Happy July 4th everyone! Hope you are having a FANTASTIC 4th of July weekend. I am SO THANKFUL for our freedom. We have the GREAT privilege of gathering together to worship God without fear of persecution OR prosecution. To all those serving or who have served our country in the armed forces, thank you for fighting for our freedom! We worshiped today in freedom because others gave their lives for it. Here are my ruminations on the day.
— HUGE day at Element Church today. TONS of stuff happening. This is going to be long (just warning ya).
— Just got word from Pastor Derek that 18 kids received Christ today. Yes, EIGHTEEN! Praise God. That is why we do what we do.
— FYI: Pastor Derek follows up with the parents of EVERY student who makes a decision for Jesus to make sure their child understood the decision and wasn’t just “following the crowd”. He also asks if their child has already asked Jesus into their heart. There are some occasions where parents acknowledge that their child had already accepted Christ, or that they really feel they don’t understand it yet.
— Pastor Derek is doing a FANTASTIC job, and I am SO excited that the kids at Element regularly hear about Jesus and have a chance to respond to Him.
— We started our backpack ministry today. SO STOKED to see what God does through this. Element Church bought 400 backpacks that we are challenging YOU to fill with school supplies for Rossman Elementary School. We are going to provide EVERY student in Rossman (who will take it) backpacks and supplies for the year. We are challenging each family to take home a list of supplies and bring them back by August 1st.
— Jay Goldberg and his outreach team did a GREAT job getting the lists and supplies and everything organized. Jay and his team are currently working on a distribution plan. WAY TO GO summer outreach team!
— One couple today came to the Element Gives Back table and told Jay “We would like to provide $20 clothing gift cards for EVERY student in EVERY backpack.” WHAT? SO cool! Such a HUGE blessing.
— A teenager in Element also expressed interest in wanting to help buy beginner music books for those taking music in the school. LOVE seeing people step up and respond to God’s call. I have no idea where God’s gonna take this but I’m praying for LIFE and IMPACT to the students and families who receive help.
— Remember, you can pick up your supplies list at the Element Gives Back table in the lobby and bring back the supplies by August 1st. I also challenge you to pray over the supplies as a family before you bring them back and ask for God’s Spirit to “go with these supplies to offer life and impact in Jesus name”.
— You are MORE than welcome to come by the office through the week if you didn’t get a chance to grab your supply list today.
— We started our new series today called The Frayed. It’s a series on prayer. I TRULY believe that this could be the most impactful series to our Christian faith that we’ve done. My prayer is that through this series we’d become a PEOPLE of prayer. I hope that we are called to a new level of prayer and commitment through this series.
- Preached from Luke 11:1-4 today (The Lord’s Prayer). The Big Question: How do I pray?
- Prayer may be one of the most sought after disciplines in the Christian faith, but one of the last practiced in our daily lives.
- Prayer is NOT a gift it is a practice. Prayer warriors are not people God “gifted” with prayer, they are the ones who simply made prayer a priority and a practice.
- Prayer is more communion and less coercion. It is not about getting God to move, but allowing HIM to move ME.
- The moment I begin to view prayer as MORE than communion WITH Him, my main objective will start to be the coercion OF Him.
- Effective prayers aren’t necessarily ones answered “Yes” by Him, but ones where my will answers “Yes” to His.
- The CORE of prayer is relationship. Not doctrine, routine or ritual but relationship. “Our FATHER.”
- God is to be approached as “Father” but revered as a HOLY GOD. “Hallowed be Your name”
- The problem is too many of us want a Father who is intimately involved in our lives but stays personally out of our business. We want to invite Him into some areas of our lives while not being intrusive in others.
- If you try to ignore the implications of God’s holiness in your life you will never experience the power of His presence. HALLOWED be Your Name.
- We can start living so far beyond today that we lose sight of what matters in the moment. We can live outside of what God wants to do IN and THROUGH us today. “Give us TODAY our daily bread”
- Lots of us spend way too much time on the forgiveness part and not enough time on the POWER part of the Lord’s Prayer. Does God forgive? YES! Does God set us free? ABSOLUTELY. The power of God doesn’t JUST forgive us, it also enables us to live for Him. God’s power doesn’t overlook our sin but helps us OVERCOME them!
— We added some prayer “initiatives” in this month to deepen and increase our prayer lives. If you can be a part of it, we’d LOVE to have you.
- 96 hours through the Bible. We are challenging the church to PRAY through the Scriptures in 96 hours, one hour at a time. Starting Tuesday from 10 AM – 4 PM we have one hour time slots available to come into the worship center and PRAY through the Bible on behalf of Element. One Bible, one journal to write thoughts and prayers down…96 hours of reading and praying. Sign up at the e:connect table or call or email the church for more info.
- Jericho prayer walk. Thursday, July 29th at 4 PM we are going to read the final few verses of Revelation from the 96 hour reading and then prayer walk around our property 7 times. We will bathe our place in prayer, asking God for SALVATION and VICTORY.
- Wednesday lunchtime prayer. Every Wednesday from noon – 1 PM we are opening the worship center for anyone to come for prayer. We’ll play some worship music and you can pray for your church, city, family and/or friends.
— Adam and the band ROCKED out Livin’ On A Prayer to kick off the service and series today. It was a blast.
— That’s all I got for today. Getting ready to head to some friends house for a 4th of July BBQ.
Till the end,
Jeff
