J.R. Lee

I pray every day that Freedom Church would continue to become a powerful church.  A church lacking power isn’t an accurate picture of the character of God.   Jesus didn’t come come to this earth, die, and rise again so that His church could limp along until His return.

God is fully capable of making the extraordinary ordinary.  Leaders of every background, denomination, style, etc. are seeing God do what many had classified as impossible.  How?

Here is something that I’ve come to realize:  Vision is vital, but power comes through prayer.

Vision and strategy are important, but prayer produces the power that can shake a city, state, nation, and world.  My tendency is to spend disproportionate time on vision and strategy – while praying that God blesses the “work” we have done.

I need to stop praying “for” the work and realize that prayer “is” the work.

Recently, I listened to a portion of a message that I had given in one of the first few weeks at Freedom Church.

It was NOT what I expected.  You ever done something in the past – remembered it being pretty darn good – and then realized that it wasn’t quite as good as you originally thought?  That’s how I felt the other day.

It freaked me out a little bit, but I told some people in the office that I hope this trend continues – in every area of my life.  I am a work in progress – not just in communication, but as a husband, father, Pastor, leader, and friend.   I want to continue getting better – which means I will have to get use to looking back and laughing at who I use to be.

I don’t mind changing – it’s staying the same that would scare me to death.

The next several weeks are going to be incredible!  We nailed down the direction of the next few series at Freedom and here is how things are shaping up beginning a few weeks from now…

Awakening – 3 week Series

Rebel – 5 Week Series

2 Standalone messages

Old Time Religion – 4 Week Series

All about Me – 3-4 Week Series

People use to say “don’t sacrifice your family on the altar of business, ministry.“  It’s a pretty common saying.  I am sure that statement came in response to a culture that greatly needed to hear it.

Now, the pendulum has swung to the other side.

The statement is still true, but most people need to hear it in reverse.  “Don’t sacrifice your business and/or ministry on the altar of family.“   It doesn’t matter how honorable it sounds, laziness is not a virtue – no matter how you try to disguise it.

Here are a few pics from the last two series’ courtesy of Allyson.  She’s a friend, neighbor, HazMat woman, former GA Tech cheerleader (even though her husband is a die hard Bulldogs fan), and a great photographer.  For more photos, check out the Flickr page.