors being opened, I saw races working together, I saw church denomination walls being torn down, I saw different age groups serving together, I saw the rich and poor committed to the cause and above all I saw the heart of Christ in all of us.....To love and serve, because He first loved and served us. What a Day.

8 AOK zones were served
Over 15 churches united
Close to 300 people came and served.
Hundreds of Bags of trash were picked up across the area.

What a great launch to AOK Day in Peoria.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU09KT1GoQo

Next event - Summer Fest "08. June 28th. More details to follow.
http://aok-peoria.blogspot.com/

Friday, April 18, 2008

Switchfoot and Earthquakes


One of the sports that my boys have really got into is Ice hockey or roller blade hockey. They love it. So every year we try to get to a game or two at our local AHL hockey team, Peoria Rivermen. So when I saw that Christian band "Switchfoot" were going to do a concert after the Rivermen game, we had too jump at the chance. The game was great...but we lost. Then switchfoot came on and I was not expecting what I heard or saw. As a musician, I was totally blown away by them. They are now in my top 5 or 6 bands of all time for there live concert experience. Others in that list are Delirious, U2, David Crowder band, The Cranberries and Coldplay. It was amazing. Highlight for me was the ad lib that the lead singer did just before he burst into "Dare you to move" It was an amazing night and an incredible band

http://www.switchfoot.com/

The other amazing thing that happened today was we had an earthquake. I know, that sounds crazy, but we did. It happened about about 200 miles away but it was a 5.4 earthquake and was felt all the way to Chicago and St.Louis. It was wild. I was a sleep and did not feel a thing. My dad did as he was on the computer at 4:30am doing his sermon. He said it was like someone was shaking his computer chair. Anyway, we are all ok. No major injuries across Illinois were reported but I am sure people are making false claim's to there insurance today!!!

http://images.cnn.com/2008/US/04/18/illinois.earthquake/index.html