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SLIDE

Wasnt that terrific! A special thanks to Dave Nyberg for producing the video. I

want to thank Dave for putting up with all my suggestions as he produced it. Today were launching our stewardship drive. The theme is Growing closer. If you are new to Chain of Lakes today is going to feel like were internally focused. Were looking at our own ministry. We dont do this often. Today all of usnewcomer or long-time participantcan get a flavor of who Chain of Lakes is becoming. Were growing closer. I get asked all the time, maybe on the average once a day, How are you doing at Chain of Lakes? My answer from now on is going to be the same, Were growing closer. A fair question is, Growing closer to what Were growing closer to being a chartered church Were growing closer to each other Were growing closer to our community WEre growing closer to God. Through the Chain of Lakes ministry were growing closer to God. As I said today were launching ur stewardship drive. Next week were going to ask all of you to share your Estimate of Giving cards for 2014. We sent out a packet of information oin the mail about our stewardship drive. You all should have received it. This is the most important stewardship drive in the history of our new congregation. When you pray about your Estimate of Givingand I encourage you to put some thought into this. Dont just put down the same number you wrote last year. Think and reflect and pray about this. As you are thinking and reflecting and praying, celebrate how we are growing closer.

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Todays sermon and next weeks are going to be light and fun. We just completed an indepth series on prayer, so I think its appropriate to share something lot. Im not sharing a lot of Bible in this two-week series. Many of us want to learn about the Bible, so let me share two resources. The first is this brochure. First I wrote a Bible Study in the devotion this week on the book of Ephesians. Ephesians has six chapters. There are six days in the devotion. That seemed to fit. I want to encourage you to read a chapter a day. Ephesians shares the central message about Jesus Christ that the church has taught ever since Jesus left this earth. The second resource is a memory verse. During the next two weeks Im encouraging everyone to memorize Ephesians 2:19-22. SLIDE So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. Ephesians 2:19-22 We could almost say that this verse is the biblical foundation for our Purpose Statement and Core Values. Its worth committing to memory. The key to memory is not the quality of our memory. Its repetition. If you read this verse say five to ten times a day and then try to say it from memory, you will eventually get it. I want to encourage us to do that over the next two weeks. Today were looking at growing closer to being a chartered church. Chartered is lingo that the Presbyterian church uses. What it means is were recognized as an official church. Were no longer a new church development. John Ivers is going to more about this later.

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To put it most simply to be chartered means that we have faith that we can do this on our own. We have faith that we dont need to rely on outside financial or technical support. We are confident that we have the internal systems in place to be a church; we know that we have a ministry that is viable and is going to be here in five years or ten years or when Jesus returns. Were not ready to be chartered today. In 2013, fifty-five percent of our financial support comes from you! That is a Yay, God! Yay, God. That number has to be higher to be charted. Thats why this is the most important stewardship drive weve ever done. You might ask, How are we doing at becoming a chartered church? My answer is, Were growing closer. Youve heard me say before that Ive never been more optimistic about the future of Chain of Lakes Church. Im a natural optimist. We have some pieces in place that weve never had before. You might ask, what are those pieces. We have an excellent lay leadership team. Our Steering Committee and ministry team leaders understand what we are trying to do. We have a high quality staff that works well together. We like each other and each of our staff is performing at a high level. We have an identity. Im guessing that all of us know our Purpose Statement by heart. If you dont, read it with me. If you do, closer you eyes and say it. SLIDE We are called to be an authentic, Christian community where Strangers become friends Friends become disciples Disciples impact the world

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We have eight Core Values. We probably dont know our Core Values by heart, but when we look at them we can say that they influence our ministry. We have a message. In two weeks for two consecutive Sundays the Steering Committee is going to lead us through the Catch series. Were going to do these groups from noon to 1:00 here at Da Vinci. The Steering Committee went through this series at our Retreat in September. One of the questions were looking at is Why, Chain of Lakes? If someone came up to you and asked you, why do you go to Chain of Lakes, what would you say? Could you answer that question in five words or less. The Steering Committee said that they come to Chain of Lakes because we are a community of authentic people. Thats our message to the question, Why Chain of Lakes? Were growing closer. Those are four reasons that inspire me about our future. In reality we live in an age where people arent inspired by reasons. I could put these reasons on an power point presentation and I might bore you to tears. People are inspired by stories. What I want to do for the rest of this sermon is share some of my favorite stories of 2013. These stories illustrate to me that were growing closer. Before I share my stories, Im interested in some of your stories. Let me ask you a question. Ive been asking people who come to the office this question this past week. Im going to give you thirty seconds. What is your favorite moment or story from 2013? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Let me share three of my favorite moments in 2013 The first the Easter Egg hunt. Remember. SLIDE We had someone come to the Easter egg hunt dressed like this. The reason I remember this event is it was an example of our persistence. Up until that time we were waiting to do an event on our property. We werent in a rhythm yet. Every time we had an event we had weather problems The same was happening for the Easter egg hunt. The Steering Committee was in charge of the Easter egg hunt and we had an excellent plan. We had gotten the word into the community about it. We had an article in the newspaper and someone had put up flyers in stores/businesses around our property. We had a big sign. Except we had a few problems. There was still snow on the ground. Whoever heard of doing an easter egg hunt with snow on the ground? It was raining that morning. Whoever heard of doing an easter egg hunt in the snow when it is raining. Even though I am a natural optimist, I was discouraged. I called Dave Nyberg about two hours before the Easter egg hunt. We cant do this can we I said. Dave went to his computer and looked at the weather patterns. If we wait a hour this system is supposed to pass. Okay. So I hopped into the car and drove over to the property. When I got there I was surprised that so many cars were there. All these peoplefor an Easter egg hunt in the snow? SLIDE A lot of people came! I still remember people on the Steering Committee and others talking to the folks who came. We got to know them. Through our actions we shared that we are a group of authentic people. We learned that we know how to do an Easter egg hunt.

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We made some mistakes. One thing we learned is always get the names and addresses of people who come to our events. Were a learning community. Were always learning how to do things better. I learned again that God can do things in us that we cant even imagine. The task of starting a church is really not a human endeavor, its a supernatural endeavor. If we can have a large turnout for an Easter egg hunt in the snow when its threatening to rain, then I know that God wants us to be a church. Were growing closer. A second memory I have of this year was a Community Garden meeting at City Hall last month. SLIDE Heres a picture of the people at the meeting. Theres a story behind the meeting. This past spring our Facilities team got together and we started talking about doing community gardens. We know that a lot of people in the Lakes area dont have gardens. We had an idea that we should do community gardens. I remember a meeting of our Facilities team. We were talking about community gardens. Is anyone participating in a community garden? No. Has anyone of us ever organized a community garden? No. Do we really know what were doing? No. Lets get started. We ran into all sorts of obstacles. The weather was terrible. That snow that was on our property stayed for a long time. We got six inches of snow in May. No one was excited about gardens with snow on the ground. We didnt know if we were going to be able to provide water to our gardens. Whoever heard of a community garden where people had to haul their own water? It probably happens, but it certainly isnt ideal.

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We got an estimate from a contractor about connecting the water that was already there. It was a large estimate. . We had a meeting with hopes that people from outside our church would come. Only people from Chain of Lakes came to the meeting. It looked like it was going to be a Chain of Lakes garden and not a community garden. Gradually things began to turn. The weather finally turned and a group of guys was able to till the gardens; we got a favorable quote for water so people could access water for the gardens; the community started to use the gardens. In a small way it became a community hub. I didnt realize this until later, but the gardens were a great place to hang out and relax. Sometimes I would go to the gardens when I was stressed. I loved standing still and enjoying the fairly wide open space. I would make impromptu visits to the gardens and just talk to people. I got to know almost all the people from outside Chain of Lakes who were using the gardens. They were so appreciative. Some of the folks hadnt gardened for year. I remember one family who was just excited about their peppers. They were going on the Internet to research how to make salsa. That appreciation came out at the Community Garden meeting. People were so thankful that the church would let the community use our property. They were confident that a lot of people would come to use the Community Gardens. This story is more than a community garden. This garden is an expression of the hospitality that God has for us that were then sharing with the wider community. I think of the gardens as a blessing. Were blessing the community through them. Its an expression of our Purpose Statement.

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This story is an example of how were sold out to our Purpose Statement. Even when we experience obstacles we are not going to give out. Because we believe that God wants a faith community with this purpose and who is living out a particular set of values. Were growing closer. The third and final story I want to share is the development of our prayer partner ministry. I believe that one obstacle to growing the church is piousness. People from outside the church dont want to be in a place where people share their piousness. Maybe pious isnt quite the right word. What I mean is where we try to show others how faithful we arereally where our faith becomes a show. Where faith is not consistent with whats going on inside. The Pharisees were like this. Jesus had strong words for the Pharisees and one reason is the Pharisees wanted to show others how faithful they were. At Chain of Lakes we want to be authentic. What that means is were willing to share our lives with each other. Which means we share our faith. This is tricky because we want to share our faith, but we dont want to be pious. Having prayer partners is an excellent way of sharing our faith without being pious. Explain prayer partner ministry I had no idea if you would sign up to have a prayer partner. Over the course of two weeks 28 people signed up. I still remember looking through the Communication cards on Sunday Fundae. Another one, another one. That person signed up. Yay, God. We began our prayer partner ministry. Each week I would send out a word of encouragement to all the prayer partners. After a few weeks you started sharing with me some of your conversations you were having. You were sharing prayer requests with your prayer partner.

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You were talking about your prayer lives with your prayer partner. You were sharing what was working and what wasnt working. You were praying together. We all know that we can do better with our prayer lives. Havng a prayer life is like exercising or eating right or keeping our weight down. We all know that we can do better. Once we got through the fact that all of us can do better some real conversations took place. Some of you have shared with me that youve never been in a church where people actually talk about their prayer lives. We did. Yay, God! Last week I shared that prayer is personal, but not private. As a community we can help each other grow in our prayer lives. We dont do it out of pride. Our motivation is not to stand up and say what a terrific person we are because we pray. We still do stand up and talk about oru prayer lives. Our motivation for sharing is authenticity. I wish I had a dollar for every time one of you came to me and said you love that we are an authentic group of people. Many of you have shared with me that this is the first time in your life when youve been part of a church where you can be yourself. You dont have to fit into a mold of what a disciple is supposed to look like. All you have to do is be yourself. Be yourself. Then find ways to share yourself. This last week our staff talked about how we can continue our prayer partner ministry. We have some ideas that were going to share in the next few weeks. The fact that we can have 28 peoplealmost two-thirds of our adults in worship sign up to have a prayer partner. Then we can learn that its safe to share our prayer lives with another person. We can enjoy the process!! That tells me that we are growing closer. Not many people have the opportunity in their lifetime to start a new faith community. .