empty chair

It's amazing how responsive people have been with the mission and vision of Longleaf Church. It's fun to watch our community grow and see people engage the 4 Things that allow us to become Longleaf Church together:

• give
• serve
• connect
• invite

Check out the Next Steps section of our website to review these 4 Things that get people involved in becoming Longleaf Church. As one might imagine, the giving piece plays a vital role during the church planting process that we are currently in. To learn more about how you can help fund the mission and vision of Longleaf Church, please go to our Empty Chair Page.

Thanks! We hope you'll join us for the next Longleaf LIVE on February 14.

Shoebox Action Plan! Help Haiti!

Looking for an opportunity to reach out and offer some hope to the Haitian people? Here you go. Let's love our neighbors and take action now! Longleaf Church is partnering with a relief effort based in Atlanta. Its called shoebox4haiti. We will assemble and ship shoeboxes filled with critical first aid and sustenance items. The turn around is fast but the needs are urgent. Here's the plan:

1. Review the list of items below with your family and pack your shoeboxes accordingly.
2. Deliver your shoeboxes to the East Entrance of the Houston Healthcare Pavilion this Saturday (TOMORROW) anytime 12PM - 2PM. The Pavilion is located at 233 N Houston Rd just off of Watson Blvd in Warner Robins (See photo below). Rain is in the forecast but the Pavilion has a portico that will work great.

Shoebox Items

First Aid Supplies
Water Purifying Tablets
Bandages
Band Aids
Gauze
Tylenol, Advil and Bayer
Childrens Tylenol
Imodium, Pepto Bismal, Tums
Hand sanitizer
Alcohol swabs/pads
Peroxide
Masks
Disposable gloves
Eye drops
Sinus/Allergy Medicine
Spam

FP2

We had a great start to 2010 this past Sunday evening! I really enjoyed the opportunity to share a little about how Longleaf Church got started and our dreams for the future. Several people seemed to enjoy the story around the origins of our name. You can share that video via our new website. In Part 1 of the FP2 series, we talked about how Longleaf Church is driven by our mission and our values. We talked about how the church is a First Person Plural journey of people following God together. We are the people connecting grace and purpose by faith (Ephesians 1:7-10, Ephesians 2:4-10).

The identity values of Longleaf Church are Biblical Authority and Authentic Community.

• Biblical Authority - God has spoken to us through the Bible and we recognize it as the final authority for our lives. We believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God and that men were moved by the Spirit of God to write the very words of Scripture. Therefore, we believe the Bible is without error.
• Authentic Community - Accountability, belonging, care and spiritual growth happen best with relationally-connected believers. We will always work to move people into small groups where we discover Authentic Community. Beyond this, Authentic Community really defines our culture as we become people who steward of the grace of Jesus Christ.

I can't wait until January 24. In part 2 of the FP2 series, we'll unpack what we do as church and how to engage in our mission. See you there!

Home

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Things are moving pretty fast for the Jeffords family as we get moved to Kathleen, GA (South Houston County) and manage all of the great things happening around Longleaf Church. We are excited that God has directed us to this community. Our family can definitely attest that home is where the heart is. Thanks to the Easy Crane guy, we were able to move about half of our stuff before Christmas. We bought a Charlie Brown style Christmas Tree for $4 on Christmas Eve and celebrated Christmas in our new home. Family, friends and just being together to celebrate Christmas trumped the controlled chaos of moving. I wanted to give everyone a brief update on things and ask that you pray for our church this week as we prepare for some important next steps.

• Space - We are still working to nail down the best space for us to gather in throughout 2010. It could be that we meet at the Galleria Conf. Center or The Board of Realtors Conf. Center in January in order to maintain some familiarity while finalize the best long term plan. Stay tuned! Our first service is set for January 10! I'll communicate the plan by this Sunday, January 3.

• FP2 - I'm working on a two-part message series for 1/10 and 1/24 called FP2. I can't wait to share the First Person Plural narration of the origins and direction of Longleaf Church with you. FP2 will be a great series to invite friends and neighbors to. Each of the two messages will include multiple stories from our people as we weave together the story of Longleaf and the remarkable biblical reflections of our movement. Your story is our story, we are Longleaf Church....
  

• Year-End-Giving - It's not too late to give to Longleaf Church in '09! Generous giving really fueled our movement over the past year. Our church is 100% funded by people like you. The easiest and most flexible way to give is electronically through our eGive partnership. Simply click HERE or the eGive logo on this page, quickly establish an account from their site and select Longleaf Church from their list of churches. You can make a one-time gift or set up your 2010 monthly giving plan. Thanks for your generosity!
  

• Community Groups - We are excited about the new Community Groups launching in January. In order to connect everyone to community, we have two "open groups" for people to attend and get plugged in to. Please email me (jeffreyjeffords@gmail.com) for details.

• New Website - I am really excited about our new website that's under development. It will be rolled out in January. It's going to be more interactive and include more localized and relevant content.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone on January 10 and to the next chapter in our church planting journey! Happy New Year and God Bless.