Almost six months have passed since CityLife Church was born, and I couldn’t be more excited about what God is doing through our new church in Philly! We are growing every month. People continue to commit their lives to Jesus every week. And my anticipation for what God is going to do builds every day. And this journey is about to go to the next level!

This weekend will be a history making weekend for CityLife as we launch our first semester of Life Groups! We have a first class group of leaders, apprentices and hosts who are prepared to launch 10 brand new groups throughout our city. These groups will exist to help people build significant Christ-centered friendships with one another. They will gather weekly, in homes and coffee shops, to study the Bible and BE THE CHURCH!

This first winter semester of groups will run for two months, so you don’t have to sign your life away! Try out a group and see if it fits. What do you have to lose?

If you’re a part of CityLife Church, or longing to connect to authentic community in Philadelphia, then I encourage you to click on this link and register for a group today! We will also be having a launch party this Sunday right after the service where you can meet the leaders and sign up for a group.

God made you for meaningful relationship and community. In fact, there’s no way any of us can realize our full potential alone.

That’s why our dream at CityLife is to be a warm, relational, family of people, from all walks of life, who support each other and fight for each other with faithful devotion. Let’s see that dream become a reality this year!

We’re just a few days away from our first ever Christmas Eve worship experience at CityLife Church! Here are ten reasons you don’t want to miss the God-party!

1. Christmas is about Jesus! Together, we’re going to focus on Him.
2. Creativity! This service will be different than any we’ve had since CityLife started.
3. This is the last opportunity to worship at CityLife in 2011.
4. I’ve got an inspiring message I can’t wait to share!
5. Christmas cookies! You know you love them.
6. We have a special string trio that will be playing during the service.
7. I’ll be preaching for less than 30 minutes, which may never happen again.
8. Christmas carols! It’s going to be another year before we sing them again.
9. Ten years from now, when we’re hosting multiple Christmas Eve services, you’ll be able to say that you were there for the first one!
10. Christmas is about Jesus! Just in case you missed it the first time

We’ll be meeting at The Academy at Palumbo in South Philly at 5 pm this Saturday.

See you there!

I love Christmas! Here’s a random list of things that I’m pumped up about this year. (Feel free to respond with your own fist pump when you read something you’re excited about too)!

• Our second Christmas in Philly. We actually have some new family traditions now.
• My Youversion Christmas Bible reading plan. Love reflecting on Jesus birth and ministry.
• Our FIRST CityLife Christmas outreach tomorrow night. We’re throwing a party for about 60 foster care kids and their families!
• Our FIRST CityLife Christmas party on Sunday night–The Christmas Challenge! Bomb Bomb’s Barbecue. New friends. Some Christmas competition. There’s still time to sign up!
• Our Wonder series at CityLife Church. We’re exploring the mind-blowing realities of Christmas.
• A wedding! I get to perform one for a couple in our church next week.
• Family walks through South Philly to look at Christmas lights.
• Finishing our third month of Starting Point. Love helping people get started with discipleship and connect to CityLife!
• Claire’s first Christmas! She looks so cute in her Santa outfit.
• Our FIRST Christmas Eve service at CityLife–5 pm!
• Watching Gabby’s face light up on Christmas morning!
• Spending some time with my family in Michigan the week after Christmas.
• My mom’s cooking!
• Cookies!
• Football!
• A brand new series starting at CityLife on January 8 called “This Year I Finally Will…” We’re expecting lots of guests!

This year CityLife Church has the privilege of sponsoring the annual Christmas party for Philadelphia’s Children’s Choice foster care agency. Children’s Choice has an office in South Philly, and it’s been great to get to know their story and their passion for some awesome kids in our city.

The Christmas party is an opportunity each year to honor the foster care families that they work with. By sponsoring the party, CityLife gets to do a few specific things.

• We’re purchasing the Christmas gifts for each of the foster care kids.
• We’re purchasing the Christmas gifts for the foster family’s biological kids as well.
• We’ll be giving small gift bags to the foster parents.
• We’ll have a presence at the party to make it as memorable and fun as possible!

The party is next Thursday night, at a hotel downtown. Most of the gifts have been claimed by people in our church, but we still have a handful that need to be purchased. If you’re able to participate, please let me know.

One of our values at CityLife is to be compassionate. We want to serve our city in real, meaningful, and transformational ways.

If you have already adopted a child and purchased a gift, THANK YOU! Thanks for being a part of making this party such a highlight for these precious kids and their heroic families.

We’re reaching THE ONE!

We’re in a teaching series at CityLife Church called Worth-Ship. We’re looking at practical expressions of worship. Yesterday I taught from The Great Commandment, which Jesus unpacked in Mark 12.29.

You shall love the Lord your God will all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. 

In other words, Jesus inspires me to love God with my whole life. Worship isn’t something I do once a week, or even once a day. Worship is my approach to life everyday, all of the time, no matter what I’m doing. Even my work becomes worship when I simply change who I’m working for.

To illustrate the message, Matt Lee, our Guest Services team leader, painted this picture during the service. Matt’s a unique guy. He’s a C on the DISC personality profile–competent, detailed, organized, analytical and task oriented, so it’s not a surprise that he’s a Civil Engineer by day.

But Matt is also a gifted artist and creative thinker. He’s a great example of loving God with your whole mind–with the creative right half and the logical left half.

It’s been rewarding to watch our church take steps forward in our understanding of worship this month. This coming Sunday we’ll be wrapping up the series. Don’t miss it!

This vision of leading a reproducing church is one that has grown in my heart in large part because of Jeff Leake’s influence in my life. Pastor Jeff leads Allison Park Church in Pittsburgh. In addition to being CityLife’s parent church, APC has started several churches in Pittsburgh.

Recently God put a dream in Pastor Jeff’s heart to see 100 new churches started over the next 10 years through APC and her daughter churches. Here are just a few ways this exciting dream connects to CityLife.

CityLife is the first church plant in this dream of 100 church plants! I believe that in 10 years we’ll be able to look back and celebrate being the first new church in a movement that has resulted in thousands of changed lives all over the country.

Every new church that CityLife eventually starts will be a part of fulfilling this God-sized dream! Not only will we be impacting Philadelphia for Christ. We’ll also be contributing to a church planting movement in cities throughout the Northeast!

You can follow the progress of this dream at 100churches.net. Let’s start some churches!

It’s hard to believe we’re already 9 weeks into the launch of CityLife Church! We’ve been having a blast since the church officially started on September 11. Here’s a little recap of what God’s been doing.

• 60 people have responded in our weekend gatherings to commit or recommit their lives to Jesus. Go God!
• We celebrated launch day with 210 people and have been averaging about 150 in attendance over the 9 weeks. You can see our Launch Day photo album on our Facebook page.
• In October we kicked off our first Starting Point discipleship process with 58 new people participating.
• In the past few weeks more than 20 people have started serving on the CityLife Dream Team!

We’re pumped about each of these numbers because they represent ONE person: one life that was changed by Jesus, one child who’s experienced church for the first time, one eternity that’s been changed forever. Here are just a few stories of THE ONE.

• ONE family who had only been to church a few times in their lives came to CityLife on launch day. They have since made commitments for Jesus and the kids can’t wait to come back each week.
• ONE woman visited and shared that she had been praying for a church like CityLife in her neighborhood for over 20 years.
• ONE man struggling with a life-controlling drug addiction has recommitted his life to Jesus and begun the discipleship process.
• ONE homeless couple has found a home with the CityLife Church family.

You know your church is getting old when you start your second sermon series!

It’s easy for me to track the age of our church right now because we’re in sync with the NFL season. So this Sunday is week 5!

I’m looking forward to starting a new teaching series straight from the New Testament Book of James. This letter, written by Jesus’ brother, has a lot to say to us about persevering through trials, the power of our words, the value of waiting, and the potential of prayer.

This Sunday we’ll kick things by studying a surprising command. Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds. What you’ll discover may surprise you–and encourage you!

See you Sunday!