GCC

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How to Pray: Day 2

Day 2) When we say "Our Father," we come not as beggars, but as beloved Sons and Daughters. Open yourself to the affection of Abba.

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How to Pray: Day 1

Day 1) One day Jesus was praying, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray Luke 11:1(NIV) Remember to ask Jesus to teach YOU to pray. No one else can do that for you.

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You Might Die Tryin...Rap interlude

Here's an arts element we did at church a few weeks I had the privilege of writing a rap for. Check it out and let me know what you think.

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AND Conference this Thursday and Friday

 

This is year 2 of us running the 'AND Conference' here at Granger after a long standing history of doing 'Innovate' and previously the 'Innovative Church Conference'.

Lots of change huh?! Yeah those little name changes got NOTHING on the massive changes we've made at Granger the last 3 years.

Check em out HERE and also here to get info for AND Conference.

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We're not docking in 'safe harbor' ?

(I Took this pic on our MOVE mission Trip this year)

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain Read this quote again this morning because it's been messing with me for a while.  Been thinking a lot about where we are as Granger Community Church and where we're going!  I'm beyond stoked about the days ahead and the part I get to play in our future together.   I'm also jazzed about the challenge of transitioning/changing/molded new ministry efforts! One of the big goals that I get to oversee is to "transition Kids and Student ministries into a holistic family ministry, partnering with parents to disciple their kids and students for 936 weeks-from the time a child is born  until they turn eighteen."  We've successfully made headway on the first part of that goal which was to transition Kids and Student Ministries to work more together and be on the 'same team'!  That's been going great so far! We began that process in April of this year and 5 months later I'm thrilled about where we are...we're not finished improving that part yet but we are at a place where we can now tackle the second part of that vision....to develop a "holistic family ministry".  I'm convinced this will take a good chunk of time to develop in it's entirety but I'm excited to engage the process even further. The Twain quote has messed with me because I feel like everything that comes to mind first is "safe harbor"...but when I actually spend time in prayer about it God is showing me visions of a ministry that's anything but "safe harbor".  It's new, it's different, it's challenging, and it's ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! I love when God gives me that feeling that what he's calling us to is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY for the Kingdom!  Makes me less afraid to fail and more passionate about seeing "IT" happen! So one of my major goals for the next run of ministry..."Explore, Dream, & Discover all that God's got for us and be RELENTLESS in pursuit of that, not willing to sacrifice any of it on the alter of any one persons personal preferences...not even my own."

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Our Story

Our Story from Granger Community Church on Vimeo.   I was checking out some videos I've done over the last few years and came across this one we did in March.  The teamwork that went into this video makes it even more awesome!

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The Time I Needed God The Most

Really excited to be preaching on "The Time I Needed God The Most" this weekend. We launched this series last weekend and it's off to a great start. Some of the things that'll likely come out of this series:

• People looking at their own life and remembering the time they needed God the most.
• healing for people who never realized God is with them in EVERY MOMENT of their life and He's continually accessible.
• People will rediscover that we have a Faithful God even in the midst of our unfaithfulness.
• People will be reminded that Jesus DID rescue them from themselves. Sometimes when life is tough and we don't "feel like" God is there, and we forget all that He has done for us in the past just because we can't see Him in that specific snapshot of time.
• People will come to Faith in Jesus through the power of God's unchanging hand.
• marriages that NEED GOD will find Him.
• Parents who are struggling with their kids, teens, students will find Christ to be the answer to all their specific self-help & parenting needs!
• people will gain another perspective about THEIR situation by hearing the perspective of others. Sometimes we feel like "we're the only ones" going through what we're going through. ...not true!

Those are just the few I've been praying about but I'm absolutely positive God will do WAAAAAY more than that. It's great to be EXPECTANT of God to do BIG things because He's a BIG God! (Sent on the go on iPhone so excuse typos)

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Dreaming about our new Family Ministry Vision

We have an amazing team in place between Student Min and Kid's Min!  We're about a month into the process of developing/dreaming about our strategy for creating a "holistic family ministry" here at Granger (Estimated to take about a year for the FULL roll out).  As we push down the path and get through the "throw some ideas on the wall and see what sticks" I'll be writing a little bit more about it, but for now we're all praying and just getting the ball rolling! It's so much fun!  I love every stage of bringing about new vision and putting pieces together to make sure that vision is sustainable.  I feel like I was made for these seasons and I feel blessed to have a team in place that is soaring in this space!  If there's one thing I've learned about "church stuff" and "church folk"...most don't like change!  But hey, if God's calling, let's rock and roll!  We can't be willing to let our preferences get in the way of what God is doing! I'm so glad I'm at a church that "gets" that! Here's something I'm learning again as I look at the dynamics or combining our Student Min team with our Kid's Min Team on two campuses.

Simplicity is often a major factor of success.  But the process of simplifying things is rarely easy.

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Seriously Mark Beeson, When will it be enough?

From time to time somebody will ask Mark "when will Granger be big enough, when will you stop trying to grow, when will you stop 'adding-on'" (which they don't know this but when they ask him that in his mind what he hears them saying is "when will you stop telling people about Jesus & finding new ways to do it" but that's another story likely for his blog), What I wanted to write about briefly is his blunt honest response to that question...and I wanted to write it because it stirs my heart and makes me love Granger Community Church even more! In response, Mark always says a phrase that he not only believes to his core, but that is permeated through the life of our church.  If you've been around long enough you get a real sense that this is exactly what we're about.  Lots and lors of people love it, I'm sure lots and lots people hate it...but LOVE IT!! Mark's response is "it's not enough until every person knows Jesus!" I love that that is our standard!!!  At this stage of our church it would be easy to shut it down, stop seeking God's future vision, get all fat on the Word, never do anything new or change anything, and really just slip in to retire/vacation mode - kick up our feet, drop it in cruise control, disengage our brains, and just hope that that'll 1. keep getting it done 2. hope that, by chance, more people might just come to know Jesus. That's not the Church I read about in Acts....that's not the Church I see being steered and redirected in the epistles...that doesn't resemble THE HOPE OF THE WORLD...and we know that's not who God is calling us to be at Granger Community Church. So thanks Mark (MarkBeeson.com) and Tim (LeadingSmart.com) for leading the way, thank you Granger Staff team, Volunteers, Members, & Partners for embracing the New Normal as we 'take our next steps towards Christ TOGETHER!' Be Strong, Live well, Love well

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Working on my Empathy in light of our future at Granger

I've been sitting on this thought for some time because I didn't really know what I wanted to say about it, but here's try #1. As we've been rolling out our new vision around Granger, over the last year I've been challenged to work on my 'Empathy' in new ways.  (Empathy = identifying with & feeling other people's concerns)  This is skill and a passion I've always had as I've been blessed to lead many things  that required it but I've honestly been stretched this last year in this area like never before. I thought I'd bring it up here on my blog as I had 3 phone convo's with friends of mine who do "church work" around the country who are saying they are stretched in this exact same way. I wonder how much of the future of the church will rest on our constant ability to empathize with people and communicate the gospel in light of that empathy! I know most people will say "Dude we do that all the time, that's what we're about etc. etc. etc."....which if that's your sincere response, AWESOME!!! (I think we do really well at that too!)  If not, it might be worth working on. ...my only OTHER add-on thought that I'm conflicted about is IF MOST OF US WOULD SAY WE DO THIS (AS WE DO) WHY IN THE WORLD DO PEOPLE 'OUTSIDE' THE CHURCH NOT FEEL THE SAME LEVEL OF EMPATHY WE HAVE FOR THE PEOPLE WE HAVE 'INSIDE' THE CHURCH? I know that's a vastly general and sweeping statement but I'm committed to wrestling with it because I haven't been stretched in this area by people 'INSIDE' the church...it's been people on the 'outside' looking in.  I've been stretched by getting my head around a rapidly changing culture that, on average, wouldn't say they ever 'feel' the love of the Church (even in areas where churches are doing amazing community development work like ours)... What are we to do about that? Not sure what to do with that nationally but I know where we're going around Granger is our attempt to hit that right in the face!  If you're in the Granger Family...welcome to The New Normal! Let's GO!!!!