Tonight at C3, my friend Charles Billingsley will be in concert at our First Wednesday service. Charles is the former lead singer for NewSong and is currently the worship leader at Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, VA. He’s a passionate and gifted musician and worship leader. Be sure to bring your family and friends because tonight will be a powerful time of worship.
This weekend we will join about 1000 churches (so far) all over the U.S. and even the world as we begin a new teaching series… and I am so pumped. Our theme is “One Prayer” and if we could pray just one prayer to God, what would it be? This weekend I will kick off the series and throughout the next several weeks you will also get a chance to hear some amazing pastors from around the country. I want to thank Pastor Craig Groeschel from Life Church, OK City, for the idea and vision of having churches partner together. You can go to oneprayer.com and see the churches that are participating and get more info.
Also this weekend we are going to have our first Kingdom Builders update and celebration. I can’t wait to share with you all that God has done and is going to do! If you haven’t turned in your KB commitment card it’s not too late… you can do that this Sunday or online by clicking here. We also will be having our first baptism service in our outdoor baptistery. This is a dream come true! I can’t wait to see you this weekend as we celebrate and PAR-TY.
This past week Pastor Rick Warren hosted the Purpose Driven Summit and during the conference they were interviewing pastors from around the country. It was cool to see some of my friends being interviewed. Click on the names below to watch the interview…
Greg Surratt (Seacoast Church, Charleston, SC) and
Stovall Weems (Celebration Church, Jacksonville, FL)
Jonathan Falwell (Thomas Road Baptist Church, Lynchburg, VA)
Nelson Searcy (Journey Church, NY, NY)
To read more about the interviews check out Greg Surratt’s blog… Gregsurratt.org
I’m excited to share with you that C3 is hosting a conference this year to help church leaders and believers accelerate to the next level in their walk with God and in their ministry. Accelerate ’08 will include large group sessions and ministry training led by the C3 staff. Our special guests will be Greg Surratt, Senior Pastor of Seacoast Church Mt.Pleasant, SC and Geoff Surratt, Teaching Pastor at Seacoast Church and director of their multi-site movement. I’m excited to be able to host this conference and our prayer is that God will bless you and your ministry as together we build the Kingdom. For more info and to register you can go to accelerateconference.com
(Greg Surratt)
(Geoff Surratt)
All of our connect groups at C3 do service projects to reach out to the community in a practical way with no strings attached. Recently one of our connect groups cooked meals for the House of Hope girls home in Clayton and the local newspaper wrote a fantastic article and put it on the front page. It’s so cool when Jesus makes the front page! I am so proud of Martha and our Connect group leaders for faithfully serving God… serving their groups… and serving the community. You can read the article by clicking here.
Gotta brag on my boy… My son Caleb plays soccer in the Greater Cleveland Athletic Association, 10 and under league. They just finished up their season as league champions and tournament champions, and on top of that they finished the season undefeated! Caleb played a few different positions but primarily goalie and forward. I want to thank coach Ed Pollard for doing a fantastic job teaching the kids how to play as a team and how to have fun. Here’s a pic of Caleb kicking the ball.
(Caleb and Coach Ed Pollard)
Martha and I are back home from our trip to Chennai, India (formerly known as Madras). I’m not a big world traveler kind of guy, so it feels good to be home… with my family, C3 Church and friends. I feel like I’m still experiencing a little jet lag… there’s a 9.5 hour time difference between here and India (can someone explain to me what’s up with the .5 hour?) They say that it takes one full day to recover for every hour of time change. So based on that formula, I guess I will feel completely normal sometime Sunday morning… that’s good news for C3 this Sunday morning. Although my body is still recuperating a little, my spirit is strong. I am so fired up about the future and all that God is doing here at C3, the triangle area, India and around the world. I look forward to sharing what’s on my heart over the next few Sundays. I’m also excited to share an update on all that God is doing with Kingdom Builders!
We are in Chennai, India training leaders and pastors. This is my fifth trip to Chennai as we are partnering with Equip led by Dr. John Maxwell. My first trip to India was 5 years ago and I am always amazed when I come here. As I reflect on the conference here are some thoughts...
*It is hot! They told me that May is the hottest month of the year in south India. Lucky me! I checked the weather today and it was 103 degrees here and 47 degrees in Raleigh.
*The Christians here are passionate for God! And their passion is contagious. Many of them have paid a high price to become believers.
*The Christians here are fully committed. Our host Pastor is David Moham of New Life Church. They have 35,000 attending one of their 13 services. Their first one is at 5am with over 4,000 attending that
service.
*The leaders here are hungry to learn and grow. Every 6 months they come together from all over south India for training. They listen and apply the teaching and then share with at least 10 others.
*The Pastors here think BIG! Pastor Mohan has a vision to build a 50,000 seat worship center with campuses all over south India.
Pray for Martha and I as we fly home. Our flight from Bombay to NY is about 14 hours. See you soon!
(Martha and I with Pastor Mohan and my interpreter)
(Martha with some of the Indian leaders)
Martha and I are in Chennai, India trainining about 800 pastors and church leaders. What a privilege to be equipping pastors that are being used by God to reach their local communities all over south India! On the way to India we stopped in Paris and visited Hillsong Paris. What an amazing experience. This church is only a few years old but has about 800 people meeting in a downtown theatre. They are a bright light for Jesus in a city that needs God's love and hope.
(Here's a picture of me and Martha at Hillsong Paris)
Pastor Stovall Weems taught a powerful message to our ministry staff yesterday (you can listen to it on our C3 Leadership podcast). He shared three components that are needed in your staff to be frontline leaders from Mark 10:35-45:
1. There’s A Price To Pay – Are you willing to pay the price to go to the next level?
2. Submitting To Authority – Submission is tested when we disagree.
3. Understanding Your Identity – we need to have a servants heart. Do you see yourself as a leader who serves or do you see yourself as a servant that has been given an opportunity to lead?
He has noticed in the ten years he’s been the pastor of Celebration Church that as they’ve grown from a handful of people to over 7,000 that these components are needed for the staff to go to the next level and be with you for the long haul. This is one of those teachings every Pastor and staff that wants to go to the next level must listen to.
(Martha and I with Stovall Weems)
Pastor’s Roundtable
We also had great time eating lunch with about 15 pastors from NC and VA. We spent a few hours sharing ideas and challenges… I love opportunities to get real with other leaders and Pastors and to help each other go to the next level. We had pastors from the following churches involved:
Journey Church, Raleigh, NC
Lifepoint Church, Wilmington, NC
Faith Baptist Church, Knightdale, NC
Whitley Church, Princeton, NC
Wave Church, VA Beach, VA
Living Word Family Church, Raleigh, NC
Everett Chapel, Clayton, NC
Celebration Church, Jacksonville, FL
C3 Church, Clayton, NC
(Pastor Stovall speaking at the Pastor's roundtable)
First Wednesday
To cap off the day we had an amazing and passionate night of worship and teaching. The Celebration Church worship team and the C3 Church worship team led together and it was powerful and high energy. You could sense the presence and the power of God, and Pastor Stovall rocked the house as he shared about “What Do We Do When Our Dreams Have Died” from 2 Kings 4. You can check out the podcast here.
(Powerful worship at First Wednesday)
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