2 Sunday Challenge

This Sunday, September 6th - 10:30 am
A Day of Prayer for Our Community

Please join us this Sunday as we dedicate a day to praying for our community. Churches aren't perfect, nor are people, but our community needs it's churches to step up to the plate and fight the spiritual battles that must be won if we're to see lives transformed and changed!

It is our responsibility to labor in prayer for the people, needs, public servants, schools, businesses and future of the greater Mooresville community! We must also pray for each other as we individually fight the good fight every day at our jobs, in our families and in our church. Won't you join us this Sunday as we carry out an important responsibility of the church: Being prayer warriors for the sake of our people, our church, our community and our world!


Bridge Day, Sunday, Sept. 13 - 10:30 am
Block Party, Sunday, Sept. 13 - Noon - 4:00 pm

Have you invited the person you're bringing to our Bridge Day and Block Party? We need for everyone to bring 1 person! We want to celebrate what God is doing among us by sharing this good news with anyone who doesn't know Him personally!

Come dressed in your shorts and T-shirts, celebrate God with us at 10:30 and then stay for the Block Party immediately after our morning worship service! This is your opportunity to change the world by changing a life! Invite them to be a part of this fun and potentially life-changing day!


Lord, would you bless our efforts as we look ahead to these important days together! We need Your presence, Your Spirit, Your power, Your boldness, Your provision! We need good weather! We need you to inspire those who are far from you to come. We commit, Lord, that as they come we will do our best to make You known! May all we say, do and accomplish be only and always for Your glory!

In Jesus Name we humbly pray,

Amen!

Are You A Leader?

Beginning this Sunday, August 23rd, we will spend two weeks examining the topic of leadership from two perspectives:

Aug. 23 - Pastor John will speak about leadership from a pastors perspective. Answering a couple of important questions: "What is the call of Jesus to pastors?" and "How should a pastor lead among the people he is called to serve?" These are key moments for our congregation as we continue to develop the relationship between pastor and congregation. This will help us understand what the pastoral staff is called to do as leaders as well as help us define what lay-leaders within the church are called to do as leaders.

Aug. 30 - Scott McDonald will be speaking to us about leadership from a lay-leader's perspective. Scott is a dedicated follower of Jesus Christ. He served in executive positions at Fed Ex / Kinkos for 12 years before taking a Managing Director role with Oakwood Worldwide. Scott, his wife Leisa and their two daughters, Emily and Abby, live in Carmel, Indiana where they attend Northview Christian Life, a thriving congregation of approximately 3000 people. Scott began to sense the call of God to use his own leadership gifts to serve the church as well as expand God's kingdom. Scott became an Associate Trainer with Equip (Dr. John Maxwell's ministry to train and mentor leaders within God's church all over the world). Scott travels to Panama and soon to Guyana to do leadership development with pastors and church leaders in those developing countries. In addition Scott heads up the leadership development ministry of his church. He has served a variety of lay-leader roles in the church. He is passionate about helping pastors lead effectively, and helping lay-leaders lead effectively!

In addition to Scott's Sunday morning message he will return Sunday afternoon at 2:30 and offer a "Leadership 101" course for any persons in the congregation that would like to explore their potential as a leader! You will not want to miss this opportunity to begin exploring how God can use YOU as a leader in His church! We hope everyone will plan to be a part of this excellent leadership training opportunity!

Just Walk Across the Room - Summary

OK, so here's a quick review from weeks 1-3 of our series "Just Walk Across the Room":

God has called us to reach people who are far from Him. That task is exciting and challenging, but it's not always easy! So here's some steps we can take to (with the help of the Holy Spirit) be productive and successful in carrying out God's mission of reconciling EVERYONE to Him!

1. Enter the "Zone of the Unknown" - This is being willing to walk across that room, even when it's a bit scary or uncomfortable, and reach out to people who need connection with God (and may need connection with YOU).
2. Follow the Promptings of the Holy Spirit - This is simply keeping a prayer connection to God so that as you walk across that room and connect with people who are far from Him, you'll be able to discern what He wants you to say and do!
3. Just Walk!! - OK, no more talking about it...this is actually DOING it! Walking across that room, confident in the leading of God's Holy Spirit and prepared to connect with whomever God has led you to!
4. Develop a Friendship - An old saying goes, "People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care". Do just spitting out the "4 Spiritual Laws" or leading them down the "Roman Road" may not be enough! They will need to see you cultivating a friendship with them first! They want to know they aren't a notch on your evangelistic belt! They are dearly loved by God. They want to know they are dearly loved by you too!
5. Discover their Story - This is simply becoming an expert listener. They will want to tell you their story eventually. You can hear the obstacles, questions, pain and hurdles they may face in coming to know the God that you love! It will take time in building the friendship, but hearing a person's story is a privilege!
6. Discern Next Steps - Once you have begun a friendship and begun to hear their story, you must stay connected to God and use wise discernment in your next steps of helping them draw near to the God who loves them, wants to save them and desires a personal relationship with them!
7. Tell them God's Story - As you discern your next steps the time will come when it's time to tell them God's love story with humanity! You get to tell them the John 3:16 perspective! That God loved them (and us!) so much that He sent His ONLY SON to die in our place! How they receive it and respond is not up to you...your job is simply to tell the Good News of Jesus!
8. Tell them Your Story - After they hear all the wonderful things about God they will likely want to know, "What difference has it made in YOUR life?" That's a question you need to be prepared to answer! So consider what your life was like BEFORE you knew Jesus Christ - How you came to know Him personally - And what your life has been like since! That's a simple but effective framework for telling your story!

As you consider all of the above steps here's a good clarifying question to answer:

What kind of vision for your life are you living? Is it a small, easily manageable, safe vision that requires little or know reliance on God? Or is it a large, sometimes risky, GRANDER vision that may cost you something, but will be exciting, fulfilling and God honoring?

If we are to live the "Grander Vision" of God we must build a foundation for that vision based on these steps:

1. The Priority is People - Luke 5:1-11
Jesus modeled this over and over in the Bible! He made the masses of people a priority and He made the few who followed him daily a priority! He spent time with people, listened to people, healed people, taught people, mentored people, confronted people, rebuked people. His priority was always PEOPLE! In the above Luke passage we see him teaching the masses as well as teaching and calling Peter, Andrew, James and John! He made them push out into deep water to catch the fish! The deep water isn't the safe place, but it's evidently where the fish are! So we too must push out into the less safe places of life so that we can reach those people God is calling us to influence for His sake!

2. The Focus is Their Potential - Luke 5:27-32
Author and speaker Max Lucado once said, "God loves you just the way you are but He doesn't want to leave you that way...He wants you to be just like Jesus"! Through God's eyes we all have almost limitless potential! We MUST begin to see ourselves and other people through God's eyes! In the above Luke passage Jesus sees the potential in Matthew (also called Levi). First is his potential as a follower of Jesus. But also Jesus saw Matthew's potential to reach people who were far from God! And what's the first thing Matthew does? He throws a party! A party where all of his cheating and sinful tax collector friends would hang out with Jesus and all of the disciples! GENIUS! We must see our own potential as well as the potential in those people God calls us to reach!

3. The Starting Point is Prayer - Collossians 4:2-6
So after 4 weeks of preaching and processes, where do we start on this business of walking across rooms, yards, offices, family rooms and bedrooms to reach people who are far from God? Well we start at a very familiar place...PRAYER. We must commit ourselves to pray earnestly, without ceasing and with passion and endurance for the people God has called us to reach! In the above Collossians passage Paul is asking his readers to pray for him and for all of the disciples as they carry out the mission God had given them to reach the entire WORLD for His sake! In fact he starts out the passage by saying, "devote yourselves to prayer..."! Be devoted to it! So what are you waiting for? Start praying for that person right now!

Well, there it is...a good challenge...a dynamic calling...a way of life for Christ followers! Walking, running, calling, emailing, texting, driving, flying...WHATEVER IT TAKES to reach the people God has called us to reach with His love, grace and saving power! So don't wait any longer...

...just walk across the room...and let's see what our God can do through US!

In His Grip,

Pastor John