Parking is $3 for Virginia Beach residents, $5 otherwise. Contact Pastor Rick for information on parking scholarships. 

This is a great time to invite friends! Immediately following the service will be a baptism in the ocean – please contact Pastor Steve or leave a comment below if you are interested in being baptized.

We will be cooking out after the baptism! We’ll supply the plates, pulled pork, dogs, and plastic-ware. All you need to do is bring a side to share and your own cooler of drinks.

Here’s some highlights from our Beach Sunday on June 20, 2010:

In this series, you will be challenged to take part in changing the world around you by adopting the strategy Jesus used: becoming a “guerrilla lover“. Just as a small group of people who deliver surprise attacks can change the course of a war, you can change the course of love in this world. With engaging true stories of everyday guerrilla lovers, our hope is to inspire you to wage war on complacency and surprise the people around you with acts of love.

• We had a great time this past weekend at the Parade. There’s nothing like being able to praise God before a few thousand people. Oh, and we won 2nd place in the float competition.
• There were 300 people at Essential Church on Memorial Day weekend!!! Are you serious??? Normally that’s one of the lowest attendance days for a church. To put this in perspective, Easter which was our biggest day ever, was 315.
• I want to thank our intern Chris for organizing all the special activities for the weekend. He’s doing a great job, if you see him this week thank him for all his hard work.  I also want to thank all of you who helped out at the parade and the picnic. You are Essential!!!
• If you haven’t gotten a chance to download the free audio book Forgotten God, by Francis Chan… What are you waiting for??? It’s free and there’s no strings attached.
• I read a great book this past week on church planting called, Church in the Making by a friend of mine (Ben Arment). He’s the one who helped design our worship center with the big screen.  Anyway, after reading his book I must say that I agree with all of his observations about church planting. The crazy thing is, that based on his research and everything else I’ve read about church planting, Essential Church never should have gotten off the ground. I don’t know why God has chosen to bless what we are doing. It’s clear he has and is. I am thankful to be a part of it. By the way, the story of how we got started is mentioned in the book as well.
• I read this in a blog post last week. The context was, Why is it that you think God can’t use you? Think about who God’s used in the past: Noah was a drunk, Abraham was too old, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses had a stuttering problem and committed murder, Gideon was afraid, Samson was a womanizer, Rahab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David had an affair, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a bitter widow, Job went bankrupt, Peter denied Christ, The Disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha worried about everything, The Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Zaccheus was too small and hated by everyone, Paul was a violent man, Timothy had an ulcer, AND Lazarus was dead! Tell me why it is that you don’t think God can use you?