Let’s Keep Growing: 3 ways for Church at the Grove to continue to grow!

 Church, Church at the Grove, Community, Faith, Jesus, Random Thoughts  No Responses »
Jan 302012
 

We have experienced enormous blessing over the last year and specifically over this past month as we have launched our new campus in Social Circle!  We continue to see new people added to both our campuses this month!   We are growing and it is exciting!

Here is my BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL and desire for Church at the Grove right now!  Are you ready?!
Let’s keep growing!  Yeah, I said it!  Let’s keep growing and here are the specific areas I want us to focus on growing:
Let’s keep growing numerically!  
  • I will never apologize for wanting and desiring our church to grow numerically.  Do a word study in the book of Acts on the word “numbers” and you will see that Luke records over and over when people were added to the church.  If our mission is to lead people to follow Jesus and Make Disciples then we should be adding people.
  • I want to see 100 people baptized this year!  There, I said it!  I believe it can happen.
  • I believe that we can average over 500 people in attendance by September this year!
Let’s grow spiritually!
  • I want us to have more people reading their Bibles daily.
  • I want to have more people engaged in serving their community.
  • I want to have more people being transformed into the image of Jesus in every area of their life.
  • I want to see more people sharing the gospel with their family and friends.
  • I want to see more people investing in people and inviting them to our Sunday CATGrove gatherings.
  • I want to hear about more families having a nightly family devotional/prayer time.
  • I want more marriages to grow stronger and healthier.
  • I want to see more people involved in Community Group Bible Study.
Let’s grow relationally!
  • I would love to set a record this fall for how many people are involved in Community Groups.
  • I challenge you to make more time to simply develop your friendships and relationships this year.
  • Make time for people.
  • Come early and stay a little late on Sundays so you can have a conversation with some people you don’t know that well.
  • Plan to get to know some of our newer attendees over this next month!
  • Remember, we are about PEOPLE!
I love Jesus!  I love what He is doing.  I love Church at the Grove!
 Posted by at 11:26 pm

Great Launch in Social Circle; Let’s take the PLUNGE!

 Bible, Church at the Grove, Church Planting, Faith, Jesus, Leadership, Missional  No Responses »
Jan 242012
 

I am so thankful for the people that God has put in place to lead CATGrove forward in our mission to lead people to follow Jesus and Make Disciples!

We have launched another campus in Social Circle!
This past Sunday we launched our Social Circle Campus with 95 people in attendance at Social Circle Middle School!  Wow! Praise God for His faithfulness in seeing this dream become a reality.
I am so thankful for all the people that have invested so much energy and time making this campus in Social Circle possible. Nathan’s strong leadership has been a blessing in making this launch possible.  I am thankful for all of the leaders and volunteers that have invested so much time and effort to get us going in Social Circle.
I am so excited about our new teaching series “PLUNGE” that began this past Sunday!  We will address each one of our “ministry filters” or “core values” over these six weeks.
Here are our ministry filters:
Biblical Faith
Persuasive Compassion
Missional Responsibility
Authentic Relationships
Intentional Simplicity
Faithful Stewardship
This past Sunday:  The Word of God is a revelation of Himself and when we see Him as He is, we are transformed.  
Join us as we journey through the Bible at www.youversion.com Essential 100 Bible reading plan!  Go here to see it: http://www.youversion.com/reading-plans/the-essential-100/settings
Martin Luther said, “The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold on me.”
Let’s commit to reading and applying God’s Word on a daily basis.
I am so excited about what God is doing in and through Church at the Grove!  Please continue to invest your life into the lives of others in our community!  Let’s continue to move forward with the mission God has set forth for us.
I love you and I am praying for you.
 Posted by at 3:47 pm

New Launch in Social Circle! Let’s Go!

 Church at the Grove, Church Planting, Faith, Jesus, Missional  No Responses »
Jan 212012
 

Everybody’s Welcome, Nobody’s Perfect, Anythings Possible

Everybody’s Welcome
Jesus was the perfect example/model of compassion for others. Jesus accepted and demonstrated love toward the unacceptable and unlovable of His day. Everybody was welcome to come to Him. He encountered prostitutes, Samaritans, tax collectors, gentiles, lepers or sinners of all kinds. In Matthew 9 we see that Jesus saw these people as sheep scattered without a shepherd and he had compassion on them.

My prayer is that Church at the Grove will be a community that has the same heart for people that Jesus demonstrated in the scriptures. We welcome people to journey with us even if they don’t agree with all we believe. We have created an environment where people can explore faith and their own pace hopefully experiencing the unconditional love of Jesus as they participate in our community of faith.

Nobody’s Perfect
We are all in need of forgiveness. Paul tells the Romans that “we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God”. One of the core values we aspire to is “authentic relationships”. Because we are ALL in need of forgiveness there is no sense of spiritual superiority. We dream of a community at Church at the Grove where there is no need for hiding, no need for wearing masks, no need to impress anyone because we are all saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

Anything’s Possible
Jesus believed in people like the fisherman Peter. Although he was impulsive, haughty and often would stick his foot right in his mouth, Jesus saw something in this uneducated fisherman that led Him to invest into Peter’s life in such a way that the world would ultimately be impacted by Peter’s leadership. Peter was the most significant leader during the birth of the early church.

God has called us at Church at the Grove to invest into the lives of people with the attitude and belief that “anything is possible”. We are to see people through the eyes of Jesus and roll up our sleeves and do whatever it takes to get the gospel into the lives of those “least likely to go to church”.

That is why we stepped out on faith over 5 years ago to launch a gathering in Walnut Grove AND that is why we take another step of faith today to launch a gathering in Social Circle. This is an outpost on the landscape of our mission field where the Word of God can be taught and the gospel proclaimed. Let’s go! May God bless our obedience to Him and draw people to Himself as we lift up the name of Jesus Christ!

Keep praying, Keep investing, Keep Inviting!

Russ

 Posted by at 6:22 pm

Anticipation like the night before Christmas!

 Church at the Grove, Church Planting, Community, Faith, Jesus, Leadership, Missional, Random Thoughts  No Responses »
Oct 112011
 

When I was a kid in elementary school, I could not wait for Christmas day!  The month of December passed at a snail’s pace!  It seemed as if Christmas Day took forever to arrive.  There was one specific year that I could not sleep the night of Christmas Eve and my mom and day were awakened to a strange shuffling sound coming from my room.  I was pacing in circles and my pajama feet were rubbing against the carpet causing a shuffling sound.  I was quickly put to bed again and told that if I didn’t get in bed quickly that I would not benefit from the Christmas morning festivities!

I feel a little like that this week!  It is very similar to the emotions I experience just over 5 years ago when we had our first preview services for Church at the Grove.

  • This Sunday night we will have our first preview gathering in Social Circle at the Middle School Activities building at 6pm.  We would love for you to be there!

Although we have been through something similar to this when we launched CATGrove and we may be a little more prepared than we were over 5 years ago. Nevertheless, we really don’t know what to expect, who will be there and exactly how things will go! Isn’t that great!

It is in times like this that we get to experience God at work in the most intense and fresh manner.  We take a step of faith and He works in and through our faith!

I am hoping to have a great turnout from our Walnut Grove “Grovers” this Sunday night. We need some of you to come early and greet.  We would love to have some of you join us in the afternoon and set up and we will need some of you to stay a little late and help us breakdown.

On Saturday November 5 at 6pm we will have a Social Circle Launch Team Meeting for those feeling God’s leadership to be a part of this new endeavor.  The location is to be determined.

Please keep praying, keep investing and keep inviting!

 Posted by at 7:56 pm
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