OK, so this is kind of a blow by blow recap.... came in early to stuff mailboxes with a letter from the men's ministry... so I have an hour of time to study and observe.... while on the churches wireless network.

First impressions.  Blessed.  I had sent out an email earlier in the week asking for some help with baby sitters while my wife and I take the classes for adoption.  The response has been pretty good, and I come in and see it in the bulletin AND a bit of information on the welcome desk (Thanks Polly!). As a result of that I had one person volunteer for one of the harder weekday nights and another tell me they would be able to do something, just needs to talk the details over with his wife.  And the bulk of the church hasn't even arrived yet.

More later.

OK, now after service, recap.

A TON of new people there today.  4 families I think.  One is pretty much tied in from what I can tell (youth minister's brother) the others... we will see.

The sermon started with an interesting fact that I hadn't put together.  During the summer months we have had seven families place membership at my church.   That's pretty amazing considering our attendance is down a bit from our peak months of near 300 that we had early this year. 

Then the sermon was focused on something near and dear to my heart... small groups.  One comment made by Mike was something similar to , "We don't want to be a church that has small groups, but a church that is small groups." 

Just having a few small groups is kind of a waste of potential.  Having a church that is, at its foundation, is small group driven allows for even the biggest church to be small.  Will be interesting to see how this plays out.