What occupies your life?

There is a place that I love. A place that had an incredible impact on my life. A place where I really first experienced God and watched God reach into others hearts. A place where I first sat with a person and led them through a prayer as they accepted God's gift of eternal life.

And now, that same place seems to have changed. The place that was so attractive to everybody and created such an amazing environment for God to do what only he can do is not the same. Now I know...everything changes. Nothing stays the same. And staying the same may be worse than changing, but the questions is HOW are we changing and to WHAT are we evolving?

This idea is extremely important to our church. As we evolve and change, I hope more than anything that we always are more preoccupied with those we can reach rather than focusing on those that we can keep. Not that I want to run the Christians off, but if we have to focus on ONLY one group, I hope we always lean towards those people not sitting in our seats on Sunday mornings. It just drives me nuts to see churches or other Christian organizations intentionally, or more often subconsciously, make decisions that revolved around making insiders happy at the expense of the outsider. And when this happens, the church can quickly become an insider focused organization, also making it an outsider irrelevant organization. I never want to lead or be associated with an organization that looks like that. That sounds like a Christian organization that is very unChristian.

I hope we never become irrelevant or incorrectly focused as a church. Who are the people not sitting at Watermarke on Sunday mornings...let's be sure we are focused on them, not us!

Gavin Adams
Lead Pastor

GroupLink at Watermarke Church

DON'T MISS GroupLink at WATERMARKE CHURCH
Saturday, February 7th, 7:00 - 9:00 pm
Wellesley Club House in Towne Lake (1000 Wellesley Crest Drive)

This Saturday, many Watermarkers will take a risk and attended our GroupLink event. I say it is a risk because you will show up not knowing who you will meet. For the extroverts, that's called an adventure. For the introverts, like me, that's called a risk.

I just want to thank you in advance for taking that risk. We believe it will be well worth it. And thank you small group leaders for stepping up to lead and helping us create healthy group environments all over our community.

As we just learned in the Five Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith series, "providential relationships" are critical catalysts for spiritual growth. We have been working and praying for these types of relationships to form this weekend. All we now need is you to take a risk.

If you have not yet decided to attend GroupLink, I hope you do, because it will be worth it. To learn more about Community Groups, GroupLink, or Watermarke Church, please visit www.watermarkechurch.com.

If you are planning to attend GroupLink, you need to first register.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR GROUPLINK.

GroupLife Milestone

I have some exciting news to share. As a lot of you know, we are a part of a larger organization and movement called North Point Ministries (NPM). We have the privilege of partnering with 17 other Churches all over the USA and Canada, with 5 more being planted this year! As an organization, we recently reached a milestone with over 31,000 people within NPM Churches connected into Community Groups. Amazing! Our goal is to see 50,000 people in groups by the end of 2010. The question is, are you experiencing the life changing dynamic of sharing life with other couples or singles in the context of a small group? If not...GroupLink is your next step.

What is GroupLink?
GroupLink is a two-hour, interactive event to connect you with others in your area of town and stage of life to form a Community Group.

After meeting with the other people and finding others like you, we will form groups. And don't worry, our staff and volunteers will walk you through the entire process. Our Lead Pastor will spend some time talking about Community Groups then time will be provided for you to get to know the people in your newly formed group.

If you are planning to attend GroupLink, you need to first register.
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR GROUPLINK.

Thank You!

I love having the opportunity to share what God has been brewing in my soul for weeks or months. This past Sunday, I had just that opportunity and I was so grateful to all of our Watermarke people who came out to hear from my heart. To each of you, thank you for making me feel so welcome and for the continued encouragement. I am very glad to serve along side of you and I look forward to being a part of what God is going to do through us and our church as we create environments that lead all people in our community into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.

How Did God Do It

The older that I get, and the more I read and learn about God through His word, I am more and more amazed. It is just impossible that this stuff was made up.

My favorite thing to find are verses and scriptures that all relate to each other, but are found throughout the Bible. It is awesome to read something written by Solomon in Proverbs that comes through so clearly in a story of Jesus and his disciples. Just awesome stuff.

I also love it when God reveals those little nuggets of wisdom in a story that we have read many, many times. This week at Watermarke Church, I am excited to share what I have been learning in the past couple of months and how God has become more personal than I can ever remember. Join me this week as we think about this one, powerful piece of scripture that everyone would LOVE to master in our life: Proverbs 3:5-6; 5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

Gavin Adams, Lead Pastor

gadams@watermarkechurch.com

Made To Stick Book Study
Our staff is reading a great book, Made to Stick by Dan Heath and Chip Heath. We had a great discussion today about how this book applies to so many aspects of our ministry and church. The most insightful discussion for me was around one idea: The Curse of Knowledge.

In a nutshell (whatever that means), the curse of knowledge is defined as our inability to recognize or remember that others do not know everything that we know. Once we know something, we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it.

When I think about this concept, there are many things that quickly come to mind for our church, but one jumps out more than all the others. As a follower of Jesus Christ, it is so difficult to remember what it was like when we were lost. In our community, there are thousands and thousands of people that are far from God and in need of a place and a people like Watermarke Church. If we do not keep every area of our church pointing to that as our target, then we end up forgetting what it feels like to be lost, and our church quickly ceases to stay focused on the core mission of the church.

Have you forgotten what is was like to be lost? Who is the one person or family that you are hoping to invite to Watermarke before the end of the year? We have to remember that we have the message that answers all of life's biggest problems: sin, sorrow, and death. And it is our job as a staff to create relevant and irresistible environments so that you can do your job - invest and invite and be involved. When everything is said and done, our relationship with Jesus (or lack thereof) will be the only thing that matters. Not just for us, but for everybody.

I hope is that Watermarke never becomes a church full of people that have forgotten what is feels like to live separated from Jesus Christ.

What to say???

As my first Sunday at Watermarke approaches, I continue to catch myself wondering what I should say as I walk onto our stage for the first time. There is so much I want to communicate - vision, personal passion for the unreached, where we are going as a church, what I feel God has in store for us all, ect. I could go on and on, but the tough part is I only have 3 - 4 minutes to say it all. The last thing I want is to hear the band start into the “get off the stage music” like I am at an awards show thanking everyone I have ever known!

So, in my short time on stage, here is what I hope gets communicated:
Watermarke Church is a place designed for people to grow in or establish a relationship with Jesus Christ. As a church, I hope we can always create environments that are relevant and irresistible for everyone, because God's desire is to see the separation that exist between Him and us wiped away. I want Watermarke Church to be a church where people far from God can come and hear the truth in a refreshing, helpful and relevant way. I want Watermarke Church to be a church full of people that have not forgotten what it is like to be lost. I want our church to be more concerned about those that are unreached than any other issue facing our church. I want Watermarke Church to be a place where we can all give and serve together and allow God to change our lives and our surrounding community through us. I could keep going, because that is just the beginning...

Maybe the best way to say it is simply a church where everybody’s invited, everybody’s included, and everybody’s important. I bet that would make a great message serried. This is what I want Watermarke Church to be, and I hope that Sunday is the beginning of something huge at our church.