And here’s a video our team put together to celebrate what God has already done through the first part of 2012. This is not a highlight reel – it’s a preview of what God is going to do this year.

The Elevation Network is our gift to you, and is a free online network that will stream round the clock gospel preaching. When you tune into the network, you will see our current sermon of the week airing every four hours, past sermons from our archives, creative elements from our sermon series and worship songs that were birthed right here in our own church. It’s your channel for all things Elevation with the sole purpose of reaching people far from God all over the world.

The Elevation Network also gives us the ability to stream live events, so it is only fitting that we are launching it with Code Orange Revival. The network will be the only place you can watch the revival as it’s happening, and we hope that you take advantage of it and join us in the incredible things we are going to see God do over the next twelve days. It is built so that you can easily share with others, so we would love your help in getting the word out.

The network is broadcasting right now and goes live again tonight at 6:12 PM EST with our revival pre-show, and then Code Orange Revival begins at 7 PM EST. Join us at www.elevationnetwork.com.

Click on the banner to visit the Elevation Network now. Watch the video from the Network below to learn a little more about the vision behind the Elevation Network.

Of course, as our Christmas worship experiences approach at Elevation, we’re putting a lot of effort into motivating our people to be bringers. If you’re planning on worshipping with us this Christmas, I hope you’ve got tickets already, not only for your family, but for someone in your life who needs to find hope in Christ.

You can still get tickets to most worship experiences at codeorangechristmas.com
They’re free, and they’re simply a tool for us to guarantee we have a spot for everyone who makes the effort to come.
There are 30 different worship experience times to choose from in the Charlotte area, and many more at Elevation Extension locations around the world.
You can see a list of those locations here.

We’re going all out to present the Gospel this Christmas. The opportunity is great. The need is urgent. And although public worship gatherings aren’t the only way someone can come to Christ, we’ve seen thousands respond to Jesus in this environment. We believe God moves in a special way when His Church comes together. Not just in our church, but anywhere the Gospel is preached.

The other day, I was standing in a particular place that made me think about how much difference one invite could make. I decided to pull out my phone and record a video on the spot.

Believers all over the world, let’s be bringers this Christmas season.
You never know the impact your invitation could initiate.

For a season I ate lunch every week with our lead staff. I didn’t just call it Lead Staff Lunch. No siree, I called it XLC. X-treme Lunch Challenge. Our strategy meeting that took place right after lunch was called CN. What that stands for is confidential. Now the meeting is called Preview. Before CN it was called something else, I can’t remember.

Just now, before writing this blog, I spent an hour trying to come up with a tagline for our Code Orange Revival. That was after a whole long segment of a meeting where we banged our heads on about 20 taglines that didn’t work. Coming up with the name Code Orange Revival itself was a whole other, multi day on and off process. I used two pages of research to nail that one down.

Maybe this seems eccentric, but I won’t even commit to doing something until I can figure out what we’re going to call it.

The upside is that this helps me think about an initiative at a vision level before I get all bogged down in the details.
Asking the question: What are we going to call it? helps me make decisions about who is it for? What should it feel like? How big will it be? Before we ever roll it out, and get it in the works.

There is creative power in our language.
Put a little extra thought into naming the stuff you’re responsible for. It might make more difference than you think.

Genesis 2:19-20
Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

(It only took me about 5 seconds to name this blog entry, ironically.)

At Elevation, we are always looking for new ways to leverage technology to reach people and to creatively present the gospel. Recently, we were inspired by Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir featured in a recent TED Talk, and got excited about the potential to use voices from all over the country in a creative and unique way this Christmas by putting our own spin on this idea. So we decided to launch our very first Elevation Global Choir which will be a main part of our Christmas worship experiences this year. It will be such a powerful way for people across the country and the world to sing the same song, all together at the same time, for the Glory of God.

So we want everyone to participate. If you have ever wanted to sing on stage but were too nervous to get up in front of people, this is your chance! You can do everything right in front of your computer. This is also a great thing for churches and worship ministries to get your teams engaged in as we join together as the global Church.

To make it even more fun, we want to bless the worship leader or choir director whose team submits the most videos. You will win a trip for 2 to the Code Orange Revival in January 2012 for 2 nights and get a chance to hang out with our worship team and experience what promises to be an unforgettable way to kick off the New Year. You have 2 weeks to submit your videos, and the last day to submit for the Revival contest will be Thanksgiving Day! Winners will be announced on Nov. 26.

All details and instructions can be found at
www.elevationworship.com/globalchoir

Don’t miss out on being a part of worshipping with us this Christmas!