Easter follow-up

Well Donnie already blogged about the best part of Easter in the last post. And I'm glad, because I couldn't have put it into words like he did. But we had some other fun activities that begun earlier in the week that led up to Sunday. An Easter party with our homeschooling buddies started off the celebration, complete with an Easter lesson (illustrated with resurrection rolls), and of course an egg hunt. Here is a snippet of our deep conversation about the death and resurrection of Christ as we wrapped marshmallows (Christ) in crescent rolls (linen cloth) and placed them in the oven (the tomb). The marshmallow melts, so that when they break them open, it's empty - Christ is risen!

"So after Jesus died and they wrapped him in cloth, where did they put him?"

"In the oven!"

"Ok, let's open our resurrection rolls. What do you notice?"

"Jesus melted!"

Later that day the kids received their Easter baskets from Grammie and Granddad. Ella loved her new sunglasses and Tinkerbell bowl.

Easter morning...Ella enjoys torturing me by NOT smiling every time I get out the camera.

Sunday evening we were invited by our sweet friends, the Fairs, to their house for dinner and some more egg hunting...oh and four-wheel riding, of course.

Easter - Elevation style

What do you get when you mix the supernatural power and blessing of God with an army of volunteers willing to work around the clock, a pastor with an intense focus on reaching the lost and an amazingly talented staff that is equally committed to that vision?

Something like this:




More than 11,000 in attendance. 700+ decisions for Christ. Over 18,000 food/clothing/toy items donated for our local outreach partners. The greatest worship experience I have ever been a part of. And the church is only 4 years old. So where do you go from here? Well, apparently you reserve Bank of America stadium for Easter 2015. This is your official save the date.

I have to admit that about 1/2 way through the service I stopped singing and just looked around. All at once a flood of thoughts filled my mind: I thought about how hard it has been to be so far from family and how it didn't make any sense for us to move to Charlotte 6 years ago. How I used to immediately dismiss the thought of attending "big" churches because they had to be impersonal and were probably all about money. I thought about how much closer we could be to being completely out of debt if we didn't give sacrificially to support this church and about how much more time I would have (to waste, most likely) if we didn't volunteer or participate in a small group. As I was panning around the arena processing these thoughts and taking in all those people united under one vision praising the same God that had saved them just like He did me, it was as if God asked me, "So is it worth it?" It wrecked me inside and I just started crying. I felt humbled to be standing there in the presence of God being blessed so intensely by this experience and indescribably grateful that God has orchestrated this opportunity into my life. I was in awe of God's power.

Thank you Jesus for giving your life to save mine. Thank you God for pursuing me even when I run away. Thank you Pastor Steven and Elevation church for your commitment to excellence and your unrelenting pursuit of the city of Charlotte for Christ. I am so blessed to call Elevation Church my church.

Pastor Furtick on local news

Be there!

Easter 2010 Trailer from Elevation Worship on Vimeo.

Easter at Elevation

Very exciting! Read about it here.

How Rich Are You?

There is nothing wrong with having money. Everything you have has been given to you, so to feel guilty for what you've been given is pretty much insulting God. What' s important is how you use the resources you've been given. It's not about giving a certain dollar amount or percentage, although these can certainly be used as goals or benchmarks. What's most important is the condition of your heart as you consider how to steward the resources you've been given. Maybe you start with 2% of your income with the goal of increasing it by 1% every year. Maybe you start as a "biblical tither" and give 10% or maybe you're a "twither" and give 20% or a "reverse tither" and give 90% away and live on 10%. (Whoa!) Again, the number doesn't matter. Everything belongs to God. He doesn't need "your" money, He wants your heart.

One way to keep things in perspective is to compare your salary to the rest of the world. Very eye opening. Go to http://www.globalrichlist.com and put in your individual or household salary. Consider how rich you really are and what God would have you do with the resource He has given you. God has fully funded you to accomplish everything He has planned for you to do.

Story Time

It's not always bad when things are too quiet...