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It has been almost 30 days since we asked you to trade something of personal value for something of eternal value. I’d love to hear how it has been going for you and what the Holy Spirit has been teaching you. Leave comments on this post or you can email me.

Don’t worry, I’m still going to be tracking you all down and asking you personally. :) If your stories are anything like what God has revealed to me through this ...

We started a new series this month focusing on what in our life we can give up or at least look at differently in order to make significant spiritual growth and better point people towards God. In other words, what is something of personal value you are willing to trade for something of eternal value.

The three trading areas we’ll be focusing on each week are

COMFORT FOR CAUSE – trade something you think you need for something that may bless someone ...

Last year we had some service project on the calendar every week. Often it was multiple different options during the week. I fought hard to make Oak Leaf Church about serving and generosity from the start. The problem was, announcing all the different projects we were involved in, most we weren’t asking for help with as much as we were (if I’m being bluntly honest) “bragging” about doing, became a guilt trip for all the people who wanted to ...

And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, ...

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There are some other items in our prospectus like our proposed budget and 5-year timeline, but I’m going to blog about that stuff separately. The last major piece of our plan involves our statement of faith. We worked hard to speak the truth without feeling like we were watering down any aspect of the Gospel. We also chose to stick with foundational doctrines and leave the often dividing issues on the table for discussion. Our beliefs are written in more ...

Moving people from where they are to where God wants them to be should not be a complicated process. We share the Gospel to bring people to Christ to grow disciples who share the Gospel to bring people to Christ. Simplifying our activities and ministries allows us to concentrate on better ways to more effectively evangelize and develop disciples.

INSPIRE
There are a lot of great churches in Canton doing a lot of great things. We want to come alongside them ...

This teaching thing is still a little new to me. I read a ton and study my tail off trying to a) make sure what I’m teaching is Biblically & historically accurate and b) have some fresh new perspective that keeps people’s interest so no one is snoring in the middle of a sermon (though I’ve got plans to stash a water gun on stage just in case someone does).

But no matter how much I read or how much ...

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” – John Wodden

This is one of our core values. We believe it is demonstrated throughout scripture and we want to reinforce it in everything we do. Just one example off the top of my head is when Jesus told Peter to go back out and fish again after he had spent all day trying and caught nothing. They could’ve pulled in a ...

Stephen is widely considered the first martyr of the Christian faith because he was stoned outside the city for professing Jesus as the Messiah and only way for eternal salvation. Do we consider him a martyr only because he died a brutal death for his faith?Is that all we need to learn from the character of Stephen?

The word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness – martys (scroll down to see Greek and Biblical reference). The modern definition ...

seriously…this made my day and made we want to go back and watch some old He-man cartoons to see if they redrew the animation or if they just labored and found clips that worked.