An Open Door Back in 2006, 16 years ago, Jen and I moved our family to Lafayette, Indiana to plant the church that would become Lafayette Community Church. We've invested our heart and soul (and money) in the ministry and in building relationships here in Lafayette, and we had no real intention to …
Is it Discrimination to Discriminate against Discriminators?
My church office received an email today that called me out for what was printed in the local newspaper reporting on my involvement in the City Council meeting last Monday. A woman named Kathy wrote this: Dear Pastor Mikels, Reading the newspaper Tuesday morning, I felt quite sad to read …
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My Statement to the Lafayette City Council on Gender Identity
Last night, the Lafayette City Council met to consider putting an amendment into the Lafayette Human Relations Ordinance. Some time ago, the city codified a "Human Relations Ordinance" to fight against discrimination in our town. It created a Human Relations Commission tasked with the job of …
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Lafayette Rocks 2009
Read the Rules: http://lafayetterocks.com Reply to the YouTube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biXyVq6toa0 …
I Will Rise (LCC Easter Sunday 2009)
This was posted to YouTube by a lady who had never been to our church before, but came with the violinist. …
Another New Church is Starting in Lafayette
This Sunday launches the Grand Opening month for Connexion Christian Ministries in Lafayette, and it's time for me to evaluate whether I'm really in favor of church planting or just my own church plant! …
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Elvis McNeely on Drupal
I just got a phone call from a guy in town whose name was so interesting I had to call him back. Anyway, Elvis of http://www.elvisblogs.org is a Drupal developer here in town who is hosting a Drupal Meetup and he wanted to know if I was interested in it. I used to use drupal way back in the early …
New Church Brochures
I just finished putting together two new church brochures for our Grand Opening service on Sunday. By the way, if you haven't heard yet, we are changing our church name to Lafayette Community Church. Read About It Here. I'm uploading both brochures here for your use if you want. LCC Baptism …
Professional Sunday Morning Video Presentations
In our new church effort in Lafayette, I set as a goal from very early on that we would attempt to do everything we could with excellence, and though we have had some hiccups with our children's programming and with our music, we have been consistently high quality with our printed materials and …
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Game On! Announcing the SCGTC
On Sunday, I challenged my congregation to join me for a competition of spending time in the word of God. I called it The Southside Church God-Time Competition, and here are the simple rules: At least 10 minutes a day with God, every day. Time with God means something is read (from the Bible), …
WHY Campaign
For 6 weeks, we will be exploring the six biggest questions in life. Why am I here? Why should I believe in God? Why should I trust the Bible? Why is the world so messed up? Why is there such conflict between Science and the Bible? Why Jesus? It's going to be a powerful program combining dynamic …
Flying Disc Giveaway Success
This week we executed a plan that I had been brewing since last year at this time. You may already have read about our "Black Friday" Hot Chocolate Giveaway. On that day, we gave out nearly 500 mugs of hot chocolate or coffee to shoppers braving the local Wal-Mart on the day after Thanksgiving. …
032-03 — Dream Big & Work Hard (vision message)
Download Audio It's my passion to see people get a big vision for what God is able and willing to do in our lives. I am convinced that God is bigger and more willing to do more incredible things than we give him credit for, than we expect, and than we are ready for. We just don't have big enough …
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Grand Opening Slideshow
I thought you would like to see this slideshow. I have it posted on our church page at http://thesouthsidechurch.org/main but I know some of you haven't been over there yet, so here it is... Click To Play I just want to thank everyone who has been a part of supporting …
031-02 An Even Better Life Is Just Around the Corner
Click Here to Download. Today's message is a message that has been on my heart for a long time, but I didn't know it until earlier this week. I had come up with the title long ago when we sent in our postcards to be printed, and honestly, I originally thought of the sermon being one about how great …
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031-01 How to Live Your Best Life Now
This is the first message in Southside Church's Grand Opening series. It's a short series entitled: What's in it for me?: How the Bible Makes Life Better In this message, I talk about how the Bible contains the keys to living your best life now. There are three key things the Bible offers us that …
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