Jet Blast

This past Sunday was a monumental moment in the life of Longleaf Church. It was great to pause and reflect on how far we've come and encouraging to see our community of people rally around our final pre-launch goal, a $20k regular monthly giving pattern. Since we began our church planting journey, we envisioned a process that's analogous to paving a runway before launching an airplane.

Runway dimensions vary from as small as 804 ft long in smaller general aviation airports, to 18,045 ft long and 262 ft wide at large international airports built to accommodate the largest jets. Whatever the runway dimensions, the distances are carefully calculated and constructed accordingly. If you have flown, you have experienced the sudden acceleration that occurs when an airplane is positioned on the runway and ready for take-off. In Church Planting, the calculations aren't exactly mathematical because Planting a church is about faith. However, God calls us to prepare and work hard in everything we do, especially the mobilization and expansion of His church....

To see God continue to build and establish Longleaf Church is so much fun. That's right, fun. Being part of the Longleaf Church movement takes sacrifice, faith and perseverance, but is also a lot of fun. God is faithful and he grants power and purpose to the church. His story of faithfulness is unfolding right now at Longleaf Church.

There is an exciting day on the horizon for our church. It's coming. Our church will launch with power and purpose. Jet blast is the phenomenon of rapid air movement produced by the jet engines of aircraft, particularly on or before takeoff. Get ready to feel a Jet Blast around Longleaf Church in a few months. As always, thanks for the part that you're playing to plant our church. If you haven't already, I hope that you'll take a moment to fill our our RUNWAY form.

Happening NOW

There are lots of great things happening around Longleaf Church this month! Check out our upcoming events and environments by clicking on the images below. Our Runway event will take the place of the normally scheduled Longleaf Live on April 25.

Series Group
1st and 3rd Sundays starting April 18

Road Trip

Sunday, April 18

The Runway Event

Sunday, April 25

Send us an EMAIL with any questions.

Energy

One of the spiritual catalysts that we seek to understand and leverage around Longleaf Church is called Pivotal Circumstances. While our lives are always moving in one direction or another, inevitably we will encounter defining seasons of life when we must respond to challenges or difficult circumstances. The sum total of our wisdom, our faith and our passion is brought to bear in the midst of Pivotal Circumstances. When we compile these three elements of spiritual fortitude and respond to life's challenges, the result is directed ENERGY. ENERGY derived from trusting God. The more daring our hopes and dreams are, the greater our ENERGY (faith, wisdom and passion) must be.

The prophecy, the life, the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most important message in the world. Just before Jesus was betrayed, arrested and crucified, He prayed this prayer to The Father; "Father if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done" (Luke 22:42). The passion and the perseverance of Jesus rescued us all. Jesus subsequently placed the church (God's people) at the epicenter of a great struggle. We are called according to purpose to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. BTW, don't miss our Good Friday Service this Friday night!

In 2010, the subtle presentation of our struggle is complacency. When we take a complacent approach to church and treat it like a social club that simply runs programs for our families, we are really missing the mark. Our passion at Longleaf Church is to be defined by authentic community, life change and relevant environments that lead people into growing relationships with Jesus Christ. A church full of ENERGY! God has granted us ENERGY and we are preparing to fully launch our church!

The pre-launch chapter of Longleaf Church is winding down as we focus on our final pre-launch hurdle. The response to the pre-launch financial goals at Longleaf has been truly amazing. The final hurdle is for us to rally around our pre-launch goal of $20,000 per month in average monthly giving. Our current giving pattern is $14,000, so we are 70% to goal! It would be easy for us to skip ahead and ignore this final piece but we want to launch a church that's going to reach this generation, and the next. To do that, we need to reach this $20,000 mark. Thanks for your response. Thanks for your ENERGY. Thanks for your part in the Longleaf Church Community.

Renewed

You've got to love weddings. I loved the perspective that I had on one this weekend. I had the privilege of performing a wedding for a young couple this weekend, our friends Amanda and Kellen. Weddings are such exciting and purposeful events. Everyone's smiling at weddings, or even shedding tears of joy. People gather at weddings to celebrate the union of a friend or a loved one. Weddings instill hope for the future and they represent a celebration of family legacy. Family members of the Bride and the Groom are filled with pride as they recount the lifetime investments that they have made into the lives of the Bride or the Groom. While we celebrate the Bride and the Groom, marriage ceremonies are also a great time of reflection for everyone attending. The ceremony reminds us that marriage is a reflection of an even more significant relationship, that of Christ and His church, and for married couples the ceremony renews the vows our own marriages.

Renewal is a pivotal process for everyone. Renewal speaks to a process by which we recalibrate our focus and our priorities. We pause intentionally to remember our values and to put first things first. Life can quickly create a gravitational pull that makes our lives reactive and out of order. Unintentionally, we married people can make incremental sacrifices to our marriage relationships in favor of trying to manage all of the other relationships and related responsibilities in our lives. If we let it happen, the "urgent" will overtake the important every time. There is a limit to our mental and emotional margin. We can't expend all of our energy on other people and neglect the relationship that's second only to a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. I'm certain that I'm going to disappoint people in this life by not granting them all the time and energy that they want from me. I'm also certain that I don't ever want those disappointed people to be my wife or my children. Our time is limited so in turn the number of meaningful relationships we can have is also limited. We must make proactive, wise choices with our time or slippage will occur in our most important relationships.

As I reflect on Kellen and Amanda's wedding, I am renewing my mind around the priorities of this life. For believers, a central truth to this life is to love God and love people. This begins and ends at home. My energy and passion is also renewed for the vision and direction of Longleaf Church. In particular, I have renewed conviction about one of our guiding principles; our church will be mission driven and NOT program driven. Simply put, we want to focus on cultural relevance, small groups and empowering families. By taking a less is more approach to church programs, we challenge our people to spend more time investing in their families, doing life together with fellow believers and living out their faith within our communities.

As Amy and I spent time with Amanda and Kellen in the weeks leading up to their wedding, we charged them to take one key step after they tied the knot. That key step is to join a small group at Longleaf Church. Yep, that's how significant we think it is for people to "do life together" in small groups. When I've conversations with men and women describing broken marriages, it always occurs to me that the accountability, belonging and care of a small group could have guarded the healthy direction of their marriages. The healthy direction and the hope exists on a wedding day. As we renew our minds around God's truth this week, let's all remember the hope and promise of a wedding day....