The Faith of a Child

Yesterday was our 4th core group meeting as Garden City Church...we meet for 90 minutes before the second service at the church that is helping us start...We received our FIRST offering...our first fundage was given by a 4 year old...Her name was Madison...Isn't that amazing?...This little girl was moved by need before us grow ups...Sometimes adults are schooled by children...She gave around 5 bucks...but for me personally when she gave that 5 bucks her faith spoke louder to me than all the sermons I heard on giving in faith in my life...The faith of a child is not calculated, it is not fearful, but powerful...I think its time for us adults to learn a lesson from a 4 year old...and begin to have faith like a child...and give!

A Caring Community

There is nothing better than doing what you love to do, what you are called to do and then to speak on that very subject. This Sunday at our Core Group meeting. I will be sharing on Garden City Churches first core value: A Caring Community. I am talking about "Holistic Small Groups." Some of the topics I am covering are: The power of a Healing Community, the Benefits of Community, we are created for community, the conviction of small groups, and more. Small group ministry is kind of a personal issue for me because a small group my dad was part of in 2002 when I was addicted to drugs was instrumental in getting me into Teen Challenge. At Teen Challenge, I began to follow Jesus Christ. My life has never been the same and it is all because of a small group, a caring community my dad was part of. If you want to hear the rest of my story and my teaching notes click (read more).

McChurched

The Mega-Church Movement has become a well oiled piece of machinery. The ecclesiological method’s this flavor of Church operates by are geared towards pleasing the consumer. The consumer has become the locus of authority, not Biblical Orthodoxy. Churches that have been impacted by such methodology have been McChurched. They have adopted an operating system that serves the stranger rather than the resident family members. Dr. John Seel, a professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary asked, “What if your household primarily met the needs of your neighbors not the people living there?” How would each member of the family grow holistically, if the home was primarily designed to meet the emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and social needs of strangers? The brand of church that has neglected the family of God to appease the consumer is the seeker sensitive brand of church. Al Speegle, Jr., a contributor to the Trinity Forum described the mission of the McChruched Churches, “A user-friendly church designed to meet the needs of today's people, and their lifestyles. Self-sacrifice, self-denying discipleship has been scientifically reduced down to a formula that has placed man at the center. If consumeristic ecclesiology is going to be combated, then the Mega-Church Movement Factor must be understood, sermon branding, church shopping and Drive-Thru Discipleship must be exposed and Biblical Orthodoxy must guide the ecclesiology of a church....click to read the rest...

Core Meeting Update

Week 3.... we had 25 people....Dunkin Donut Coffee....It is so exciting to watch a group of ordinary people bond to do something extraordinary like start a church from scratch...Today we wrapped up the first sub point under our first core value, which is "A Caring Community"...The Sub point was "Loving Relationships"...Love was the subject of discussion...everything we do, everything we say, everybody we meet...must be done in genuine, authentic LOVE...we talked about the source of LOVE which is God because if God is not pouring love into us then we will not pour love into others...also we said, Loving People is Loving God...You can't love God and not love people...The Children's pastor...Amanda casted vision for the children's ministry...she did a great job...Three things: 1. Roots 2. Shoots and 3. Fruit...Those are her goals for the kids who are part of the children's ministry...she wants then to grow roots, build shoots and bear fruit as they learn about God..next week I will be talking about "Holistic Small Groups" Very excited to take on the role of small group pastor...Stay tuned for next week's update...

Core Meeting

So far so God! The Beverly church plant has met for its second time today during the Sunday School hour at the church the lead pastor works as an assistant and the church that is supporting us. We call them our Mother church. Last week we had 31 people and this week 19 people. We are aiming for 100 people before we start in Sept. / 2008. We talked about the mission statement last week...which is "To glorify God by leading people to become fully devoted followers of Christ who are catalyst of change and examples of human goodness." That is it.. We are going to be laser focus on being that. It is more about being, than doing...The doing always follows the being..so if we are being the right kind of person...than we will do the right kind of things...That is where our core values come in...today we talked about the first core value..."A Caring Community"...the first sub point under that is Loving Relationships...so we talked about LOVE...if we don't have unconditional, sacrificial love as our driving motivation for life..people turn into projects and become part of a religious agenda where we trying to put another notch in our spiritual belt by leading them to Christ...we agree that we are going to love no matter what...no what if they accept our Jesus or our church or whatever...we are going to love without looking for returns...we have to be intentional and purposeful as God was when he sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to the earth to die for our sins so that we can be restored to relationship with God and become fully reflective of the character of God in the part of the world that we live in...Stay tuned for next weeks core group meeting update!!!!!!!!!!

Beverly Church Plant Update

The thing to do has been find a template for our website...The website is so crucial...You want a site that people feel comfortable hanging out in our corner of cyberspace as they check out the church...what we are about...when are our services...where....who are the staff...plus we want to be a resource for our church and others....we are going to podcast...open source our sermons, etc...Before a person walks in the door of a church today about 50% or so will have gone to your website first...so if our website looks ugly...then they will never get a chance to our handsome and pretty faces in the church...What we do have going for us is the right person who understands and knows how to design and build sites...He is a Godsend...you can check our his site...his name is Brian Duke...We met on Monday of this week at our office...I mean Starbucks to begin discussing the site...it has been a challenge...because he does not know everything...which limits some of the things we can do...We did come up with a tag line for the Church...It is: Garden City Church-Growing Together...If you want to see, which I would be interested in hearing some feedback..check out this site it has the templates we might buy for our site...let me know what you think...Hit this link...The template is the one with the picture of the road with trees on each site and it says, "Life is a Journey." which we also like that tag line for our site...The site I want you to examine is the first one, in the left hand corner at the top...