Monday, September 26, 2016

One Word to Describe Legacy Church After Launch - Healthy!

What parents care about one month after giving birth to a child, more than anything else, is that their baby is healthy. A healthy baby will grow into a mature adult.

Four services in (including our preview service) I am proud to say that Legacy Church is healthy. Many church plants desire growth over health and it can lead to detrimental effects.

Here are just a few ways in which we have worked hard at being a healthy church:
- We have a great leadership team of men who help carry the weight of leading Legacy Church and who also provide great wisdom.
- We are seeing new people regularly at Legacy Church.
- We've launched incredible children and youth ministries. We'll average 30-40 youth under the age of 18 who come to Legacy Church. That's a GREAT start!
- Our financial giving has been steady.
- We have fun and love each other as a staff.
- We have lots of people who help serve and volunteer. The YMCA janitor told me yesterday that he was impressed with the volunteerism of our group! We are doing what we can to create ownership of the ministry.
- We have a tenacious desire to see our community hear about Jesus! We are not complacent and have some neat things planned in the next few months to be a blessing to our community.
- We are setting up healthy patterns for our staff and church.
- We have a diverse mix of people with many different backgrounds.
- We are getting ready to train small group leaders so we can launch our family small group ministry in January. Healthy churches foster discipleship and mentorship relationships!

We are in no way a perfect church. We've already made plenty of mistakes. Our aim is to learn from our mistakes though and make good choices to promote health.

As always a healthier you is a better you and a healthier Legacy Church will make healthier disciples of Jesus! We are excited to see what God does in the future with His church!


Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Legacy Launch Recap: Legacy Church = Life!

Was our first service this Sunday perfect? No. Did God work and was it worth it? Yes!

Legacy Church launched its first official public service on September 11th, 2016 at 10AM at the Cole Center YMCA in downtown Kendallville.

Here’s a recap of what everyone experienced and how God worked!

 1) We had approximately 40 Legacy Launch volunteers on hand (with sweet Legacy T-shirts) who did an incredible job setting up, welcoming people, and making sure everyone knew where to go. Way to go team!

2) For a portion of our worship set our computers froze and the words were not displayed on the screen. I listened to what everyone would do. Luckily, the song was a familiar one and the singing grew louder! There’s something powerful when people worship and our group stuck it to Satan by not allowing him this little victory.

 3) We had the opportunity to thank those who were in attendance who serve our freedoms and liberties by having them stand and prayed over them! It was a great way to honor their legacies.

4) The sermon was entitled: Legacy = Life! We looked at Ezekiel 37 and saw how the nation of Israel was a picture of what our vision should be with the people that live within Noble County. The three main points were:

 - God wants to use you to bring life, but it will cost you your life in return!
 - Only God can bring life!
 - I have a dream (like Ezekiel) that God will use Legacy Church to reach hundreds and thousands of people and make them alive in Jesus!

5) We celebrated by standing and singing the song: God’s Not Dead. It was the celebration of new life in Jesus and we enjoyed singing the song at the top of our lungs and hitting beach balls!

 Here are some other moments that blessed me as a pastor that helped me see where God was breathing life through Legacy Church:

 - We had someone pray to receive Jesus at the end of our message! Even if one person comes to know Jesus our efforts are worth it. Praise God!

 - Someone came to our launch as they were at a funeral that I had officiated a few years back. It’s a privilege to officiate funerals and I thank God that He is still using seeds planted from a funeral service years ago!

 - I received a number of different encouraging texts and have had phone conversations from people who are excited about the energy and passion for the life giving gospel!

- I heard lots of children exclaim how much they loved our children's ministry kick-off! We love young people at Legacy Church!

It was an awesome first service but it’s just the beginning. A church has been birthed and we look forward to seeing God use it for the maturation of His people!


Powerful worship moments!

 Honoring of local hero's who are Legacy Builders!

We will be a church that does whatever it takes to help people take steps of faith!

 Legacy Church desires to be a life giving church and not a DEAD one!

Our worship team, made up of all Kendallville residents, hit a homerun in our worship set!