Thoughts from New Orleans mission trip this past Aug.

For a year seeing photos, videos, and hearing stories on the TV and Internet increased my desire to go to New Orleans and minister to the people. After driving almost 1,000 miles, the two girls in my car and I finally passed a sign that read “New Orleans.” I still remember how it felt to finally arrive in New Orleans this past August. My heart went out to the people of the city as my friends and I approached the crest of a hill and drove past buildings with windows blown out and tarps still covering their sides.

I looked out in front of my car and took in the sight of New Orleans. It was a broken city that still had so much work needing to be done to restore it- both physically and emotionally for the people living there.

Our team of 3 girls and 3 guys ranging from ages 17 to 21 were ready to arrive at the Vieux Carre Baptist Church where we would be staying for the week. We had worked with this church a year ago and were excited to come back and minister with them again. The Vieux Carre is in the French Quarter, just a couple streets over from the well-known Bourbon St. and close to where numerous homeless people line the sidewalks to sleep at night.

What a strategic place for ministry outreach the Vieux Carre has in the French Quarter! The placement of this church provides its leaders a great opportunity to minister to the storekeepers and the homeless in the quarter.

Depending on where people live, whether in New Orleans, a third world country, or in the foothills of N.C., the way for Christians to minister to people around the world can differ. Some people have physical needs that must be met before they will give somebody a chance to tell them about salvation through Jesus. Other times people are open to debating theological issues with anyone who will talk. However, in other situations people may be so turned off to religion that they won’t listen to what a person has to say about faith or salvation until they see that person live out what he or she believes.

One of the main things I have learned at GW as a Religion/Missions Studies student is that wherever Christians are, we should find a way to make the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ understandable and relevant to the culture in which we live. Ministry techniques often need to change with culture, age groups, and more. This concept of ministry is something that became heavy on my mind particularly while in New Orleans.

In the blogs I hope to post in the near future, I’d like to discuss some ideas about new ministry techniques Christians are using to make the Gospel relevant to cultures around the world, as well as here in the U.S. While the ministry techniques change so that the needs of the people are met accordingly, the message remains the same- salvation through Christ.

Alright…so there’s more to come!

Service Poster

NO HangOUT Tomorrow!!

Hey guys. There will be NO HangOUT Tomorrow night (11/2) :-( We are taking the night off after having the Halloween party on Tuesday. See everyone Saturday night @ 7 for the service! :-)

Halloween Party Pics

Check em out! Click the picture to visit the album.

Halloween Time

Worship Gathering This Saturday

Just a reminder that there will be a Foundation Worship Gathering THIS Saturday @ 7PM in the Aldersgate Gym (directions/map).

Last service was really awesome as we had a special guest speaker, Steven Staton come from Ohio and deliver the message. This time you are in for a treat again. Josh Childers is driving up from Alabama to speak to us on Saturday night. Josh is a commissioned Air Force Officer and is currently stationed in Guam (the other side of the world), but is in the States for a few weeks and is taking his weekend off to come share with us.

Last service was the largest service to date and I hope that all of you are working as hard as you did the last service to invite your friends to come check it out. Please try your best to come and bring someone new with you, because who knows it could possibly change their life. :-)

Yall have an amazing week!

The Great Pumpkin

In light of the Halloween spirit here's and excerpt from Michael Spencer's imaginative piece, " The Great Pumpkin Proposes a Toast."

(The following toast was taped at the 4,231st Halloween Dance and Potluck, held this year in the basement of the Salem, Masachusetts City Hall. The guest toastmaster was The Great Pumpkin, well known advocate of Halloween among children. Those in attendance included a variety of witches, ghosts, fairies, gremlins, mummies, headless horsemen, bats, vampires, werewolves, monsters, members of the Adam's family, the Munsters and, of course, thousands of things that go bump in the night. Cassette's and printed copies of the toast are available at www.thegreatpumpkin.com.)

"Ladies and gentlemen, ghouls and goblins, monsters and monstrosities both real and imaginary: It's truly an honor for me to be with you this evening on what is always a wonderful time of rekindling old friendships and wishing one another well before our big night. Many of us never see our fellow members of the realm of imagination except at this gathering, and it's really wonderful to see all of you again. I especially want to thank this year's President of the Halloween Society, Harry Potter, for all the work he's done this year. What a year, Harry! (Applause.)"....

(continue reading here...)

Bring Your Knife

Who: Any and everyone is invited.

What: The Foundation Halloween Bash. Wear your costume.

When: Tues. Oct. 31st- 7pm-until

Where: The Center (HangOUT Location) ( map)

More info: Call Chance @ 704-472-5576

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This comes from our minister of fun, Mary Walker:

Hey everyone,

Just a reminder about the BIG Halloween Party tomorrow night. Its gonna rock your socks. So, we need people to bring some junk food, cookies, candy, chips, red velvet cake.... the drinks are covered. And you also need to bring a knife, we will let you know why when you get there.
:- ) And you have to dress up or you cant come in, just kidding...but really. I hear tale that the band will be playing as well. See yall tomorrow!

Featured Blog of the Week

Michael Spencer: www.internetmonk.com



Thoughts on One SBC Church Split

In thousands of SBC churches, there is a story no one wants to put it in the papers. It’s the story of people with money, people with local and family power, men who want to control churches and have the church staff dismissable at their call. It is the story of repeated attempts to circumnavigate the congregational processes and influence churches in ways that are never acceptable in a New Testament church. How many pastors are acquainted with that story?....

Continue Reading...

Haunted HangOUT & Halloween Party

• This Thursday the HangOUT is going Haunted!! We are going to load up and head to either The Haunted Pyramids or the Haunted Corn Maize. We will meet over at The Center (directions) @ 7:00 and leave from there. Please invite anyone you think would enjoy going...the more scared people the better, haha. The cost is around 10 bucks.

• There will be a Foundation Halloween Bash next Tuesday night Oct. 31st @ 7:00. Oh and you have to have a costume, otherwise you aren't cool! So begin planning to get your costume and inviting people to the Halloween Bash...more details later.

Colbert Report: Richard Dawkins

I ran across this video the other day of Richard Dawkins, esteemed evolutionary theorist and outspoken atheist, on the Colbert Report. It's kinda funny that even a political comedian can lay the smack down on arguments by those who don't believe in God...it's funny, so watch!!

Featured Blog of the Week

Perry Noble: www.perrynoble.com


Can God Be A Pain In The Butt?

OK…this is awesome! I had this thought in my quiet time yesterday–that God can be a pain in the butt to those who are most opposed to Him…that you do not have to fight His battles…that He’s a really big God and can take care of Himself. This all came from I Samuel 5:1-12.

See, here is what happened…the Israelites were getting their rear-ends kicked all over the place by the Philistines. SO…they had this idea, “Let’s take the Ark of the Covenant into battle–then we will win.” (Basically they were attempting to use God as a good luck charm–which always turns out bad!)

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Amazing Weekend!!

Praise God for everything that happened this weekend! Wow was it a crazy busy few days. Many of us took off Friday from work to get a lot of work done. We bought a set of lights, built a stage, and got the gym set up for the service on Saturday night. The band got together around 5:00 Friday evening and practiced until about 12:30 AM before calling it quits... man was the music awesome Saturday night. Steven got in from Ohio around 9:30 Friday night and it was awesome preparing for what God was gonna do on Saturday night.

We started early on Saturday morning, meeting at the Snack Shop for breakfast, followed by a great game of golf over at Pine Grove. I know Steven mentioned it in the service on Saturday but I'll say it again... me and Steve beat J Walk and Casey in Captain's Choice... an event that has never happened before. Casey ended up throwing a 3Wood into the pond, haha...it was great. Anyways we got back over at Aldersgate around 4 o'clock and began getting the final preparations done for the service.

As it got close to 7PM many of us were getting nervous because of the great responsibility that comes along with a Gospel Presentation. We were expecting many new people attending for the first time as well as many to respond to the invitation...and it all happened. We had our largest crowd of any service to date, with around half of the people in attendance being first time visitors. Josh Childers, all the way home from Guam, shared a powerful testimony and the band led us in a time of worship unlike any other service. As Steven came up to speak, I knew it was going to be an amazing service. His message was all about the cross and the forgiveness that comes through what happened on that cross. It was a message all about Jesus and what he did for each one of us. It was a powerful message that hit home with so many of us. At the close of the message, the band played "Carry My Cross" by Third Day and as the song was played, different video clips from "The Passion of Christ" was displayed on the screen. As the song ended, Steven came back up for a time of invitation. God was at work in a powerful way! We saw an overwhelming response to God as there were over 40 people who came up and "laid their rock down" at the foot of the cross. We also know that there were people who made first time decisions to accept Christ as Lord or their life during the first invitation. How awesome!!!

It is unreal to think about what God has done so far in The Foundation ministry... and to think that God's using a bunch of inexperienced, undependable college kids makes it an even bigger "God thing." God is being glorified and I can't wait to see what He's gonna do next!!

New Banner/ Logo

We are working on a new website which will be in addition to this blog and here are a couple rough drafts of the new banner/logo. It's gonna be a LONG work in progress, but I think its going to be a really cool site once we get finished. What ya think?

It's Here Yall!!

What is here you ask? I'll tell ya. This is a HUGE week for the Foundation and a HUGE week for many people who are going to come to the service on Saturday because we believe many are going to meet and accept Jesus on Saturday night! Start inviting as many people as you know.

• Gospel Presentation Service is THIS Saturday night @ 7PM in the Aldersgate gym. Steven Staton is coming down from Ohio to share the message and he is STOKED about what's happening and how God is working already in this service. All I'm gonna say is that it is going to be POWERFUL and there will be a cross, some rocks, and Passion clips included in the service...so you'll just have to come and see for yourself how it all goes down.

• Begin praying for and inviting anyone you know who may be lost and needs to encounter Jesus. We are working our hardest to plan a service that will make the gospel very clear and understandable to anyone who hears. There were 88 names brought forward at the last service of people we knew who needed to experience Jesus in a real way and I hope all of us are being faithful to try our dang'dest to get these people here on Saturday. Drag em if you have to, I promise you'll never regret it after you see someone you care about get saved, it's the greatest feeling in the world.

• HangOUT this week is going to be a time of prayer and worship in preparation for Saturday's service and I think it's going to be awesome yall...bringin' back the weekly Prayer Meeting kinda thing, its going to be cool.

Foundation Vision

Hey yall! Last service we talked about the vision for The Foundation and I thought it would be helpful to put it up online as well. I'll put up the strategic gameplan for our vision later but these are the main areas where we want to see people growing in. Enjoy!

Mission Statement

We exist to bring glory and honor to God. Our mission is to go out into the world sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and making disciples of all people.

VISION

We want every disciple to grow in these four facets:

Foundation:

Disciples who are grounded in the truth of God’s Word which is salvation through Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 3.11-For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Fellowship:

Genuine disciples who are engaging in authentic community with other believers to be God’s people.

Acts 2.42-47- They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer…They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Follow:

Gospelized disciples who are intentionally pursuing Jesus to become more like Him.

Matthew 4.19- "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men."

Feed:

Missional disciples who are equipped and confident to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus in a way that makes God’s love tangible.

John 6.35- Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 21.18-Jesus said, "Feed my sheep…