Fill It Up

Check out this verse.

I have been thinking about this verse all week. There is a phrase in this verse that sticks out to me or pops when I read it, "behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine."

Their city (Jerusalem) has been FILLED with teaching about Jesus.

Here is what I imagine that looked like...

• In the marketplace people would have conversations about the resurrection.
• In front of houses children would be talking about what their parents thought about Jesus.
• Families would discuss what they heard the disciples say about Jesus.
• One family would explain to another a sermon they heard

Imagine the sense of urgency...the intensity...the courage...the burden.

Let's fill our city with teaching about Jesus.

Moving iTunes

I bought a new laptop (macbook pro) a few weeks ago. Since then I have been on a quest. I have been trying to move itunes to my new laptop. Sounds easy doesn't it. I knew I could use my ipod as an external hard drive and move all my music to the macbook pro. Then I encountered a little issue I did not know about. Since I had been using itunes on a PC my ipod had been formatted for a PC. No matter what I did I couldn't get my music to move over...not good. I called the apple store...no love. I looked on discussion boards, apple support...nothing. Just when I was about to reset fthe settings on my ipod and lose all my music I did one last internet search. I found a little free software called ipod access that was a free download. I had to move 500 songs and podcast over 5 at a time but at least I got it all moved. I love itunes but it has been quite the challenge to move it.

Let's Go Bowling

Tonight at 6:30 p.m. we have some lanes reserved at The Lanes At Coffee Creek. Everyone is invited. We do need to know if you plan to attend so we have an accurate head count. Lifepont will pay for the bowling. This will give everyone a chance to get to know each other a little better.

Getting The Word Out

We are committed to passing out another 2000-3000 flyers before our next preview service (March 2nd). Lifepoint flyers will be going out with the chamber of commerce newletter this week. Marnie dropped off 550 flyers that will be circulated to businesses that are chamber members. We have been passing out flyers only in neighborhoods. So, it will be interesting to see what kind of response we get.

Opening Doors

When I was little there was a barrier I kept running into in life. It was the glass door. You know the one. It is on the outside of restaurants and retail stores. It has a handle on both sides. You can use one handl to push and the other to pull. No big deal now, but then...When I was little I remember not being able to open those doors. I would put by back to the door and push and try to slide through just when it was open far enough. I mashed my finger more then once. Those doors were just heavy. They were simply to heavy for me to open. My dad was always right behind me holding the door open so I could walk through . ...Thanks dad.

I have seen doors opened in the last few months that no matter how much I pushed or strained I simply could not have opened.

• The school system allowing Lifepoint to use the 6th Grade Center
• God bringing 7 families together to plant Lifepoint Baptist Church
• 50 people at our first service
• 2 families from our launch team moving next door and across the street from us.
• Giving us such a great sending church.
• I don't think we've seen anything yet.
  

God has been right there opening doors for us that we simply could not hope to open.

....Thank you God.

"For a great door and effectual is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries." 1Corinthians 16:9

"Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord," 2 Corinthians 2:12

Sunday Service Pictures

Here are some pictures from Sunday.

Preview Service #1

We had our first Sunday Service yesterday. It was awesome!!! We have been praying, planning, inviting, praying, praying...did I mention praying for this day and God did something wonderful in our church. A special thank you to the individuals, families, and churches that have been praying for us. Here are a couple pictures. I will post ALL the pictures from the day later. Here is a run down of the last two weeks and what Sunday looked like.



During the last two weeks…

• We passed out 2,000 flyers in the neighborhoods near the 6th Grade Center
• We handed out over 700 goody bags to Owasso Public School employees
• We passed out 800 invite cards (in addition to the 1,000 passed out at the parade in Dec.)
• We have purchased equipment and supplies

Sunday…

• 50 people attended our morning service (3 of these were friends from Norman)
  
• 9 people came as a result of flyers
• 3 people came as a result of the website
• All others came from personal invitations
• Wide variation in age (12 days old – 60+)
• 1 person helped us clean everything up
• Many people told us they would be at our next Sunday Service (March 2nd).
• God gets all the credit for everything. We are just glad to be apart of what He is doing in Owasso.
  

Children's Environments...

• Nursery - There were 3 in the nursery (There were also 3 more babies in the worship service - one was only 12 days old). Two families on the launch team are expecting babies soon. The nursery is going to be a busy place for us.
• Preschool (Sandbox) - There were 7 in this area.
• Elementary (Treehouse) - There were 3 in this area.

First Sunday Service - February 10th

Our first preview service is just a few days away. We spent a couple hours at the school last night practicing setting everything up and tearing everything down. We also did another soud check and went through the music for Sunday.

God has really been bringing people to us this week. I was eating lunch at a restaurant yesterday while planning and working on my sermon. When the waiter brought me my food we talked for a second. He then went on to ask me out of nowhere what church I would recommend he attend Sunday. I'm not kidding. This was the first time we met. I explained to him Lifepoint was having its first service this Sunday. He said he would be there. How great is that!! There are many other stories to tell. Maybe I'll share a few of those after Sunday.

Do you know why this would be the perfect Sunday to check out Lifepoint? This Sunday everyone will be a guest. I can't wait to see what God will do.

Time:
10:30 a.m.

Where:
6th Grade Cener
8101 N. 129th St.
Owasso, Oklahoma

(Come south on 129th from 86th St.
76th St. & 129th may be blocked off because of road construction)

Here is the sermon series titles for our two preview services:
Sunday February 10th: Blueprint- God's Plan For Me
Sunday March 2nd: Blueprint - God's Plan For Us

You can check out the order of our first service here. I know, I know maybe a little over planning.

Outreach By Email

Can outreach by email work? Well we are about to find out. Inbox Promotions has created an email that will go out tomorrow to a large amount of people in our city and surrounding area. It is the equivalent of direct mail by email. If you would like to see what the email will look like you can see it here.

Church Dropouts

The Tulsa World recently printed an interesting article citing some reasons young adults don't attend church. You can check it out here. The article cites some research done by Lifeway including the top 10 reasons young adults between the ages of 18-22 stopped going to church.

Here is a quote form the article.

"A majority of people in their 20s -- 61 percent -- are spiritually disengaged after being active in church during high school, according to The Barna Group, a major religious pollster. Nineteen percent didn't attend church as teens, and 20 percent remain spiritually active.

A poll by LifeWay Research, the publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, found that about two-thirds of people active in a Protestant church during high school will drop out for at least a year before their 22nd birthday."

Flyers Passed Out

We passed out around 800 flyers today. We had a great day. Our team had some great conversations and even had some people commit to attending our first service. Now we have 1200 more flyers to get passed out before Sunday. We are trying to get the word out in a big way on Wednesday. I'll post more about that later. I'm am so pumped about Sunday.

What's Missing

Today I went and picked up 3000 of these flyers. We are hitting streets TOMORROW to start blitzing neighborhoods that are around the 6th Grade Center. We will be inviting people to our 1st preview service. Look closer...Somethings missing...Do you see it yet...Look again...How about now...It's THE TIME.

We didn't get the time on the flyer. Jimmy designed the flyer. He emailed it to me I looked at it a dozen times. I never caught it. Okay back to today. I get back to the house excited to show Marnie this cutting edge sweet inviting tool. I show her the flyer and she spots it in 10 seconds. So now we will print out "the time" on 3000 labels and stick them on there. I was crushed but it actually looks good the way we put the label on the flyer.

I can't help but make this application so I will. What if what happened to the flyer happened to a church. You see the flyers purpose is to communicate a few very important pieces of information. The date, location, and TIME of a service. Churches have another very important mission. To tell people about Jesus. A flyer without a time on it is just as ineffective as a church that doesn't tell people about Jesus.

Last Sunday

The Gregg family experienced another weekend of travel. We left around noon on Saturday for Star City, Arkansas. We met the Hagoods and Marlars for dinner in Star City.

The next morning we were at Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church where Bro. John Marlar is the pastor. I presented the work in Owasso. It was a great experience. The sanctuary was full. I mean there were almost no seats. This is the best part. A teenage boy was saved during the service. They also had two other people come for baptism.

Sunday night we were with Bro. Allen Hagood and South Side Missionary Baptist Church. I already knew this but when I hear Bro. Hagood speak I know he wants to see more churches planted. It was also clear in the conversations with church members too.

It was a very encouraging weekend. I love passionate pastors.