Life Group (sorry for the format today, blogspot won't let he hit enter)

We had our second official meeting last night, and it was awesome. We had some new faces, and very importantly most of the original ones. The statistics aren't great when studying church planting. Life Church is already breaking some of those! God has given us some incredibly talented people! It's awesome to see them already using gifts. Last night we had some technical difficulties, and 3 of my (self proclaimed) geeks got right on it. There are people who can teach, people who have the gift of service, etc. etc. God has already brought us such an amazing group. If you're reading this and you're wondering if it's too late to get involved...It's not! There are so many ways people can be a part of Life Church. 1. You can join us for our Life Group meeting on Sunday night's @ 6:00pm at Steve Williams house. 2. You can help support us; This can be an number of things. It could mean financial support, it could mean prayer support, it can mean helping us promote Life Church. 3. The main thing is it's never too late to get involved; our group isn't closed, we eagerly welcome new people, and are excited for people to "catch" the vision and jump on board. The other important thing to know is that we understand Life Church won't be for everyone. If it's not for you, it's OK...really :) Here's a quick recap of last nights topic: The Church "Giving God your best" We looked at the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7, and saw how Jesus addressed religious people and issues in his day. We learned: -Giving God your best has nothing to do with wearing the fanciest clothes you can afford to church, but rather in every aspect of your life giving God your best. As Paul teaches us in Romans true worship isn't compartmentalized, but it's every single aspect of your life. -Jesus spoke against the outside appearance. Over and over again we can read Jesus saying "you have heard that it was said..." Then he challenged what the religious leaders of his day were teaching. He taught radical things likes committing adultery isn't a physical act, but you can do it in your heart. Jesus is concerned with our hearts, not just how we look. If we reduce Christianity to how good we are at "appearing Christian", then we have missed the whole point. During our Launch Team time I covered: Mission: Living a changed life to see lives changed Vision: To reach 20% of our unchurched community DNA: 1. People matter (you matter to God, and you matter to us) 2. Make Bold moves (Jesus was bold and changed the world, we want to be like Jesus so were gong to be bold) 3. Exercising audacious faith (God says to trust him in all things, so we are...with audacity) 4. Volunteer driven (there are too many churches who rely only on the pastors to get anything done...it's not biblical so were not going to do it) 5.Excellence in Everything (giving God our best won't be compartmentalized, we are going to strive for excellence in everything, I'm never willing to settle for good, when we can do great for God) 6.Developing leaders (in order for Matthew 28:19 to happen we need to always be equipping leaders, so that's what were about)

I heard something simple, yet profound today

People dealing with spiritual warfare often go directly Ephesians 6, and deal with the armor of God. I've been guilty of this concept: I "put" on the armor and believe it's something like a magical force field that keeps me away from any harm, or any battle. That as if putting the armor on takes us out of the fight of spiritual warfare. Scripture doesn't teach this. Ephesians 6:11 says "Put on the whole armor of God, that you might be able to stand against the schemes of the Devil." The reality is that the Scriptures teach battle is a sure thing. Paul knows we'll fight against Satan, he's just trying to teach us how we "might be able to stand" against him. Wow! So for all of us that think simply memorizing Ephesians 6 is like an immunity pill, then we are in for a rough awakening when Satan is still beating on our armor...I always picture armor like a knight like in the movie Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger. Even though they wore armor it still hurt to get knocked off the horse. This is what Paul is teaching us. Mount up, and suit up, because this is still going to hurt, I'm just showing you how to survive it.

It's officially started

March 20th 2011 was an exciting day for Life Church Canton. We had our first official small group. I had only told a handful of people, and put a teaser trailer on facebook, and we had 13 families show up for our first meeting. I had been praying for 7. Honestly there's no real spiritual reason for that, but simply that Elevation church had 7 families that started them. So I thought, we'll that would be awesome to start with what they had. Instead God exceeded my expectations, and almost doubled the number I was praying about. Were going to meet again next week, and I'll continue talking about the Church. This past week we saw 3 main things:

1. The church is not a building, it's the people.
2. Traditions don't ever supersede scripture.
3. Removing the focus from Jesus to our morals is idolatry.

Next week were going to look at the Sabbath, and what giving God your best looks like. Our launch information will be on the "what":
1. Mission
2. Vision
3. DNA (core values)

You won't want to miss! If I don't see you there, please be praying for us.

Matt

Church Plant Update

This post is for those who are interesting in knowing about what's going on with my church plant. I'm going to give you a condensed version of where were at so far.

-God made it clear to me that my time serving in Texas was to position me for to plant a Church.
-My family moved back to Georgia with nothing more than a calling to serve Him.
-I started getting scared and started questioning whether or not I should just take a staff job.
-Michele and I stepped out on faith and surrendered to this plant.
-Almost the next day People started contacting me about being apart of the plant (I hadn't even advertised it yet..total God thing).
-About a week after Jason the lead pastor of a church plant in Rome contacted me because he heard I was planting a church and wanted to see if he could help.
-We met for lunch and hit it off. God has given us the same heart for ministry, so we have decided to collaborate.
-This means were forming a network, his church will provide coaching, finances, personnel, equipment, and staff and in return we will give financially to the network once were on our feet.
-Jason and I have continued to meet weekly and he's coaching me through the tough first steps. I just met with the staff, and they are also going to help us get started.
-I'm working with a company called startchurch.com who's helping us with the legal side. Between the two were are going to have everything ready to plant with lots of wisdom guiding us.
-To begin were starting a small group. It will start on March 20th at 6:00pm at my parents house in Lake Arrowhead. (Email if you'd like to attend and need directions)

The purpose of this small group is so I can cast vision for the church, love on the people that God has drawn to this movement, and gather my launch team. The launch team is the group of people God has called to plant a new church. They are the ones who will be the very first partners of the church, and will help with various aspects of leadership and ministry in the church. Email me at pastorbeers@yahoo.com if you'd like to ask any questions. If you're interested in attending the first small group meeting contact me and I'll make sure you have directions. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and please keep us in your prayers.

Matt

I don't have my journal handy

So tell me if I'm type A after reading this: I have 3 journals. 1.) It's for what God's doing in my life, personal events, frustrations, and in the very general sense a journal 2.) My second journal is where I take notes that I like when listening to good preaching, and or when I want to remember something from God's word, or a sermon idea 3.) My 3rd journal is a way to catalogue my highlighted passages in any books I'm reading...Wow even writing that makes me feel a little OCD.

Right now I have something cool that God gave me, but I don't have access to any of them so I'll just use this blog as an entry for journal number 2:

I grew up hearing "this is the church, this is the steeple, open the doors and see all the people (imagine the hand gestures)

-This fundamental flaw of theology misses the point that the church isn't a building. We are the church! When we reduce the bride of Christ to a man made structure we are replacing the true church with something created by man.The irony is that the only thing created to reflect God is man, and by making His church about something we've created, it's like were saying "nice try God, but..." See how this idea is dangerous, and needs to be fixed?

Negativity. Are Christians the experts?

If there's something I've learned in the ministry it's that Christians are negative. More than just the "average" Christian, but lots of ministers are negative. "our building is too small", "our worship band isn't cool enough", "our church is never going to grow", etc. etc.



I've heard it said that the Christian army is the only army on the planet that shoots it's wounded. Ministers are often the ones taking aim. Pastor's bash other pastors from their pulpit. Minister's judge other churches ministries from their office, and neither are afraid to share their opinion on why they are a better leader, preacher, minister than you.



One thing I've come in contact with while starting this church plant is negativity. I've already addressed it in a previous post, but sure enough it has surfaced. It's actually kind of funny (but sad at the same time) the things people will say to you to discourage you from planting a church. I read in Steven Furtick's book that one pastor said "welcome to the neighborhood kid"...I'm guessing he wishes that conversation went a little bit different. Because I've never had a tenure anywhere I've been told "I need more time following before I lead". The reality is as practical as that sounds, biblically most leaders don't fit that mold. Our Biblical patriarchs were called by God and they followed. That's why God blessed them, not because of their resumes but because of their hearts. Imagine what the world would be like if Timothy didn't lead simply because he was young, or Paul because of the criticism he received about the issue of apostleship, or even Jesus (he after had to obey the will of the Father). I'm glad these men all chose to obey their calling.

Pastors, ministers, and Christians I want to encourage you today to be an encouragement to others in ministry, and to your congregations! The church has enough work to do, we don't need to be occupied by civil wars. Let's preach like their are lives at stake! And love people like Christ did!

Next Steps

Jason (lead pastor of Life Church in Rome, GA) and I had another great meeting today. We put an action plan in order. I'm going to start the process of gathering my launch team. Were simply going to start a life group so that we can begin to build stronger relationships, and so I can pour vision into them. I've had lots of verbal commitments, now it's time to see where the rubber meets the road. I'm looking for my committed core...I'm praying God gives me an awesome team!