e-news for week of 8/15/10

Ever walked into a room and the radio is blaring, the TV is turned on with the volume up way too loud, the kids are screaming, and somebody is running a blender? In the middle of all this, your spouse yells to you something that you just can’t understand?

In that environment, clarity is hard to achieve. As the lead minister of Forum, the staff and I often run into this exact type of dilemma each week. Because the church is a good sized church with so many ministry elements, how many should we highlight? Do we put the message on the back shelf? Do we take some of our worship time out of the service? If we make announcements – which ones? What’s the criteria? Do we have entire services devoted to everything that could be announced? This weekly update could easily turn into the same.

I write all that to say, it’s prime time in terms of so many elements of the ministry of Forum that are locked and loaded and ready to kick off. I don’t want the primary goal – for all of us to become like Jesus – to get lost in the visual and verbal background due to all the good things we are unleashing at Forum this fall.

Here’s the cliff notes version:
• August 21 – We’ll help staff Habitat for Humanity. Info and sign up online.

• August 22 – 1. The children from Show Me Youth Home will be with us in all three services. 2. We start signing up for Life Groups. 3. Pick up information for neighborhood canvassing. 4. Ignition and Pulse kick off for our Jr/Sr High. 5. Elder & Deacon nomination forms can be picked up at the Information Center.

• August 28 – Neighborhood targeting/canvassing. We’ll distribute 1,000 door hangers primarily in the north end of town. (see bulletin for details).

• August 29 – Kick off for the new sermon series “Your personal best.”
Tailgate party immediately after church on the grounds.

• September 5 we’re encouraging everyone to head to the North Campus at 10:30 for a Catalyst event designed to draw us together again as a body but also we are sending out thousands of invites in that area of town coupled with the neighborhood canvassing striving to connect people to Jesus.

I don’t want to over saturate you with details, but the goal of all of these efforts is to intentionally connect people to Jesus. You have some great opportunities to invite people to church over the next weeks. This is a great time to invite someone to your life group or – if you are not involved in a life group – join one, or even better yet – start one. We’ve got great video curriculum that will help you.

I do want to congratulate David Nivens upon being selected as Rotarian of the Year. Thanks for serving in the community in such an impacting way, David.

This Sunday we finish up the Paradox series. We’ll be in Luke 14 if you want to read ahead. Should be a great day of worship at both campuses this Sunday. Looking forward to worship with you. — Scott