My friends at CCC came to KC and shot this video of the Wegers. It’s a great story and a must watch.

Finding Your Way Back to God Story- David & Debby from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

We start our winter term of small groups this week at Restore. Mine kicked off last night and we have a great group. Being the beginning of a new term we started with some basic “get to know you” questions. One of the questions was asking what led people to small group. Here’s some of the responses we had:

• I want to connect with new people
• We hope to strengthen our marriage through small group
• I love the community that I experience in small group
• It provides me with a group of people that I can call on in tough times
• I want to learn more about God and the Bible
• Small group is where I can take next steps with God

I love it! Whether you call it small group, life group, life transformation group, or whatever, God works in us when we connect with others in authentic community. You can’t help but see God change you, and others through you, when we gather to discuss God’s word and how it applies to our lives.

If you’re at Restore or any church and you’re on the fence about getting connected, you have to give it a try. You won’t regret it!

My sister Christina just moved to Pasadena, CA to start her Protege internship at Mosaic and snapped this picture somewhere along the way on her journey out there. Pretty cool.

As 2010 approaches and Restore completes our 2nd year, I really want to examine our website.

• What’s works?
• What’s missing?
• What needs to go?

How would you answer the following questions about your church’s website:

1. What do you love the most about your website?
2. What would you most like to change about your website?
3. What’s that 1 thing that you dream of adding to your website?

Thanks for taking the time. I really admire and respect the work you do for the Church.

When all else fails, do what Oprah does… right? Ok, maybe not. But this year for Christmas we wanting to empower generosity at Restore without pointing people in a specific direction. The people of Restore have proven that they know how to be generous and we knew it was time to dream up ways to give BIG this Christmas.

Here’s what we did: Troy McMahon was giving his normal warm wishes from the stage, updating people on some of the upcoming things at Restore when he stepped off the stage, onto a subwoofer, and then on to the floor, face to face with the people. He asked everyone to pull out there wallet. (That’s never a good thing when a church asked you directly to get your wallet out). He said “Take out your largest bill”…people did, hesitantly. He walked over to a man with a $10 bill, and handed him an additional $10 bill. Then to a woman with a $20 bill, then a $50, even on to a man with an $100 bill.

“What the heck are we supposed to do with this $?” was written all over their faces. “Watch this”, we told them.

Restore’s Big Give from Restore Community Church on Vimeo.

What do you think?? What are your churches doing this year? Would love to hear more idea.

Starting this Sunday, John, Paul, George, & Ringo will be taking us on a Christmas journey. Here’s the rundown:

• December 6th – “Revolution”
  Big Idea: Christmas was not meant to be just another holiday.  It was meant to be a revolution.
• December 13th – “Yesterday”
  Big Idea: Christmas is not about the past, but the future and as Christ-followers we are meant to be on the offensive in this world.
• December 20th – “All The Lonely People”
  Big Idea: Reaching out to people who are lonely is not just nice, its at the very heart of being a Christ-follower.
• December 27th – “Across The Universe”
  Big Idea: The world wants to conform us, but God wants to transform us.

At Restore we love to redeem all things in the world, including the British Invasion, and use it for the glory of God. Come check out the Christmas story through the eyes of The Beatles.

On Sunday we collected our Impact offering and God continues to be a faithful provider. We casted a vision to Restore and asked for $100,000 in one morning, approximately 10x what normally comes in. This money would go to the launch of our 2nd campus in Liberty.

I am thrilled to share that on Sunday, the people of Restore responded in faith and gave an overwhelming $137,000!!! The people in this church community continue to blow me away with their generosity.

Rick McKinley of Imago Dei in the Northwest, says “It isn’t giving ’til it hurts” and I know that people have made HUGE sacrifices to see the Jesus mission carried out here in KC.

Thanks Restore!! My prayer is that God continues to bless us, individually and as a church, that we might continue to be more generous with what is HIS!

Here’s what I highlighted from Andy Stanley’s opening session at Catalyst

• “What man is a man that does not leave this world better” Kingdom of Heaven
• Every leaders leaves a mark
• You don’t know your mark until after you’ve left it
• Joshua 23:8-11 – Cling to God, Love God, Choose who you will serve
• It’s about leaving God’s mark, not yours
• “God takes full responsibility for the life wholly devoted to Him” – Charles Stanley
• It’s not who’s for you, but who you’re for
• Living to leave my mark is too small a thing to give my life to

I think these statements are all self explanatory. This opening session hit me really hard. I think leaders become decieved into thinking that it is about the marks that we leave… even good marks. But it truly is the mark that God leaves through our obedience.

I reflected on moving out to KC to plant Restore and how this would be great for me and my music but when I got here, I felt that God was asking me to shelf some of my marks because there were marks of His that He wanted me to leave.

Are there any marks that you are leaving that are good marks but your marks? What is the mark that God is asking you to leave in this season of life?

Jennifer Taylor, who writes the Buzz article for The Christian Standard was kind enough to tell our text messaging story from Restore. Thanks Jen.

Here’s her article:

Rich Text
Believers have shared prayer requests for centuries—but only recently have they shared them via text message.

To wrap up a seven-week series on the Old Testament, leaders at Restore Community Church (Kansas City, Missouri) wanted to guide the congregation in praying about its major themes. In week six, Restore invited everyone to opt-in for a week of prayer reminders by texting the word “testament” to a specific number. Each person who signed up received one text message each day the following week.

“For instance, the first series theme was blessing, so the first day we sent a text message asking people to think about how God had blessed them and how they could bless others,” says Tommy Bowman, creative arts director. “The message invited them to reply with a short texted prayer. We did this each day and collected all the answers.”

On the following Sunday, week seven of the series, Bowman displayed more than 50 of the anonymous prayers during worship.

“I edited out the very personal ones and copied others into our presentation software,” he says. “The band played a song, and we asked everyone to silently pray these prayers along with the person who had sent the message.”

A Restore member created TextCaster, the software used to send the messages and organize the responses, and he was eager to help the church use it in some way.

“But we never use technology just to do it—it must further the mission of the service,” Bowman says. “This also succeeded because we introduced text messaging for a specific time and a specific reason. So we built trust with our church which enables us to use this technology again.”

More than 170 people signed up to participate, and even more found it an especially meaningful experience.

“People saw their own needs in the words of others, and commented on the privilege of praying for them,” says Bowman. “People connected to these prayers.”

www.restorecc.org