Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
February 18, 2013 By
- Today was one of many days where I just love being the Pastor of The Heights!
- I’m so proud of where we are as a church and so excited about where we’re going! We’re on the brink of something huge, and the pieces are falling into place.
- Today my big brother and good friend Pastor Darryl Godlock of Calvert County Baptist Church shared God’s Word with us.
- I don’t just throw that term around. I have a handful of men that I call,”Big Brother.” These men pour into my life and encourage me like crazy. I’m so grateful for them.
- Pastor G’s message was “Giving God Your Best” from Psalm 116. What a timely message after we just finished the “All Aboard” series. The audio is available on our website. Click here to take a listen.
- Having Pastor G step in for me today was an amazing blessing. I needed this week to concentrate on my dissertation work for Regent University. I cleared a major hurdle Saturday by turning in Chapter 3 of my dissertation to my committee chair after a week of hard work.
- Chapter 3 is the longest and most grueling chapter. It took me much longer than I thought to complete it, but I’m so glad to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
- Our Men’s Praise Team was on fire today! First time I’ve EVER seen the congregation call for an encore! LOL.
- I’m so proud of how our band has come together. I don’t know of any church in the DMV who has a band as talented and committed without breaking the bank to pay for it. All of our musicians play because they love God and they love The Heights… without expecting a check!
- I heard that we had an incredible turnout for our Homeless Feeding Outreach on Saturday. We had several people sign up during the All Aboard series. I’m proud to see that they followed through.
- Have you hit me up with me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? I’d love to connect with you through social media.
- Thanks for your prayers for Levi. He had a successful surgery this past Monday. Hopefully this procedure will help him to walk better. He has a cast on his lower leg that will stay on for 6 weeks, and a brace that goes above his knee that will stay for 2 weeks. Please continue to pray for my big guy.
- I’m excited about next month’s WYCB Praise Breakfast where I will be honored among 20 Impactful Pastors in the DC area. What an amazing honor! I’d love for you to grab a ticket and spend the morning of March 16th hanging out with me!
- Have a great week!
Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
July 30, 2012 By
- What a super-fun day at The Heights!
- We’ve been in Vacation Bible School all week, and today was the grand finale where the kids and leaders recap all the great songs, lessons and memories from the previous week.
- VBS is one of the things that our church does VERY well. This year was no different. I’m so proud of our team of volunteers.
- It’s always a great blessing to have our kids lead us in worship. They bring an unusual energy to our worship service. It gets the people goin!!!
- The worship songs that come with the VBS curriculum are always great. One of them created a perfect segué into my message.
- Today was part 4 of our “Allow Me to Reintroduce Myself” series. God used today’s message to reintroduce Himself to us as the God who loves unconditionally. This message was so encouraging for me to prepare… I’m glad it was also encouraging for our church as well.
- Audio from today’s message is online now! Check it out by clicking here.
- Today I tried out a new style of delivery that I picked up from Andy Stanley’s book “Communicating for a Change.” My big brother Pastor Keith Battle raves about this “one-point message” style. Today was the 2nd time I’ve tried it (both in this current series), and I must admit that I really like it.
- Someone pulled me aside after service and said, “If anyone didn’t understand that message, they won’t understand anything!” Good indicator that this method is working.
- Next Sunday we’ll conclude this series with a message that will hit home for many people. Bring a friend with you!
- I love looking up and seeing the ushers searching for places to seat people. Especially during summer time.
- If you’re a member or regular attender, I really need your help. Would you please commit to sitting in the first 6 rows of the sanctuary during worship? This will leave more room for guests and newcomers to sit in the back if that’s where they’re more comfortable.
- I can’t wait to see how this summer momentum will carry us into the fall. Especially with the outreaches that we’re planning to close out the summer!
- We’re in the middle of a School Supply drive where I’m challenging our church to give $2,000 so that we can purchase school supplies for children in our community. We’re less than half-way to our goal with just 2 weeks to go in the drive!
- God has opened amazing doors for us into the Elementary Schools in our community. This outreach is simply good stewardship of the opportunities that God has given us!
- I have this exciting idea for our next baptism celebration… possibly doing it during a Sunday service in August. If we can pull this off, it will be incredible! Stay tuned.
- I have a lot of work yet to get done on my dissertation and I’m behind schedule. Going to hit it really hard this week. Could really use your prayers!
Have a great week! Love you.
[VIDEO] Bernard Pollard Interview – Christian in the NFL
July 3, 2012 By
Bernard Pollard of the Baltimore Ravens joins The Heights for MANLAW Weekend. Watch as he shares with Pastor Bobby Manning from his experience as a Christian in the NFL, discussing the importance of “lifestyle evangelism.”
Never underestimate the power of your lifestyle!
[VIDEO] Man Law – Reflect Well
June 25, 2012 By
Pastor Bobby Manning explains “Man Laws” from God’s perspective in Genesis 1 by discussing what it means that men are made in God’s image. Are you an accurate reflection of God?
Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
June 25, 2012 By
- On a high after seeing God’s power so clearly today at The Heights.
- Sometimes as a Pastor it feels like you’re trudging through the summer months of low attendance and hot weather. Today was definitely not one of those days!
- Today Marked the return of “The Takeover.” This was an experiment that I tried earlier this year where I took an entire sermon time to answer questions that are presented to me by our members and attendees. It was such a success earlier this year that I had to do it again.
- You guessed it… It was a great success today also! This clearly scratches an itch that people really have. I’m glad to be able to do this.
- I’m actually surprised at how unconventional this is. It occurs to me that people are hungry to have their questions answered… and the church has often failed to do so.
- We spent so much time answering questions today that our service ran WAY over time. I apologized profusely for running long, but the people kept egging me on! LOL.
- You definitely want to hear the audio of today’s message. Click here right now!
- We had an amazing response to the altar call today. Seeing God’s power at work in people through our church is so exciting and humbling.
- I also feel God saying that we haven’t seen anything yet!
- Today I got one last question given to me for The Takeover. I REALLY have to pray on this one y’all. It’s such a gloves-off, super-real question that I feel like I MUST answer it. It wouldn’t be “The Takeover” if I didn’t. But uhhhh… Yeah. Will definitely get in some trouble if I do. Sheesh.
- I was so blessed to see one of my best childhood buddies in church today with his awesome wife. So proud to see Tony still living his dream!
- Spent this week in Fresno, CA at the Annual ABA Messengers Meeting. Our church is affiliated with the American Baptist Association.
- The ABA is a predominantly Anglo organization. Our affiliation goes back decades and is a long, nuanced story. First Lady LaVera and I being the only young, black couple there (out of a few hundred people) made this week a very interesting experience for many reasons. LOL.
- This week I had the honor of meeting one of the previous pastors of FBCDH, Pastor Randy Cloud. What a humble, yet powerful and revered Man of God! It was truly an honor.
- I also had the privilege of meeting one of the global missionaries that our church supports. Shin Kamoda is a missionary to Japan. He shared with us the wonderful ministry work he is doing there.
- By far, the best part about this week in Cali… we got a great deal on a convertible Mustang for a rental car.
- Baptism celebration this week! Yes!!!
- Next week we have a great opportunity to serve our community as the whole neighborhood will come to our corner to watch fireworks. We’re going to have an outside concert with my boys from CRB. So excited about improving upon this outreach from last year.
- Starting back on P90X this week. Saw some pics of myself on Facebook and not liking how full my face looks. Time to bring it!!!
- Have a GREAT week. Love y’all.
Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
May 28, 2012 By
Sorry for the two-week fall off from posting. I’ve been writing, but haven’t been able to post for whatever reason.- Today was a fun day at The Heights. All types of fun things happening at once!
- Today we celebrated our youth who have been diligent in their studies both scholastically and spiritually. It was great to recognize our high school graduates and our young people who are consistent in church ministry!
- After church, we had an International Luncheon for the kids where we had different foods from other cultures. We do this every year and it’s fun to eat some “what is this again?” food!
- I continued a message series on marriage called “Mr. & Mrs. Right.” This series has been really fun to preach and has been helpful to both singles and married folks. The main idea is that “Marriage is not about FINDING the right person, but BEING the right person.”
- Today’s message was “Think Like Mr. Right.” We talked about the great influence that women have on the men in their lives if they use their power correctly. It’s important to know that a woman’s most powerful voice doesn’t come out of her mouth!
- I love Steve Harvey… But he’s making millions telling women what God has been saying for thousands of years.
- Audio of “Think Like Mr. Right” is available online now. Take a listen by clicking here.
- If I’m not mistaken… I think an Erykah Badu song came onto our speakers right in the middle of my sermon! Don’t ask.
- We also might have to find a subtle way to remind our folks to silence our cell phones during worship. LOL.
- I thought our worship team was really on their game today. They sounded great and had a great, worshipful line-up. Really proud of the strides they are making.
- I think a drummer would really take our worship sound to the next level. Pray with me that God will send us someone to flex the sticks.
- Had an awesome afternoon nap cuddling with my big buddy Levi. He’s such a handful (First Lady LaVera calls him “the Grizzly”), but he brings so much joy to our family. Please keep him and his health in prayer.
- Our family had dinner tonight with my big brother Pastor Darryl Godlock, First Lady Rose and family. They are a great encouragement to us and hold us accountable in keeping our marriage strong. I appreciate the investment that they make into our lives!
- This week I had the honor of speaking at the Young-Adult Conference for the African Christian Fellowship. Mine was one of only two non-African names on the conference agenda, and I was received like family and made a bunch of new friends! I joked that they had made me an honorary African for the day! LOL.
- Over the past 15 weeks, I’ve been teaching a class on Expository Preaching at FBCG. We finished our class this past Thursday and I can’t say how proud I am of all my students who worked so hard and have grown impressively in their preaching. This is one of my favorite things to do and I had a blast teaching… but I’m glad to have my Thursday evenings back!
- Tonight I watched Oprah interview Mayor Cory Booker, the Mayor of Newark, New Jersey. I am so impressed and encouraged by his story and his passion to be an influential leader in his community. I had a couple of “wow” moments listening to him. What a strong leader!
- I have a really big week ahead. This Thursday, I’ll go before my dissertation committee at Regent University to defend my dissertation proposal/Chapter 1. This is a HUGE milestone in my doctoral journey. I appreciate your prayers for me this week as I prepare to get grilled!
- God is so good! I’m doing everything I ever dreamed of doing. Thanks for taking the ride with me.
- I really want to connect with you! Make sure you hit me on Facebook and Twitter!
Have a great week!
Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
March 19, 2012 By
Every week at The Heights, God gives me a different reason to say wow.- So here goes… WOW!!!
- Today, I deviated from my normal preaching style and attempted a first-person narrative message from the life of Hosea. I played Hosea and told his story of God’s unconditional love and redemption.
- Lady Vera played Gomer and knocked it out of the park! She didn’t have any speaking parts, but she truly stole the show! I was so proud of her.
- I’ve gotta be honest… I was SO nervous before church. Not only was I scared that I’d forget my lines, but I was also worried about whether this would go over well.
- Several folks asked me to do this again. One person asked if I could do it every month… Someone else asked me to do it every WEEK! I guess it went over well. LOL.
- I’m thinking we’ll do it a couple more times this year. I had a blast showing off my acting skills.
- You can listen to the audio of “I’m In Love with a Stripper” by clicking here. The audio doesn’t quite do it justice though! We’ll try to get the video up sometime in the near future.
- Special thanks to our friends over the Music & Arts Ministry at First Baptist Church of Glenarden who lent us the wardrobe for today. They pulled it together at the last minute and it worked perfectly!
- My job is so much fun!
- I spent the evening back at FBCG supporting my brother Pastor Darryl Godlock who preached for the evening service. With Pastor Jenkins in Israel the past week, he asked two of his sons to hold it down for him. Pastor G preached a great sermon from Psalm 19:12-14 called “Stupid Sins.” Great message!
- This week, God FINALLY gave me a clear direction and vision for the new sermon series that I will begin on Easter Sunday. I’m so pumped to preach “UNLEASHED” beginning in April 8th.
- I’m super excited about Easter Weekend. I know God is going to knock our socks off between our community outreach and our new message series. I can’t believe it’s only 3 weeks away!
- We’re also going to try a two-service model that will give us an idea of what we’ll have to do when we have to make that move permanently. We’ll have a 10am service followed by a 12pm service just on Easter Sunday.
- This week I had the difficult privilege of pouring out my heart and vision to one of our members who is having difficulty with the “growing pains” that come along with our growing church. This person is so important to me and to the health of our church that it was a privilege to share my heart with them. I hope that we left on the same page.
- This person also revealed to me some of my own leadership blind spots. I have so much room for growth as a pastor and leader. I’m grateful for people who can speak the truth in love.
- Daylight Savings Time whooped my behind this week!!! It took me a couple days to make up that hour we lost. Even still, I love that it’s lighter later now.
- Did anyone else’s March Madness bracket get demolished is weekend!?! I had Duke in the Elite 8 and Mizzou in the Final Four!
- The boys made it 3 whole days without their mother without a scratch. Doesn’t mean we didn’t have some close calls here with Daddy by himself… but they’re both alive! Praise God!
- Spending time with my boys by myself gives me so much respect and admiration for all single parents! God must give y’all incredible grace to do what you do! Much love.
Have a great week!
Pastor Bobby’s Brain Dump
March 17, 2012 By
- Today was just fun. No other way to describe it.
- Just because it was fun doesn’t mean it wasn’t also very tiring. I didn’t get a nap and I’m exhausted. My eyes are rolling in my head as I’m typing this on my iPad.
- Today at The Heights, I continued “The Takeover,” covering some great questions that I wasn’t able to get to last weekend.
- We hit on issues such as missing books of the Bible, drinking, marriage, what happens after death, speaking in tongues, and more.
- Lady Vera told me that the questions we covered this week were much lighter and more fun than last week. I didn’t notice until she said it.
- Let me know what you think. The audio is available here.
- This has probably been my favorite preaching experience since coming to The Heights. Although I am a strong proponent of Expository Preaching, this Q&A format has been so great because it caters to my strengths. I think it has been fun and helpful for our church as well. We’ll do it again soon.
- After last week’s amazing turnout, I really had to protect my heart from feeling discouraged today. I knew that last week’s attendance was due to special circumstances and that there would be a drop-off. Actually, our attendance was up from our average over the past couple months.
- We had our monthly church business meeting today. Even though I’m 15 months in, I’m still learning how to do this business meeting in a way that is productive and honors the members of our church. I’ve grown a lot in this area, but still have quite a way to go.
- As we’re growing and God is expanding our impact, there seems to be some confusion trying to creep in to our church and compromise our foundation. It just occurred to me that we are showing up on Satan’s radar and he’s not thrilled with us.
- All the more reason to stay prayed up and ready for anything. And all the more reason to rejoice because we’re going in the right direction. Let’s go!!!
- This evening, I had the honor of preaching at my home church, First Baptist Church of Glenarden. My pastor and mentor Pastor John K. Jenkins is in Israel this week. It was great to “come home” and see so many people who have loved and supported me since I was a teenager.
- FBCG is such an easy place to preach. It was so much fun.
- Next week I have another unusual message. I told the folks today that I found a time machine in the basement of our church and accidentally turned it on. You don’t want to miss this one!
- I’m so excited to begin teaching a class on Expository Preaching at FBCG this week. This is one of my favorite classes to teach! A couple of guys from our church are joining me and I’m looking forward to pouring into them.
- We received confirmation this week that we will be able to outdo our Easter Outreach from last year by giving away free groceries to the first 250 families at arrive! Wow!!!
- This is what I love. Tangibly meeting the needs of our community. Yes!
- Last week Levi started school. This past week, he started riding the bus by himself. This is too much for Lady Vera and I. Can you imagine us driving behind the bus for the entire route and meeting it at the school? Yes, we did! LOL.
- Pray for me as I’ll have the boys by myself this week for 3 days as Lady Vera goes on a Women’s Retreat. Actually… Pray for the boys!
Have a great week!
Pastor Bobby’s Sunday Brain Dump
March 9, 2012 By
- In the words of the great modern philosopher Flavor Flav… Wooooow!
- Did I say wow? Woooow!!!
- This weekend at The Heights was AMAZING. I know I say something like that every weekend, but this weekend truly knocked our socks off!
- “The Takeover” was a huge success. God really exceeded our prayers and expectations with the reach and the impact of what we did this weekend.
- On Saturday, we “took over” the laundry facilities of one of the largest apartment communities in our neighborhood. It was great to see dozens of people come out and unexpectedly get their laundry paid for.
- We originally planned to do this part of “The Takeover” at a local laundromat, but two different owners declined to participate. Not sure what part of “Mo Money” didn’t appeal to them. Maybe they never watched In Living Color!
- That was really a blessing in disguise, because it gave us the opportunity to take advantage of a strategic partnership that we had just begun with Woodland Springs Apartments. It became the perfect collab. Thank God for closed doors!
- We have a great Thanks to everyone who had a hand in planning and executing this outreach.
- We continued “The Takeover” today as I asked our members to “take over” my sermon. Over the past few weeks I’ve encouraged our folks to submit questions about God, the Bible, Christianity, etc. and I promised to take an entire sermon time to answer their questions. I also encouraged everyone to invite family and friends today.
- People asked me tough questions about all types of subjects such as the reliability of the Bible, Homosexuality, Death and Hell.
- This by far was one of the hardest sermons I have ever preached… yet one of the most fun! With the sensitive subject matter, I had to be VERY careful with my words. At the same time, I LOVE conversational teaching.
- The audio of today’s message is up on our site. Click here to check it out. Hit me on Facebook or Twitter and let me know what you think.
- The response that I got from folks was overwhelming. It’s clear that The Takeover scratched an itch that many churches just aren’t scratching. Looks like we’ll have to do this pretty often.
- With all the good questions that came in, there was no way I would get through all of them today. So we’ll continue The Takeover next Sunday with Part 2.
- Oh yeah… Did I mention that we CRUSHED our record attendance this weekend? Our sanctuary was overflowing. I had to stop twice to ask people to make room on the pews. We ran out of spaces in our parking lot. People were parking down the street and walking up to the church.
- Did I say WOW!?!? WOOOOOW!!!
- Today I believe God gave us a glimpse of what is to come. We may have some tough decisions to make very soon.
- After months and months of evaluations, appointments and waiting, Levi FINALLY started school this week. I think Lady Vera and I were more excited than he was!
- He’s slowly getting used to his new class and his new teacher. After just a couple days, Ms. Cherry has already told us that he is very strong academically… and “two whole handfuls” behaviorally! Like father, like son!!!
- Due to some missing paperwork at the school and travel plans, I almost missed Levi’s first day. I praise God for brothers in my life who wouldn’t let me miss it and helped me re-arrange my travel plans and get me to the airport so I could be there for my big guy.
- I spent a couple days this week in Dallas at an exclusive conference hosted by Bishop TD Jakes for Pastors and Leaders under 40. What a life-changing experience. He spent two whole days pouring his wisdom and experience into 300 of us. I couldn’t type fast enough!
- I’ll say it one more time. Wooooow!!!
- I have a tough week ahead, but I’m excited to see what God will do!
Have a great week!