Providing Hope

Several years ago a good friend introduced me to the “Law of Large Numbers.” It works like this: if you have a church of 100 and 10% lose jobs, that is 10 people out of work. Well you can do the math. If a church of 1,000 has 10% lose jobs, you now have 100 people out of work.

Add to that the same 1,000 people a percentage who have cancer, another percentage who have suffered divorce, another percentage who are struggling in their marriages, another percentage who are depressed, another percentage who have health problems, another percentage who are suffering loneliness, another percentage of those suffering loss, abandonment, secret sins, consequences of sin…it just keeps going.

Now add to that number those in our community and you see how many people are really hurting and need hope and freedom that comes from one name and one name only and that name is the name above all names…Jesus Christ!

Listen to God’s heart on this matter:

“’I have seen his ways, but I will heal him;
I will guide him and restore comfort to him,
creating praise on the lips of the mourners in Israel.
Peace, peace, to those far and near,’
says the Lord. ‘And I will heal them.’”

Isaiah 57:18-19

As 2008 came to an end, we felt the Lord was leading us to bring as much hope to our church and to our community as possible. Real hope is found only in the name of Jesus Christ. We had plans to reserve the square every Tuesday night in September and offer testimonies of the hope and freedom people have found in Jesus.

We are staying with our goal but have changed the venue. Beginning on September 20, we are kicking off a series entitled “Life’s Healing Choices: Finding HOPE In Life’s Struggles.” What are the benefits?
· Evangelism opportunity…People surrendering their lives to Jesus!
· Christians going to a new depth in discipleship… maturity.
· More people experiencing connection through small groups. (We need more people to volunteer to lead small groups for only eight weeks.)
· Repentance and reconciliation with God and others…freedom.
· A great way for us to serve the community because we all know someone who is struggling with one of the pains mentioned above.

During this series there will be a testimony from someone whom the Lord has delivered from struggles, sin, and pain…they are unbelievable. Be praying for these people because this is an incredible act of faith to stand up and be so vulnerable. Pray for them to be able and stand and say “here is who I was, and this is who I am because of Jesus Christ.”

On August the 9, you will begin seeing a prayer guide for the church. You will see one each week until the series begins.

Pray! Did you see what God did at the end of our 21 Day Prayer Journey this summer with the number of people who came forward for forgiveness issues? Did you realize that day of freedom was the very last day of our 21 day prayer journey with God? Praise Him! Praise Him! Praise Him!

You will hear more coming soon.

Know this…Satan will fight us on every level. He does not want to see the Lord…

“…bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners…”

Isaiah 61:1

Pray. Stay in the Word of God.

Read Acts and see what the Lord can do! Today is Day One.

Looking forward to seeing “greater things than these”!

Scott

PS: We’ve started archiving my weekly emails on a blog on our website. To see any of these, go to www.eastridgefamily.org, click on “Resources,” then click on “Scott’s Weekly Blog.”

Celebrating

Just left staff meeting a few minutes ago and I want to share some of the stories that were shared:

· During our series on Forgiveness we had the following number of decisions…

Forgive someone else 203
Forgive myself 35
Seek Forgiveness 35
TOTAL 273 (almost half of our adults!)

· We had a young girl take the spot of one of our staff on the youth camp CIY. Read her thank you note to the staff member…

"Thank you sooo much Kina!!!! I just wanted to thank you and all the girls for
making me feel comfortable and accepting me with open arms!! I am so happy to be
getting involved! I can't wait to talk to you about CIY and I just wanted you to
know that God took you not being able to go and used that to CHANGE MY LIFE!!!
thank you for everything!!! :)"(Smiley face is not mine!)

· Children are at home reciting to their parents what forgiveness means and singing and dancing to the songs from “Go Orange”. Parents are asking for forgiveness buckets for themselves. (Had to be here to understand that last sentence.)

· The Garden of Gethsemane Homeless shelter (formerly known as Rainbow) dedicated one of their buildings to Eastridge naming it the Eastridge Building. Why? Because several believers went and served in the name of Jesus so others would have shelter during tough times in their lives.

· Celebrate Recovery had 190 people on Thursday night. Did you know our Celebrate Recovery is 1 0f 15,000 in the United states. It is the largest in the Southeast and is in the top 12 largest in the country. Every week people have the opportunity to find hope and freedom in Jesus Christ…and very few people in Covington even know about it. ( We will be changing that in the fall…more to come later this week on that.)

· In the past 6 weeks 5 adults have given their lives to Jesus Christ and 16 more recommitted.

I share all of this to say this: Celebrate with us! Give God praise for the changes He is making in the lives of people! Make no mistake about it…He and He alone receives all the praise and all the glory for what is happening in His Church.

Praising God,
Scott

Pray For Me

This morning I shared with the staff I would like for them to pray for me and I am asking you to do the same.

I will begin a new series on Sunday called “Momentum”. We are moving forward with Jesus. One thing I know is that as the leader goes so goes the church. I also know in order to move with Jesus, there has to be as little “drag” as possible. Here is what I am asking you to pray for me:
· Pray the Lord would show me sin in my life.
· Pray he would reveal to me how he sees my sin.
· Pray he would bring me to the place where I experience His sorrow over sin.

Am I nervous about this…oh yeah!

Thank you for your prayers.

Pray Jesus will be exalted and lives will be changed not through my message but The Message…not just on Sundays but every day.

God Bless,
Scott

Doing Well

I hope all of you are doing well. Really.

I hope all of you are secure in your faith, secure in your walk with God, free from guilt, and living in obedience and surrender, which results in complete freedom, which I would say is “doing well.”

I have been amazed at the number of decisions I have seen in the past few weeks in regards to forgiveness. Some of you have chosen to forgive past hurts. Read carefully what I am going to say next…that is huge and I am so proud of you. Some of you have had to humble yourselves and ask for forgiveness. For those of you who did…wow! You are displaying serious obedience to faith. I am proud of you. If you are still wrestling with forgiveness issues, we will be wrapping up this series this Sunday. Pray that God will give you the strength to do whatever is necessary.

This past week in our Go Orange/KidStuf service, our adults and kids were taught how to forgive and ask for forgiveness. We had 36 people decide to forgive someone, and two others recommitted their lives to Christ. Praise God for the life change taking place among people!

Also, thank you to all the volunteers who made Go Orange/KidStuf/VBS happen. Thank you for exalting Christ to our church. Thank God for all of the talent He has placed in His people. Amazing! Click here to see the video recap of Go Orange/KidStuf/VBS.

During the month of June a lot of our staff is involved in summer camps, retreats, and such. In July a lot of the staff tries to coordinate their weeks off to spend time with their family and get renewed. But we as a staff are also planning for the various messages and individual programs coming up for the fall. Here are some ways you may pray for His church.

• Pray that we (the church) will build the most Christ like disciples possible.
• Pray that we (the pastors and elders) make the right decisions resulting in making the best disciples.
• Pray that we (the church) never tire of reading His Word but hunger for it.
• Pray for me as I make the final plans for the Fall Sermon series.

If you are a book nerd like me, I want to encourage you to read a book I am reading and the staff will be reading. It is Downpour by James MacDonald. Fab-tastic read about personal revival (Yes I wrote “Fab-tastic”).If you happen to hear in my fall preaching similar teaching and illustrations…wow what a coincidence it will be!

Finally…continue reading your Bibles. This past week in John has ministered to me personally. Chapters 14 and 17 have been my favorites. If you are off schedule or out of the habit, begin fresh this Monday with the reading plan on the bottom of the outline or from the webpage.


Love you guys,
Scott