Looking Back… pt 2
The 2nd part of 2010 was a blur but it was an incredible blur!
We started in January to hold community meetings to help us get a better handle on the needs that those who live in the immediate neighborhood of Renovation had. We held 3 of these kind of community meetings and we listened to moms and dads, grandparents… as we reflected upon all that we heard (and there was a lot) we began to see a path forward for us as we (Renovation Church) address the issues of living in NW Buffalo. As a faith community we can’t do everything so we have tried to look around and see what others are doing so we don’t duplicate efforts but possibly resource others. At the same time we saw that having just a homework club would not be sufficient if we wanted our community to look and live differently in 2020.
So we began to implement a plan to launch a leadership center that would help resource families back to health in 5 key areas. As the summer progressed we used the influx of hundreds of neighbors coming to Summer Jam to get the word out about XCEL Leadership Center that would start in the fall.
We launched XCEL in October with the help of ScottsHill Baptist Church in Willmington NC. They helped us raise over $25,000 along with some other like-minded folks around the country and Renovation Church/Love Revolution… this was what we needed for initial start up cost to help renovate the top floor of Renovation Center and to provide the supplies needed to get things started.
The story of XCEL is just starting and I can’t wait to see all that God is going to do in the lives of families in the coming months and years.
We also celebrated in July our 2nd Summer Jam and it was incredible! We owe a huge thanks to Jonathan (my brother) and the whole crew from ScottsHill who have invested in so many ways in us at Renovation!
We kicked off the 2nd year of Love Revolution (@RC) and we spent the month of August talking about our responsibility as a faith community in Loving God, Loving Others and Proving It! We have several partners that we help resource so that they can do and accomplish the mission God has given them to carry out. We committed to give above and beyond our normal tithes to these partners $61,000 over the next 12 months! That is amazing and as of today we are 100% in our giving towards this… so a huge thanks to all of you and I know you are seeing God do things in your lives because of your willingness to live by faith!
We kicked off the fall by starting a new series that took us all the way through to Christmas called Renovation Project. We spent 14 weeks discovering God’s best version of ourselves. What a series it was and I believe that for many of us as we look back it will be a real spiritual ‘mile-marker!’
We started week 1 saying that in order to renovate we have to do some demo and of course we need the right tools in order to really do a great job so we tried to provide some ‘tools’ and I think for many of us we developed some habits that I hope we carry into the next year… spending time through the week with God… taking notes and reflecting on those notes during the week to help us become who God designed us to be. We had 7 phases…
phase one: finding my identity
why God made me
the me I don’t want to be
phase two: flowing with the spirit
how you grow
try harder softer
phase three: renewing the mind
let your desires lead you to God
never worry alone
phase four: rescuing my time
let your talking flow into praying
recognize your primary flow blocker
phase five: deepening my relationships
try going of the deep end with God
making life-giving relationships a top priority
find a few difficult people to help you grow!
phase six: transforming my experience
let God flow in your work
you’ve gotta go through some junk
phase 7 flowing from here on out
ask for a mountain
As I mentioned before we did a survey at the end of this series and 37 people said that they gave their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ…
We grew spiritually and numerically and so we will be launching our 3rd gathering time on Feb 6… new times will be 9.00/10.30/12 noon… many of you have jumped on board and joined a Strategic Service Team to help us pull that off!
We finished the year with our 2nd Jingle Jam that was led by our middle and High school students and they did an awesome job!
I know that this past year has blown by but I think it is important to stop and pause and reflect on what God has done in our lives and how we have responded in both good and bad ways or I should say wisely or foolishly ways… lets confess to God as we close this years once again that we need to be surrendered and obedient to His ways and not ours.
Thank you God for your faithfulness in the biggest of ways and in the smallest of ways!
