It may feel like old news to some, but we just want to let you know what God is doing through “The Give Project” at Lifehouse Church. Since you’ve already been getting the news stories, I won’t give you all the links, but here’s the latest one from Monday on ABC 7 (DC). If you’d like to read more, especially our site and the stories of how Lifehousers are helping others, go to www.thelifehouse.org/thegiveproject. I'm trying to use my blog to answer some of the "why" questions about this project.

We believe that God is using this as a “drop to tip the bucket of giving, generosity, and selflessness” in our church, community, and maybe across the region.

IS THIS EFFECTIVENESS?

Since launching "The Give Project" this past Sunday by giving away $6,000 to everyone that was at Lifehouse Church, there has begun a buzz...

Here are two news stories- local NBC 25 and FOX 5 DC. Our local newspaper's reporting as well.

Now, 99% of the people at Lifehouse are out in our community serving and helping and sharing God's love by using money that was given to them for that purpose.

But don't think that we/ I consider this effectiveness. Is it cool? Yea. Neat to see how God has used this to spread His News and message of hope? Yep. But effective? NO!

Why?

Remember, I preached about "All for One" and how we are challenged biblically to "give to the One Cause" of sharing God's love with others.

So, news coverage is cool. Excitement among Lifehousers is electric. But the measure of effectiveness will be when...
-people start giving their own money to help others,
-we start looking for ways to meet needs every day,
-we start noticing the hurting, broken, needy, and lonely,
-others who hear the story begin giving and living selflessly,
-we begin to help others without the gift from the Church,
-when the entire world's perspective of the Church CHANGES,
-when they believe that we want to help more than we want to fill the church coffers,
-when the message of Jesus is relevantly modeled and preached to everyone,

YES, THAT WILL BE EFFECTIVENESS!

Until then, may this be a drop that tips this bucket of love, giving, and selfless living.

THE SNOWBALL IS ROLLING AND GROWING...

you must know that our only intention for www.thelifehouse.org/thegiveproject was to help needy people in our community by empowering Lifehouse Church people with resource.

Already, people are being impacted and needy people are being helped and encouraged. Imagine the people of the Church rallying around sharing God's love through helping and serving others. We can change the world through a revolution of love and kindness.

And now the ball is rolling...

word is spreading and people are joining the cause of giving and living selflessly.

We can join together in this by abandoning our selfish ambitions, serving others (with money, time, kind words, whatever), looking for needs and meeting them, as well as giving to the one organism that God established to spread the message of His love and hope to the world- THE CHURCH. Not the greedy organization we so often despise, but the missional gathering of people who believe that they are ambassadors of hope to our community and needy world.

CHURCH IN A THEATER here we come...

We've moved to Hagerstown 10 Cinema. We love it. This past Sunday was our first at our new location, and it felt like HOME. It seemed like we'd been there for years. It's great when you can leverage your location rather than feeling like you have to hide it (such as at the school- no one wants to go back to school). We had a great service, and I genuinely believe that lives are being changed by God through Lifehouse.

I felt like I was watching myself preach on Sunday, you know, like third person. It was one of those moments that felt "once-in-a-lifetime". Here's the premise, church for too often has felt like one of the greediest places on earth, but biblically, it should be the most generous, serving, and loving place in all the world.

So, I preached about how in the Book of Acts, Jesus-followers willing gave to and care for each other and the growing Church (Acts 2:42-47; Acts 4:32-35). We need to be willing to GIVE to the ONE CAUSE. What's the one cause? Sharing God's Love with the whole world. It's really that simple. And the Church is the organism God created to fulfill that cause.

Then, the clincher...

We're putting our money where our mouth is...

We ask people to give (tithes and offerings) out of their need. Saying, "we can't afford not to give" AND "we can't out-give God". So, my thought, "let's try as hard as we can to out-give Him and prove that it's not possible."

So, we've given the Church (that is the people) the funds to serve the community. What? Yea, we gave an envelope to every person that was their on Sunday (from 6yrs old and up) that had anywhere from $5 to $100 and one person got $1000. The gifts totaled $6,000. I believe that we, as people, are the church, and I also believe, that God is us is the HOPE of the world. We carry the love of God to all. So what?

The mission...

Everyone was challenged not to keep the money, but to use it to personally help someone one in our community with their needs.

Who needs what God can do with people who are willing to give and serve others.

Oh, and this wasn't tithe money others gave. Laura and I personally gave it.

We're Moving!

Would love to hear feedback on how you think our move is going.

We’ve grown out of Eastern Elementary School.

We’ve been using every adult chair available at the school and were bringing in more from our mother and network church (Lifehouse- Bethel). And we were praying about what our next step was- move or go to 2 service.

In prayer, we felt led to pursue moving to a theater about 4 miles north of our current location. The same week we began the process, it became apparent that we wouldn't be able to stay at the school. I know this was a God-thing!

“WE’RE MOVING to a theater near you” is our new marketing message. Yep, God has opened a door for us to lease a huge theater, with about 3x the space, for the same cost as we’ve been paying the school ($450/ wk). Wow again! We’ll be using a 500-seat theater for our main service, and they’re allowing us to install lighting, sound equipment in a booth, a stage, and store everything on site. That means a lot when you’ve been portable for almost 2 ½ years+. We’ll also be using a large café area for serving breakfast and meals. We’ll have a theater for our KidzRock class (1st-5th grade), and set up 3 other kid’s classes. Our team has been awesome getting everything ready.

We’ve upgrade lots of equipment and marketing: we’ve just bought a new projector (to shoot 150 ft), and other gear that we badly need for this new venue. We’ve also been blessed by another church who is lending us a professional stage.

This all will cut our set up time down to about 45 min. That’s great!

Just thought I give everyone out in the blogosphere a heads-up and I'll wait for feedback.

Risk-taking

I believe faith is well placed in the God of all Creation, who loved us enough to become one of us. However, faith steps don't always feel like faith, sometimes they're scary. In business, we'd call them risks. Daring, bold moves that could end badly, but are necessary to advance the organization. The difference for us, we take risks based on our confidence that God is faithful.

Since I'm in the middle of leading Lifehouse through some exciting but "risky" faith-steps, thought I'd encourage you with this quote:

Theodore Roosevelt said, “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

WELCOME TO 2008

I'm excited to be in a new year. '07 was great, but I love starting fresh, and invigorated for the "new". And this year is already certainly full of lots of "new". So, buckle up and hang on, this is going to be one heck of a ride.

By the way, enjoyed my families transition into the New Year. We even stayed up late and watched a movie until about 2:30 in the morning. But I think this may be my last. When our girls woke me up at 6am, I was regretting the late night movie. Oh well...

Now on to our 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer. I'll be doing my best to regularly post prayer needs, testimonies, and devotions for this season at Lifehouse. We've started out the last few years with 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. It's NOT some religious thing we do. I genuinely believe it's one of the most powerful, meaningful, and life-transforming disciplines and challenges we have here at Lifehouse. Basically, we pray, seek God, and give up desired appetites for 21 days, and you've never seen anything impact a person, family, church, community as much as this. I dare you to try it. By the way, we invite everyone to join in fasting. You can do a "liquids only" fast, or give up meats and sweets, or just give up a particular thing that you're really consumed by, i.e. TV, video games, recreational internet, whatever. Then, every time you feel the urge/ appetite to consume that (whatever it is), just let that push you toward prayer and reading the Bible. Enjoy...