Here’s how you can pray with me for this new service…

1) New people serving
I’m believing for a whole new army of people to begin serving on the new team for the Saturday Night services.

2) People moving over from the 10a Service
This is the standing room only service of the weekend. Need some people to jump over to Saturday Night to keep making room for new people. Maybe you have been a faithful 10a attender. Please consider moving over to Saturday Night. If you love your church (and your pastor ) adjust your schedule and make Saturday Night your service. I promise you it is as good as Sunday!

3) Revival
This interesting prayer has been coming from my heart lately. I have been praying that we would experience a full blown revival on Saturday Nights. To me, revival means we will see the presence of God moving strongly in worship, tons of people will make salvation decisions, and people who are dry, hungry and thirsty will come and be satisfied. I believe God wants to do something new that will impact our city. Not sure what God will do, but pray with me that He will move in people’s lives like never before.

I will be continuing the DREAM series this weekend. I’m stirred up about my message this weekend. I really believe it will be inspiring and encouraging. Leslie and I love you and are believing with you for an amazing 2012.

This weekend we will celebrate 15 years. We have some really great stuff planned and if you’re a part of The Life Church, I hope you can make it out to one of our weekend services. Also, this weekend we’re receiving our Vision Offering and our yearly commitments for our FAITH initiative. I gave some of my thoughts last week about how to prepare. Check it out.

There are so many things I could say, but the most important two things…

God is faithful…

And a big “thank you” to everyone through the years for making The Life Church what it is today. Leslie and I love you.

After “Moving Your Life Forward”, I’ll be following it up with a book called “Moving Your Church Forward” for pastors and church leaders. Our church has been really blessed to be experiencing a lot of significant growth over the past 5-7 years and we get questions all the time about it. It’s absolutely a result of God’s blessing and favor, but there have also been some key principles and strategies that have set us up to experience strong growth and I’ll be sharing them in this book. My heart is stirred and I’m really believing that these books will be resources that God will use to impact people and churches.

1) Pray – sounds pretty basic, but it’s often overlooked. Take a few minutes to ask God about your part, then listen and let God lead you. I’ve been amazed over the years as Leslie and I each prayed separately, then came back with very similar amounts/instructions. God wants to speak to you.

2) Think – the Bible says that we have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16), so I believe that one of the ways God leads us is by giving us strategic thoughts. Here’s what you need to think about…

What has God done for you this past year? Think about how God has blessed your life – in both intangible and tangible ways. The Bible is pretty clear that we are to give in proportion to how God has blessed our lives.

What are you hoping God will do in your life over the next year? This is where your life can go to another level. Think about this – tithing is giving from your harvest (10% of your income), but when you give above your tithe, you are giving toward your future harvest. I remember when Leslie and I started giving above our tithe toward what we were hoping our income to be the next season. Be strategic and intentional. More about this under #3.

What can you do? You need to think about what you have that you can use as seed for your future. Here’s an important thought – what you give today determines what you have tomorrow. All that you have isn’t yours to keep or spend; some of it is designated as seed for your future. Sow it!

3) Set Faith Goals – goals help you reach beyond where you are and hit targets you never would have hit if you didn’t set a goal. Over the years Leslie and I have set goals and they have always lifted our life. For example, we started a few years ago increasing the amount of our total income we give to God’s Kingdom. I’ve read some amazing stories of people like J.C. Penney who trusted God and kept increasing his giving until he was “reverse tithing” – giving God 90% and living off of 10% – and God blessed every area of his life. I thought, what if we could do that? For 2011, we committed to give God 20% – 10% tithe and another 10% above the tithe. Next year, 2012, we’re going to increase it by 5% and give 25%. Hopefully we’ll be able to keep going! What are your faith goals? What are you hoping God will do in your life? What are you hoping to do for God?

4) Commit – at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter unless you obligate yourself to a course of action. As I mentioned in church last weekend, we almost took a year off from asking people to make commitments, but I really felt a check by the Holy Spirit. After praying, I realized the commitments helped people more than they impact the church. In my own life that’s certainly been true. Leslie and I were lifted to another level because we not only believed God, but we made a commitment that stretched us big time.

I hope that helps. Let’s make God famous this weekend as we honor Him with our commitments and Vision Offering!

This year, I’ll be speaking along with my great friend, Dino Rizzo, who pastors an incredible church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, called Healing Place Church. There will breakout sessions from our team on the various areas of church life, from worship and creative to attracting guests and impacting your local community. Each year, we get incredible reports from pastors whose churches have been significantly impacted by their time at Make Room. I want to encourage you to make an investment in your church and your team and get them to this year’s Make Room Conference. For more info, click here or email makeroom@thelifechurch.com. Hope to see you there!

>>CLICK HERE TO BUY A TRUCK

I’m really fired up about some new Fresh Start resources we’ve just made available for pastors and leaders! It’s so important that our churches are strategic and effective in giving people the opportunity to commit their lives to Christ and helping them take their next steps to get planted in church and grow as believers. This is something that God started dealing with me about several years ago. I knew it was important for us to make it as simple as possible for people to make a fresh start with God, so we began working on a plan and making some changes.

Eventually we developed what we now call our “Fresh Start” process.
As we implemented the plan, we saw incredible results and I continue to be amazed at the harvest that we’re experiencing. In fact, just this year, in 2010 we’ve seen over 8500 people make a salvation decision in our services and through our television program. I recently finished a book called Fresh Start with God that we make available to every person that receives Christ in one of our services or through our TV program. From the first weekend we began to give this book to those who made a fresh start, we had an immediate increase of 140% in those who connected with our team after service.

If you’d like to begin using the Fresh Start process in your church, I’ve also put together a Pastor’s Kit with in-depth teaching and resources. There’s more information on Fresh Start With God Today and our Fresh Start Pastor’s Kit here, as well as bulk pricing and ordering information.

We tried a lot of different methods before we identified some key principles and processes that worked for us. This Fresh Start process has made an incredible difference in our church, and I wanted to put this together to help other churches experience the same impact. We’d love to partner with you by sharing these Fresh Start resources with you and your church so be sure to stop by our store and check it out or email Leslie Ford at lford@thelifechurch.com.

Well, we crushed our goal – in total, for the month of August 2010, we saw 1338 salvation decisions! I made the announcement at our Wide Open Leadership Night. Our creative team did a really cool thing for the Wide Open service, they built a stage wall with the exact number of people who received Christ. Check out this recap video from our Wide Open Leadership Night: