Wednesday Night "Wait on God"

We really believe that God is calling us out of our cold hearted version of worship that we have been offering Him and into a passionate relationship with Jesus! So, we are calling people to pray and fast (something) for the next 40 days beginning this Sunday, as a time of seeking God with our whole heart!

To help facilitate real worship we are going to only have one service (9:30 AM) on Sunday mornings as well as a Wednesday night "Wait on God" time starting at 6:30 PM and ending when it is done! This is going to be a dedicated time of seeking God's face. There will probably be a short time of exhortational preaching, worship, and an open ended time of prayer and just coming to see what God wants to do.

Please begin to pray NOW about our time this weekend and for EWC as a whole, that God will meet with us. transform our cold hearted Christianity, and Re-Ignite our passion for Jesus!!!

Changes at EWC

As many of you know, this week we announced some drastic changes in our services and called our people to pray and fast for 40 days beginning next Sunday (8/30).

For quite a while we have seen a steady decline in the passion for God in our church. Worship has become a spectator sport, and many people are feeling very ‘dry’ spiritually. I believe that for many the dryness is not due to the Spirit of God’s absence, but to our spiritual drifting.

Try the following spiritual test:

1.(true or false) I have stopped reading my bible.

2.(true or false) I have stopped praying consistently.

3. (true or false) I have lost my passion for God.

If we are brutally honest we will very quickly see why we are in the shape we are in! So what is the problem? God? The world? The church? My job? My wife / husband? … nope! (say it with me) “I am the problem!” We serve a God who declares “I do not change” so if something has changed it has to be us! So here is what we at EWC are going to do about it:

1. As of this week (8/30/09) we will only have one service at 9:30. The purpose for having 2 services is to enable the church to grow, but right now our ONE and ONLY priority is to bring us back to passion for Jesus! So with one service there are no time restraints, less activity needed and more fellowship as a whole church. From 8:30 to service time the sanctuary will be available for prayer and an hour of seeking God before the service.

2. We are cutting the worship team! (not permanently, but for a period of time) Although we love the worship at our church, when our music stops being about worshipping Jesus and becomes about entertainment, it is time for a change! Please hear my heart, the worship team has continued to seek God and lead hid people in worship, but more and more people in the congregation have stopped participating. So as of this week, we are stripping away everything until we are forced to make a decision to either worship God or not, not based on a style of music but a heart that longs for intimacy with God!

We are prayerfully looking at every aspect of church life at EWC and asking this question, is it making disciples? Is it leading people to fall in love with Jesus? With his word? And if not as much as we love it, we will cut it off until all that remains is a church of 100% sold out, crazy on fire, world changing followers of Jesus Christ!

Please pray for God to re-ignite the hearts of the people that make up EWC. And one more thing, as you pray and seek God, let’s not start with the assumption that we are “in”, that our hearts are the “good ground.” Rather lets get on our knees before God and asking him to show us where we need to change!

Thanks for taking the time to read thru this, and I pray that God will powerfully meet with you and reveal himself to you as you seek his face!

Re-Ignite! Ps. Matt