EssentialChurch

Fantasy Football

admin — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:07:40 +0000

If you’re looking for a Fantasy Football League, we’ve got one for you. We’ve got a league on Yahoo that’s free to play. We’ll have a live draft at Buffalo Wild Wings on Tuesday, September 7, 2010. If you can’t make it to the live draft, your team will be drafted according to the Yahoo Player Rankings.

It’s a great way to get to know some other guys and have fun. Invite your friends. To join, click here or on the yahoo picture. The league name is “EssentialChurch.tv” and the password is “essentialfootball”.

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EssentialLove.tv

Pastor Steve — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 04:57:17 +0000

Several people have sent me emails over the past few weeks since we started the Guerrilla Lovers series sharing their stories of what they’ve done to show love and serve others. During our staff meeting last week we talked about what would be the best way to make these stories known. We decided to create a website just for this series that would continue on long after its over. The site is EssentialLove.tv.

The new site looks just like our church site, but is focused on telling people about Jesus and sharing stories about serving others. The point isn’t to be a way to grow Essential Church, but rather to make Jesus famous. There aren’t any obvious links back to our church site, only a little link in the footer. We don’t want someone to think you only served them in order to get them to come to church. Rather, we want them to know they were served because you are following after The Servant Leader, Jesus. We want Jesus to be the focus of the site, not our church.

If you have completed any of the assignments from the past few weeks of this series, go to EssentialLove.tv and share your story.

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Church @ the Beach, Sept 5th

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 20:25:57 +0000

We will be having church at the beach on September 5th, which is Labor Day Weekend. We will meet at Little Island State Park in Sandbridge. The service will start at 10: 30 am. (There won’t be any services held at our building that morning.)

Parking is $3 for Virginia Beach residents, $5 otherwise. Contact Pastor Rick for information on parking scholarships.

This is a great time to invite friends! Immediately following the service will be a baptism in the ocean – please contact Pastor Steve or leave a comment below if you are interested in being baptized.

We will be cooking out after the baptism! We’ll supply the plates, pulled pork, dogs, and plastic-ware. All you need to do is bring a side to share and your own cooler of drinks.

Here’s some highlights from our Beach Sunday on June 20, 2010:

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Current Message Series

Pastor Steve — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 18:25:40 +0000

Everyone is trying to change the world. Whether it’s bringing justice to Darfur, building schools, or rebuilding cities, people are flocking to causes bigger than themselves. They’re dissatisfied with the status quo and sacrificing time and money to change it. God’s people should be at the forefront of this movement. But we’re not.

In this series, you will be challenged to take part in changing the world around you by adopting the strategy Jesus used: becoming a “guerrilla lover“. Just as a small group of people who deliver surprise attacks can change the course of a war, you can change the course of love in this world. With engaging true stories of everyday guerrilla lovers, our hope is to inspire you to wage war on complacency and surprise the people around you with acts of love.

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Fall Co-Ed Softball Schedule

Sherry — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 00:09:04 +0000

All games are double headers on Fridays

Aug 20 8:45 & 9:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #4 against Felito’s Restaurant

Aug 27 8:45 & 9:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #4 against Amsec Raiders

Sept 10 6:45 & 7:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #4 against New Song Fellowship

Sept 17 6:45 & 7:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #4 against Beach Fellowship

Sept 24 8:45 & 9:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #1 against Saints & Sinners

Oct 1 6:45 & 7:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #1 against CBR Auto Sales

Oct 8 8:45 & 9:45 Princess Anne Athletic Complex Red #4 against Geckos

For more information about the team, contact Collen Patton

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One Year Anniversary

Pastor Steve — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:00:49 +0000

I think this past year is best summarized by Ephesians 3:20-21, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

God has done immeasurably more than we ever asked him to do when we set out to start Essential Church. We had hoped to be a church of at least around 100 to 150 by the end of the first year. We thought that was an ambitious goal. We had planned on meeting in a rented location for the next ten years. We also wanted to see at least 10 people be baptized.Our motto for the year was “If it were easy, then we wouldn’t need God.”

So here we are one year later. We’re a church of around 300 people, we have a $4,000,000 facility to meet in, we’ve had over 500 people visit the church, and seen 39 people be baptized (24 here at our church and 15 on a mission trip). I can’t wait to see and experience everything God has in store for us as a church in the next year.

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Becoming Essential August 15

Sherry — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:35:03 +0000

Our next class is on August 15. Class attenders will stay after worship to attend a lunch to find out more about Essential. This is the place to hear the Essential story and to find out how to become involved at Essential. Lunch and childcare will be provided. Sign up here to reserve your spot!

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Youth Lock-In Sunday, August 8

Sherry — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:52:04 +0000

Sunday night, August 8, we will be hosting a lock-in for our youth!

This will be a night of games, movies, and snacks…and probably some mayhem! This event is for upcoming 6th graders through 12th grade (if you’ve graduated…alright, you can come!) It will start at 8 PM and will end at 8 AM. If you have any question or want to volunteer to help at the event, please call Chad Gilliland at (205) 447-4601.

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Pastor’s Weekly Rundown 7/16

Pastor Steve — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:53:07 +0000

Last weekend Rick did a great job speaking on one of our essential values: Synergy.
I’m looking forward to speaking on Love this weekend. Love is one of those topics that I really enjoy talking about. Love is so central to who we are and to life, that it connects with us on a deep, unexplainable level.
Softball Championships are tonight. Win or loose, our team has had a great season. Come out to support them tonight at the Princess Anne Athletic Complex at 6:30pm tonight (Friday, July 16).
Our staff is finally moving in to our office space one by one. I’m actually writing this post from my office. When you’re a church planter, your house becomes the default storage facility for everything. Most of all I am looking forward to finally moving stuff out of my house to the office. This past winter when we got the new facility I was able to get my garage back and now I am looking forward to getting our spare room back.
With Rick and I splitting the teaching load this summer, I’ve been able to work on my summer reading list which is: The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, The 360 Degree Leader, Too Busy Not to Pray, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Good to Great, Tribes, Practical Atheist, The Monkey and the Fish, and Wide Awake.
One thing I have found to be true is something that Matt Damon said in the movie Goodwill Hunting, “…you dropped 150 grand on an education you could have got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library!” Having made it through the bulk of my doctorate degree I’ve found this to be true. Most of what you learn in school is from books which you could get at the library or on Amazon.com for less than $10. Half of my reading list is available at the public library…in audio format which is my favorite way to read a book.
Great quote from Freakonomics: “Emotion is the enemy of rational argument.” This is why you can present the best rational argument to someone about God, Jesus, the empty tomb, moral absolutes, creation vs. evolution, the reliability of the Bible, and the like and still have someone reject the rational conclusion. If you don’t engage someone emotionally, you can’t convince them rationally. This truth is said in other familiar ways, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” or as we’ll see this Sunday, “love is the context for mission”.

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Garage Sale #2

Sherry — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:35:14 +0000

Another Chance to be Essential

On July 10 beginning at 8 am we will hold a 2nd Yard Sale event at Essential. Clean out your garage, closets, playrooms, kitchen cabinets and see what you can DONATE to this event. You can drop off your “already priced” (if you can please) items at the church. Volunteers are needed to set up, sell, welcome guests and bake goodies to sell. Please contact Susan Freeman or Laura Wayland. Thank You!

Want to help? Laura’s Email is laura_wayland@yahoo.com

Susan’s Email is swfree33@yahoo.com

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