Tag Archive - Outreach

Greatest Gift Offering

Next month, I’m inviting everyone connected to Coastal Community Church to participate in our annual Greatest Gift Offering. This is the time of year where we put feet to our faith – where we show our community the love of Jesus. The idea here is that as we buy gifts for other people, we want our largest, most extravagant gift to go to Jesus. We’ll use 100% of donations to this offering to fund the following projects.

• Upgrading our children, youth and main auditorium with new technology. This has been a big need for the past couple of years and we’re looking forward to upgrading. ($12,000)

• Church planting in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe. We’re partnering with Children’s Cup to plant a Coastal Community Church in Kwekwe focused on reaching those far from Jesus in one of the largest cities in Zimbabwe. They have already gathered 75 people to start and are just waiting for us to partner with them. ($12,000)

• We want to ramp up our local outreach efforts here to a whole new level in 2012. We have more outreaches, more events and more opportunities to reach those far from God with the life-transforming message of Jesus. ($13,000)

On December 18, 2011, we will receive the gift offering during our weekend service. We’re providing special giving envelopes and encouraging everyone to come prepared to give on that day. I am stepping out in faith and believing God for $37,000 in this years Greatest Gift offering.

If you’re going to be out of town on December 18th, or if you’d like to go ahead and donate now, you can do that here. It’s safe, secure and simple to use.

Please pray about participating and jump in with us. God has given us a great mission, and we’re blessed to be able to join Him in reaching our community for Christ and advancing the Gospel around the world.

BEST WEEK EVER!!!

Coffeeimages

I have had one of the best weeks so far since I moved to Ft. Lauderdale almost 3 months ago.  I don’t know about you but I get pumped up when I have the opportunity to make a difference in peoples lives.  This week we have had 2 different outreaches so far with a third coming up this Saturday morning.  We started the week off with a breakfast on Tuesday morning to the staff of Monarch High School, where Coastal Community Church will be meeting.  It was so awesome to cater in Panera Bread and serve the teachers and administration.  We made it to where they did not have to throw away a plate or come and get a refill of coffee, we were there to just serve.  The reaction was overwhelming, they were blown away by our friendliness, helpfullness and servants attitudes, in fact some of them said they wanted to check out the church just because of the breakfast and how we treated them.

On Thursday morning we also had the opportunity to help new students move into Florida Atlantic University right around the corner from us in Boca Raton.  I had no idea how many students attended this college until we showed up, but let me just say it was a ton.  For 5 hours we moved in students to their new residence for the next 9-12 months.  These were freshmen who were off to college for the first time, excited but yet scared at the same point about venturing off on their own.  It was great to take what would have been 10 trips up and down flights of stairs to 3rd, 5th and 7th floor rooms and turning them into one with our team.  We made it easy on them to get adjusted to their new surroundings and made a stressful task of moving in quite easy.  It was great showing God’s love to students through the act of moving them into their rooms.

The best part about both of these days of serving was that in each case I convinced someone to come out and serve with us who did not really want to serve.  At the end of both of these outreaches they would come up to me and be like, I felt like I had to come and do this but I am so glad I did, this was so much fun coming out and helping people and making a difference in their lives.  The thing about being a Christ follower is that it is not about us but others.  I love it in Matthew when Jesus says “I did not come to be served but to GIVE my life as a ransom for many.”  I think that so many times we want God to do for us when really He is calling us to GIVE to others.  I am so proud to say that at Coastal Community Church we are all about giving to others.  We are about making Jesus famous in our community and showing people God’s love in a practical way through random acts of kindness.

If you would like to get involved in serving the community there is an opportunity to do that this Saturday, August 22 at 9am.  We will be meeting at the Coastal Community Church offices located at 5760 Wiles Road, Coral Springs, Fl 33067.  We would love for you to come out and show God’s love to others through some free gum and blowpops at Sabal Pines Park with us.  If you would like to join us please meet at our offices and come share the love.

Blown Away

I am continually blown away by the way God orchestrates things in life.  We did a water giveaway yesterday to our community and it was awesome.  We had so many stories of people who were blown away by us giving them a bottle of water.  We got to show people Jesus in a practical way, pray for them, have conversations and even have some pull back around to find out more about Coastal Community Church.

One couple that came around at the end as we were all walking back to the church office said that they were on their way to Home Depot and saw us passing out water and just had to come talk to us.  They continued on to say that they have been hearing about this church that is going to be starting up in Monarch High School that loves God, people and serves the community.  In fact they had been searching us on the web and were so excited when we were out when they were on the road.  God is up to something big in our community and I can’t wait to see what He does in and through us for His glory.

images2The thing that I am realizing in life is that if I want to be blown away by God, I have to do something.  He doesn’t really show up if I am just dormant in life.  When I step out into action God shows up.

I want to encourage you to step up and out and see what kinds of things God wants to do in and through you in life.

Seeking to Act.

I have been reading an amazing book by Dino Rizzo called Servolution.  Dino pastors one of the most influential churches in America called Healing Place Church.  He really embodies the book that he wrote.  This morning as I was reading I was thinking about this book as well as out Beach Reach outreach today.  He says in one of the chapters that “Jesus lived his life SEEKING opportunities to turn His LOVE FOR PEOPLE into ACTION.” For some reason I just can’t get this statement out of my head.  I had never really thought about the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, was SEEKING, LOOKING, PURSUING ways to LOVE people but not just love in words but in ACTION.

serve2This is so powerful!  So many times in my life I have compassion for people or say that I love people but there is no action behind that love, just words.  But Jesus was SEEKING, or looking around every corner, at every situation for an opportunity to put His unfailing love into ACTION for others to see.  It makes me ask myself, “What am I seeking in life?”  Am I seeking to put my love into action with my family, friends and those who do not yet know?

I am so challenged today to live life a different way, not self serving but living life on purpose showing God’s great love for me with ACTION to others.

Brain Fart

Do you ever just have one of those brain fart moments in life.  This morning Wayne and I were out delivering donuts and bagels to the Coconut Creek police force and to Monarch High school as a way of saying thanks for all that they do for our community.  So of course as you are giving something away expectantly to someone they would ask who it is from.  This is where everything went wrong for me.  I have been on staff at an amazing church in Bradenton called Bayside Community Church, so when they asked where we were from of course I would tell them Coastal but instead said Bayside. I know that names aren’t important for recognition because it is about making Jesus famous but if they would like to say thanks, they are going to have a hard time finding Bayside.

d31Outreach was great this morning anyways.  It is always great to bless others to be a blessing.  There response always is so genuine and appreciative, in fact most of the time they don’t know how to react.  Why is it that when someone else does something helpful or gives us something that it blows us away?  Jesus told us that “He did not come to be served but to serve others by dying on the cross.”  You would think that if we embodied Christ words that we would all be use to people serving and doing things for us.  Makes me wonder a lot of times why we want the deeper things of God when we don’t embrace the simple.

Are you living out Jesus words to serve others by GIVING?

What are you doing with your TIME, TALENT and TREASURE in life?

Are you living for yourself and what you can get or for God and what you can give?

I love what Winston Churchill said “We make a living by what we get and we make a life by what we give.”

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