Blog Archives
Life Group Launch
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!
Ten Reasons to Be at CityLife Church on Christmas Eve
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!
- Christmas is about Jesus! Together, we’re going to focus on Him.
- Creativity! This service will be different than any we’ve had since CityLife started.
- This is the last opportunity to worship at CityLife in 2011.
- I’ve got an inspiring message I can’t wait to share!
- Christmas cookies! You know you love them.
- We have a special string trio that will be playing during the service.
- I’ll be preaching for less than 30 minutes, which may never happen again.
- Christmas carols! It’s going to be another year before we sing them again.
- 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!
- 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!
Children’s Choice Christmas Party
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!
Worship With Your Whole Life
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!
1 Down, 99 To Go
Our dream at CityLife Church is to build something that is reproducible. At a micro level that means we want to see disciples reproducing disciples, leaders reproducing leaders, and small groups reproducing small groups. At a macro level, and when the time is right, we also dream of seeing new campuses and churches started out of CityLife.
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!
New Series Starts Sunday
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!
A New Teacher’s Lounge, Water Bottles, and Week 3 At CityLife!
Today I am celebrating an amazing weekend of ministry at CityLife Church! Here are a few of the highlights.
- About 35 friends from the choir at Allison Park Church joined us for the weekend. They had awesome attitudes as they served South Philly.
- On Friday night we outfitted the teacher’s lounge at The Academy at Palumbo. You can see the before and after photos above. So thankful for our relationship with this great school and happy to invest in their teachers!
- On Saturday we gave away hundreds of bottles of water and distributed thousands of door hangers. During the day one of our church’s 94 year old neighbors committed his life to Christ!
- Yesterday we had our 3rd service. There was so much energy and excitement that filled the school!
- Counting the choir, we had 196 people in attendance, and at the end of the service 19 people responded to plead guilty and surrender their lives to Jesus!
Launch Recap
Wow! Yesterday was such a fun day for CityLife Church! For months we have been preparing for September 11 with the goal of throwing the finest God party we could. And yesterday it happened. The Academy at Palumbo was packed with people, energy, and LIFE!
Yesterday was my 33rd birthday. In the morning, one friend who forgot CityLife was launching, posted a message to my Facebook wall that said, “Happy birthday. I hope it’s a blast and that you do something you love.” Honestly, I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do on my birthday than start a church, and can’t remember ever having a birthday that was as much fun as this one.
We weren’t quite sure what to expect but were thrilled with what God did. 210 people attended the service, and 12 made a commitment to cross the line of faith and surrender to Christ.
I was so proud of our team. I can’t begin to calculate the number of hours and cumulative sacrifice they’ve invested in the birth of CityLife Church. There’s no way yesterday would have happened without you. I love you guys and feel honored to share in this dream with you.
If you’d like to get a taste of the fun, check out the CityLife Launch photo album on our Facebook page!
Thinking of Visiting CityLife This Sunday?
Are you thinking of joining us for the launch of CityLife Church this weekend? Check out the VIP Guest Guide to quickly reference location, times and directions.
You can find all of the other juicy details by visiting our website!
