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Do you remember when your eyes were opened and you believed? Some people choose to be spiritually free and some stumble along blindly through this world. Which are you?
Come find out this weekend at Hoover Middle School for our 11am Easter Service! Consider this my invitation to you.
Feel free to pass along through facebook, twitter or your blog.
So we had our first service this past weekend at Hoover Middle School and it was amazing! I love the energy and excitement you guys bring every single time we gather! Let’s keep building momentum this week by watching where God is already moving and inviting our circle of friends to our Easter service this weekend at 11 a.m. Seriously, do we have to wait 6 more days!!!!
In physics momentum is defined by Mass X Velocity. This concept works for church too. The more people involved times the speed in which they approach the mission creates momentum! One of our Waterloo Prairielakians, Beth Strout, went door to door this past week and had quite an experience sharing about our new site. I asked if I could share pieces of it (as it was very personal to her and her son) and she said, “yes”, so I thought I would pass this part along…
“When it came out about the Waterloo Campus, I knew immediately, God has plans for both Jakob and I there. If I didn't commit to it I was being disobedient. I am so looking forward to being part of HIS plan in Waterloo.”
“Now, to share with you what we have been doing with our mission for Waterloo… First thing, I think I picked the largest pile, 200. We have the NE quadrant. When I got to my car I thought I was nuts. How am I going to do this, knowing I deal with anxiety and not a good people person (like I was)? God, gave me a peace and I knew it would be ok, because He is with me, every step of the way.”
“After church and shopping on Sunday, we spent 1 1/2 hours knocking on doors, inviting people and leaving invites on the door if they weren't home.”
“On Monday I picked up Jakob from school and we spent another 2 hours and today we spent over an hour. We have handed out 93 so far. Praise, GOD!”
“What I found out so far is only 2 people were not very nice, one slammed the door in our face. I think we were able to talk to at least 75% of the people. Many listened to what we had to say, some were receptive, some being polite.”
“I pray over the stack I have left before we start handing them out and each morning when Jakob and I pray, I pray for GOD's glory and work in the hearts of those we talked to and stir the hearts of those who read the invite we have left.”
“So far that is our experience with our inviting to Waterloo, but we have a couple of days left before 3/27.”
I went to Chicago yesterday for a leadership conference called Catalyst: One Day. The premise was how do we as church leaders gain and sustain momentum. The three components at the beginning of the talk were so obvious, but often overlooked: New, Improved and Improving.
See, new always triggers momentum, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Church momentum is no different. Often momentum comes from new leadership, new direction or a new product (aka: multisite).
The Waterloo Campus is brand new and poised to create momentum for the Kingdom. Tomorrow our set-up/tear-down team will practice “church-in-a-box” at Hoover for our first Waterloo service this Sunday! Awesome! So, my question is: How does God want to partner with you to build momentum?
Speaking of momentum, the next post will be about someone at PLC Waterloo that talked personally with 93 people about Easter!
As you can imagine, the list of details to launch this weekend is long. We are making sure we have things like glue sticks, crayons and coffee. Check! We just got a shipment of Bibles in this week. Check. We have teams of people walking around praying on every street within a one-mile radius. Check. But there are two things on the list that only you can do:
1. Show Up. We need a ton of momentum over the next month, so be there to worship and serve!
2. Bring Someone. Who is it that you are bringing for Easter? We don’t know your neighbor yet, but we want too!
Ok, now that we have a place to gather, we need to say hello to our new neighbors! There are two important ways we need your help with this:
ONE// Choose one of the four maps below and walk around that area praying. Here are just a few ideas:
TWO// Choose one of our neighborhood door-hanger packets available and say “hello” by March 27th!
After you are done leave a comment here at keeppointinginwaterloo.com to tell us how things went!
Click on the links below to open a document with the steps above and a larger map of your chosen area.
This morning I met with other leaders in the Cedar Valley to hear about progress. We listened in to hear about new buildings, businesses and faster communication. As I listened to these great accomplishments I reflected on how Prairie Lakes Church has helped the Cedar Valley and so thankful for progress through strategic partnerships with the Northeast Iowa Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Alternatives and House of Hope.
At the end of the time I spoke with the Mayor of Waterloo. He seemed pretty intrigued that we were going to be meeting at Hoover Middle School and that we had such a strong group already committed to our mission. Maybe it is just me, but I dream of a day when I can attend one of these events and hear of the progress made in the Cedar Valley because of what God is doing through Prairie Lakes Church.
We are just two weeks away from being one church in both Cedar Falls and Waterloo! It’s time for us to invite people to a different life, to another step toward God, toward progress!
