Hi Friends

Here’s your weekly prayer update from The Village Church at Vinings:

-We have a launch team worship gathering this Sunday at 10:30AM, and I’ll be preaching on the final part of our mission – our call to be a church that plants churches. It might sound crazy that a church that hasn’t even actually launched yet is already planning on planting a church, but we’re fully convinced that the way disciples are made and God’s Kingdom grows is thought planting local, on-going worshipping communities – AKA, churches. In other words, we desire to see people all over Atlanta move from spiritual death into life through the power of the gospel, and we desire to see the fabric of our society change because of it, and we’re convinced that the way God designed that to happen is through churches, so we’re going to be part of a movement to litter Atlanta’s landscape with gospel-centered, missional churches.

In our culture, where everything is supposed to move from bigger to bigger to even bigger, we’ll have to fight in order to keep church planting a priority. Planting churches usually (not always, but usually) means foregoing ever getting big and "influential" because the resources (money, people, time, ideas, programing) that usually go back into the home church so it can become big and influential are instead given away in order to plant churches. We think that’s where the real "Kingdom" influence is anyway – seeing our city transformed by the love of Jesus through local church plants!

So the prayer request for this week is this: please pray that God will give us the grace to fight to keep church planting a priority, and the willingness to sacrifice in order to do it. We’re already thinking, dreaming and strategizing how and when we can plant our first church, but please pray that ultimately we will be sensitive to the inklings of the Holy Spirit.

That’s a mighty long prayer request, so we’ll leave it at that for the week.
If you’d like more info (where, when, etc) on our launch team gathering this Sunday please write us back.

Last, here’s a thought for the week:
The vigorous, continual planting of new congregations is the single most crucial strategy for the numerical growth of the Body of Christ in any city, and the continual corporate renewal and revival of the existing churches in a city. Nothing else–not crusades, outreach programs, para-church ministries, growing mega-churches, congregational consulting, nor church renewal processes–will have the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting. This is an eyebrow raising statement. But to those who have done any study at all, it is not even controversial.
-Tim Keller-

We love y’all!
Curt, Jonathan, Carlyn, and Melissa

Hi Friends,
Here’s your weekly prayer update from The Village Church at Vinings:

-We had a great launch team worship gathering this past Sunday. The worship was awesome with Thad and Meagan, and Jonathan brought the Word as he preached through our church’s call to mercy ministry. It was exciting to see lots of new faces, and have yet another packed out living room at the Harpers!

-Speaking of packed-out spaces…we are narrowing down the search for a more permanent meeting place, and hopefully will know something soon. Please pray that we will be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and go where He would have us go. Once again, many thanks to Judd and Valerie Harper for so graciously opening up their home to our Sunday crowd!

-We are planning a family service project on August 14th. We are partnering with Resource Service Ministries and New Life Covenant Church and will spend the day doing home repairs and yardwork for widows in the English Avenue area. We will be in touch with more details about this project. As Jonathan challenged us on Sunday, please pray that we would be a church that carries love to the poor and marginalized for the gospel’s sake (it’s what God did for us!), not just because we need a reason to feel good about ourselves.

-Please welcome Melissa Walker as our new part-time Children’s Coordinator. We have lots of little ones at The Village Church and having someone to coordinate and lead them each week will be a huge blessing! Please pray for Melissa as she settles in to this new position and for God’s wisdom and direction as she prepares curriculum and activities for the children. We are so grateful to have Melissa on our team! She loves kids and the kids already love her!

-Our launch gathering will not meet on July 4th, but starting the following Sunday, July 11th, we will begin meeting every Sunday. This will require more work and preparation, so please pray that we will keep focused on God’s will for our church, and not be distracted with details and agendas.

Thank you for your prayers, and please let us know how we can pray for you!

Grace and Peace,
Curt, Jonathan, Carlyn, and Melissa

Hi Friends,
Here’s your weekly prayer update from The Village Church at Vinings:

-We will have a launch team worship gathering this Sunday, June 27. We’ll sing to the Lord together, pray together, and sit under the preaching of the Word. We’re preaching through our core values of Gospel, Community, Mission. By mission we mean three things: making disciples, mercy ministry, and church planting. This week Jonathan will preach through our church’s call to mercy ministry – to reach-out to the orphan, the widow, the prisoner, the poor and the marginalized, both here in Atlanta and around the world, with the love of the gospel.

-An old friend from seminary, Thad Cockrell, will be leading worship for us this Sunday, along with a new friend, Meagan Gibson. Thad is a ridiculously talented singer/songwriter from Nashville (www.thadcockrell.com), and Meagan, also ridiculously talented, just moved here from Auburn, where she helped lead worship at her church. It will be great to have them with us this Sunday!

If you want info (where/when) on our launch team meetings, reply to this email and we’ll fill you in.

-Please pray that we, as a church and as families and individuals, will take Jesus’ call to love and help the marginalized very seriously. Loving the unlovable and caring for those who cannot care for themselves is at the heart of the gospel (it’s what God did/does for us!), but in our culture it will be so easy to let this aspect of our values fall away. Please pray that The Village Church will consistently serve others before we serve ourselves.

-Speaking of mercy ministry and social justice, God placed the horrible orphan situation in Uganda on Dan and Shelly Owens’ (our dear friends and launch team members) hearts about six months ago. So Dan and Shelly, along with some friends, started a non-profit called Sixty Feet (www.sixtyfeet.org) with the purpose of getting young children out of Ugandan orphanages and into more caring and stable environments. God’s done some crazy things to get Sixty Feet off the ground – stuff like raising over ten thousand dollars for Uganda by their kids selling cupcakes! Well, those Cupcake Kids are back in action!

Come out and support the children of The Village Church at their Cupcake Kids Sale this weekend!
Where: Cochise Drive, across the street from the Cochise Club (look for the signs!)
When: Saturday, June 26, 10am – Noon

The kids are collecting new and gently used children’s Bibles which will be delivered by two Village Church Dads to the children in Uganda in July. Come out, donate a Bible and buy a yummy frozen treat in support of Sixty Feet.
See www.sixtyfeet.org for more details.

Here’s a thought for the week:
“The Bible’s purpose is not so much to show you how to live a good life. The Bible’s purpose is to show you how God’s grace breaks into your life against your will and saves you from the sin and brokenness otherwise you would never be able to overcome… religion is ‘if you obey, then you will be accepted’. But the Gospel is, ‘if you are absolutely accepted, and sure you’re accepted, only then will you ever begin to obey’. Those are two utterly different things. Every page of the Bible shows the difference.”
-Tim Keller

Thank you for your prayers, and please let us know how we can pray for you!

Grace and Peace,
Curt, Jonathan, and Carlyn

Hi Friends,

Here’s your weekly prayer update from The Village Church at Vinings:

-We had a great time worshipping as a launch team Sunday morning. Please pray that we would, as a launch team, live-out our core values of gospel, community, & mission in our everyday lives this week.

-We were told this weekend that we will not be able to rent a facility (at a local independent school) that we had our hearts set on. No need to get into details, but please pray that God would provide the perfect place for us to meet in Vinings. We’re continuing to talk to the school, with the hope that they may change their mind. We’re blessed that Judd and Valerie Harper are continuing to open their home to us for worship gatherings. Worshipping God together in a packed-out home is amazing. Their living room truly is the perfect place for us right now!

-Please continue to pray for our finances as we move into another round of fundraising from “outside” the launch team. God has graciously and abundantly provided so far. Please pray that he will continue.

Thank you so much for praying for us week-in and week-out. Please let us know how we can pray for you too.

Here’s a thought for the week (from the sermon yesterday morning):

The church is the only society on earth that exists for the benefit of non-members.
-William Templeton-

Grace and Peace,
Curt, Jonathan, and Carlyn

Hi Friends,
Here’s your weekly prayer update from The Village Church at Vinings:

-We will have a launch team worship gathering this Sunday, June 13. I (Curt) will begin preaching through our third core value, mission. The mission God has laid on our hearts for the Village Church is three-fold: disciple making (evangelism and spiritual formation), mercy ministry/social justice (ministering to the poor, widow, outcast, orphan, and prisoner) and church planting (both locally and internationally). This week I’ll concentrate on our call as a church to make disciples. With that in mind, please pray for all of us involved in planting this church (pastors, staff and launch team), that we would intentionally live gospel-centered lives and speak gospel-centered words to those around us who are far from the Lord. Please pray for our neighbors, co-workers, friends, that barista at the coffee shop, that bartender at the pub, that waitress at the cafe, that guy next to us on the treadmill every morning, the cashier we see at Publix at least twice a week, that we would have opportunities (and that we would take those opportunities) to tell them about the amazing mercy, grace, and love of Jesus this week. Pray that the Holy Spirit would move mightily in Vinings and NW Atlanta and that many would be called to salvation and adopted into God’s family. Let it be so, Lord!

Sorry for the single, long, run-on prayer request this week, but seeing people who were spiritually dead come alive in the gospel is the heart of our call to plant a church!

Contact us if you want info on the launch team gathering (time, location, etc).

Here’s a thought for the week:
I don’t change when gospel concepts start surprising me, wonderful and essential as that is. Gospel concepts spread the table, so to speak, for the feast of Christ himself, who fills me and heals me and energizes me. I change, really change, when I feel loved by him. I change when I feel accepted by him. I change when I feel set free by him. That goes beyond concepts. It is an experience. That experience follows the logical and psychological trajectory set by the doctrines. But what I need is the touch of Christ himself.

-Ray Ortland-

We love y’all!
Curt, Jonathan, and Carlyn