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!

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!

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….

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!

Longleaf LIVE was awesome Sunday night! The momentum around our church planting journey continues to build… Longleaf LIVE is a series of preview environments running this summer that anchors our church planting movement AND offers visitors some tangible vision for our church. The recent message at Longleaf LIVE was about our core value of Authentic Community.  It’s so encouraging to be part of an Authentic Community of people. Authentic Community flows best through Community Groups (Small Groups for Adults) at Longleaf Church.  This summer, we’ll not only gather for Longleaf LIVE on 2nd Sundays, we’ll gather for a conversational, coffee and dessert environment called Runway on 4th Sundays. Join us for the next Runway on Sunday, June 27 at 6PM.  We’ll hear stories of accountability, belonging and care that are happening within Community Groups at Longleaf AND we’ll talk about steps for people to connect with a Community Group.

There’s also some socials going on around Longleaf Church this summer, including a Ladies Brunch on Saturday, June 26.  For details on the brunch, check our facebook page or email Lauren.

The heat is on in Middle Georgia even though it’s not even officially Summer.  Everyone is primed and ready for the most relaxed season of the year, Summertime.  We take vacations, hang out by the pool, and do a lot of grilling out in the Summertime.  There’s definitely a lot of excitement among the kid’s as they celebrate the end of the school year and the beginning of this fun time of the year.  The community of people planting Longleaf Church together are a fun bunch, so I’m sure that some great Community Group Socials are on the horizon!  My Community Group has already had one pool party.  Having fun together is certainly a big part of doing life together.

In praying and planning for the full launch of Longleaf Church this September, we want to create a summer schedule that sustains our momentum yet also creates a healthy break for our volunteers. We want to uncork a lot of energy this September! We also want to maintain a consistent schedule that’s not too difficult for people to track. With all of this in mind, here’s the plan:

Longleaf LIVE will continue to run the 2nd Sundays of June, July and August at 6PM. Those dates are June 13th, July 11th and August 8th.

Runway will replace the 4th Sunday Longleaf LIVE Services.  Runway will run on 4th Sundays at 6PM. Those dates are June 27th, July 25th and August 22th. Runway is a round-table, conversational environment that’s about building community, and developing the “4 Things” that are paving our launch runway. There will be childcare and a themed movie night for kids, but no Children’s Programming.  Runway will culminate with an invest and invite celebration on August 22!

Series Group will meet monthly this summer. Those dates are June 6th, July 18th and August 15th. The Series Group will continue to serve as a step towards connecting to a Community Group (Adult Small Group).

Please shoot as an email with any questions.  We look forward to a great summer as our community continues to grow and our momentum builds towards launch!  The Simple series was a great message to send us into the summer season with.  I hope that it was encouraging for our church planting community to consider how our journey of planting Longleaf is about following, believing and obeying Jesus. Thanks for your faith and courage to plant a church that’s focused on leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

This past Sunday was a monumental moment in the life of Longleaf Church. It was great to pause and reflect on how far we’ve come and encouraging to see our community of people rally around our final pre-launch goal, a $20k regular monthly giving pattern. Since we began our church planting journey, we envisioned a process that’s analogous to paving a runway before launching an airplane.

Runway dimensions vary from as small as 804 ft long in smaller general aviation airports, to 18,045 ft long and 262 ft wide at large international airports built to accommodate the largest jets. Whatever the runway dimensions, the distances are carefully calculated and constructed accordingly. If you have flown, you have experienced the sudden acceleration that occurs when an airplane is positioned on the runway and ready for take-off. In Church Planting, the calculations aren’t exactly mathematical because Planting a church is about faith. However, God calls us to prepare and work hard in everything we do, especially the mobilization and expansion of His church….

To see God continue to build and establish Longleaf Church is so much fun. That’s right, fun. Being part of the Longleaf Church movement takes sacrifice, faith and perseverance, but is also a lot of fun. God is faithful and he grants power and purpose to the church. His story of faithfulness is unfolding right now at Longleaf Church.

There is an exciting day on the horizon for our church. It’s coming. Our church will launch with power and purpose. Jet blast is the phenomenon of rapid air movement produced by the jet engines of aircraft, particularly on or before takeoff. Get ready to feel a Jet Blast around Longleaf Church in a few months. As always, thanks for the part that you’re playing to plant our church. If you haven’t already, I hope that you’ll take a moment to fill our our RUNWAY form.

One of the spiritual catalysts that we seek to understand and leverage around Longleaf Church is called Pivotal Circumstances. While our lives are always moving in one direction or another, inevitably we will encounter defining seasons of life when we must respond to challenges or difficult circumstances. The sum total of our wisdom, our faith and our passion is brought to bear in the midst of Pivotal Circumstances. When we compile these three elements of spiritual fortitude and respond to life’s challenges, the result is directed ENERGY. ENERGY derived from trusting God. The more daring our hopes and dreams are, the greater our ENERGY (faith, wisdom and passion) must be.

The prophecy, the life, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important message in the world. Just before Jesus was betrayed, arrested and crucified, He prayed this prayer to The Father; “Father if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42). The passion and the perseverance of Jesus rescued us all. Jesus subsequently placed the church (God’s people) at the epicenter of a great struggle. We are called according to purpose to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world.

In 2010, the subtle presentation of our struggle is complacency. When we take a complacent approach to church and treat it like a social club that simply runs programs for our families, we are really missing the mark. Our passion at Longleaf Church is to be defined by authentic community, life change and relevant environments that lead people into growing relationships with Jesus Christ. A church full of ENERGY! God has granted us ENERGY and we are preparing to fully launch our church!

The pre-launch chapter of Longleaf Church is winding down as we focus on our final pre-launch hurdle. The response to the pre-launch financial goals at Longleaf has been truly amazing. The final hurdle is for us to rally around our pre-launch goal of $20,000 per month in average monthly giving. Our current giving pattern is $14,000, so we are 70% to goal! It would be easy for us to skip ahead and ignore this final piece but we want to launch a church that’s going to reach this generation, and the next. To do that, we need to reach this $20,000 mark. Thanks for your response. Thanks for your ENERGY. Thanks for your part in the Longleaf Church Community…