Real Mission Work

This is yet another reason why I love my church.
We do REAL stuff, in the REAL world.

Today Kevin announced that we as a church have committed to contributing $600K over the next 2 - 3 years to build permanent wells in Mozambique so people can have CLEAN WATER.

CLEAN WATER.... get that? Something you, and I, take totally for granted. I can go to my kitchen tap, turn it on, and not worry about getting sick or DYING from what is in my water. But in parts of Africa more people die from water-borne illnesses than from HIV/AIDS. Horrifying.

I love that 12Stone is doing this.

Above is the video about the issue that Kevin played this morning.

"Purple Rain" in Church?

If it's 80s Sunday, then YES.... "Purple Rain" is just ONE of the 80s songs the band did to set the "mood for the message".

Enjoy the video!

Led Zeppelin.... Meet Jesus.... really!

12Stone's Amazing Band outdid themselves with this tribute to 70s music last Sunday at church. Keep in mind this video does NOT do justice to our ground-shaking sound system, NOR to the fabulous talent we have in our band (especially to Rudy Vaughn, the AMAZING singer-songwriter-musician you see covering the Boston tune as well as covering "Rock and Roll", one of my FAVORITE Zeppelin tunes...)

Anyway, to say yours truly was rocking out in church was an understatement! The whole CHURCH was! And yes... the music montage tied in with the pastor's message about how the "feel-good-anything-goes-70s" ultimately led to empty spiritual lives. (Although I agree with that statement, I gotta say I still LOVE the music!)

The Foundation, The Cornerstone

.... I know I talk about my church a lot, and the cool music, the artwork, the fact we do our own short films, have an in-house recording studio, etc.
And it IS true - it's an amazing, accepting, LOVING, REAL community of believers where people THRIVE!

However, one thing I feel I must say... 12Stone is very much a biblically sound place. In fact, when we were preparing to open our doors in our new building a year and a half ago, Kevin (our pastor) felt it was critically important that the entire Bible be read aloud, from the stage, before the first service. So that was done. Non-stop. Out loud. Around the clock.

I forget how long it took, and how many people volunteered, but many, many people came in and volunteered in 2 hour stretches and read the word, from the 1st chapter of Genesis through the 22nd chapter of Revelation.

And it was a beautiful thing.

Freddy Mercury Would've Been Proud!

Only at 12Stone can you get sound scriptural teaching and a BLISTERING cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" by our kickin' band! (And let me tell you, this video does NOT do it justice! It was about 10 times better in person!) If I had had a lighter, I would have been holding it up and swaying, concert-style....

I LOVE my church!

The Craziness We Have Planned For Sunday!

Those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile know that my church, 12Stone, likes to "think outside the box". To say we're a non-traditional church is putting it mildly.

Our church has an onsite Starbucks (yes, a real one), an onsite recording studio (yes, a real one); we produce our own short films; our own original music, etc.

We also are a very artist-centered environment, and have a full time Creative Arts Pastor and staff.

Anyway, our church has grown quite a bit in the past few years because people love the casual, relevant, meaningful messages. So much so that we have 2 campuses now and each campus has 3 services. We've grown to the point that we're getting ready to launch a 3rd campus.

So, to celebrate this HUGE milestone, we're all getting together for one BIG service on Sunday morning. Now, where in the world can we ALL get together at the SAME time, you ask?

Why, the brand new Gwinnett Braves stadium, of course! (The "G-Braves" as they are called, are the minor league team for the Atlanta Braves.) This stadium seats 7,100 and should accommodate all of us.... lotsa fun will definitely be had!

I'm really excited.... I think this will be the first time I'll ever get a sunburn while attending church. :)

Cliche? Or TRUTH....

Our creative arts team at 12Stone kicked off yesterday's Easter services with a new video (yes, another original production - they're so talented!)

Here it is..... we're starting a new series called "Cliche".....

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage....

We're doing a great series on MARRIAGE at church.

For any who are interested, you can listen to the teaching on line, download a CD for free (if you have CD burning capability), or simply open and print the PDF summary of the teaching.

All very good, very practical stuff.

The series started last Sunday, February 8th. (It's a 5 week series.)

Here's the link.

Dealing with Fear During Economic Uncertainty

My pastor talked about this VERY thing today.

His message was relevant, engaging, funny and GREAT (as always) and you can find it here.
("Abe and Fear" 1/11/09).

(The system takes a little while to bring up the audio .... be patient... it will come up! And listening to Kevin's messages are always worth the wait!)

In case you just want to look at the "cliff notes" of the message, here they are. (It's a .pdf file that you can print out.)

"Awake O'Sleeper"

Most of you who have been reading my blog for any length of time know I belong to an amazing church - 12Stone - that is overrun with 'creativity', shall we say.

The above song and video was created by our Redemptive Arts team to accompany the message from September 21st entitled "The Warrior Awakening".

Watch the above, and remind yourself that the awesome power of God can break whatever chains hold you captive.... remember God is the Author of new beginnings, and He is the Master chain-breaker.

If you're interested in hearing the message, it can be found here. ("The Warrior Awakening" on 9/21/08.)

"Too Late for Biggie Fries"

The ever-clever guys from our church band did this (very tongue-in-cheek) video recently.... our pastor was giving a message about taking care of your body physically...(you know.... good nutrition, exercise); and they couldn't RESIST making a funny video to tie in to Kevin's message. :-)

Prepare to laugh. :-)

The Awakening

My church, 12Stone, actively supports the arts.

We recently commissioned an Israeli artist to do a massive original work for us which now fills our lobby. It's absolutely magnificent and one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and I wanted to share it with you.
It's called "The Awakening". I met the artist several weeks ago, late one evening when I was doing some work at the church, and while he was working on the piece. He's a fascinating individual and lives with his wife in the Judaean Wilderness. (Obviously, he spent a substantial amount of time here in Atlanta to do this piece for our church.)

The Awakening is based on the story of Gideon in the Old Testament (a wonderful story which underscores how God's strength makes the impossible..... POSSIBLE...)

Below is a YouTube clip on the piece, narrated by the artist himself. Enjoy.

Stressed About Money? Need Financial Peace?

This is an excellent video teaching clip from Kevin Myers at 12Stone, talking about how to make sense of your finances (ie: how to get out of debt, save, and get some sanity back into your financial life).

It's a 10 minute lesson, very well done, and based on the "original formula" (ie sound scriptural doctrine on finances).

For those who are Dave Ramsey fans, you'll see a lot of parallels in this teaching, and in what Dave teaches.

The timing of this particular teaching segment could NOT be more appropriate (at least in my life.... and probably for many of you) than right now.

Hope you get as much from it as I did. :-)