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A “sneak peak” into Sunday:

This Sunday’s going to ROCK at Mountain Lake! Here are highlights and peaks into Sunday’s events:

• Special “sneak preview” worship service in our NEW AUDITORIUM for our church family before our Grand Opening Next week!
• Worship services move to 9:30 & 11 AM.
• We’re going to surprise you in the services!
• Get there early and get a seat! I promise you won’t be disappointed!
• Our entrance and exit plan changes! Enter South; Exit North! Be nice…
• KRAZE (our elementary children’s ministry environment WILL NOT MEET THIS SUNDAY. You will worship with your parents! How cool is that?!
• The new Resource Center opens and you’ll love it!!
• Two new designs of Mountain Lake T-Shirts will be here! Get yours!
• Last Sunday to participate in our Children’s Ministry Shower! We still need your help greatly here!
• Last Sunday to join the 10.5.1 Crew! We still need you here, if you haven’t joined!
• Following each service, we’ll head out to serve our community through SERVOLUTION.
• Yes, even if you haven’t signed up, or it’s your first time at our church, you can go out with us Sunday afternoon and do yard work, painting, etc. to serve our community! We’ll lay it all out for you!
• Come prepared not just to GO TO church, but HAVE church, and then GO BE the church in our community!
• Think this Sunday will be fun?! Don’t miss it!

Tech Thursday: fave iphone apps, pt. 1

Yes, I’m a geek. Today for tech Thursday, I’ll let you guys in on how I get so much done with/through/on my iphone. There are some nifty productivity apps that I use in my everyday life that make life less complicated and keep my life pretty much 100% paperless.

With these apps, you’re on your way to a more productive life! And IF you don’t have an iphone yet, you’re not a Christian…Just sayin…

REALLY, you don’t know what you’re missing!

 

Carbon fin Outliner

My life is FULL of meetings. Meetings full of agendas. Agendas and communication points that I create. Ever sitting around at work and remember that you need to ask someone something or bring something to someone else’s attention, and you tell yourself: “at the next meeting, I’ve got to remember to bring that up.” If that describes you, this is your app. What’s funny, is that this is not even the intended function of the app, but it’s the way I use it.  I have a Master list of all the major meetings I have weekly or monthky with different aspects of my team, volunteers, etc. As I think about something I want to bring up at the next meeting, I simply add it as a sub-bullet to the next DATED agenda. I almost never prepare for a meeting, because I’m preparing for it all the time! This app has changed the way I do mtgs. FOREVER!

Vlingo

Vlingo is a voice recognition app I’ve seen yet. With vlingo, you just speak something into the microphone, and vlingo does an amazing job doing what you tell it! You can DIAL ANYONE in your contact list simply by saying: “call Tricia Lovejoy on her mobile” and BAM! It nails it almost every time! My favorite function on vlingo is the ability to post what you say directly to your social networking apps like facebook and twitter! Eliminates the need to type what you;re up to all the time! Love it! Just a matter of time until they’ll allow you to TEXT MSG people by voice! Stay posted there.

LET ME KNOW IF YOU DOWNLAOD AND/OR USE THESE APPS BASED ON MY ADVICE AND GIVE ME YOUR FEEDBACK!

Velocity: Six Flags Video from Sunday

Our mission…

For the last nine and a half years, God has shown favor on Mountain Lake Church in not only giving us a clear mission, but allowing us to accomplish it through His power, one person at a time. What I love most about our mission, is the fact that we didn’t invent it.  It’s taken from a cool book: called the Bible!

Our mission: Giving people a place to belong in a healthy relationship with God and others & become more like Jesus.

Everything we do at our church…I mean everything…flows out of our desire to see people belong and become.  We are passionate about helping people come to know and love God; know and love people; and become what God wants them to be! We keep it simple around here. That’s good news for you!

Sunday Reflex: 7-26-09

Reflections for yesterday:

• The last Sunday in July? Are you kidding me?! August?!
• The entire existing building has gone through a metamorphosis since last week: new carpet in what will become our elementary and student ministry environments; children’s and student ministry theming; 
• TONS of first time guests yesterday! The first mailer and personal invites are already changing the way tons of people think about church!
• We unveiled our new Mtn Lake T-Shirts and sold out by the second service! Don’t worry.  We’ll have a bunch more there this week!
• Our Worship Team did a fantabulous job! I LOVED our trio of  ladies leading worship! You girls rocked together!
• “We Unite”  by the Elevation Worship Team has been our anthem during this series. I’ve loved it!
• Rodney did a great job sharing his heart yesterday. God calls us in; but simultaneously sends us out.
• My favorite quote from the msg? “God has to treat us like a newborn baby and an 18 yr old at the same time. Come here & let me hug you; now get out of the house and DO something with your life!”
• My wife is a pastor. Period. She loves, leads, and shepherds as many people as I do! She is my partner.
• TONS of people made decisions yesterday to gain momentum by MOVING into our community and world!
• Yesterday afternoon, we held LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY for all of our leaders. Best showing we’ve ever had! We held it in our new auditorium! It was awesome! We talked about avoiding spiritual heart attack!
• I moved in my new office!
• Two weeks until the Grand Opening of our New Auditorium!

The best thing Christians have going for us…

Above everything else, there’s one primary thing Christians have going for us. GRACE. GRACE is the real distinctive of the life of a Christ follower.  NOT morality, by the way. Just because we become Christians, it doesn’t mean we aren’t still JACKED UP SINNERS. We still fail. We still struggle. We still tend to be self centered, self sufficient, selfish, prideful, shameful sinners! The good news is that being a good person is not what makes us Christians! Jesus does! A relationship with Him does! His forgiveness of our sins does!

Jesus’ grace is what makes Christians different! We’re forgiven! We’re not condemned! We’re not guilty! We’re released. Set free.  The best thing Christians have going for us is grace. So today, if you know Jesus, thank Him for the one thing you have going for you that MOST of the world does NOT HAVE: GRACE!

If, for whatever reason, you’ve never asked Jesus to come into your life and be YOUR Forgiver and Leader, just do it now! Confess your sin to Him!  You acknowledgement of your imperfection makes you a candidate for His grace! Give Him Your life! THEN you’ll have something going for you! the best thing: GRACE!

“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.”  Romans 8:1-3 (NLT)

Changing the way people think about church…

For the last nine years, one of our primary values at Mountain Lake has been changing the way people think about church.  Some might even ask: “WHY would we want to change the way people think about church?” Well, in my experience, most people in our world who don’t go to church aren’t turned off on God. They’re just turned off on church! Why? When many people think about church they think of words like:

• Boring
• Irrelevant
• Judgmental
• Stuffy
• Hypocritical
• After my money

SO when we started Mountain lake, on of our primary goals was CHANGING the way people think about church, BECAUSE if we change the way they think about church, we can change the way they think about Jesus! We can help them realize that Jesus is WAY MORE relevant to their lives, and that having a relationship with Him is more simple and more fun than we could ever imagine!

Changing the way people think about church is our motivation behind our:

• Casual Atmosphere
• Music people can relate to
• Messages people can understand
• Engaging children’s environments
• REAL people doing REAL life!

If you  haven’t been into church for a while for very RELEVANT reasons, PLEASE give it another shot at Mountain Lake. We’ll change the way you think about church.

“If you really knew me” series…

HOW WOULD YOU FINISH THE ABOVE STATEMENT?

What would most people not know about you?  But here’s a bigger question: Why? Why are we afraid for people to REALLY know us?  ESPECIALLY IN CHURCH! I’ll tell you:

• Fear. Fear of being judged; fear of rejection, being treated differently or even ostracized!
• Pride.  We don’t want people to know we don’t have it all together: spiritually, morally, relationally or financially!
• Shame.  We’re embarrassed. Period. Bottom line.

If you’ve ever felt ANY of these emotions, especially in or about church, then this series is for you! 

Messages in this series:

• “If you really knew me, you’d judge me.”
• “If you really knew me, you’d know I’m hurting.”
• “If you really knew me, you’d know  I doubt.”
• If you really knew me, you’d know I’m pretending.”
• “If you really knew me, you’d know how far I’ve strayed.”

Begins Sunday, August 9, at our Grand Opening of our new worship auditorium! See you then, if not before!

 

Fasting: The Why behind the What…

Fasting is not something that’s talked about much these days. I was once at a Pastor’s Convention where I heard a Pastor say: “If you want to know why we don’t hear much preaching about fasting these days, look over at the fat preacher next to you.” WOW. Yet, the entire Bible is full of examples and commands to make fasting AND prayer a part of our lives on a consistent basis!  When Jesus taught on prayer in Matthew 6:1-18,  it’s obvious He held the practice of fasting on even ground with prayer.  Just as He said: “When you pray, pray like this,” Jesus also said: “When you fast, fast like this…”.  Jesus didn’t say “IF “you pray and “IF” you fast. He said “WHEN!”

However, we can perform the “religious practice” of fasting and gain no spiritual benefit whatsoever! If we fast with the wrong motivations: to be noticed by others, or seek to manipulate God; or if we don’t take the time and energy we would spend on food, and focus it on God, we will miss out on what God wants to do in and through us when we fast!

Isaiah 58 also teaches that are hearts need to be soft and repentant when we fast. Our love for people must not waver when we fast. If we are mean as a snake while we’re fasting, then we defeat the purpose! Look what God says:

Isaiah 58:3-9 (NLT) 3‘We have fasted before you!’ they say. ‘Why aren’t you impressed? We have done much penance, and you don’t even notice it!’” I will tell you why! It’s because you are living for yourselves even while you are fasting. You keep right on oppressing your workers. 4What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me. 5You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance, bowing your heads like a blade of grass in the wind. You dress in sackcloth and cover yourselves with ashes. Is this what you call fasting? Do you really think this will please the LORD? 6“No, the kind of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to stop oppressing those who work for you. Treat them fairly and give them what they earn. 7I want you to share your food with the hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help. 8“If you do these things, your salvation will come like the dawn. Yes, your healing will come quickly. Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the LORD will protect you from behind. 9Then when you call, the LORD will answer. ‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.

What God wants at the end of the day is our heart!  Fasting is a means of getting us to that point, as we humble ourselves before Him! It is a way of breaking down our pride, arrogance, and healing us of our spiritual apathy!

Today are you willing to give God all of your heart? And then watch Him do a miracle in response?

Sunday Reflex 7/19/09…

WOW! Yesterday was AMAZING! God moved on people’s hearts in our services! HUNDREDS of responded to God’s call to be the spiritual “pit crew” God designed us to be! Here are a few reflections on Sundays services:

• The rumors are true. We showed a video of me driving 180 mph on the Talladega Speedway (see  the video posted below)!
• Todd Nichols and the band KILLED it with a great worship set and a moving rendition of “Take my life”. There are new people joining our Worship Team & band every week these days! I love it!
• The West Forsyth Campus joined us this Sunday for the first time in 19 months as we get ready to move in our auditorium in 20 days! Love you guys!
• The message was about the value of a pit crew. The most amazing thing about a pit crew is not that they change tires, clean windshields, and refuel cars, but that they do it all TOGETHER in about 15 seconds! TOGETHER they have so much more impact! We can, too!
• TONS of people responded in committing to be the 8th man,  the crew member who comes over the wall during the 2nd  half of the race and helps the team win!
• Early numbers put us at around  150 new volunteer sign-ups at MLC!
• We also challenged the MLC family to  join the “10-5-1 Crew”: to step up to the plate financially and give an extra $10 a week, for the next 5 months, to help us minister to that  one person or family that we will give a place to belong and become, but might not be able to give.
• Early estimates put us at about 150 FAMIIES who joined this crew, too!  Welcome aboard! Thanks for being our 8th man! God’s going to help us win the race through you! If you haven’t joined, there’s still time! Drop me a comment, and we will add you to the crew!
• God is preparing us for GREAT IMPACT! Now, we’re just praying for favor with a bunch of people who are disconnected from Christ and the church, and willing to give God and the church one more shot!
• Who are YOU inviting to be with us on Grand Opening Weekend?