Rocket Fuel

August 27, 2010

For the growing community of people planting Longleaf Church together, these are exciting days.  Our church is set to launch on 9.12.10.  Our launch date represents more than a group of people simply showing up to do church.  Our launch date represents the culmination of a methodical and prayerful process that began over a year and a half ago.  At the outset of our church-planting journey, we didn’t have membership or church programs.  We just had a growing community people rallying around a mission and a vision.  What an awesome faith-stretching journey it has been.  When we started our journey, our friends at North Point helped us outline four things that would pave our launch runway and fuel our launch.  We didn’t want to just focus on these four things for a season; we wanted these four things to become part of our DNA.  Here’s a rundown of the these critical four things and a summary of our progress.

Connect – Our vision at Longleaf Church is about moving people into Small Groups.  We call adult Small Groups Community Groups.  When we first gathered, our church was simply one Small Group. We met, we prayed, we shared vision and we began to do life together.  Our goal was to connect at least 50 people to a Community Group before launch.  Today, there are 85 adults connected to 8 Community Groups at Longleaf Church.  We have become a church of Small Groups.  Small Groups are also an essential ingredient within our Family Ministry environments.  Click HERE for more information on getting connected.

Give – Figuratively speaking, this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of our vision and our faithfulness.  Our core people have responded by giving generously.  We went from scratch to nearly $20k in average monthly giving.  That’s just amazing.  Intentional monthly giving honors God and it fuels the mission and vision of our church.  Click HERE for more information on giving.

Serve – People have stepped up and served throughout our church-planting journey in multiple ways.  Serving strategically is a catalyst that grows our faith and it’s a core value of Longleaf Church.  Some opportunities include Host Team, Production Team and Family Ministry.  Send us an email at info@longleafchurch.org for more information on serving.

Invite – Another value that’s embedded in our mission and vision is Relevant Environments.  In particular, we will work hard to create an Adult Worship Environment that’s welcoming to first time guests.  We want to make it easier for people to invite their friends and neighbors to church.  In other words, we empower Relational Evangelism by creating a Relevant Adult Worship Environment that offers practical biblical teaching, great music and a spirit of authenticity. Click HERE for an easy way to invite someone to church.

So, those are the BIG FOUR THINGS that represent a person’s participation in the mission and vision of Longleaf Church.  They are as important to our future as they have been during our church-planting journey.  Thanks for the part that you are playing at Longleaf! We can’t wait to blast off on 9.12.10!

Preview Service

August 10, 2010

The past nine months of planting Longleaf Church has been a season defined by an environment that we called Longleaf Live.  This past Sunday officially ended the Longleaf Live chapter of our church planting journey.  What a great time we had building community, developing volunteers and watching our movement grow over the Longleaf Live season!  There’s much to celebrate and thank our Heavenly Father for as we transition into a new season.  As we talked about this past Sunday, people and organizations alike manage the pace and rhythm of life by drawing upon the past for wisdom, maintaining focus for the present and having faith for the future.  Longleaf Live was focused on talking about our mission and vision, now the time has come to focus on experiencing our mission and vision at Longleaf Church. Our pace is about to quicken.

We are hosting one last pre-launch environment before we launch. We are offering a Preview Service on Sunday, August 22 at 11AM. Waumba Land (Infant – K4) and UpStreet (K5 – 5th Grade) will run during our Preview Service.  Some committed and and talented people are working hard to make our all of our environments engaging and excellent for the Preview Service. Over the next several days, we’ll be calling on our core people to continue serving strategically AND to invite lots of friends to our Preview Service. We’ve set up a Preview Service Web Page on our site that includes details on the Preview Service.  This page has a facebook “like button” to share the event on facebook.  Facebook users can also share links to the Preview Service page on facebook and post comments to the Longleaf Church fan page.  Click HERE to invite a friend to the preview service via email.  We’ll send out a mass email promoting the Preview Service next week.  Additionally, feel free to stop by the church office and grab some rave cards to hand out.

It’s time to invest and invite!

Growing Community

August 7, 2010

In a few days, just about 80 people will officially belong to a Community Group (small groups for adults) at Longleaf Church.  The reality that this many people are connected to the power and potential of small groups before we launch our church is super exciting.  This foundation of small groups is what we dreamed of building in the early days of our church planting movement.  This foundation represents the culture shaping power of Authentic Community.  A culture wherein people study God’s Word together and discuss the issues and challenges of life.  Small Groups create a culture wherein people pray for one another, care for one another, and are missed if they don’t show up. Our foundation of people place a huge value on groups and we recognize the astounding potential of multiplying our influence through small groups.  These first 80 people will split their small groups and add new people every 1-2 years.  That means that these 80 people represent the potential to connect over 5000 to Community Groups by 2020!  So the question is, who are you doing life with?

We’re launching a church of small groups on 9.12.10….

Difference Makers

July 2, 2010

A shared passion for our mission and vision has fueled some remarkably generous giving towards our pre-launch funding goals at Longleaf Church. I’m excited to report that we were 95% to goal with our June giving! Average monthly giving at Longleaf Church has nearly doubled during the first half of 2010! Wow! Thanks for your amazing response and continued intentional giving!  In July we’ll focus on another of our BIG 4 THINGS, Strategic Service….

The BIG 4 THINGS (giving, serving, connecting and inviting) represent participation in our mission and vision. I love how the people around Longleaf Church raise their hands to volunteer.  There’s a contagious spirit of service that has surrounded our growing community of people since we first began our church planting journey. In the coming weeks as we prepare to launch our church, we will asking everyone to step-up or continue to Serve Strategically.  On Sunday, July 11 we’ll continue the Simply Irresistible series with a message from Andy about this core value that we call Strategic Service.

Our growing and contagious culture has a lot to do with our leaders in Family Ministry, Group Life and Service Programming that lead by serving well.  I’m so thankful for these tremendous leaders and all of the great volunteers around Longleaf Church. These people are Difference Makers.  Serving is a catalyst that grows our faith and while serving together we develop a deep sense of community and purpose.  Stay tuned for Strategic Service opportunities at Longleaf as we celebrate our journey and prepare for an exciting new chapter. See you at Longleaf LIVE on Sunday, July 11!