Ok, so what do you do when it’s 4 am, you’ve been throwing up every hour on the hour all night long, you’ve got around 2000 people you’re supposed to preach to starting in less than five hours, and you’re expecting to baptize over a hundred and fifty people that same morning?

Well, if you’ve got a highly capable staff, an army of volunteers, and a video camera, it all works out just fine.

I’m still not sure whether it was food poisoning from Friday night’s lemon peppered chicken wings or a stomach virus, but around 11pm Saturday night I started throwing up and, well, having other severe complications with bodily fluids.
And I have no problem telling you, I’m a complete wimp when it comes to throwing up. Especially when it gets down to the point of dry heaving. Holly says I was speaking in tongues in the bathroom during the 4th round. I don’t doubt it. But I don’t remember. She also said I made some serious promises to God if He would make me well. I don’t remember that either.

What I do remember is lying on the floor on my stomach moaning around 6am and finally deciding I was going to get to that church and preach at the 8:30 service if it killed me. Because even if it killed me, we’d have the 8:30 service on tape and we could play it back at the 10 and 11:30 services. And that’s exactly what we did.

Somehow God gave me supernatural strength for 35 minutes yesterday to stand and preach without vomiting, then I gave an invitation for people to get baptized, slid in the passenger’s seat of my car, laid the seat all the way back, asked Holly all the way home if anything I said on the stage made sense, and was back in bed by 10am where I slept for 16 of the next 24 hours.

We played back the 8:30 sermon at both the 10 and 11:30 services, and according to my sources, God moved in a powerful way.
The numbers are in:

We baptized 146 people at our Central campus yesterday, and 33 people at our Union campus!
That makes a total of 388 baptisms at our 2 campuses in the last 2 weeks!

After feeling like I was going to die (I’m a man, so I’m allowed to speak in hyperbolic terms about being sick) and seeing God anoint me to get through the message, and then hearing that so many people responded, I have a few thoughts:

1. Our staff and volunteers adjusted on the fly yesterday and didn’t miss a beat. It’s not hard for me as a pastor to play hurt when I’m surrounded by such an incredible team to hold up my arms. I love you guys! Major props to Damion and the production crew, the entire Guest Services team, and Larry Brey for being my substitute dunker.
(Hey Larry: Feelin’ pretty sore right about now? How’s that right arm?)
2. Video preacher is a stud. Maybe we should hire him full time for the 10 and 11:30 services… He never gets tired. And I doubt he throws up.
3. Holy freaking cow. We baptized 388 people in the last 2 weeks!
We didn’t even have 388 people in our entire church a year ago!
God is amazing!
4. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness. When my guys came back and laid hands on me before the service, one of them (I honestly don’t remember who) prayed: “Lord, we always say we rely on you completely, and today, we really mean it… it’s got to be all you right now… ”
I was curled up in a ball on the couch when they prayed this, 10 minutes before the service began. 30 minutes later, I was hollering and jumping up and down and preaching the Gospel. 30 minutes after the sermon, I crashed and slept the rest of the day.
It’s like God shot through my system for a short window of time to accomplish His will, superseding every physical ailment by His power.
And then He literally unplugged me so I could rest and get better.
I am so inspired by the way God touched my body yesterday to allow me to do His will. It really is all about Him.

Our staff is going to post more details about highlights/behind the scenes info from the last 2 weeks of spontaneous baptisms on our Access: Elevation blog tomorrow.

I know it wasn’t a major sickness, but yesterday I was reminded of how blessed I am to have the strength to preach the Gospel each week..
And how blessed I am to have on call pharmacists like Scott and Helen who would show up at my house before day break and get me well.

I love you Elevation! And I feel 100% better! God is good!