Happy Memorial Day Weekend. WHEW did the holiday show in attendance. Lowest since October. OUCH! GREAT services today. SO EXCITED for what God is doing among our people. Here are my ruminations on the day.
— This in no way does enough to say thank you to all of those who are currently serving or have served in the armed forces of America, but on behalf of Element Church: “THANK YOU for all you do and have done”. For those of you who have lost loved ones while serving for our freedom, THANK YOU for standing beside your family member as they served on our behalf. We are literally, forever indebted to those who have served our country and given their lives for our freedom. May we remember them, not only on this Memorial Day, but each day we enjoy the freedoms we take for granted.
— Lowest attendance since October and 2nd highest offering in Element history! (It’s all in your perspective though. Our attendance today was still higher than our average one year ago and its our lowest by far in 8 months. Can’t complain.)
— THANK YOU so much to all who are stepping up financially to support what God is doing at Element. SO proud of peoples commitment to support Kingdom work with their finances. Keep it up, God has GREAT things in store.
— We closed out our series OPEN today. It’s been a series all about worship. I shared the back story today of where this series came from. It’s literally been 2 years in the making as God has molded Adams and my heart on what God is calling Element to be about when it comes to worship. It all started 2 years ago with a conversation between Adam and I in my office that was inspired by Amos 5:21-24. We both blogged about it HERE and HERE. We finally felt led to do a sermon series on it in May. I’ve loved this series personally and I feel it has not only been defining for me, but for our church as well. Here are some excerpts on the day:
- True worship happens when our feelings our directed TO Him and our actions are guided BY Him. That’s when we worship in spirit AND in Truth.
- Answered the question “How do we avoid ego music?” today. Our text was Matthew 25:31-46 (One of the most challenging passages in Scripture)
- I will quickly get past worship being about me, when I realize that one day I’ll stand before HIM.
- When we worship we are singing to a God who judges, that’s why I’m so GLAD he is also a God who SAVES!
- Ego music happens when I cease to think that I need saving or cease to care that anyone else needs saved.
- The righteous said “When did we?” in response to Christ’s list of their good deeds because they weren’t doing them to GET something. They were doing them because they HAD something. They had the heart of God and His heart was about those things.
- We are NOT called to be normal. We are called to partner with the supernatural, and when you partner with the supernatural abnormal things happen.
- When we view the world through the lens of God we see people as He does. Actually, when we view the world through the lens of God we begin to see people AS Jesus Himself. “But if I saw Jesus I’d do ANYTHING for Him.” The reality is, according to this passage, when we see our neighbor we see Jesus. When we go to work we see Jesus. When we go to school we see Jesus. But to be honest, I wonder if too many times I don’t want to see the world through Jesus’ eyes…because them I’m responsible to do something about it. And that’s going to cost me.
- Sometimes I wonder if I’m being more responsible for my family’s pleasure, and not taking responsibility to make sure my family pleases God.
— I challenged our church to join us on the first ever Element Church missions trip. I shared a bunch of statistics about the area we feel called to go to. Homeless rates. Single parent rates. How many below poverty level, etc. Then I revealed where we were going. CHEYENNE, WY! We LIVE in the middle of a mission field and WE WILL do something about it.
— With that challenge we are looking for people to help serve on an outreach team. Element Gives Back Outreach is a HUGE part of what we do, and as we grow it is getting bigger and bigger. If you have a heart and passion for outreach, and would like to help serve in some outreach planning please let us know.
— We pulled this van up right by the main entrance yesterday and revealed what it was for. The teens in Fusion have been giving their own money since July to buy a mini-van for a single mom. Pastor Andy felt called to do something to impact one families life after being challenged at a youth conference last summer and laid down the gauntlet to the teens. They responded. They raised $4000 and Element matched that. Andy had a BUNCH of applications and then had the difficult job of selecting one mom to show God’s love to. He met with her and the one who nominated her and developed a list of needs she has.
— Not only are we giving the van away to her next week, but Andy had money leftover to buy new tires for it, AND we challenged you to respond by providing some other needs she had. Many of you took home an item off the needs board that you would provide for her. Those need to be turned back in this coming Sunday or sooner (June 6th). If you did not get a chance to grab an item, you can get a hold of Pastor Andy for what still needs to be provided for this mom. She has 4 kids and could REALLY use some Christians to show her the love of Christ!
— I believe a couple of the bigger items were not responded to. A lawnmower, George Foreman grill (couple other things)
— Then we unveiled the next big step we are taking in serving our community as a church. Every year, there are HUNDREDS (if not thousands) of students who need assistance to purchase backpacks and school supplies for school. I felt like the Lord was asking us, in a small way, to make a dent in this issue. The best way we knew how was to just adopt one school. That means other schools will be left out, but we have to start somewhere. So we contacted the social representative at Rossman Elementary School here in Cheyenne and asked if Element could provide backpacks and school supplies for EVERY student for next school year.
— She did some checking and confirmed that we could help in this way. Now, we understand that not every family at Rossman elementary is in need, and not every family will accept the help. We know there are MANY other families who could use help too, but we can’t help everyone. We are doing WHAT we can, WHEN we can, HOW we can for WHOEVER we can.
— Along with the 4th quarter report cards, they are sending home a note to the parents explaining what Element is doing for them.
— SO, at the end of June and early July you will come to church and see the lobby lined with approx 330 backpacks. (That’s how many students are at Rossman and about how many families attend Element Church) Inside each backpack will be a school supply list for an individual student. We will challenge each family to take one backpack home and bring it back filled with that students supplies for the year.
— Our desire is to impact an entire school by saying “We’ll choose now to live for them and view the world through a different lens.”
— If you belong to Element and were not able to attend yesterday, I encourage you to listen to the message online tomorrow @ www.elementweb.net It is a challenge to all of us.
— We bought a van for a mom, but it’s not the last one we’ll buy. We bought a house for needy families, but it’s not the last one we’ll buy. We’re providing a school with supplies, but it’s not the last school we’ll supply. We started a church in Cheyenne, but it’s not the last church we will start. We can’t change THE world, but we can change OUR world and when OUR world changes, the world changes. One life…one school…one mom at a time.
— This IS who we are and it IS what we are going to continue to do. We are called to serve Cheyenne and that is where we are going. Who’s with me?
Till the end,
Jeff
