Andrew M. Barnes

In case you missed it, the opening song at Elevation this week was With or Without You by U2, probably one of my favorite songs to date.  The bassline really carries this song.  Here are the lyrics, with a concert version following.

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I’m waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

My hands are tied
My body bruised, she’s got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose

And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you

With or without you
With or without you
I can’t live
With or without you
With or without you

This past Saturday a group of volunteers and staff from Elevation met up at Lake Park…Park(?) for lunch.  It was the typical Americana lunch with hot dogs, chips, soda, chocolate chip cookies (the only real American cookie).  I would probably eat that combination of foods everyday if wouldn’t someday kill me.  So anyway, we’re getting ready to dig in and the Brey asks everyone to go around say one thing you are thankful for.  Seems easy enough.  I was the second one in the circle so I guess I better think quick…

Guy #1: Sunshine.

Guy #2 (Me): Cool Breezes.

Everyone Else: Family, Friends, Jesus, etc.

Now lets get something straight, I am thankful for each of those things everyone else mentioned, but I think Guy #1 and myself have a different way of thinking when it comes to being thankful.  Most everyone is thankful for family, friends, Jesus, and etc., but to me those are somewhat cop-out answers, they’re easy.  Guy #1 and myelf could’ve easy said ‘weather’, but again that’s too easy.  Let’s breakdown our two answers…

Sunshine- Produced by a massive ball of fire, the effects of which travel millions of miles to produce and sustain life on our planet on a daily basis.

Cool Breezes- Keep individuals like myself and this guy who have a core temperature of 114 degrees from dying.

The worst part of this was my manhood being questioned for giving such an apparently unmannly answer as ‘cool breezes’.  Hey Marc, next time its a 100 degrees give me a call.

Everyone knows today was Easter Sunday.

Which means a bump in church attendance across America.

For those of Elevation Church, it meant a great opportunity to reach the city with the Gospel.

I don’t think there are any words to describe what happened today.  Take a look…

• 4,800 in attendance (an increase of about thousand, correct me if I’m wrong)
• 500+ salvations

The word John Bishop chose was PHENOMINAL.  I concur.  When I first saw those numbers I just kinda stared for a few minutes.

On a sidenote- I’m not sure on the etiquette when it comes to talking about things that happen behind the scenes, but let’s just say errors plagued the technology of Elevation this  morning.  I don’t think I ever seen so many pieces of equipment get restarted as many times as this morning.  We’re talking about over an hours worth.  Beyond frustrating.  Sometimes its to the point where you just wanna say, ’hey, um God, we’re on your side.’ 

After two services you would’ve never thought we had so many equipment failures earlier.  I can’t even remember the last time we had so few mistakes and those were hardly noticeable.  I’m not sure anyone except for the handful of production guys (they’re too humble for me to post their names, except for maybe Jeremy) that call the Butler In School Dentention room ‘home’ for 6 hours every Sunday could fully appreciate how smoothly the morning went after such a rough start.  The feeling however,  is nothing compared to what the numbers above do for me.

Props to the staff, Pastor Furtick (except his shirt selection), the trillions of volunteers (except Marc Bowen), the band, and most importantly to God for showing up and doing what he does best-change lives.

So yea, you could say it was PHENOMINAL. 

By the time God is done with Elevation, we’ll probably run out of adjectives to describe what He has done.