Skype Sunday

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Technology is a beautiful thing. It allows us to do all kinds of things that would not have been possible just a few years ago. For example, in the past if a baby was born on Thursday it would not have been possible for our entire team, baby and all, to travel 654 miles south to a missions conference the following Sunday. However with technology we were able to do just that . . . via Skype!

This past Sunday we had the opportunity to be a part of the annual missions conference at West Side Baptist Church in San Angelo, Texas. The day was aptly named “Skype Sunday.” West Side’s pastor, Joe Bourgeois, found a creative way to bring in missionaries, and in our case church planters, that otherwise would not be able to make it to San Angelo. This was a great opportunity for us to share our passion and excitement for Round Rock with a like-minded church.

Pastor Joe began supporting our church planting dreams long before we had a church name or a specific area. Pastor Joe worked closely with Matthew’s parents in Abilene, Texas at Trinity Baptist for years, while Matthew was a young lad. He later moved to San Antonio, Texas where he was the Youth Pastor at Grace Baptist Temple. I grew up at Grace and was under his leadership for all of my middle school and high school years. Needless to say, Pastor Joe has had a big impact on our lives and we were excited to share our hopes and our plans with him and West Side.

Being Skyped into a church service was a very different experience. We sat in the living room of my house and looked at the screen of my MacBook. We were there during the song service and looked on as the congregation sang. One thing that we did not know was that Pastor Joe had a cool surprise for us. As we watched the congregation sing we noticed our parents (Jackie and Shirley Breeden and Tom and Diane Dawsey) sitting in the front row! This was the first time that they had heard one of our presentations and it made the event all the more special for us.

After the song service Pastor Joe introduced us and we took questions from the congregation. This gave us an opportunity to share many of our plans as well as many of our prayer requests. It was fun to interact with a group of people who asked great questions and who seemed to understand many of the challenges that church planters face. We were also able to share our passion behind planting a church in Round Rock. We are excited to start a church that does life together. We want to be a body that is focused on showing the love of God to one another as well as to our community.

After the question and answer time I was able to give a short devotion. I shared a message from 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:7 and described the kind of love that we are hoping to show to our community in Round Rock, Texas. This passage has been the primary focus in my blog series “Resolved: To Love” (click here to catch up on the series).

To end the service Pastor Joe gave a charge to the West Side congregation. He encouraged them to live in a way that shows genuine love to their community in San Angelo. We thought Skype Sunday was a great success. It is a really cool idea and we look forward to using at Southern Hills in the future. It is a wonderful way to interact with missionaries and other speakers who may not be able to make the trip.

We want to give a special thanks to Pastor Joe and the church family at West Side for inviting us in and being so kind as we shared our hearts for Christ and the people of Round Rock.

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