BillLaMorey.com

Commitment to Completion

Since the title of yesterday's message was "Committed to Completion" I simply had no choice but to finish it even though the ending was cut short by a fire alarm!

So I did a studio recording (ahem, in my office) ending and Chip spliced it together with the original message. We've left the alarm in the mix for posterity. As I listen back, the timing of the alarm was pretty funny!

So if you never heard the message, you want to hear the conclusion, or you just want to hear the alarm that caused the evacuation, check it out!

Click here to listen to the message.

 

Fire alarms apparently make me reflective...

Some random thoughts about Calvary's service today:

• Worship was great; it's nice to go unplugged from time to time
• Phil has raised the bar on the art of announcements
• Our church is filled with some pretty amazing people
• I almost met my goal of finishing my sermon on time (actually early as a special treat for our regulars)
• Fire alarms going off 4 minutes before the conclusion of your message can be quite disruptive
• A lot of people thought I had worked in some sort of sophisticated illustration/prank into the message via the fire alarm and I had to tell them they really had to leave
• Improvising the final few moments in the parking lot outside was kind of fun; though it might have been better if I wore sandals and we were near a river
• lots of people came back in for the closing song and everyone was a good sport about the whole ordeal
• The funniest comment I received, "Great message; you were on fire today!"

• We have a great team of staff and vounteers that handled the situation well

• On the upside, we learned a few things we need to work on and then communicate to everyone to prevent this in the future and/or to handle it better next time
• I think I'll leave the fire alarm in the podcast for posterity and then splice on a new studio recorded ending (some time tomorrow)
• It was an interesting week for first-time guests to visit

Our new stage set

Our new stage is pictured below (lots of people worked hard on it including Suzanne who designed it (nice job!):

My camera phone does not do the stage justice, but it will give you an idea of what it looked like:

 

The French Connection

French may be the language of love, but people in France sure aren't talking much about love of God! in fact, less than 1% of the entire country consider themselves evangelical Christians. Jenn Hylton has decided to do something about that, and you can help in a very fun and practical way. Check it out:

If reaching France isn't enough to move you, then perhaps Tuner's world-famous TX BBQ is!!!

Click here to buy your ticket(s) to the French Connection now.

Click here to confirm your attendance on Facebook.

Click here to see Jenn's blogs where you can stay current with the journey.

Calvary Fellowship has supported missions since day one; let's all rally together in support of Jenn as we send our first missionary out from among us!

Calvary Kids are at it again!

A few weeks ago Grapple (our newest Calvary Kids environment; for preteens) presented this video skit. Check it out!:

Our 2010 fall campaign: FAMILY Pt. 8 - "The Opportunity"

This is my final post on our FAMILY campaign starting this Sunday. I hope I've done an adequate job of explaining what the campaign is about, how to be involved and why you should be involved.

If you are part of Calvary Fellowship, I hope you're fully on board for the ride! I also hope you recognize that as beneficial as this is for all of us, there are also many people who do not attend church that really need this too! They need to understand what it means to be a part of God's family and they need His precepts and power to transform their own family.

So, the opportunity we have now is to invite these people to our special kick-off service this Sunday (10/3). We are asking everyone in our church to partner with us to do just that. I understand that sharing our faith is so hard for many, so let me just streamline it into what I'm calling the ABCs of evangelism:

A. AVAILABILITY -First, we simple need to decide that we will be available to God to help share His message with other people. The Bible says, “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?” (Romans 10:14, NLT) Being AVAILABLE simply means we are willng to be that "someone" that tells them.

B. BOLDNESS -Just because we make ourselves available to God doesn't mean we aren't afraid! We may have complete willingness and yet still be totally terrified to share our faith. But that doesn't have to stop us! The apostle Paul prayed, “And don’t forget to pray for me. Pray that I’ll know what to say and have the courage to say it at the right time, telling the mystery to one and all, the Message...” (Ephesians 6:19, The Message). If even Paul prayed for boldness to share the gospel, then you and I can and should do the same. We can then move forward trusting God to give us the confidence in Him to be faithful in sharing His message.

C. COMMUNICATION -Essential to sharing our faith is WHAT and HOW we will communicate it. I won't get into communicating the entirety of the gospel here. Instead what we are asking everyone to do in context of our campaign is to extend is a simple invitation to the kick-off service on 10/3. (Consider it a partnership; you bring them to church and we will faithfully bring them the good news!) There are so many ways you can work out the HOW to extend the invitation; here are a few:

1. Give them a printed invite card and ask them if they would come with you
2. Use Facebook for ministry! (confirm your attendance on the event page, click share to post the invitation on your profile page, click share to send it to people with a private message).
3. Give them a call and tell them there is a great speaker from Fort Lauderdale talking about marriage. Invite them to go, and offer to buy them lunch afterwards (generosity goes a long way!)
4. Pray and ask God to show you other ways!

The comforting thing about this to me is that we are not responsible for whether or not someone takes advantage of the opportunity, but only for extending it to them. How liberating; the pressure for results is on God!

If you intend to invite someone and you'd like me to pray for boldness for you and receptivity for them, just let me know. You can also pray the same for me because I am planning to ask my neighbors (how awkward if you're reading this) to come too.

Hope to see you (and your peeps) on Sunday!!!

An open letter to the singles at Calvary Fellowship

An open letter to the singles at Calvary Fellowship (or "Our 2010 fall campaign: FAMILY Pt. 7: The Singles"):

Dear singles,

I have heard a few concerns that we have in some way neglected or not considered the singles in our upcoming FAMILY campaign. I want you to know that is completely false. With all this talk of family, I understand how one might come to that conclusion based on a surface glance. I also understand that some of you might be tempted to check out of a series/campaign that focuses on family, but I believe that would be a BIG mistake. As a single person (unmarried, divorced or widowed), you may not have a physical family of your own right now, but you are still a valuable and essential part of our church family. And the whole idea of our annual fall campaign is for us all to come together and focus on one critical area of study TOGETHER as a church family. Having said that let me share with you three reasons why I believe it is extremely important for you to be fully engaged (no pun intended) in our FAMILY campaign starting this Sunday:

1. The best time to build a biblical vision for your family is on the front end! -Every day movies, TV, music, people bombard us with their ideas of what relationships are all about; much of it confused, distorted and way off-base biblically speaking. To counter that we need to remind ourselves of God's plan for family and relationships on the front end so we can establish a plan that is Godly and intentional rather than haphazard. Once you begin dating, it is almost impossible to objectively evaluate spiritual compatability (essential to a truly healthy relationship); especially if the other person is hot (which to you they should be)! But if you have God's vision for your family in mind in advance, you possess a very helpful tool to help you prepare yourself now and assess a potential future mate.

2. We have considered you in the planning. -The reality is that 90% of you will marry someday, so ultimately this campaign will effect the majority of you very directly at some point. Someday, you will need this stuff! And yet, we have also planned some relevant things for you now. We have a Home Fellowship for singles only with a specific focus of discussion (though you're welcome in any group). There will also be some application in the messages that will correlate to where you are now. When I was a single person I kept an empty picture frame on my end table by my bed. It reminded me to pray for my future wife (that God hadn't revealed to me yet) and it reminded me to continually work on being the kind of man she would want to marry. The reason I share that is not to imply that this series is designed to make you more "dateable," but rather it is designed to help you develop a biblica vision for your future family that will inspire you to grow spiritually in the present.

3. Studying the Bible is NEVER a waste of your time. -At the end of the day, we are going to do what we do at Calvary ALL THE TIME; study the Bible. Studying God's word on ANY topic ALWAYS has value to you: “So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. ” (Isaiah 55:11, NKJV)
Even if you don't get exactly what you hoped to out of the series, and even if you don't get exactly what we hoped for you to get out of the series, you will get exactly what God wants you to get out of the series. And I trust that as we open the Bible to seek to understand any apply it, every single one of us will benefit!

The "Building a Family that Lasts" series only runs through October (and then we're back to the final 3 weeks of Revelation). I hope that you will keep an open heart and mind, fully engage yourself in the campaign, and trust that God has some revolutionary things that He wants to share and you need to hear during this campaign.

Thank you for hearing my heart,

Bill

New series preview video (no speaking and no music)

Check out the preview video for our new series (nicely done, Chip!):

Considering Commitment

My encouragement and challenge to each person at Calvary Fellowship regarding their commitment to the FAMILY campaign beginning Sunday, October 3rd:

 

Our 2010 fall campaign: FAMILY Pt. 6 - "Commitment"

When we marry, we stand in front of our family and friends and make lifelong commitments to the one we love. When we have children, we make implicit commitments that we will love them, care for them and train them until they are old enough to fend for themselves. These commitments are important and essential, but just as it is important to make commitments at the beginning of a relationship, it is also important to maintain and make commitments throughout the course of a relationship!

We are asking our church family together to make several commitments to invest in their physical family (present or future) in a few very specific ways. I know, some balk at commitment or would even push back "It's none of your business what I do," but that is a heart that is spiritually immature and is contrary to the teachings of scripture.

The people of Israel in the Old Testament and the people of the church in the New Testament made commitments corporately and individually to strengthen their relationships with God and with one another. If you resist commitment, a good question to ask yourself is "Why?"

There are great reasons to commit! Commitments challenge us to focus our energies and to push ourselves in healthy ways that lead us to extraordinary results we won't experience when we just "go with the flow." And commitments made with a group of people are even better! Commitments made in community provide us greater support and unite and rally us behind purposes that are greater than ourselves -even though the benefits are experienced on an individual level too.

So far in my posts on our FAMILY campaign, I've discussed an overview of our fall campaign and a breakdown of the elements involved. All of these things have the power to revolutionze our families and yet all of them will accomplish absolutely nothing in the absence of the essential ingredient of COMMITMENT.

To maximize the benefit of all the fall family campaign we are asking people to pray and then determine which of the following commitments they will make as an investment in their family during the month of October:

1. To attend (or listen online when you have to miss) to each part of the series
2. To participate in a weekly Home Fellowship
3. To pray daily for their family

On the first official day of the campaign (10/3) we will be asking people to make these commitments. In the meantime I hope you will:

• Examine yourself to see why you resist making comitments (if you do).
• Consider the commitments being asked of you in this campaign and consider the beneits you might experience if you would make them.
• Pray and ask God to reveal which commitments He would have you to make,
• Commit on 10/3 to the commitments you will make and then trust God for the discipline to follow through!

I'm praying for you and your commitments even as I pray about my own!