EPHESUS VENUE CHANGE THIS WEEK

I just found out late this afternoon that our building in Uptown has had a major electrical problem and we will not be able to meet there at least this week and perhaps longer. But Ephesus is still happening! Through the graciousness of the Charlotte 24-7 Prayer Room we still have somewhere to meet this Sunday. We will meet at 6pm at the 24-7 Prayer Room which is located at Area 15 at 514 15th Street, Charlotte, NC 28206. Here’s a link to a Google map. The 24-7 Prayer Room is just a few blocks north of I-277 heading towards NoDa.

We will be in a new place, but Ephesus will still be going on this week! We will have City Kids available for children birth-10 years old. We will also have a team at our Brevard Street location with directions to the Prayer Room for folks that don’t get the update in time. We are coming off an incredible launch this past Easter Sunday and we are looking forward to what God is continuing to do at Ephesus, no matter where we gather! I’m starting a new series this week about what the church is truly about, what a great way to dig into what the Church is really about as we meet this fresh challenge!

I’d like to ask you to note the venue change and also get the word out to everyone you can about where Ephesus will be this Sunday. Please email me with any questions you may have. Thanks for being a part of Ephesus as we continue to Love Jesus, Love People and Love the City!

UPDATE: Sermon notes from this weekend

I said yesterday during our Easter service at Ephesus that I would be putting up additional notes on this blog on physical ramifications of death by cross, substitutionary atonement and 1 Corinthians 15. I’m hoping to have those up by Wednesday or Thursday. I’m taking a little break today and spending some time resting with my family. But I will be good to my word and have those notes up! Our launch service yesterday was incredible! Lots of prayer and an amazing team came together to set Ephesus up for amazing things. God is moving in Charlotte and I’m excited to be a part of a church he’s using in this city! See you in a few days…

Preaching on Easter

You know, much is put into Easter at churches around the world every year. I’ve been a part of Easter planning and prep many, many times, but you know I’ve never preached on Easter Sunday. The weight of the responsibility is certainly telling on me this evening. People need to know Jesus loves them, that He willingly died for them, and that he rose again. It really is that simple isn’t it? Why do we struggle with the simplicity of it? Why do we question and doubt, him and ourselves? Why do I doubt my ability to proclaim his love and resurrection tomorrow? It isn’t about what I say, it’s about Him and what I’m merely a messenger for. He already took care of it. The battle’s done. “O death where is your sting?” Well, tomorrow, I’m preaching my first Easter message, the first Easter message at Ephesus. I’m going to sit back and watch God do His thing and get out of the way. As my good friend Mike J. likes to say “Give ‘em Heaven…”

Church Planting 101

Don’t I wish! We’ve had our first service and things went well. We learned some things, but that’s the whole point of having a soft launch, but overall things went really well. You could tell I had been listening to a lot of Mark Driscoll, because my first sermon had a little heft to it. You can head to the iTunes Music store and get the podcast at EphesusChurch.tv if you want to give it a listen. This week I’m starting a 3 parter on “Why Jesus?” Not sure how I’ll get Jesus into 3 weeks, but I had to do something foundational with the 3 weeks leading into Easter. I’m sure the topic will be visited again. At some point here I’m going to start laying out a few lessons learned on this journey of church planting. Hopefully some practical tidbits. There are some great books on the subject so I’m not trying to overshadow those, just some thoughts on our own experience. Something else I’ve really felt strongly this week too is the need to begin work already on planting more churches out of Ephesus. We’ve got one week under our belt what better time to start thinking about planting?

off to a great stART!

Get it “a great stART’ and last night we had “stART?” Yeah, I’m tired…anyway, what a success! A great turnout. We really didn’t know what to expect, but God did his thing. I met a lot of great folks and there were many more that I didn’t get a chance to talk with. We were kind of trying something new with an art and music gathering/open house, but it seemed to be a great move to introduce ourselves to the community. It was a great lead in to this coming Sunday and our first service. We had almost 150 people come by last night. Cool stuff! This week we have the first of 3 mock services. We’ll be having church, but we will also be working through the details of making it all happen so there may be a few hiccups, but that’s the purpose of having these lead in services. The building looked amazing last night too. What a great location God has brought us into. So let’s get this thing going! We’ll see you at Ephesus Church this Sunday at 6pm where I’ll be talking about the vision of Ephesus in the city of Charlotte.