Jon

“Send Us” and summer events associated to Spokane church plant

Hello Spokane Friends!

If you joined us at the Church Planting Boot Camp last weekend you heard compelling and well-grounded reasons for planting new churches into the cities and towns of theUSA, now home to one of the largest unreached people groups in the world.  We have much work to do as God’s chosen people, but we also have Jesus leading the way!  I am personally stirred once again (as if I wasn’t already!) with great vision for a reproducing church inSpokane.

Well, we have crossed a significant threshold!  It’s less than three months before the big move toSpokaneand only 2 1/2 months to the big send-out Sunday atClark ForkCityChurch.  Here are several key events and prayer points leading up to the big move!

• May 20, 2012 – Live worship recording at CFCC at 7 pm.  This will also be used to promote the upcoming plant of Grace Church Spokane.  Heather Thomas and I will be co-leading this night of worship.  Please pray for the band as we prepare, that the gear all works well and that we meet our budget!
• July 15, 2012 – CFCC 35th Anniversary Celebration (most likely at Caras Park).  We will do an official CD release party in conjunction with the anniversary.  Very fun!
• July 22, 2012 – Official send-out Sunday from CFCC.
• July 27-29, 2012 – Celebration NW in Silverton, Oregon.  We will officially leave from this event and be on the ground in Spokanefollowing Celebration NW.  We would love to have as many of you be with us there to connect and pray together with our Newfrontiers church families.  You will catch vision for what we’re doing in Spokaneand around the world!  You can register for Celebration NW here.  http://celebration.newfrontiersusa.org/nw-home.html
• Finally, while we have LOTS of people looking at our house, it still hasn’t sold.  We have had several offers but no solid deal has materialized yet.  We are confident that God has the right buyer for our house at the right time!  Thanks for praying into that as well.

As our plans come one step closer to reality, I wanted to attach an “official” letter from me giving you further ways to pray and to be a very real part of this church planting team, whether or not you are called to physically move with us toSpokane.  Becca and I are truly blessed to be able to partner with you all in prayer and in kingdom advancement!

For The Kingdom,

Jon

Josh

Live Recording for CFCC’s new Worship CD May 20th

I wanted to personally invite you to our live CD recording at Clark Fork City Church on May 20^th.  It has been 10 years since our last church CD project.  The project is called “Send Us” and will be original worship and praise songs written by Jonathon Meek II and our worship band.

We are celebrating 35 years as a church this July and want the project ready for the church anniversary and we also are celebrating the launch of a new church plant into Spokane, Washington led by Jon Meek and his family.

The recording and worship experience will start at 7pm and run for approximately an hour and a half.  Proceeds from CD sales will go directly toward the church plant “Grace Church” which will be shooting to launch its first public meeting on Palm Sunday 2013.

Our sending service for Jon and Rebecca will be on July 22^nd and they will move that week.  To find out more about Jon and his church plant you can visit a splash page at http://spokanechurch.us/. We covet your prayers for this new endeavor and hope you could join us for this fun project.

Josh Yakos

Josh

Easter Sunday Recap

http://joshyakos.blogspot.com/2012/04/easter-sunday-2012-recap.html

Josh

Church Transitions in Leadership-How well does your Church Transition?

Church Transitions in Leadership-How well does your Church Transition?

This weekend my wife Jess and I were privileged to visit friends in their church in Helena Montana and be a part of their “transition/commissioning service.”  Their church was passing the baton from one generation of Elders and Leader to a new team of leaders as well as a transition of their lead pastor role.  Brian Asay has been the lead guy there for 20 years and he and his wife Margaret have lead the church to a great point of transition.

From my vantage point many transitions in church leadership are messy, because of sin issues, done haphazardly or clumsy or without great oversight and apostolic vision speaking into and guiding the church in the way forward.

This is contrary to what we saw in Helena where their team spent several years preparing the church for a transition and Brian has done a wonderful job preparing the new younger leaders to step into their new role.  It was also exciting to see a church not focus on just the new lead guy but on a new team that will take the church forward.

The transition day is not as important as what follows and there will be bumps and bruises along the way but the transition of leadership event will set the tone for a church and a people to move forward.  Several overseers of Mount Helena Community Church spoke and one is a man named Clem Ferris who shared briefly about 5 points in leadership transition that I thought I would share.

Clem talked about the “Reality of Transition” and looked at the Moses to Joshua transition in the Old Testament.

1.  Accept the Reality of Transition                         Deut 31

Moses has to stay out of thePromiseLand, God is choosing Joshua.  Moses has to recognize that he is not the guy.  Many leaders won’t accept the reality that they are in the way or need to release the next generation.  Many churches are very hesitant to change to a new leadership because they are comfortable with the way things have been.

2.  Be Ready to accept New Leadership          Deut 31:7-8 and Num 27:15-23

They are not just recognizing a person but God’s leadership on the new leader and leaders.  With a new leadership in church there needs to be a new “followership.”  People need to honor and follow the new leaders God is recognizing.  Moses did this in the sight of the people.  This is why we would recognize and pray for leaders in a public meeting to recognize publically what God has done.

3.  Be Attentive to God’s Word                    Deut 31:9-11

In the middle of transition and change we have 1 Anchor: God’s Word.  It says Moses wrote this down in the Law as a guide to the people. Leaders, methods, church plans strategies will all change.  God’s word does not and that is our all important anchor in times of transition.

4.  Be Awake to our Emotions of Transition          Deut 34:5-8

This scripture talks about the people’s emotions and leading them through those feelings of loss.  That means allowing them time and giving them permission to be awake to emotions of change but not allowing our emotions to hinder the advance of leadership and the gospel.

5.  Finally, Be Open to New Opportunities             Deut 34:9

New Leaders mean new style, methods and often a new personality of leadership and style in a church.  Joshua was very different from the beloved leader Moses.  He was going to have to lead in different ways then Moses.  A church needs to be ready to be flexible in the middle of a leadership transition and more importantly after the transition as the church sets its sights on new opportunities and new strategies.

It was great to be with our friends this weekend and watch this transition.  Brian and his team as well as the oversight brought by Clem Ferris, Keith Hazel, and Dennis McNally was excellent and it was so great to watch this church transition. They passed the baton to a new lead guy JR Quigly but also to a team of Elders made up of JR, Jason Harris and Tyler Redden.  It’s great to see a church that believes in team ministry and plays away from the one man show.

Change and Grow!

Josh

Most Likely to______________-God’s Heart for the Underdog

This Easter Sunday April 8th we are starting a new series called “Most Likely to____________.”  You remember in School how students were chosen for categories like most likely to succeed, most likely to be a millionaire, most likely to likely to be future president, most likely to live off the grid, etc etc.

In Christ we are Most likely to Succeed!  It says in Romans 8:37 Despite all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us!  Not because of our greatness or gifting but because of His greatness and gifting.  Christ’s Payment on the Cross and Resurrection from the Tomb made a way for us to live a redeemed life!

This Easter Sunday will mark the beginning of a five week series you won’t want to miss about God’s heart for the underdog.  He takes our lowly position of Most likely to Sink in Life and makes us Most likely to Succeed in Life!

Lee

Extreme Home Makeover Bolivian style…

Check out this video from a New Frontiers Church in Bolivia.  It is a bit long but worth the watch.  The first bit of the video shows a families very humble one room home, and then shows a new home the church worked on to give to the family.  Very cool ministry south of the Border!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hcQlIfp6e5k#!

Andrew

Upcoming Important Easter Events

Several weeks ago I sent out an email detailing a plan to reach a goal of hosting 700 people on Easter.  Easter weekend is a great time to reach people as God is knocking on the door of their heart.  I think of the Ethiopian in Acts 8:27 who was prepared in advance to learn of the gospel.  God is at work all over our city in Hearts and I want to encourage you to get ready for a great month in April.  Below are a few important events we have lined out to help us reach 700 this Easter, we encourage you to be a part of what God is doing through our church in our great city.

• Friday March 30th 5pm Canvas Missoula (meet at cfcc), passing out Easter Invites all around the city (tonight)
• Friday March 30th 7pm Worship and Prayer (tonight)
• Friday March 30th 9pm- Sunday April 1st Prayer Slots to Pray for Harvest -(over this coming weekend you can pray for Easter at the church or wherever you are)
• Saturday 31st 10am-12 Clean up Church Grounds
• Sunday April 1st Part 5 Breakout Church- People of the Presence of God!   We also have several baptisms this Sunday!
• Friday April 6th 5pm Canvas Missoula (meet at cfcc), passing out Easter Invites all around the city again
• Friday April 6th Easter Rehearsal and Cardboard testimony fill in time/practice and prayer 7-830 pm
• Sunday April 8th Easter Service 9am and 11am 

Josh Yakos

Josh

Still waiting for a Heart: Troy Schlimgen

I have been feeling pretty darn good except for being tired all the time. It’s almost going to be a year since I have been listed and my birthday is coming up too, but in a sense it doesn’t even seemed like I have lived at age 36 at all. It seems like I’ve been in a constant state of sleepiness. My business continues to thrive and grow and I thank God sooo much for that. It allows me to really get my mind of things and keeps me feeling positive and productive. There hasn’t been much of updates as far as getting a heart. The average time to wait is about a year, so I really hope it is going to be soon. This wait has been really tough on our whole family and we are all eager for me to get my heart. We’re doing good though and are looking forward to getting back to Montana. We found an awesome church family here and without them we would not be doing nearly as good as we are. It’s so awesome to find like-minded believers and I’m involved in a men’s group which I love. I appreciate all the prayers that you guys are sending up to Heaven on my behalf. I truly can feel them and know that without those prayers giving me supernatural strength, there would be no way I’d be doing as good as I am. God truly is good all the time. 

Troy

Josh

New series notes- #breakoutchurch

As a follow up to my application email to our message Sunday I wanted to email/blog out the pdf version of our series notes for “Breakout Church.”  In case you were not here you can view some goals, start a prayer list for the lost and hurting, and also be praying through our 10 faith statements-(which are different than belief statements which are found on our webpage.)  The ten faith statements are designed to drive us towards accomplishing our goals as a church, not only jump-starting our vision if you have been at the church for a while, but also to give our new members and families a good overview of the personality of our church.

Click on the Below link to download/view notes from last week.

Faith Offensive (1)

Josh

Breakout Church Pt. 1-applications for last Sunday’s Message

I wanted to write everyone on our mail list and our Community Group leaders to disperse some information pertinent to last sunday’s message.  Many times we hear a message but don’t know how to apply it as a church.  I don’t want to be guilty of motivating but not mobilizing.  The two main faith statments addressed in the message were: 1)  Our best days are ahead   2)  Our aim is to make Jesus famous!  We started a series on Church Growth from the book of Acts.  My message was very much “air-war” or big picture kind of thoughts.  Let’s each join the ground-war as we are Pray-ers, Tell-ers and Bring-ers!  If you missed last week you can pick up an outline this Sunday as you come into the building.  Don’t miss this important time as we get into “Breakout Church!”