God has placed in us gifts that we need to stir into flame (1 Timothy 1:6). He as also called us to consider how to stir up one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24)  We have gits in us and christian brothers and sisters around us that need to be stired up.

Stir is a day that we set aside once a month to pray and fast together as a church and we are asking God to stir us up.  We gather together for a corporate time of prayer at 6 – 8 pm at the connection building. If you are going to join with us please sign up at the service or e-mail us at info@lifeconnectionchurch.net.

The next Stir is June 30th.

Genesis 32:30, “And Jacob called the name of that place ‘Peniel’ because he said, ‘ I have seen God face to face and my life was preserved’.”

Our next encounter is scheduled for February 6, 2010, this is a weekend designed for you to encounter Jesus face to face, to receive deliverance in your souls and complete healing in your emotions. We believe you will see a radical change and you will experience real freedom.  If you are feeling the leading of the spirit to get alone and encounter Jesus and experience the Gospel then sign up and pay today.  The total cost for the encounter is $40.

encounter.

Saturday.

7:30am – Breakfast & Registration

8:15 am – Worship & Prayer

8:30 am – Face to Face Encounter – Peniel – (Pastor Aaron)

10  am – Break

10:15 am –  Repentance (Dave Negron)

12 pm – Lunch

1 pm – Forgiveness (Dana Dailey)

2:30 pm – Break

2:45 pm – The Cross (Pastor Aaron)

4:00 pm – Break

4:15 pm – Ressurection (Shawn Lind)

5:30 pm – Dinner

8 pm – Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Pastor Aaron)

sunday.

7:45 am – The Vision (Pastor Aaron)

8:30 am – Prayer at Church

10:15 am – Service

This is a encouragement written to the church by Elder Shawn Lind.

“I would rather have more of God’s grace than my problems removed”

2 Corinthians 4:8-9 “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

More than ever before I think people can relate to this verse. We feel beat down, trudging though life, with no real hope on the horizon. Some of us find it hard to pay the bills, or even find a job, even though we are doing all that we can.  Nothing seems to be working, and it’s hard to find the strength to even keep going. They ask, “What’s the point in going on?”

Some try to please God, and yet despite their effort they don’t feel connected to Him at all. Discouragement, doubt, division, hopelessness, and bitterness begin to take root.  More than ever we need encouragement.  It’s wonderful to know that Jesus said we should not worry about tomorrow, for today is filled with enough troubles (Matt 6:34).

What’s so amazing about that verse is that right before it says; “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”

The most important factor is to “FIX” or “SET” your attention on God, and his ways. God is good. His Kingdom is FAIR, JUST, and HOLY. He sees your problems and difficulties. When we set our attention on HIM we are renewed by hope and faith. He may choose not to “remove” the obstacle, but he can give us more grace to go through the challenge.

In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul prays for God to “remove this thorn from my side”. God response was that His grace is sufficient for him, and that His power is made perfect in weakness.  I would rather have more of God’s grace than my problems removed.

Imagine that you are in a canoe on a small river, as you are traveling downstream you come to a MAJOR obstacle. You see that there is a huge 4 foot boulder that is sticking up out of the river that is blocking your path. You pray “Lord remove this boulder.” Yes he is able to remove it, but what if He chooses to raise the water level 4 feet instead.  That is an example of His grace abounding more in times of trouble.

When times bring major “boulders” in my life I have never seen God remove them the way I think He should. He always works them through in ways I can’t figure out. By doing this it builds my faith in greater ways and reminds me to keep my eyes on Him more than my problems.

Imagine yourself looking through a scope or binoculars. As you put the binoculars up to your eyes, your vision shifts and you are only able to see where to binoculars are aimed. By aiming your sights on God and His Kingdom you are renewed by His love, power and purpose. You are not able to see all that is around you, all that you can see what’s in focus. His Kingdom is in order and running smooth. Set your clock to his time zone, and your thoughts to His Kingdom.  Your true citizenship is in Heaven.

Col 3:1-2 “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God’s right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth.”

I think of the song “Turn your eye upon Jesus” It says that as we look full in His wonderful grace the “things” of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his wonder and grace.

Philippians 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

As will give our attention to God He will protect and guard your mind from all sorts of thoughts and worries.

1 Corinthians 3:19 “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” He’s kingdom operates differently than human understanding. The key word is to be in tune with God, not listening only to man’s words, and opinions. Remember that everyone has advice to give you.  But in your weakness and humility lean on God. He is you first and only option.

2 Cor 3:5 “It is not that we think we can do anything of lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success come from God.”

Get ready and be excited about how God’s grace will intervene in your life to cause you to grow in your faith.

We are now taking our post encounter out of a live class room and making it a virtual class room. All the post encounter classes will be available online.

The purpose of post encounter is to solidify the decisions that you made during your encounter weekend by giving you tools to grow. Post encounter is a 8-session class held online at your own pace. The classes are taught by a variety of teachers and there is no cost to you.

Post encounter also must be completed by those who are planning on becoming members of Life Connection Church. As a reminder the membership steps are:

1. Attend an encounter weekend
2. Be baptized in water
3. complete post-encounter classes
4. Attend Membership 101 class

Session 1 – 1

PE Session 1-1 from Life Connection Church on Vimeo.

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Session 1 – 2

PE Session 1-2 from Life Connection Church on Vimeo.

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This 4 month series that is examining the book of Colossians and its major themes.

1. Jesus Christ is preeminent over all creation. God has worked through Christ to secure redemption and reconciliation for all who put their faith in him.

2.Believers are in Christ and thus participate in a relationship of solidarity with Christ in his death on the cross, his resurrection from the dead, his new life, and his fullness.

3. Christ has defeated the powers of darkness on the cross, and Christians share in his power and authority over that realm.

4. Believers are called to grow in maturity in Christ by getting rid of sinful practices and cultivating Christian virtues.

Come join in on sunday mornings or follow along on our podcast. You can download the weekly study guides below or ask for a hard copy in service.

Study Guide

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4-5
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8
• Week 9 (keynote presentation)

I hope you can see that we are trying to get you as much help as possible by providing some helpful resources to equip you in being a part of and serving your Gospel Community.  I was able to have a great talk with my new friend.

Ryan Eland at Praxis Church

Let me know if recording my conversations with other leaders is helpful and I will try and make it happen more often.

An A29 church has created a free study guide to go along with the Re:Lit book Total Church, by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. The well-designed 32-page study guide is available for free PDF download here.

The study guide was designed by Veritas Community Church in Columbus, Ohio.

Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, the authors of Total Church, foundedThe Crowded House church-planting initia

tive in the UK and direct the Porterbrook Network. Steve Timmis is also Director of Acts 29 for Western Europe.

I thought this would be a great resource for all who are wanting to learn more about what these Gospel Communities are and how they practically work.  This would be a great resource for all of us to download and walk through the only thing you would have to change is the name of the church from Veritas to Life Connection.

I am currently reading a book called Tangible Kingdom. At times, as I read, I am feeling challenged and convicted; at other times I feel puzzled and confused.  Although this book is so far, in so many ways, from my former ministry experience, I love the challenge and it is causing me to think and grow in many ways.  I would love to read this book with some people and have a discussion about it because I have a lot of thoughts I’d like to filter through.  I wanted to use some thoughts from this book as my first equipping for the Prophets and Teachers of our Gospel Communities.  So, anyone can read this and comment, but I really would love to hear from specifically Prophets and Teachers.  I will give you a few quotes from the book and then some of my thoughts:

“Posture represents attitude of the body: the nonverbal forms of communication that accompany what we say.  As you may remember learning in your freshman interpersonal communication class, the nonverbals are more informative and honest than the verbal forms of communication.”

“Words communicate what we know; posture represents what we believe and feel.”

“Sometimes I wonder how we got to this point.  Why did the pagan onlookers hold the early church in such high respect, but today’s non-Christians view the modern-day church with such disdain? I think one of the main culprits has to be our paradigm of evangelism.  In the name of “getting someone saved,” we have primarily focused on communicating a message of truth to the world.  There’s nothing wrong with that, except that we’ve prioritized the verbals over the nonverbals, the message over the method, that is to say, the proclamation over the posture. We assume that if we can just get the idea across, then it will be up to the person to respond, whether we do it correctly or not.  Maybe we also think that in order to get God’s approving glance, it’s our duty to share “truth,” even if our modus operandi is “obnoxious for Jesus… and loving it.”

What he ends up addressing is a valid problem in the church.  I was thinking how great this applies to our Gospel Communities – these are really a place where the teachers and prophets need to care about the non-verbals.  We need to be willing to communicate the gospel but we need to be willing to posture ourselves so the people who are listening will receive what we are saying.

1 Peter 3:15 but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,

This verse puts emphasis on the posture of honoring Christ. When you are honoring Christ people are going to have a question about the hope that is in you, and you need to always be ready to give an answer.  These are the greatest teaching opportunities: the times that people are asking to learn, and you, because of your life and relationship, have shown that you know what you are talking about.

The authors of Tangible Kingdom, say to the people in their network, “We suggest to them that if people aren’t asking about their lives, then we haven’t postured our faith well enough or long enough”

So here is the point of all this for me and how I think this will help us in training as prophets/teachers in these Gospel Communities.  We know that we need to be talking about Jesus a lot in these groups but I do not want us to miss the power of the non-verbals.  I think what we can learn from 1 Peter 3:15, is that as a teacher in a Gospel community, we need to be prepared at all times to give an answer.  We may not have had the time to prepare an outline or curriculum, but our best teaching times may be when someone sees our lives together as a community and wants to know about the hope that is in us.  Then with gentleness and respect we need to be able to preach the gospel.

So the practical steps to this are, if we are teachers/prophets and want to use that gift in our Gospel Communities what must we do to be prepared in season and out?

1. Have a regular consistent time of reading/studying the Bible.

2. Be reading a book or training materiel to be sharpen your understanding

3. Be writing in a journal all your notes, revelations, and teaching ideas.

4. Be praying the Holy Spirit will give you opportunities to teach, that you would be bold enough to present it, and humble enough to have the right posture.

Ok guys lets all meditate on 1 Peter 3:15 and I would like all of you to send me a comment back on what God taught you out of this text and how it can make you a better teacher/prophet in your Gospel Community

Genesis 32:30, “And Jacob called the name of that place ‘Peniel’ because he said, ‘ I have seen God face to face and my life was preserved‘.”

Our next encounter is scheduled for October 17th, this is a weekend designed for you to encounter Jesus face to face, to receive deliverance in your souls and complete healing in your emotions. We believe you will see a radical change and you will experience real freedom.  If you are feeling the leading of the spirit to get alone and encounter Jesus and experience the Gospel then sign up and pay today.  The total cost for the encounter is $40.

Encounter Schedule

saturday.

7a – Breakfast

8:00 a – Peniel  (Josh Dailey)

9:30 a – break

9:45 a – Repentance (Dave Negron)

11:15 a – break

11:30 a -Forgiveness (Dana Dailey)

1p – Lunch

2 p -The Cross (Pastor Aaron)

3:45 p – break

4 p – Ressurection (James Jackson)

5:30p – Dinner

7:30p – Worship

8p – Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Pastor Aaron)

sunday.

7:45a – The Vision ()

8:30a – Prayer

10:15 a – Celebration Service

Make it a point to buy your tickets today for the 7th Anniversary Banquet and the Movement Intern Graduation.  This is going to be a evening for Celebration and Vision.  We are setting up Childcare at the connection building for $5 a child for those families who need it.  You can purchase your tickets for the banquet and or childcare online or on Sunday mornings at the information center.  If you have any questions feel free to e-mail info@lifeconnectionchurch.net

This week watch we watched a message entitled “God is… Strong” by Pastor Francis Chan.  Go check it out!

Join us for One Prayer this June as the Church stands together to share, serve, and give: http://www.oneprayer.com/

Life Connection Church is excited to share, serve, and give with thousands of other churches.  Make sure to come on sunday to the gathering and get in a connection group to see how you can be apart of this great movement.

One Prayer 2009: One Prayer began in 2008 with a simple idea: We pray to Jesus asking Him to answer our prayers – what if we became the answer to His? He prayed that we would be one, and One Prayer is an opportunity to see what can be accomplished when the Church works together.

Last June, thousands of churches formed unprecedented partnerships across cities, continents, denominations, and cultures. More than two million believers stood together to learn, pray, fast, and love others. This year, we’ll be joining forces once again as we go out into the world to share, serve and give during One Prayer 2009.

Join us for One Prayer this June as the Church stands together to share, serve, and give: http://www.oneprayer.com/

Life Connection Church is excited to share, serve, and give with thousands of other churches.  Make sure to come on sunday to the gathering and get in a connection group to see how you can be apart of this great movement.

“We’re not babysitters, we’re teachers!” At Kids Connection we love our kids and believe that the Jesus we teach in the adult services is the same Jesus that we should be teaching in our kids church.  Our kids enjoy praise and worship, games, crafts and solid Bible study every Sunday morning.

Our kids are separated into four classes so that they can get the attention and learning level they need to grow in the Lord.  Nursery is for our youngest ones-18 months, toddlers is 18 months-3 years old,  primary is 3-kindergarten, and kids church is 1st-4th grade.  Our teachers aren’t in the class to babysit during a service but to serve our kids and and see them fall in love with Jesus at an early age! They are each trained to teach the specific age they are serving.  We take the time to do background checks on every volunteer and are working towards having every volunteer CPR trained!

Jesus honored childhood by being born as a baby and we recognize the value that He puts on children throughout the Word so we don’t take Kids Connection Church lightly.  We love and serve our children!

Kids Church is an ever growing and exciting department to volunteer in.  This is an opportunity for you to serve our kids with your time and dedication.  We will train you and provide everything you will need to be the best teacher or helper in the classroom.  The only thing you need is a desire to serve!

Please contact Dana at ddailey@lifeconnectionchurch.net to get more details and sign up to serve.

This July  is the 2nd year of doing, the very contriversal but important, summer sex talk.  This is a series of messages that talk about sex as scripture sees it and challenges the church to understand the heart of God when it comes to sexuality. Come on out and be ready to ask any questions that you may have wanted to ask but were afraid to in church.