Hell is stirring

When Saul became the apostle Paul, he began what was an incredibly hard life. Even during the course of his salvation he had to endure blindness at the sight of Jesus. (what a scary concept to loose your sight) Whats more incredible is that he endured: shipwrecks, snake bites, beatings, stoning, and imprisonment.

If I had a laundry list like that I don't know that I'd have Paul's outlook on life. Most of us do something like this: "why God why!!!!!!!!! why did my tire blow out on the way to work?" (then we go through our list and remind God of it) "I mean, come on! I tithe, I serve in church, I don't cuss, or even drink! You owe me!"

(as a quick disclaimer, I'm not trying to trivialize your problems, a flat tire is never fun, I'm just attempting to draw some perspective)

I imagine myself meeting Paul one day, and him walking right up to me and saying "sissy", then turning around and laughing. What I mean is the things I complain about are so insignificant compared to the trial he faced. Listen for a second to the attitude that the apostle Paul had when dealing with suffering.

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'for your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered,' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angles nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor heigth nor depth, nor anything else in all creations will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" -Romans 8:35-39

Wow! In the mist of all that he had endured he still couldn't see anything coming in the way of the love of Christ. I have noticed in my life when things go bad I often question does God love me less today? My prayer for myself is to see things like Paul did. Another thing that's interesting is that Paul viewed suffering as a mark that he was doing the right thing. Persecution was simply apart of Christianity to him. In light of that here's some suffering that's going on with Life Church Canton:
-I'm dealing with some health issues
-a launch team member just had a septic tank back up ($2900)
-a launch team member just had a motorcycle wreck
-a launch team member just had a miscarriage
-a launch team member's whole family has been sick
-a launch team member just had a child total their car in a wreck
-a launch team member is dealing with added stress with work

Most of these things are costly, and very hard to deal with, but something we have realized as a launch team is that Hell is stirring. To me this is significant, and I have 2 reasons:
1. In Matthew 16:18 Jesus mentions that Hell actually has gates. Gates are defensive mechanisms. I believe our job as Christians are to storm the gates of Hell, and I believe that's exactly what were doing, which is why we see such opposition.
2. In Acts 19:15 a demon tells some itinerant priests "Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but what are you? This indicates that if you're not a threat to Satan then he's not much a threat to you, because if he doesn't even know you, you must not be living that kind of life that effects him.

Life Church is on mission, and we know what were called to do. As we build our launch team I think we have stirred the gates of Hell. One of the greatest honor's I could ever accomplish is that the demons know my name.

Please continue to pray for our church, we will need it to do battle as we seek to change our city!

Post Easter High and update

It's been a little bit since I've blogged, but things are going awesome! I've been busy working on our legal stuff with startchurch.com and Life Church Rome. We've got our bi-laws and constitution done (amen). All of our systems are getting done this month. Anyway enough with the boring stuff. Easter was awesome! Jason hit it out of the park! The band took it to the next level...the house was packed, and people got saved! I gave our launch team the week off, but were back on this week. God is really blessing the process. People are having spiritual awakening in their lives. They are sacrificially giving, and they are FAITHFUL! I'm bragging on our group because they really are incredible, and I consider it a privilege to serve them.

I'm challenging our people to double. We want 10 more families. One of our core values is that we want to do things with excellence, and to "do" church with excellence we are going to need about 40 adults. We've got over half of that now, but I'd like to see us double and get people locked in before summer is in full swing. The church is doing great, and every step I have learned something new. Anytime I think I know it all God blows my mind with how much bigger his vision is than mine.

If you want to be apart of something that will out live you, and if you want to invest in something that will change your city for Jesus come check out Life Church Canton, and be apart of what God's doing!

This week is a big deal !

So this week has already been awesome and is only going to get better. First, our Life Group was incredible. We have great people with great discussion and insight to God's word and His church. Then when I took the offering we actually had people who tithed. (last week I called for commitment) It was awesome to see God's people giving sacrificially and obediently to His church. Even though our people are awesome we are small so money is of course coming in, in much less increments than at a big church. Well, we needed to pay our bill to start church. They are a company were using to handle all of our legal stuff. After last week we were short a couple hundred dollars of what we needed...Then God provided! A check was handed to me on Monday for enough to cover our bills, and then some! God knew our need and met it. That is the awesome God we serve!

After that quick praise, on to the BIG DEAL:
This week Life Church Canton is heading up to Life Church Rome. We are going to worship with our extended family up in Rome this week. They are going to be able to put faces with their prayers, and we are going to get to see the bigger picture. Life Church Rome has been used to win over 300 to Christ in less than 3 years...That's the kind of church I want to be hanging out with!

Then if that wasn't cool enough Pastor Jason is going to come and join our Life Group Sunday night. I'll be teaching on Simple Church, and he'll be talking about how his church grew from just a few families to a church over 400. He'll also be challenging us, and encouraging us. It will be an incredible Sunday for Life Church.

It's not too late to get involved! If you are interested in being a part of the launch team for Life Church you should come Sunday night. Contact me if interested.

The 1000 lbs gorilla

So this was the week that we talked about it. He's been lingering in the room for a while now, but I've chosen to ignore him for a while...last night was the time to address him.

1,000 Gorilla ='s money if you weren't sure...

We've had 3 amazing weeks with Life Church. Our life group has already bonded really well together, and we've tackled some tough biblical issues together, but last night was the night I outlined some expectations. See anyone is welcome to attend life group time. In fact anyone is welcome to attend our launch meeting sessions, but from now on things are going to change. Up until this point nobody was officially on the launch time. I wanted to give everyone ample time to feel me out, and see if the Holy Spirit was leading them to our church. This past Life Group I ask for 3 things:

1. Commit to help launch for a year (...ish)
2. Commit to serve in a ministry of the church
3. And...dun, dun, DUN!!!!....Tithe The reality is that ministry takes money, luckily God has an awesome plan for that! Man get's to keep 90% of what is really God's anyway, as long as he or she gives back to God 10%. Though the church needs money to do things like rent space, pay pastors, keep the lights on etc. The tithe is more about the faith position of the believer. The believer will receive much more from tithing than the church does (though this is a tough concept because money seems more tangable). However, God talks A LOT about money in the Bible. In fact in Malachi He actually asks us to test Him. Jesus and Paul visit the issue as well. The reality is that God promises to take care of us if were obedient to Him. So that's what I did last night. I addressed the 1000 lbs gorilla, and asked for those who are committing to be on a launch team to tithe starting next week. What's even crazier is that some people already started tithing! While were starting small God is already using our people to BE the church. People in the early days of Life Church will very much understand the tangable applications of their tithes. They will see God use their sacrifice to transform lives! They will see it turn into supplies to do church with, they will see a space transformed into a worship center with their sacrifice...So the reality is that the church isn't just after your money. The church is here to help you stay in good standing with God. His economy is very different from man's economy, and reguarless how our economy is doing he can bless with out condition...though I often only witness him blessing those who are faithful to Him...

So whether or not you're a part of Life Church, or some other church. See your tithe as what it is. A tangable way of telling God "I trust you". If you're simply tipping God. STOP! you heard me...whatever church you're at stop tipping them. God wants your best, not your left overs. In fact your pastor would probably advise you to do the same. See the scriptures say that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills (modern day translations God has more money than Bill Gates X McDonalds X Coke, he doesn't need your money, he WANTS your heart. We also talked about Biblical community and we discussed how we've lost some of that in America, and what the church can do to get that back. So whether or not your being led to our church or not. Please pray for us. Even if you're coming but aren't sure whether or not your in, please still keep coming. Our group isn't closed. And if your not going to be on our launch team it's ok...REALLY I love you and love just having you there :) and it's ok if you haven't decided yet. No cheesy sales pitch here, I only want you to commit if you've been led by the spirit. Thanks for all of you who are supporting us,and praying for us. YOU ROCK!

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