J.R. Lee

I read this in a book that I am reading in preparation for a series coming up in October.

Submitting self to God is the only real freedom—because the deepest slavery is self-dependence, self-reliance. When you live your life believing that everything (family, finances, relationships, career) depends primarily on you, you’re enslaved to your strengths and weaknesses. You’re trying to be your own savior. Freedom comes when we start trusting in God’s abilities and wisdom instead of our own. Real life begins when we transfer our trust from our own efforts to the efforts of Christ.

It’s His power not ours that moves us through this life.  That’s great news.  Why?  We are relying on one with all strengths and no weaknesses.

• I am so grateful for what God is doing in my life, the life of my family, the life of Freedom Church, and in the life of our community!
• We celebrated with 74 people who were baptized during the past two weeks at Freedom.  I loved hearing so many of their stories.
• We are hosting the Friday Night Easter Eggstravaganza in conjunction with the city of Acworth.  It’s different than anything we have ever done before and YES the Easter Bunny will be jumping out of an airplane and skydiving onto the field to kick off the event!  
• I would love for you to volunteer for this event – you can register here.
• Speaking of Easter – here is our schedule for Easter Weekend:  Saturday, April 7th at 6PM and Sunday, April 8th at 9:45AM and 11:30AM.
• We are kicking off a brand new series on Easter Weekend entitled AFTERLIFE.  I can’t wait!!!
• Invite as many people as you can and bring them with you.  It’s going to be a life changing series!

We kicked off a brand new series entitled I Have Decided this past Sunday.

It was an incredible day as we saw 42 people who accepted Christ at some point in the past follow through with their first step of obedience through baptism.

This coming Sunday, I would love to invite you and encourage you to bring your friends for what will be another powerful week!   I can’t wait to see what God does this week in and through us!

The thing that I continue to learn over and over again is the same thing that I want for every single person I come in contact with to learn over and over again as well.

The gospel (good news of Jesus Christ and His life, death, and resurrection on our behalf) does not just get the fire going in our lives.  It is the fuel that keeps us going.

We never move past it.   Want to grow in your relationship with Jesus?  Keep going back to the Gospel – over and over again.

I am so grateful for what God is doing in my life, the life of Freedom Church, and in the life of our community!  It’s a great season filled with opportunities!

Many people ask how they can join us in prayer.  To answer that question, I will give you a few things I am praying through right now with hopes that you will join in as well!

• We have been looking for someone to lead our Kids Ministry full-time for the past several months.  God has put us in touch with some great people and we are getting very close!  Pray that God sends us a man or woman of God who believes that this generation can change the world!
• We have some GREAT people leading our teenagers each Sunday night and I can’t wait to see what God has in store during the days ahead!  We are ramping it up in a big way in the months ahead!  Praying for a supernatural movement of God among the teenagers in our community!
• Our staff has been having exciting discussions about engaging people in small groups over the past couple of months.  We have piloted a few groups and are getting ready for more.  Can’t wait to unveil this in the weeks ahead.  It’s my prayer that every single person at Freedom Church is engaged in a small group – whether weekly, biweekly, and/or online!

There is a lot more but I will save it for next week!