It’s funny how; depending on our attitude, things can either be opportunity or obstacle.

I choose to surround myself with positive, faith filled friends, Pastors, and family.   We could always use another friend that buys in 100%, that believes the result will be success, that pushes us to chase our dreams.

*As followers of Christ we should be the most faith filled, joyful, grateful people on the planet.  As a “follower” of Christ we benefit from all the favor and blessings God poured out for His son Jesus.  As we “follow” Jesus we become more like Him.

Jesus was a HEALER, a MIRACLE WORKER, a WATER WALKER, a FOOD MULTIPLIER, a STORM CALMER, PEACE GIVER.  The same power that He walked in is available to us, His DISCIPLES.

In 2012 my challenge to myself and to Relate Church in creating Spiritual Momentum would simply to be to TAKE ACTION.  You may be a “believer” in your heart, in your private world.  Jesus called His disciples and said come “follow me”.

Jesus calls us to action.  Those who followed Him and took action, found action!   Miracles, wonders, healing, etc.    Sunday I talked about Baptism and if that’s your next step lets take it and believe for God’s “Super” to meet our natural and we can have a Supernatural, Spirit filled life!     Life to the fullest is available to everyone!

Very thankful that the best is yet to come.

By now, if your a coffee drinker you’ve possibly suffered the migraine withdrawal headaches.  I have and it made me think two things.  1) What does it feel like for people coming off REAL drugs?  2) Caffeine can’t be good for me if this is what my body does without it. Fortunately I’ve pressed through and no longer have headaches.

You may be reading this blog not knowing much about fasting.  The fast we’re currently doing as a Church is called the “Daniel” fast.   Basically this fast involves eating only fruits and vegetables and drinking water and juices for 21 days.   You may decide to modify your fast weather that be for a shorter amount of days or by what you are, or are not eating.

The goal is not to be legalistic but to up our prayer lives and up our intensity in seeking God.  Fasting is a Biblical way to amp things up.  Keep your eyes on the prize!  Deeper relationship with Jesus and the ability to hear His voice.  Fast expectantly, for God to move in your life!

He is faithful to more than we could ask think or imagine!

Lets bring in 2012 with prayer and intentional direction.

You can feel our culture in worship developing and deepening. I love to look out and see hands raised and we sing and hear all the voices lifting up praise to Jesus!

Our Dream Team is growing and getting better every week.  We’ve got some warm, friendly faces welcoming first time guests and our regular church family.

As the culture of the Church is created I pray our focus will always be for more, prayer, more worship, more healing, more lives responding to a salvation call.   As we’re 1 day into our Daniel fast I’ve made a list of things I’m believing God for during this time.  I would encourage you to join in the fasting and reading plan.   I’m not fasting just cause but I’m doing it with a purpose and a goal in mind.

Determine in your heart what your seeking God for during this time.  Thank Him in advance for the breakthrough or miracle your believing for.  Maybe its for VISION for your life? Maybe it’s direction?

Lets do this, and in 21 days we’ll see our lives changed, our faith strengthened, lost saved and God move in a mighty way in our community!

2012 will be a great year for those who approach it that way and make a plan for success.  The best thing we can do is plan.   Jeremiah 29:11 says

Maybe Christmas for you was like the very first Christmas; a perfect mess!  Maybe things didn’t go as planned.  Sometimes when nothing goes as planned and we’re left with a huge mess Jesus actually has room to do what only He can do.

If you’ve felt like 2011 has been a bit out of control like many of us have, lets expect that we’ve got the perfect condition for Jesus to move.   How many times did we see Jesus disciples in a huge storm?  Jesus was with them the entire time and they we’re still freaking out.  We can do the same things so many times.  The storm seems huge, when all the while we’ve got Jesus right beside us.  One of the names of Jesus is Emmanuel; which means, God with us.   Not just that He walked the earth just like us but that He actually WALKS WITH US.

Having Jesus with us doesn’t mean we won’t face storms; job loss, health problems, relational problems, it just means He will walk with us.

His strength is available for us today.  This is a reminder for me personally.  The Bible says He will never leave you or forsake you.  it does not say we will never face trails.  I love the lyrics from the song Never Once, “Never once did we ever walk alone, never once did He leave us on our own, You are faithful, God You are faithful!”

Lets take a moment today to remember the faithfulness of Jesus.  That while were yet sinners Christ died for us.

We had just about anything that could go wrong to exactly that.   If this was football there would have definitely been a “delay of game” call made.  While our team was fixing projector/ sound issues with our video I attempted to fill some awkward time with  a drum solo.

I guess this is a perk of being the pastor is that you can play a drum solo in church; a true childhood fantasy come to life.  As much as it was nice to life a childhood fantasy, it was a bit of a Pastoral nightmare.  Things not working properly etc.

In spite of that the message was one that hit home in a big way.  God wanting us to walk through the process.  Serving the same in private as you would in public.

I’m so excited for our Christmas Sunday service as we’ll look at the REAL Christmas story, drama and all.   The first Christmas looked very similar to an episode of MTV’s “Teen Mom”, Teenage pregnancy, talks of divorce, verging homelessness, paranormal visitations and all sorts of drama.

Sometimes at Christmas things don’t go exactly as planned.  In Jesus story that was also the case for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.   Come join us for a candle light Christmas morning family service this Sunday at 10am at Royal Cinemas in Pooler.

Have a blessed week!

-Drew

As the Church; God’s plan A for reaching the world, we more than ever need to reflect the image of Christ in our community.  Serving is the bridge we walk on as believers to our world.  When the world around us knows us by our actions first then they will hear our message.  Paul said that he did not come with wise and eloquent words but with a demonstration of the Spirits power.

Many times the church has little influence, resource, attendance and impact because we have little or no power.  When Jesus went to heaven to be with His Father He said wait and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

In our busy lives sometimes the last thing we want to do is wait.   The Bible says “they that wait on the Lord will renew their strength, run and not grow weary, walk and not faint”   Once again waiting on the Lord resulting in strength and power.

We will make the biggest impact in our community when we have waited on the Lord.

1) When we wait, we listen. Listen to the voice of God and find out what His plan is.  2) When we wait, we receive power.

The world is familiar with powerless religion. That’s why their not bothered with our T-shirts, bumper stickers, pot lucks, mailers and ultimately our Jesus.

When we receive the power of God and move in it we look like the Church God intended.

I love our church and I love that this last Sunday we had 2 people put their faith in Christ.  I love that a man brought his neighbor who had not been in church for over 30 years!  We should feel the severity of our opportunity.

Eternity and relationship hang in the balance!  Lets live the lives God intended.  Life to the fullest.

Lets

We had Joe Carr in from Wilmington for our Encounter Retreat.  We stayed at the New Ebeneezer retreat center and had some great teaching from Joe and felt the Holy Spirit move.  We had the privilege of Joe bringing in the Seed of Hope booth.  We’ve sponsored our child through them for 3 years now.  Its a great ministry worth investing in where children are reached.

This has been a fantastic week for people stepping out in serving, giving, in prayer and in the Holy Spirit.  God is always stretching us beyond our comfort zone and He does this for out growth.

Every Sunday its great to see new people connecting and serving on our dream team.  It was to my surprise to find that one of our new Dream Team folks had built some new stage stairs as well as a pipe and drape cart.  This helps our front of house set up and tear down way faster & the stairs helps anyone on stage to get there safely.  The stairs I had rigged up were simply that, rigged!

Finally we got to take communion together as a church which is always a special time to give thanks and remember what Jesus has done for us.  Before Jesus took communion with His disciples he took off His outer garments and washed His disciples feet as an example of how to serve others.

Serving Jesus will involve taking off our church clothes to get down and dirty where the need is, serving others!

Join us this Sunday as we dive deeper into Servolution!

Servolution is a book that Pastor Dino Rizzo wrote and has modeled at Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge Louisiana.    Pastor Dino is one of our overseers at Relate.  He blessed our church with 100 copies of his book Servolution.   It’s this heart of generosity that we have known in Pastor Dino for over 10 years now.

Our relationship with Pastor Dino goes back to when Sarah and I were preparing to go to London England as missionaries.  Dino met us and immediately took us under his wing.  Healing Place Church supported us financially while we were in England.  Dino introduced us to the ARC (Association of Related Churches) and brought us to a small conference in Atlanta.   It was there that we began our journey with ARC, the organization we planted Relate through.  I can honestly say that without the love and action of Dino that Relate Church would probably not be here.  He is a Pastor that adds value to everyone he is around. This is why the idea of Servolution has stuck with us.

Saturday night our Dream Team went downtown Savannah and passed out blankets to the homeless.  We were able to meet a felt need in our community and serve the least of these.

A Servolution happens when we put our faith into action.

*A Servolution is serving others as if we were serving Jesus.        Check out this scripture from Sundays service.

(Matthew 25: 34-40) ³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, ³⁶ I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’  ³⁷ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ³⁸ When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? ³⁹ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ ⁴⁰ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

I look forward to the following weeks ahead as we dive into serving our community.  As we get God’s heart in serving we will see Savannah changed and the people in our lives experience the kindness of Jesus leading them to repentance.

Join us Sunday as we continue Servolution.

Sunday I spoke on connecting hope and relationship.  Many folks have grabbed onto Salvation and received this free gift.  As we are called to make disciples the next step is being transformed.  When we receive Jesus we come simply as we are.  As we follow Him we begin to act like He acts and serve as Christ served.

Since we launched Relate, 45 people have put their hope in Christ, 5 of which happened this last Sunday from the Children’s ministry!

Speaking of Children’s ministry.  We had a few of our faithful lead teachers finally get to attend a service.  They have served faithfully for 10 weeks and it was great to see them worship with us and sit with their families.  Many people will never see the behind the scenes workers, praying, setting up equipment,changing diapers, entering data, teaching children, and setting up equipment, but without these faithful workers we wouldn’t be able to accomplish our mission.

At Relate Church every member is a minister.  People who get the fact that the church is not about them or what they can get out of it but how they can serve others who have not yet experienced the love of Jesus.  I love that our team gets that we are being the hands and feet of Jesus reaching into our community.

I’m looking forward to this Saturday as we get to bring blankets to some of Savannah’s homeless.  We’ll be meeting at Forsythe Park Saturday night at 6:00pm.

This Sunday we’ll be kicking off our Servolution series and we’ll be looking outside of ourselves to serve our community.  The more we serve the least of these in our world Jesus will build His church.

The best is yet to come.