Kingdom Sweat Campaign
By Stovall Weems
21 days of pouring yourself out….
March 21 – April 11
Pray everyday for at least 3 people you know to come to church on Easter weekend and commit/recommit their lives to Christ.
Invite those people to Easter services several times leading up to Easter weekend. If they will not come invite someone else! Don’t give up!! Use our easy e-vite and your favorite social network.
Fast with us on Wednesday, March 31 until Good Friday, April 2. During this fast we will be praying for the people you are praying for and inviting as well as a great harvest for Christ on Easter. This fast will end with communion at our Good Friday worship service at 7pm at Midtown.
Bring the people you invited on Easter if necessary or you can or at least plan to meet them at the front door of the church. Remember there are also special Easter service options – you can also really help advance the Kingdom by choosing to come to our Saturday night or Sunday night services.
Follow-up with the people you brought to church and make every effort to get them back to church the next weekend. It will be easy once you see the series we are kicking-off the weekend after Easter!
Celebrate with water baptism immediately following the Sunday 6pm service at the Midtown campus on Sunday April 11. Water baptism will follow the last service at all of our campuses on April 11. If you or any of the people you brought to Easter service needs to be baptized this is it. Many people will dedicate their lives to Jesus Easter weekend so this water baptism the very next Sunday is very important!
Give to advance the Kingdom of God in our community. More than 800,000 people in our city are lost, far from God and do not attend church. Turn in your imagine pledge card by next weekend March 28 or fill out a pledge card online.
You can do it! Let’s advance the Kingdom of God this Easter season! Let’s let Jesus know we are with Him! It’s only 21 days of your life that could make a difference of eternity for someone else!
Stovall
All Access 2010 Conference
By Stovall Weems
Check out this promo for All Access 2010!
Register today at www.allaccess2010.com
http://www.vimeo.com/9108404Voices – Part 2
By Stovall Weems
The Voice of Ambition
Luke 4:42-43
One of the loudest voices that can come from the “crowd” is the voice of ambition. This is especially true for pastors and leaders. Most of us are driven and goal oriented, we like to see production and we like to see things moving forward. We have vision and dreams and we want to change the world for Jesus and see everybody saved. But unfortunately God has not called us to the entire world but to a certain “sphere” or field. (2 Cor 10:13-16) That is where our anointing is, that is our current assignment.
If we step beyond the boundaries of the sphere or field that God designed for us, two things happen:
(1) We trespass into a field to which God has not called us
(2) We leave our own field unguarded
We can also step into a field that God has called us to but step in too soon and have the same result. In other words, we are supposed to be in that field but not at this time or in this capacity. I have learned so many hard lessons in this area. For example, preaching too many services, trying to start too many campuses, planting churches in cities too soon, trying to force growth and opportunity. I am so excited about the Kingdom and consumed with conquering the world for Jesus, yet I need to be careful that I am hearing from God and not ambition. I have learned that God has sent me to preach the gospel, but in that sending there are boundaries. As I stay within those boundaries, I am in my anointing and rhythm and am a good steward of my field. As my field grows, I step into more and make sure I don’t get ahead of God. I pray much more carefully over every opportunity. I stay in what I call prayerful aggression. But if I get stretched too thin or ahead of God, then energy gets wasted for the kingdom. Make sure you are hearing God’s voice when it comes to opportunity because the voice of ambition speaks very loud and makes our egos feel very good.
Stovall
Voices
By Stovall Weems
http://www.vimeo.com/10235266Hey, I’m going to be doing a series of blog posts over next few weeks on hearing the voice of God. I believe that as leaders and ministers, it is just crucial that we are hearing the voice of our Heavenly Father.
In Luke 4:41-42, Jesus is having an amazing time of ministry. He’s casting out devils and healing people and is performing great miracles. The bible says that the crowds of people began to gather around him and ask him to stay and set up shop there. It’s as if they began to pressure Jesus to stay. I’m sure you can imagine all of those people and with all of the needs and why they desired for Jesus to stay and continue His ministry there. I’m sure they wanted to bring their friends and family, there were still a lot of needs to be met. The voice of the crowd really began to bombard Jesus.
The bible says in Luke 4:41-42 that Jesus went away to a deserted place. I believe that each of us as ministers of the gospel, we have to have a deserted place. We should not do ministry life in the fast lane with Jesus. We need to be living ministry life in the deserted place with Jesus. That doesn’t mean that we’re not busy and our schedules aren’t crazy, I know how ministry is, but, we need that deserted place. We need a daily retreat with God. We will not hear the voice of God if we only live life in the fast lane. We have to have a deserted place so we can hear the voice of God.
So, Jesus went away where he can pray and hear his Father’s voice. He came out and addressed the crowd and said, “I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent.” After Jesus heard the voice of God, He was confirmed in His primary ministry as a preacher of the gospel. As ministers of the gospel, our first call is to preach the gospel, preach the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is the rule and reign of God. God is passionate about expanding His Kingdom. It is our call first and foremost not to heal, cast out devils, or see miracles but our first call is to preach the Kingdom of God. If we preach with this focus, then all of those other things are by-products of the preaching of the gospel and Kingdom of God. So when Jesus heard the voice of His Father, His Father spoke to his purpose.
If we don’t have that deserted place where we can go away and hear the voice of God, all we will hear is the voice of the crowd. The voice of the crowd only speaks to need and not to purpose. Only God can truly speak to your purpose, not the crowd. I think too many times we think God is speaking to us through the crowd, but what I have found is that God’s voice of purpose comes to me in the deserted place. We can best hear the voice of God when we are completely alone with God and communing with Him.
So, over the next few weeks we are going to look at these different voices or temptations, because many times we think we are hearing the voice of God but we’re actually hearing the voice of ambition. We may think that we are hearing the voice of God, but we are really hearing the voice of our own dreams. We may think that we are hearing the voice of God, but we are really hearing the voice of success or the voice of failure. So, it is so important that we are able to discern the voice of God, so that we can choose what is God not just what is good.
So, check out the blog. I will be posting these over the next few weeks. Thanks for tuning in.
Stovall
This Weekend @ Celebration Church
By Stovall Weems
Don’t even think about missing church this weekend just because you lose an hour of sleep! Celebration Church is in for incredible services this weekend as we host our very special guest, Pastor Craig Groeschel, speaking live at all services. He is the founding and Senior Pastor of LifeChurch.tv in Edmund, Oklahoma. If you have never had the opportunity to hear Pastor Craig Groeschel speak live, then you don’t want to miss out on his visit to Celebration Church. Craig is not only a great leader and Pastor, but also a good friend of mine and I am so pumped to have him with us.
P.S. Don’t forget to set your clocks FORWARD one hour on Saturday night before you snooze so you can join us for an awesome church experience on Sunday! If you want to sleep in, fine, you can always come to our Sunday, 6:00 PM service as your service choice this weekend at the Midtown Campus. By the way, all families who attend on Sunday will receive a pre-release single of “Greater Than All” – a Celebration original from our upcoming CD this fall.
Stovall
Wow!
By Stovall Weems
First of all, what a great weekend! The presence of God was awesome, the altars were packed and 136 people give their lives to Christ. I can’t wait until this Sunday as I believe it is going to be even greater. I’m pumped about preaching my first message this Sunday since my surgery.
Second, last night was a great night as we kicked off my personal discipleship group called the 3Hundred. This select group of men will be the key catalyst in helping to forge the destiny that God has for Celebration Church. I am so fired up about this group, can’t wait until our next gathering.
Ok now…
I wanted to say a big thanks to everyone who attended the Sunday night service as their service of choice last weekend. Remember because we are going to an all Sunday service format our Sunday morning services are extremely packed and it really helps us reach more people by you freeing up your Sunday morning seat and coming Sunday night instead. Sunday night is filling up fast as well but there is some room there and we have opened the annex on Sunday night as well. Even though all services will be very full with the annex open, the egress will be better due to more margin and new exits. We had over 1,000 people attending our Saturday night service so that is a lot of people to move over to Sunday. Also remember, the Sunday night service is exactly the same as the Sunday morning services. Exact same message, worship and everything so by coming to Sunday night instead of Sunday morning you are not missing anything. The only difference is the Sunday night service has communion and a little more energy, a special presence of God there and I believe it is going to be the BEST service of the entire weekend!
I am asking everyone to please consider making the Sunday night service your service of choice. Even if just once or twice a month you go to Sunday night instead of Sunday morning it would be huge blessing to the church. By doing that you are really helping us to reach more people for Christ. Remember it is not about us but about God’s glory!
I know for some of you the Saturday night service was really convenient but as I told everyone back in January, in this new season for my health and my family, the all- Sunday service flow is the healthiest rhythm for myself, family, staff and our church as a whole. If you want to watch or listen my full story and reason behind this please listen to my message that I preached the last weekend in January entitled “Experiencing a God First Life” (audio, video). We feel this is a very strategic and necessary shift for the church in this next season. It has already brought a big lift to our campuses and great momentum in moving forward. We now have live feed to most of our campuses (soon at all locations) and as we open new campuses every year and open our new facility at Baymeadows and 9A in the very near future, we have plenty of options for everyone to chose a convenient service time and location.
The live feed to our campuses has just been awesome and it is great to see our church truly begin to come into being one church with multiple locations. Many people that previously attended Midtown now attend the campus that is closer to where they live in their own community and that is a good thing!
A few other things to know about that will help with the crowds at Midtown. We are opening up an additional 700 seats at the school next to our new property in August that we will be able to use (for free!) on Sunday mornings. So we think that will be a great venue for some people to choose. The school has a brand new theatre and it is amazing. Everyone that attends that venue will be able to see our progress on our new facility next door every week! But the truth is once Sunday night is completely packed we will have no more room at Midtown and will be in that situation until our new facility is ready at Baymeadows and 9A. We have room at some of our campuses but Orange Park Campus is close to capacity at all three services. The good news is that Orange Park will be expanding into a 1000+ seat sanctuary and a possible new location in the very near future. OP has seen amazing growth this past year. St. Johns Campus will be moving into their first permanent location in Julington Creek so that is exciting too! I will probably have some more info about this in a blog post next week.
I am so grateful for all that God is doing and all the incredible people at Celebration Church who are leading people to experience a God first life. Thank all of you for your faithfulness, serving, giving, praying, and sacrificing to enable the Kingdom of God to move forward. I am very humbled for all the growth and expansion and influence that God is allowing us to have in this season and I am absolutely convinced we are just getting started and the best is yet to come!
Thank all of you for your comments. I read them all!
See you Sunday,
Stovall
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Recent Comments
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