New things at FRC

Don't miss this wknd at FRC. We have a surprise 4 u. Last wknd Ray, our Hallandale beach campus pastor, did an AWESOME job. He spoke on temptation. It doesn't matter if it's a big or small lure-they both kill. Strong word-check it out on our Podcast. We also have 2, count them 2 new blogs. First check out www.troyandsteph.com pretty self explanatory. I hope you enjoy this inside look into the life of the Gramling family. It's great to do life with people you love. I like the new format. 2nd is www.potentialblog.com Here's the explanation from our beloved pastor Troy...

Potentialblog.com is committed to sharing leadership principles and insights that you can apply in your life, business and ministry. We're partnering with leaders to reach their God potential - because we're not there yet.
- Troy Gramling

So don't miss out on these "new things" at FRC-rock strong-Allen

18 years-WOW!

Well Oct 15 was the day, 18 years ago, that I "officially" started as Flamingo road baptist church's Worship pastor(actually, it was called Associate pastor, Music). I remember my first day at FRC. I wallked upstairs to what is now our school's admin buidling and i walked into the church's office and saw Sarah Crocker and Brenda Mashburn. Two of the kindest women I've ever met. Dan and Gar were there and that was it! We had two buidlings. The office building, which was built in 1985 and the "auditorium" building which was built in 1981. The AB was 2 stories, had a kitchen in the back of the room downstairs for Wed night suppers(gotta love those green beans-right Gar!), Sunday school classrooms upstairs and had 285 seats for our 2 services! Sharon and I had been married for 5 years, had a 7 month old by the name of Lauren Elise DiStefano, 1 Hyundai Excel(yikes!), 1 Mercury Marquis(thanks Mom and Dad!) and a dog named Lendi(Len for Allen and di for, you know). Roll the clock fwd 18 years-WOW! The staff honored Sharon and me this past Monday. Thanks for the wonderfully kind words-we reeeally love you guys and are thrilled we get to do life with you. Thanks for the low fat "organic" cake! You rock Lili and the goblet shall be treasured for at least a week or two! God has done some things beyond my imagination and some expected things. I am forever grateful for the absolute gift he has given me in my family and FRC. I've had the priviledge to serve with 2 awesome pastors Dan and Troy. It is hard to believe that the best is yet to come! Some wonderful people through the years, Gar's been there the whole time-love ya bro and I'm sooo glad my honey gets to be on staff and share this with me now! God has been so good to me. He has used the good and bad in a remarkable way. Thank You Father.

Fastest growing churches in America

Hi guys. Well Mynakedpastor is finally coming to an end. What a journey. It's been fun, sad, awesome, revealing and tiring, sometimes all at the same time. God has used this series in a way like He has never done before at Flamingo. Pastor Troy and his family have been veeeery selfless to allow us into their home for these 5 weeks. Remember you don't have to miss us. We're here live at all 7 cooper city times over the wknd, FOX on Sundays at 1130 and Pastor Brian Vasil will be posting a daily devotional to follow along with as well as other additional times upcoming-Trunk or treat, Christmas Express. So check it out!

Side note: Check out this link. It's awesome to see what God is doing at FRC and this was printed when we were running 6200 not 8000! Rock strong...

http://www.outreachmagazine.com/docs/top100_2007_fastest.pdf

sayings...

hey guys. I've been on this planet for 42 plus years and through that time I've discovered that I have some sayings that I live by. This is a random list of some of those sayings...

everything has a place
deal with the negative, dwell on the positive
sometimes there's nothing better than eating fast food fast(i don't live by this saying anymore!)
All day
hip to the ways of young people
WORD!
why not?
let's do it
Mama sita
is this sustainable?
let's cook the chicken
"Carry on" is the rock anthem of ALL time
digame mucho
here's the plan
the pendulum ALWAYS swings back and forth
Q-where are we going? i don't know, but we're on our way!
don't let 'em hold you hostage
you gotta do what ¥ou gotta do
see ya!
ustedes sapasando por la entrada white seahorse!
Bingo!(nah, that's Heredes-embrace the word bro!)
TCB lightning bolt(salute to the King of rock and roll)
howdy, howdy

Hope this was helpful-Rock strong(oh yeah, that's another one!)

Wow, what a day!

This past wed was a trip! The day began normal enough. Get up, go to LA walk for about 22 min and find my "zone." Actually this is me on a tread mill trying to get my heart rate over 120 walking at 4.1 miles per hour while watching the young lad in front of me walk at about 3.1 miles per hour and have a heart rate of 177-no fair! Oh well, we had some cool hang time with some of the other pastors at Starbucks after the gymn-yes a very smelly table i know! Had the normal plethera of mtgs then went home before First Wed, which by the way was THEEE most inspired msg i've ever heard in my life. Wow! Anyways, Sharon and I get home, it's around 430ish(we have to be back at 5!) and we get a phone call from our newset driver, Brittany Marie that she's been in a car accident. Everyone's fine. It was low speed accident and it wasn't her fault! Yeah! As you may know the police response to an accident is typically not fast. So Sharon took off and left me and my beautiful 17 year old at the scene. The officer made his way around 550ish-fairley quick response-thank you BSO. The officer did find the other party at fault. Thank you Lord that we don't have to pay out the 1k deductible and watch our premium sky up another 150 per month-whew! Well we made it to First Wed with time to spare, had an awesome time of worship-rock strong fellas-way to let God use you, Troy was off the hook and we opened up our new courtyard/baptistry area which Sharon and I have been workin on for about 5 months! It was sooooo cool. 25 people were baptised, including Pastor Ricky's daughter Kayla. Whew-hew! I was ballin like a baby. Oh well, it doesn't get much better than that. Life goes by fairly quickly make sure you're thankful to Him and enjoy the day. Rock strong-Allen