Tag Archive - Church

2011 in Review at Community Church

January 3, 2012 in Church with 1 Comment

Well, 2011 is in the history books now. Here are a few highlights & 1 low light we shared together as a church family.

  • In February, during our Sextastic series Jill preached to one of our largest crowds on the subject of ‘Marital Sex’. If you missed it…well, what can I say but sorry! Every couple present received the best ‘sex’ counseling for free. Just think about that benefit. Every Sunday we at Community get superior life ‘counseling’ from scripture just by showing up regularly & paying attention…but I digress. For those that missed Jill’s ‘Marital Sex’ talk start thanking God for technology. You can listen to it here.
  • In March, we launched Re-Lent with 40 days of unbroken prayer & fasting in our brand new Prayer Room that’s open 24/7.
  • Mother’s Day turned out to be one of our biggest days. Again, Jill was speaking. God’s keeping me humble! That day we showered moms with all kinds of love—cocktails, chocolate covered strawberries, jewelry & Georgetown Cupcakes to boot! Not to be outdone, we ratcheted up Father’s Day to ‘ManFest’ complete with batting cage, all you can eat wings & kegs of beer…root beer, of course. Continue Reading…

2010 in Review

January 11, 2011 in Church with 0 Comments

In January of this year Jill & I became the Senior Pastors of the Community Church. Seasons of transition & new leadership can be difficult for any business; especially a church family. In fact, when long term successful founding Pastors step down, churches normally experience significant decline-sadly many end up closing their doors. Well, we are just about to finish our 1st year & we’re so thankful to God & to you for all your support. I’m thrilled to share that instead of shrinking, our church has grown 7% and our giving is up 19% over last year. More people are coming to Christ, being helped, healed, lifted up & made whole than ever before!

Allow me to review with you some of the highlights from 2010-

- One of the 1st things we needed to address was our mounting indebtedness which was just at $300,000 (not including our mortgage). Literally, phone calls were coming every week for bills that were 60 & 90 plus days overdue! Can you say, ‘pressure!’ Well, to date all of our accumulated back bills are now paid off, we are operating within our budget & we have put aside a small reserve! Also, 2 years ago we had cut salaries & let critical people go in order to survive. Things were looking pretty grim. Well, as of today all staff salaries have been restored, they each even got a small Christmas bonus & we have started hiring back critical positions. Continue Reading…

Inaugural Car Show at Community Church

September 25, 2010 in Church with 0 Comments

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9 Signs of the Times

September 7, 2010 in Church, Culture with 1 Comment

We cannot ignore the seismic shifts in the world around us. Church futurist, Leonard Sweet charges, “If nothing in your ministry has changed in the past year, you’re not keeping up. Some Christians have minds that have not changed in fifty years. Not even rocks stay that still.” (AquaChurch pg. 234) Below is a brief overview of the context & era in which we minister. In short, here’s…

9 Signs of the Times

1.Chaotic Change: Senior professor of church growth at FTS, Eddie Gibbs points out that we live in an era discontinuous & chaotic change. And Gibbs describes William Easum’s view that current church practices were the product of the Industrial age, “a world of slow, incremental change.” But according to Easum, we live in the Quantum age, a world of complex and rapid change.(ChurchNext, pg 19) No one urges the church to acknowledge these swift and dramatic changes more than Leonard Sweet. He explains that, “change is happening so fast, we can’t really imagine the world of our parents, and we can’t really imagine what will be our children’s world. There is a new web page every two seconds, a new product every thirty seconds. World knowledge doubles every eighteen months, with more information having been produced in the last thirty years than in the previous five thousand.” (Aqua Church, pg. 16) What does this all mean? Gibbs concludes that, “what we are experiencing is not a short-lived turbulence but the dawn of a new era-or the creeping shadow heralding a new Dark Age, depending on your perspective.” (ChurchNext, pg. 66) And what is our perspective? Faced with this new reality, Continue Reading…

10 Things to Celebrate

August 30, 2010 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

I just wanted to take a minute to share & celebrate with you what’s been going on in our church since the transition-over 7 months ago. (Can you believe it? We’re almost one year into Chapter 2 already!)

10 Things to Celebrate

1.One of the 1st things we needed to address was our mounting indebtedness which was just at $300,000. At the 1st of the year in an Encounter service, I asked you to pray that we would be able to sell the old fire escape teen center despite the down turn in the real estate market. Well, just this past week we sold the teen center for $550,000. So, I’m thrilled to announce that to date all of our accumulated back bills are now paid off, we are operating within our budget & we have put aside a small reserve!

2.Now that we’ve had some time to monitor Elim Café it is evident that it will pay off its loan of $25,000 sooner than expected-in under 3 years! Remember, once Elim Café is paid for, 100% of the proceeds will go to missions. Imagine…in just a few short years, Elim will be throwing off thousands of dollars into missions & outreach work every year! Now, that’s coffee on a mission! Continue Reading…

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