Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Ten Grand For Good



This week were rolling out our prelaunch media campaign with a twist. Instead of sending out post cards and advertising in the local paper, we decide to do something completely different.
We're going to give away our entire prelaunch advertising budget to encourage people to look beyond themselves and see how they can make a difference in the lives of those around them.
Our hope is that this campaign will give us a platform to talk about God's love for mankind, that it will cement in our DNA an outward focus and that people who may never have been interested in "a cool new church" will take notice because when we say God loves you we put our money where our mouth is. I'll share more about how we're getting word out about this campaign later, but for now check out our website tengrandforgood.org

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Wednesday, December 5, 2007

preview post-post

Our preview was far more than I hoped it would be. Blessed is the best way to describe how I feel. I kept having the wonderful feeling of just being along for the ride, it was as though someone else was planting the church and I was plugging in to help wherever I could, this is exactly what I've prayed for from the beginning, that this would be Christ's church plant and I would be His servant doing His bidding. There is no greater feeling than submitting to God's plan for your life and allowing Him to lead and direct you. It gives me more motivation to share the good news because I'm experiencing just how good it is. As for the details–we had five families there that had no prior association with Kaleo. That is exciting! Several of them expressed their desire to be part of our launch and one of them asked why we couldn't just launch now! Including our volunteers and well wishers from our partner churches there were 68 of us total. I'm so grateful for all the people God has brought in as co-laborers this couldn't have happened without them. I'm also grateful for what has to be the worlds best church planting venue hands down.(check back for pics soon) Here's my cumulative thought from our almost three year journey in church planting so far.
Ask God to do through you something so incredible only he can get the glory, listen for His call, accept His invitation, recognize and confess your own agenda to Him, take a leap of faith, strive to do everything big and small as an act of worship to Him, remember His power works best in your weakness, keep trusting in His strength and goodness and enjoy the greatest adventure you'll ever have. You won't regret it.

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Saturday, December 1, 2007

Preview Preview

We set everything up this evening at the facility for our preview service tommorrow, and the worship team practiced. God blessed us with an amazing bucnch of volunteers, some of whom I hadn't met until tonight. It was a great night for counting blessings and letting God be God. I have to admit I'm a bit of a control freak (although I retain the right to deny it to my wife). I would have loved to have made sure everything was just so in childrens ministry, on the sound board in hospitality etc. but there was no way I could be everywhere. In fact because of some misunderstandings about how the facility was being used tonight, what I had planned ahead of time was flipped upside down forcing us to use volunteers differently than we had planned and forcing me to let go even more. But our launch team did incredible and the people they recruited were amazing and the people who just showed up were amazing. So we're basically ready to roll for tommorrow. I can't wait to see what God has planned. It is an immense privilage to be a called to church planting-to get a front row seat to what God does to reach those who don't yet know Him. Another huge blessing is that Jeff and Courtney some of our great friends from b'ville are here. Not only have they been a great help, it's just nice to enjoy this with old friends. New friends are great, but there's something special about the comfort of being with people who you've experienced the extremes of life with, great joys and pains create compounds that don't break down easily. Thanks God for letting me be a part of all this.

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