Archive for the ‘Video Blog’ Category

The Vision Behind the Elevation Network

This is such an exciting time for our church. Not only did Code Orange Revival kick off last night, but we have also launched a brand new initiative that will open up unlimited opportunity to reach people all over the world with the power of the gospel. As a church we have always sought to leverage technology to increase our platform for ministry, so we have launched The Elevation Network: a 24 hour a day, 7 day a week Gospel preaching ministry.

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.

The Elevation Network

My Favorite Moments

I know 2012 is here in full force, and the time for 2011 reflections is long gone, but I just had to share this with you.

I sat down with our creative team a few weeks ago in a pretty special setting to share about my favorite ministry moments of 2011.

It was an exercise in gratitude for us, and hopefully it will be a shot of faith for you.

Mistake into a Miracle

I wrote about Norm in Sun Stand Still. A lot of you have been asking about him. How he’s doing. What became of him.

If you have forgotten some of the details of Norm’s story or haven’t read the book, Norm is one of the greatest examples I’ve ever seen of how God can turn our mistakes into miracles. Before Norm came to Elevation, he had been involved in some illegal activities and his life was a wreck. But then he accepted Christ and everything changed.

Still, eventually Norm’s past legal mistakes caught up with him. When they did, Norm refused to lie about what he’d done, so he pleaded guilty to all the charges. At the sentencing, the judge dropped the hammer on him. Norm was sentenced to serve the full forty-eight months in a federal prison.

Norm could have been devastated and felt sorry for himself. Instead, he decided to believe there was a purpose in his prison. His response to his sentencing was inspiring:
I need this church to train me. I need you to teach me how to tell people in the prison about Jesus. I want to go in there and make a difference for God. I want to take what I’ve experienced here at Elevation and start an Elevation in the prison. Will you teach me how to do that?

We did and we’ve been supporting Norm in every way possible ever since. And God showed up powerfully. In the four years Norm was in prison, several inmates gave their lives to Christ.

I say was, because as of this past weekend, Norm finally came home to Elevation!

Here is the rest of his story that couldn’t be told in Sun Stand Still because it wasn’t finished yet. I hope it encourages you that you don’t have to let your past failures define your future. If God could turn Norm’s mistakes into a miracle, he can do the same for yours, too.

How to Reap an Easter Harvest – Part 2

Resource of the Day: For an example of what this actually looks like in practice, take a look at our Christmas worship experience from this past year. Although it isn’t Easter, the same rules apply. The invitation begins at 34:52 in. If you’d like to see an Easter-specific invitation, here’s the sermon I linked yesterday.

How to Reap an Easter Harvest – Part 1

Resource of the Day: If you’d like to see one example of how I’ve given an invitation during an Easter weekend, here’s a link to our Easter worship experience from last year. I start ramping up for the invitation at about 21:08 in. I’ll post a link to another example tomorrow.

Hey Haters

I believe that there’s very few things our world needs more desperately today than the restoration of the Biblical virtue of honor. And this is nowhere more true than in the Body of Christ at large. I’m tired of people slinging hate at other churches and pastors, and for the Church being known more for what it stands against than for what it stands for.

So as part of the kickoff to our Honorology series this past weekend, we showed this video as a little message to all the haters in the Body of Christ.

Check it out. And feel free to share it with everyone you know. Let’s spread the message that the time for hate is done and the time for honor has come.

Resource of the Day: For an introduction to honor and the need for it to be restored to our world, check out the sermon from this past weekend: Where is the Honor?

How does someone with little authority exert great influence?

Today we’re wrapping up our three-day interview with Dr. Henry Cloud as we finish discussing the essential practice of pruning from his new book, Necessary Endings.

While the topics we’ve been covering have focused more on business and church management, let me encourage you that I think this practice applies to our personal lives as well. Far too many of us are in danger of missing out on the next thing God has for us because we’re too busy holding onto something long past its season. A relationship. A disappointment. Or any number of other things.

In this final installment Dr. Cloud helps us understand how we can know when it’s time to let something go or stick with it and breathe new life into it. Also, how people with little authority can exert great influence to still produce immediate and lasting change wherever they find themselves.

Resource of the Day: In case you missed it, Monday’s post on the church’s mission to reach those far from God really resonated with a lot of people. In fact, it was our most popular post ever: Fishers of men, not keepers of the aquarium.

When should you fire someone?

Yesterday we started a mini blog series with Dr. Henry Cloud on the concept of pruning in our businesses and churches.

This is something churches really struggle with. They’ll keep programs or people on way past their season, and the result is plateau or decline. If pastors want to take their church to the next level, learning how to prune isn’t optional. It’s essential.

Today I wanted us to dive into what this pruning process looks like. It’s not as simple as when something in your church or business isn’t bearing fruit, you just fire someone. Sometimes that’s appropriate and absolutely necessary to get you to the place where God is taking you. And it frees them to find where God wants them. Other times it’s a waste of what could have been an invaluable resource. Another action would be much more beneficial.

In this excerpt, Dr. Cloud helps us understand these dynamics and what we should do when an employee or area isn’t producing:

Resource of the Day: Dr. Cloud recently released his new book, Necessary Endings, that goes more in depth on the issues we’ve been discussing the past two days. You can buy a copy of the book here.

So you want to fire someone?

We recently had the honor of hosting a leadership event at our church and afterwards I got to sit down with one of the leading voices on leadership and personal development in the world.

Dr. Henry Cloud has written many books that have been cornerstones and required reading for our staff such as Integrity and his best-selling book Boundaries. While he was here, he was gracious enough to spend a few minutes with me discussing some key concepts from his latest book, Necessary Endings. It’s a fantastic book and addresses a topic that Christians and churches really need to hear – the importance of pruning. In relationships. Churches. Businesses. Or your own life.

This week, I’ll be posting excerpts from the interview here on the blog. The content will be helpful to everyone – Business executives or pastors. Coaches or part-time workers. Hope you enjoy it. Here’s the first segment:

Win the Ultimate Church Plant Road Trip

  • Special opportunity for senior pastors of church plants that are in the pre-launch phase or first year or so of their plant.
  • We’re about to celebrate the five-year anniversary of Elevation Church on February 12-13, and we want to honor one church plant team with an all expenses paid road trip to be our guests of honor.
  • Senior pastors, send us an email or a video with your story to churchplantingroadtrip@elevationchurch.org. We’ll select one winner and bring him, and four of his team up to celebrate with us.
  • Emails and videos must be submitted within the next 48 hours.

My thoughts on Oprah

I preached a sermon a week ago on 2 Kings 4 where Elisha tells a widow to get jars in preparation for how God is going to bless her with an abundance of oil.

One particular segment seemed to get our church fired up about not backing down from our calling because our best days are ahead, and I wanted to share it with you. It contains my thoughts on what the church’s response should be to the Dallas Cowboys. MTV. And yes, Oprah.

I hope this encourages you and your church to not back down from what God has called you to do in your city.

Resource of the Day: The clip above is also available on YouTube. If you’d like to view the full sermon from which this clip was taken, click here.

Page 23

A few weeks ago I gave you a sneak peak into Sun Stand Still and the movement that I’m praying it creates. As I said then, this is about much more than a book. This is ultimately about God raising up a generation that will dare to ask God for the impossible and act in audacious faith for His glory.

One of ways I want to contribute to this is by providing a series of videos for churches, small groups, and individuals that will visually recreate some of the incredible moves of God that are depicted in the book. But more than just recounting events in other people’s lives, these videos will challenge you to witness the sun stand still in your own life. I believe our story hints at a God-sized transformation that is available to every follower of Christ

To give you an idea of what these short films are going to look like, I’m giving you a full look at the first one-Page 23. It covers the moment I received the God-given vision that forever changed my life and became the catalyst of my audacious faith.

For more information on resources, upcoming Sun Stand Still prayer experiences, or on the book itself, check out the official Sun Stand Still website.

Faithfulness

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Uniqueness

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Diversity

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Duplicating the Vision… Part 4

Always “us” – Never “they”

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Awakening

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For more information on Awakening- 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting, click here.

God Who Answers Prayer

We featured this story of God’s faithfulness to Wade and Ferris Sunday.

It’s so gratifying to see faith come full circle. God is good. Kleenex is recommended.

The Tongue

I’m finishing up our James series this Sunday with a message about the tongue.

Elijah B. has been working on a little Psalm 34:13 scripture memory that fits very nicely.

Happy Thanksgiving from My Little Indian

Don’t worry, I’m not at work on Thanksgiving day. Earlier this week our office was invaded by an Indian, and this was the footage. Happy Thanksgiving!

Leo’s Story

Leo was the first of the 1044 to be baptized. I’ve been watching his story unfold for several months now. He is on staff at the gym where I work out, and has been coming to Elevation since the first part of the year. I had my sights set on Leo every week that I gave an invitation since March. It has been incredible to see his life change. And it’s just beginning-

Here’s the story of his salvation and baptism.

(NOTE: This was the first time we ever had to bleep an expletive in a testimony video. Enjoy.)

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Loving our city

Check out this video we showed in our Sunday worship experiences. One of our favorite strategic outreach partners in the city is Communities in Schools, Safe Journey. I don’t know about you, but this is the church I’ve dreamed about being a part of all my life. Thanks for your generosity Elevation.

Watch Video Here.

Brother Barry

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to the world…
The greatest sermon I’ve ever heard.

You must block out 27 minutes before the end of the day and watch this. It is a young man preaching his first sermon at a Pentecostal church circa 1985-ish. Watch all three parts… each one is better than the last.
You are also advised to have tissue close by. You will laugh until you cry.

Here’s the link

Special thanks to my dear friend Jonathan Martin for enlightening me to this content.
By the way, you really should read Jonathan’s blog. It’s brilliant, and he’s brilliant.