Back in February, we, at Life-Givers Ministries, started a Sunday night prayer service to focus on the youth revival we were planning.  We ended up praying for the church in general.  We needed it, too, because LGM was in a bad state.  We needed God, and God showed up.  The services were powerful, and due to our diligence the Breakout Youth Revival was a huge success.

After a couple of months, we had to postpone the services due to various conflicts, but resumed on Sunday, July 10th.

Approximately 8 people attended on 7/10, and we were stoked.  We knew God would honor our commitment and our prayers as long as we kept him front-and-center.  We did, and he showed up.  Again and again and again and again.  So much so that we started keeping a list of prayer requests and praise reports, and our list of praise reports are almost longer than our prayer requests.  Now, that’s God doing his thing.

[Note: It's not surprising for me to get a call/text/Facebook message exclaiming another answered prayer, and I love it every time.]

People began to notice.  Oh, they noticed.

The first 8 people were only the beginning.  We started growing.  From 8 to 10 people.  “Big deal,” you say?  We’ve also broken our attendance record twice in the past 2 weeks.  Our record is now 16.  In other words, we’ve doubled our attendance in 2 months.  To put that in perspective, that’s 25% of our average Sunday morning attendance.  25%.  TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT!!!  And to top it off, 2 of the 16 were kids and 2 were Beyond Youth students.  How cool is that?!

God is certainly up to something at Life-Givers Ministries.  I’m sooooo excited.

Yeah, the latter one is better.

Our prayers are definitely being answered.  God showed up at our prayer service last night.  We worshiped.  We loved on God, and he loved back.  His presence was overwhelming and refreshing.

After our time of worship and individual prayer, we took time to add new requests, get updates on current ones, and hear praise reports.  All-in-all, we added 4 requests, as well as, added 4, that’s 1…2…3…4, new praise reports.  Again, God is AWESOME!!!

Then, I received an e-mail about a Beyond Youth student (I won’t and can’t share the name for privacy).  The prayers we’ve been offering to God are being answered.  We’ve believed by faith that God was working, but now we can see the results.  God is AWESOME!!!

Then, we broke our attendance record for the prayer service with 14.  And we had 69 in our Sunday morning service (that’s the highest we’ve had in months) with 11 being Beyond Youth.  God is AWESOME!!!

There’s a shift happening at our church, and it is a good thing.  People are being restored, the church is growing, and God is controlling it all.

I love you all.

I was also very proud of the 2 teen performers: Tyler and Hannah.  Check out their videos.

Tyler’s Bike Tricks

Can’t see the video?  Click here.

Hannah’s Flags

Can’t see the video?  Click here.

Simply amazing.

Also, thanks to those who helped behind the scenes (you made my night a ton easier):

• Kevin on the media,
• Dylan on the lights, and
• Lauren working the video camera.

Life-Givers, you rocked it last night.  Thank you for being you.  I’m proud to be your youth pastor.

By-the-way, I have the hour-long video from Talent Night.  I will be breaking them into each performance and posting them here, on the LGM website, and the Beyond Youth website over the next few days.  Stay tuned.

1) I got to watch his passion at work

Pastor Paul stopped by for prayer.  After helping him get a CD playing, I retreated to the youth room, but stopped for a few minutes to watch him pray (creepy huh?).  It was amazing.  His passion for God and for Life-Givers radiated the room.  This was truly the man who God wanted for our church.

But he’s not just trying to lead a church.  He’s trying to lead us.  People.  In our services, he wants us to connect with God.  He wants us to be ushered into God’s presence.  He wants the Word of God to pierce through our thick skin and into our hearts and minds to change us into better people.  He wants to change Moncks Corner and Berkeley county.

Amazing.

2) I got to hear his passion

While talking with him, I would hear his passion, too.  There are a lot of ideas floating around about what, when, and how we can do things as a church, but ultimately, he wants to do what God wants.  And being around Pastor Paul for 5 minutes will allow anyone to hear that he’s not saying words, he’s casting a vision and presenting his heart.

Exciting.

In the end

I love having this good of a relationship with my Lead Pastor.  It’s good to be able to open up to him and he to me.  I’ve been blessed as a student pastor to have such a relationship.  This will only allow for great things to happen at Life-Givers and in the Beyond Youth.  God is up to something BIG.

By-the-way, every Life-Giver needs to spend some time with Pastor Paul just to hear him talk about our church and what’s in store.  You need to hear his heart.  It will truly move you.

For the Lord your God is living among you.  He is a mighty savior.  He will take delight in you with gladness.  With his love, he will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.

God’s still in control.  In fact, he’s never given up control.  And he’s not just “out there.”  He’s right with you.  Walking with you.  Being with you through thick and thin.  Through the good and bad.

To give you some encouragement, let me give you some things to remember that God has done:

1) Sunday Morning Services. God has shown up in our weekly services.  If God didn’t want us around, then I don’t think He’d be around.  God has promised that we are an important ministry, and He is going to keep us and build us back up.  Sure, we’ve had some services with no music, but music isn’t important to worship.  God is still up to something.

2) Sunday Night Prayer Services. Again, God is doing something through our times of prayer on Sunday nights.  It doesn’t matter how many people are showing up, because that’s not what matters.  It’s about God showing up, and He’s up to something miraculous.

3) Breakout Youth Revival. This event was only one month ago, and it was awesome.  Never in my life have I been more proud of you by serving during this events.  Sure, I was expecting more people to show up, but they were still great services.  People were ushered into the presence of God where they’re lives were blessed, and the effects of this weekend are still being felt.

With this in mind, never have I been more excited about our teenagers.  There’s something in the environment that is stirring my heart, and I know is will be a good thing.  We have a lock-in coming up, and like last time, we are going to have fun, but also to focus on God.

Now, here are some things which to look forward in the near future:

1) New Pastor. We have talked with a couple about being our new pastors, and we are working through some details with the SC Conference.  I can’t share many more details due to being sworn to secrecy until the details are final.  [Note: I shared this much to get you excited.  Did it work?]

2) Changes to Our Sunday Morning Service. In the near future you may see some changes made to the Sunday morning service.  We’ve already begun to start the service promptly at 10:30am instead of waiting up to 15 minutes for people to show up.  This is because we were essentially lying to everyone about our service time, and lying is a sin.

Be encouraged Life-Givers.  We are moving forward.  We are making progress.  It just looks really slow.  Our Board is working hard and so are Bridgett and me.

I love you and am praying for you.

Philippians 3:12-16 NLT,

I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection.  But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me.  No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things.  If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.

Remember what God’s done so far, and look forward to seeing the promises He’s given.  Keep moving forward.  Do your work, and God’s promises will come true.

Note: For all Life-Givers, I’ll be blogging more about this on the LGM website with thank yous and shout outs.