Scripture Memory:
Colossians 1:13–14 (ESV)
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Action Step:
Identify one specific action/area of your life that needs surrendering to Jesus and turn it over to Him today.  Begin everyday with a prayer of surrender and walk IN CHRIST.

Random Thoughts:

• I am planning to vote today!  I hope you are!
• I am praying for Tom Kirby.  I love Tom and he has worked so hard in campaigning for the 7th district congressional seat.  I know he loves Jesus and wants to serve in the best interest of the people in our area.
• What a great weekend in the life of Church at the Grove!  Saturday night was our first IGNITE prayer/worship gathering at the Sweet Aroma room right behind the bakery.  We had an awesome time in worship and prayer.  I know and believe that God honors those that honor Him and come to Him in prayer.  I can’t wait to see the fruit!  You don’t want to miss the next IGNITE!
• Sunday morning was incredible.  I love Austin and the worship team.  We missed Austin last week (although Shelley did an awesome job) and it was great to have him back.  I am loving this series on the book of Colossians!  It is so rich in Jesus centered theology and practical truth for our lives.
• As much as I enjoy summer, I am about ready for the fall to get here.  I am ready for people to be back in town and for everyone to get back to the ministry of CATG!
• We continue to have a ton of guests each week come through CATG!  We can’t relax, we must be there early, focus on welcoming people that are new and come ready to hear God’s Word and apply it to our lives!
• The Romania team had our last meeting last night (Monday July 19).  We packed and weighed our luggage and spent some time praying.  We leave this Friday (July 23) and would love to have as many people praying for us as possible.  Please pray!
• We are working hard to prepare for Community Groups this fall.  We need a few more host homes and a few more leaders (facilitators)!  Please pray about being a host or a leader for one of our Community Groups.
• I am praying and expecting a BIG FALL for Church at the Grove!  Please join me in praying that God will use this fall in a HUGE way to impact our community and change lives.

Keep praying, keep investing, keep inviting!

Scripture memory:
Colossians 1:19 (ESV)
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

Action Step:
Address a current issue/crisis in your life knowing you can trust Jesus as sovereign creator and personal redeemer.

Random Thoughts:

• I love the spring and summer but I think I am ready for the fall to get here!  I am ready for it to cool off!  More than anything, I am ready for the fall because I believe it will be the most exciting fall ever for Church at the Grove!
• I am so ready to get our Community Groups up and going! Can’t wait!
• I am look forward to this Saturday night at the Sweet Aroma Bakery for “IGNITE”!  It will be a sweet time of worship and prayer!  Don’t miss it at 6:30pm at the Sweet Aroma Bakery in Loganville!
• I loved Sunday!  I always miss Austin Prince when he is gone, but Shelley Prince did an awesome job leading worship Sunday morning!  I am so thankful for Gabe and all of our worship team!
• I love teaching from the book of Colossians!  It’s all about JESUS!
• We had an incredible “NEXT STEPS” gathering at the Butcher house on Sunday!  We had six families and a total of 33 people in attendance counting kids!  WOW!  I love sharing the vision of Church at the Grove!  We have had a large number of guests come through this summer and many are connecting long term.  I hope and pray that YOU WILL HELP ME LOVE ON, WELCOME, AND CONNECT THESE NEW PEOPLE INTO OUR COMMUNITY!
• We had our final training/meeting for Romania on Sunday night! We leave on Friday July 23 and it will be an awesome trip.  I hope you will pray for our team as we minister alongside the Hardin family and to the people of Romania.
• This Sunday will be an awesome Sunday!  We will be in part two of our “IN CHRIST” series and on Sunday night we are having our second Baptism/fellowship of the summer.  We are baptizing several people on Sunday night.  Don’t miss it.  Come and join us for food, fun, swimming and baptism!
• We had one of our largest offerings in a long time this week!  Thank you for your generosity in giving to support what God is doing!  It helped catch us up for the summer.  Please continue to give consistently and faithfully to support our ministries locally and globally.
• What an awesome blessing to be a part of what God is doing in the life of Church at the Grove right now!

Keep praying, keep investing, keep inviting! See you Sunday!

Scripture Memory:
Acts 1:8 (ESV)
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Action Step:
Read through the book of Acts this week pray about how you can be used by God to make disciples.

Random Thoughts:

• Sunday was incredible at Church at the Grove!  Nathan did an outstanding job challenging us with the explosive history of the early church and how God can use US to continue to do His work through the power of the Holy Spirit.
• I love seeing new faces!  Even in these summer weeks, we continue to have many people worship with us each Sunday for the first time.
• I absolutely love the spirit of unity and love in our church!  I love the simplistic way we do stuff!  We had a short and sweet business meeting and installed a new Elder on Sunday.  Craig Ellington will be our new Elder and join our current team of pastoral staff and CATG Elders in leading our church as we grow.
• This was one of the busiest weekends I have had in a long time!  Wedding rehearsal Friday night, wedding Saturday.  Wedding rehearsal Saturday night, Church at the Grove Sunday morning, wedding Sunday at 1:30pm.  Josiah played in an All-Star tourney Saturday and we had a Romania Team meeting on Sunday night!  Crazy but good!
• I am so excited about going to Romania with Josiah and Abigail in July!  We had an awesome planning meeting on Sunday and we have a great group going to Romania on July 23.
• Nathan and our band did a great job leading at the “UNITED” area youth worship on Wednesday night.  It is incredibly difficult to prepare and preach 2 messages in a week like Nathan did!  Great job!  I love Austin, Shelley and our CATG band!  They are so solid and have such great attitudes and hearts to the Lord.
• We had a team of leaders attend a leadership conference on Saturday in Cartersville, GA at Oakleaf Church.  I am so thankful for such committed leaders!  They had an incredible time and came away with some awesome stuff to implement for CATGrove!
• We have a “NEXT STEPS” gathering coming up on July 11!  It will be a lunch at our home!  This is the place where you can learn more about CATGrove, our vision and dreams.  We share our beliefs, structure and it is a great time to ask questions about anything!  Let us know if you plan to attend.
• We have a baptism on Sunday evening July 18 at the home of Lynn and Barbara Bledsoe.  Let us know if you would like to be baptized.
• I am so excited about what God is doing.  We are working hard on some of the legal and zoning issues related to Miss Mattie’s home and hopefully will be able to begin some practical work very soon.  I love seeing the new people God is bringing us and I am so excited about this fall!
• We are working on some possible new changes regarding our children’s ministry for this fall.  I can’t wait to see it unfold!

Keep praying, keep investing, keep inviting!

Scripture memory:
Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)
6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.

Action Step:
Read the gospel of Mark this week and take notice of Jesus’ interaction and the faith-response of people around him.  Take your tassel and put it somewhere where it can remind you of Unstoppable Faith.

Thoughts:

I love this series “Unstoppable”!   We have been challenged with “Unstoppable Courage”, “Unstoppable Generosity” and yesterday “Unstoppable Faith”.

We learned yesterday that Unstoppable Faith is demonstrated by a relentless pursuit of Jesus!  It results in:

• Spiritual Healing.
• Physical Healing and perspective.
• A life that stands out in the crowd.
• God’s response to faith.

The woman with the issue of blood can teach us a lot about ourselves.  We all have had (or have) desperate and hopeless circumstances.  God uses desperation to draw us to himself.  We have been financially hopeless, relationally hopeless and physically hopeless.  Jesus uses our hopelessness and desperation to move us to a place of complete dependence on Him and Him alone.  God wants us to respond with Unstoppable Faith!  He promises to never leave us nor forsake us!

Imagine what our church would look like if we collectively were pursuing Jesus with a relentless Unstoppable Faith!  Imagine the impact we would have, the people we would reach and the growth our church would experience!

Upcoming Important Dates:

• Don’t forget UNITED for our students on Wednesday nights!  This coming Wed. night our ministry team (Nathan, Gabe, and Austin) are leading UNITED!  I would love for as many of our students and parents to come out and support our CATG team!  It is at the Loganville High School auditorium this Wed. night at 7pm.
• Our NEXT STEP gathering is Sunday July 11 at the home of Russ and Jill Butcher.  This a great place to learn about CATGrove, our mission, values and story. It is required for membership but you don’t have to join if you attend.  Come to learn more about the church and meet some other people who have been visiting The Grove.
• Next Baptism and cookout is July 18 at the home of Lynn and Barbara Bledsoe.  If you are interested in being baptized, please let us and know.

Keep investing, keep inviting, and keep praying!

Craig Story did an incredible job of concluding our “SENT” series highlighting the story of Philip in Acts.  Here’s the  bottom line; Philip went wherever God led him to go and share Jesus with whoever he was around.  We are called, as followers of Jesus to live the same way!  One of the characteristics that we would like to see uniquely developed among the Church at the Grove family is “Missional Responsibility”.  My desire is that all “Grovers” will simply see themselves as missionaries and build relationships with people in their neighborhood, place of work, recreation life, and every activity for the purpose of sharing the hope that is found in Jesus.

Consider yourself “SENT”!

SUMMER

Summer is here and it is warm, kids are hanging out in the neighborhood and the Braves are in first place!  I will be leaving this weekend to go to IMPACT summer youth camp with some of our students.  It is an incredible week of ministry with students from all over the state of Georgia.

Please make sure and stay connected to Church at the Grove this summer!  I know people go on vacation and have summer activities but please stay active on Sunday mornings and look for ways to connect with others during the summer!

Community Groups for the fall

We are working hard on getting our plans in place for the community groups this fall.  Our goal is to have at least 75% of our adults in community groups this fall.  We have a goal of at least 15 adult community groups.  Please be praying about where you will connect and if you are interested in hosting a group or leading please let us know.

Baptisms

We have 2 summer baptisms scheduled; June 13 (next week) and July 18.  If you are interested in being baptized, please let us know and we will get it scheduled.  These baptisms are church-wide fellowship opportunities for everyone.  You are invited to bring your favorite side dish, lawn chairs and swim suits for a fun time and a meaningful time of worship with baptism.

New People

We have so many new people that are worshiping with us on a weekly basis.  Many are praying about making Church at the Grove their home church.  Please join me in making these families feel loved and accepted into our family and help guide them into the different ways to connect relationally to others in The Grove!

Loving Jesus

I am convinced more than ever that my life’s significance is connected to loving Jesus more and more each day.  I can’t think of anything that matters more than loving Jesus!  He is my savior and gave his life as a sacrifice for my forgiveness.  I owe Him everything.  I can never measure up to God’s standard in my own strength but if I trust Jesus for His strength, wisdom and power He can measure up by living through me!

I love this church!  I love each and every one of you and I am praying for you and your family each and every day.  Please let me know if I can serve you in any way!

I loved having the Hardin family sharing with us this past Sunday!  We began a brand new teaching series called “SENT” and Pat, Joy and Kelsey kicked it off updating us on their ministry in Romania.  Pat challenged us all to live “SENT”, whether we are sent across the world or sent across the street to our neighbors.  The Hardins are here until the first week of June when they will return to Romania.  They need to raise additional monthly support for their ministry in Romania and also need to raise $3000 for the airfare to get them back to Romania in June.

We will be taking a group from CATGrove to Romania in late July!  I am looking forward to making that trip with Josiah and Abigail!

Community Group training

This past Saturday night we had 34 people attend our Community Group Leadership Exchange!  I was so excited to have that many people together to begin the process of preparing for the fall Community Group season.  If you are interested in hosting a group in your home OR leading a group please send me an email or give me a call.  I am looking forward to connecting so many of the new people that God has brought our way over the last several months.  In order for us to continue to grow and reach people in this community, we must facilitate ways for people to connect in meaningful relationships and meaningful responsibility.

Summer Slump

I have received several advertisements in the mail and through email notifying me of how we can avoid the summer slump as a church.  What is the “Summer Slump”?  It is the period of 2 to 3 months during the summer vacation season that tithes, offerings and giving in general goes down in a local church.  People are out of town traveling and are not in church to make their normal contributions when the offerings are received.  Simply put, when people are not in church they are not giving or making contributions.  We are a young church and cannot afford to continue ministry if we incur a “summer slump”.  We have printed self-addressed envelopes for people to mail their gifts to the church when they know they are going to be out of town.  We also provide on-line giving through our web-site to make it convenient for people to give when they are not at church on Sunday.  We can also set up automatic draft withdrawals for those who may be interested in taking advantage of a systematic way to make contributions whether they are at church or not during the summer.  We simply rely on the generosity of the people in our faith community to continue to do what God has called us to do in this community and around the world.  I would appreciate your help in making sure we have the resources this summer to continue ministry in our community.

Summer Baptisms

We already have 2 summer baptism times planned!  If you are ready to take the step of baptism let us know and we will reserve your spot for either June 13 or July 18.  We will have a night of food and fellowship for the whole church and pause for our baptism celebration.  Call or email us to let us know you are interested in being baptized.

This Sunday!

This Sunday is part 2 in our “SENT” series and we will also be recognizing our graduates for this year.  If you are a high school or college graduate and would like to participate in the recognition, please let us know so we can include you.

I can’t wait to see you Sunday…..Until then…

Keep praying, keep investing, keep inviting!

The Jesus Way:
Following Jesus means he will be with me, bringing good out of every circumstance I face.  He can be trusted.

Scripture Memory:
Romans 8:18
18
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Action Steps:
Cultivate an eternal and global perspective of pain and suffering and mediate on the biblical truth that God can be trusted.

Random Thoughts:

• What an incredible Sunday at Church at the Grove!  I love Gabe and Austin’s leadership in our worship.  Having them strip everything down without instruments or any other elements was unusual but God’s presence was thick!  I am so thankful for them and thankful for Shelley and her gifts.
• This Sunday’s message was extraordinarily timely!  I received a phone call yesterday morning letting me know that one of our Grovers, Jim Seawright, was tragically killed in an automobile accident early Sunday morning.  Jim was 35 years old and had 3 children.  My heart hurts so for his family.
• The memorial for Jim Seawright will be Wednesday April 21.  Visitation is 3pm with the memorial service at 4pm at Tim Stewart Funeral home on Tom Brewer Road in Loganville.
• I would love for as many Church at the Grove people as possible to come and support Jim’s family.  Misty, Zach, Logan and Gavin need all the love we can give them right now.

I hope to see you soon.

Scripture Memory:
Mark 8:34-35
34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Mk 8:34–35). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Action Step:
This week identify the ingredients you are leaving out of your life as a Jesus follower and ask him for the strength to put everything under his control.

Random Thoughts:

• What an incredible day yesterday at Church at the Grove!  What a crowd!  Normally our Sunday after Easter is extremely low, but we had our largest attendance this year besides Easter!  You guys are reaching out and bringing your friends and family and that is awesome!
• I love doing baptisms!  It is probably my favorite thing we do at CATGrove because you hear the personal stories and it represents the transforming work that God is doing in the lives of people.  If my memory is correct, we baptized 11 people yesterday!  Awesome!  Let’s continue to reach out to our friends and family with the love of Jesus.
• We continued with out “DETOX” series yesterday with part 2:  Toxic Religion says doing the minimal is enough where Jesus says we must “deny ourself, take up our cross and follow him.”  We must take ourselves off the throne of our heart and allow Jesus to sit on the throne of our heart and be our leader and boss.
• Next week: “DETOX” part 3 on the topic of dealing with suffering and bad things happening in our lives.  You don’t want to miss it.
• We were able to have lunch with two middle school boys who were baptized yesterday.  DJ & Dylan Dockery and their family.  What a work God has done and is doing in that family.
• What a great sports weekend!  The Masters is one of my favorite sporting events in all of sports.  I loved watching Phil Mickelson embrace his wife and kids after a great win at the Masters.  They have been through a rough year battling breast cancer.  Watching their family together is quite a contrast to the events of Tiger Wood’s life this past year.  Character matters and lack of it has consequences.
• I continue to believe that God will do some amazing things in the life of our church this year!  We must continue to move forward!  We began to pray in the fall to see 100 salvations by Easter Sunday.  By my count we were just short of 50 salvations through Easter Sunday last week.  I am not disappointed at all!  I am excited that through our stretched faith, we saw many people turn to follow Jesus.  Now we must ask God what is next for our prayer and focused ministry efforts!  Be praying!
• Today is my wife’s birthday!  (April 12)  I am so thankful for her!  She is an amazing woman of God, mother, and wife.  If you read this, I would appreciate it if you sent her an email or gave her a call.  ”talkwithjill @ gmail.com
• I am so thankful for our volunteers!  You do an amazing job each and every Sunday to make it happen at Church at the Grove.
• Most would not know this, but we could not find the portable baptismal pool yesterday morning!  We went to pick it up and it wasn’t there!  Craig Calhoun, Steve Ryall, and Scott Nobles went all over Loganville to find it.  They made it happen and we ended up being a great morning.  Whew!

Keep praying, Keeping investing, keep inviting!

Jesus says, “Come to Me.”

Scripture Memory:
Matthew 11:28-30 (English Standard Version)

28(A) Come to(B) me, all who labor and are(C) heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29Take my yoke upon you, and(D) learn from me, for I am(E) gentle and lowly in heart, and(F) you will find rest for your souls. 30For(G) my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Action Step:
Pray this prayer daily during this series:  ”Jesus, please show me your way.”

Random Thoughts:

• What a great weekend overall for the Church at the Grove family!
• I loved the Easter Egg hunt and partnership with Corndawgs on Saturday.  What a crazy day!  We probably had 3000 children and possibly a couple more thousand adults there.  It was wild!  At one time, the traffic was backed up to Youth Middle School!
• I love our volunteers!  What a great group that helped us with the Easter Egg Hunt and served at Corndawgs on Saturday. Thank you to all who did such an awesome job working and serving to make the Easter Egg Hunt a great family and community experience!
• I was wiped out on Saturday after a crazy time with the Easter Egg Hunt!
• Sunday was an awesome day!  It was our largest crowd since we moved into the new school and the second largest crowd ever for Church at the Grove!
• I love Gabe, Austin and the band!  They did an awesome job putting together an awesome Easter celebration.
• We had several people to turn to Jesus and follow him on Sunday!  What a great thing to see people trust Jesus for forgiveness.  That is why we do what we do!
• My family had the opportunity to eat lunch with an incredible group of people at the home of Jimmy and Christi Spears. Jimmy can surely cook!  I love eating his sweet potato souffle!  We had a blast!
• I am so excited about what God is doing in and through our church!  We are growing and God is bringing so many new people into our fellowship.
• I am excited about our DETOX series.  Religion was and is the enemy of Jesus!  We must detox from the pull that religion has on our life and focus on the person of Jesus.  Religion is man’s attempt to get to God, Jesus came to initiate a relationship with each of us.
• I need you to help us follow up with all the guests you brought with you over Easter and recent weeks.  We know that people connect quickly through relationship and responsibility! Please give them a call and invite them back and connect them to some other people!

Keep praying, Keep investing, Keep inviting!

Scripture memory;
Ephesians 4:11-12 (ESV)
¹¹ And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,
¹² to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,

Action Step:
Commit to discover, develop and deploy your spiritual gifts in a local body of believers.

Random Thoughts:

• Sunday was a great day at the Grove.  I love seeing new faces and returning guests! 
• I am so thankful for the world’s greatest volunteers!  I am amazed every week at how God blesses our church through their efforts and ministry. 
• I love our band and worship team! 
• What a blast to get to eat lunch together and hang out for some food and fellowship!  It is not something we get to do very often and it was so nice to see people talk and get to know one another.  AND we raised over $900 for our Romania team.  WOW!
• I have loved our “BRING IT” series on spiritual gifts!  My heart’s desire is that everyone in our church would discover their gift and put it to use! 
• Here are some web sites with spiritual gift assessments to assist you in discovering your spiritual gifts.  Elmer Towns is a professor and guru in church leadership.  Check this site out for a gift survey.  This gift survey is another great resource and it is fairly brief. 
• Easter Sunday is this next week!  We have a huge Easter Egg hunt this coming Saturday at CornDawgs and a huge Sunday next Sunday!  I hope you are praying and inviting some of your friends, neighbors, and family members. 
• Easter Sunday services at 9:30am and 11am!  Don’t forget!  Get there early!
• We begin a brand new series called “DETOX: Replacing empty religious activity with an authentic pursuit of Jesus.”  I can’t wait. 

Keep praying, keep investing, keep inviting!