Thank you Jesus - Reflections over the last month.

It has been a while since I added some personal reflections. Honestly, my life has been in a tornado since the Gustav scare. Between the hurricane, new baby, classes, church baptism/mission/and official launch...at times I have asked for Christ to take me home. I have slipped up on a lot of my personal goals like getting in shape, reading some books, and even some family priorities. It is going to be tough, but I am determined to get back in the zone. Thankfully I have survived the dive and have just started to reach the surface for some air.

When I think about the last month all I can say is "THANK YOU JESUS". His grace and strength has certainly kept me going. The following is a list of my "thank you Jesus" moments:

• Surviving Hurricane Gustav. This is the reality of living in New Orleans. My life went through so many emotions during this time. Because God is sovereign all we can do is repond to what he allows to happen in this world. I love how our church responded to this storm. It was awesome watching our church DO WORK (for all those Rob&Big fans). Be the Church...sounds like a cool concept. Please don't forget the areas that were impacted by Gustav and Ike. There are a lot of people that still need help.
• 28 Days of Prayer. Starting at the beginning of September our church united in prayer. Each day we focused on a specific prayer request, country from Operation World, and read through the One Year Bible text for the day. Honestly, there were many days that I probably would have quit if it wasn't for my time in the Word and time in prayer. I believe that this is just the beginning of a mighty prayer movement in our entire church community.
  
• 9/20 Mission Day. Our missional strategy at Vintage is three-fold. Personal, Life Group, and Corporately. Instead of filling up the calendar with missional events, we are encouraging our members to live missional each day. As they engage their world, they are called to bring in their life group to meet needs each week. And then quarterly our entire church will unite to reach our community. Corporately we will also serve together in a foreign mission field twice a year. The mission day on the 20th was amazing. We had over 50 people show up to clean yards, parks, pass out waters, prayer walk, pick up trash, clean bathrooms, and tell people about Jesus. Ben did an amazing job leading this event. Thanks to everyone who got their hands dirty for Jesus.
  
• 9/21 Baptism and Barbeque. This is what it is all about. Our gathering for worship each week is not the focus of our church. It is a celebration of the focus of our church - going and making disciples. Our baptism team (Edmund, Wendy, Mike, Tiffany, Dennis, Kaitlin, and many others) did a first class job. After a time of worship, we went outside and had a baptism celebration. Notice I said celebration. I have attended way too many baptisms services that felt like funerals. We sang, prayed, yelled, clapped, and of course baptized 7 people. It felt more like a tailgating party than a funeral. I pray that we have thousands more.

Here is a video of the Mission Day and Baptism (thx Mike and Travis):


Vintage Church Mission Day & Baptism Sunday from Travis Manint on Vimeo.

You can also check out the pics from the two days at www.vintagenola.org/photo-gallery/

• 9/24 Life Group Launch. This was a huge day for our church because we consider our LIFEgroups to be the foundation of our mission. This summer we had 3 lifegroups led by our pastors. On the 24th, we launched 13 LIFEgroups all over the city. I am superpumped to watch God use these groups to connect people to Christ all over our city. These groups of 5-15 people gather in homes and participate in learning God's Word, interaction with God in prayer, fellowship with each other, and then evangelism in the community. More info on them at www.vintagenola.org/lifegroups/.
  
• 9/28 Official Sunday Launch. Once again, we don't consider this to be the point...however, we believe that God can do an amazing work through the corporate gathering of the church and through the preaching of God's Word. Andrew and our band did an amazing job. I am excited to co-preach this fall with Page through the book of I John. Our series is called "Christology". You can subscribe to the podcast at www.vintagenola.org/podcast/. We had over 120 people join us on the day as we gathered at 10am & 6pm. Although we still have a lot of things to work out with our volunteer teams, we are certainly heading in the right direction. I am excited to see where God is going to take His church.

WOW! This has been an amazing month. THANK YOU JESUS!