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Zone Meeting May 22, 2012 G reat to have YOU here !. Jesus … the ultimate reason for our celebration.
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11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all His glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy,12always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light.
13For He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of His dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins. Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,16for through Him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see—such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.Everything was created through Him and for Him.
He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. 18 Christ is also the head of the church, which is His body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So He is first in everything.
For God in all His fullness was pleased to live in Christ, 20 and through Him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth, by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were His enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22Yet now He has reconciled you to Himself through the death of Christ in His physical body. As a result, He has brought you into His own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before Him without a single fault.
23 But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it. Colossians 1:11-23
What follows is a small sampling of how Jesus is working in churches throughout the District
Central Wesleyan church - holland Baptized over 40 adults on Easter Sunday!
Friendship Wesleyan 5 baptized recently! Pray for Cindy – going through cancer treatments
Faith churchlansing April 29th – Highest attended regular Sunday with 691!
overflow Salvation 108 (It’s higher than this but they don’t count them unless they have follow up.) 87 Baptisms 59% growth in Children’s ministry over last year
At your table: What is something you are celebrating, personally / ministry wise
South haven LifeBridge Church Milan and Jen Bittenbender
Without ________ we (as a church) have no reason to exist. (Hint…Luke 19:10)
That is SO true about the West MI District. You and our retired pastors, when we are led by the Holy Spirit, are what make this District great!
“It was just days before VIA’s packaging had to be finalized but I was not at all happy with the designs that our in-house folks were giving me.So I hired an outside firm to help us.
News that I had hired this outside firm me with some inevitable frustration. It was never my intention to undermine anyone, but there were moments throughout the transformation of Starbucks – and for that matter, throughout the history of Starbucks –
when I had to make tough choices, at times deciding that the best interests of the organization were contrary to the interests of an individual or group.
Sacrificing people’s feelings, and more than once even a personal relationship, for the good of thousands of partners (employees) is one of the most painful elements of my job as Starbuck’s leader.”
Is there a decision you have been avoiding about:a staff member, a volunteer a direction the church needs to move towards?
Is there a courageous decision you need make…even as you sit here today, that will lead the church to a better place?
“As a leader, part of my responsibility is to instill confidence in others. To get our people excited about what is possible. About dreaming big. And then bigger.”