Elevation Outreach

Click on the Rabon family photo to vote for Addison Rabon in the “Rare Artist” contest.

What an incredible weekend! It was eGroups spring semester launch and we hope you got connected to a group and are excited about what God will do in your life through CONSTANT CONNECTIONS.

We hope too that you are knocking out your “The Power of Same” John 15 memorization, and that you are getting a lot out of this series.

Remember that Your Success is Only as Sustainable as its Source and that you need a constant to reach the kind of deep-rooted success God wants for you.

Pastor Steven taught us from Romans 15:4 (MSG) “Even if it was written in Scripture long ago, you can be sure it’s written for us. God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next.” And he challenged us to ask the question, “What is my constant?”

If we remain in Jesus (the vine) HE will give us:

A Constant Calling.

Constant Character.

Constant Counsel (connections).

Today’s Monday Sermon Recap photo is of the Jay Rabon family. Jay is our eGroups Pastor at Elevation, and he and his team of staff and volunteers worked hard to make this weekend’s eGroups launch a success. Hundreds of people got connected to groups.

Jay’s wife, Brandi is on our Elevation Outreach advisory team. Next week we’ll get together to go over all the new non-profit applications we received and make recommendations for new partnerships.

Jay and Brandi are an incredible team, and are one of the original families who launched Elevation Church with Pastor Steven and Holly. From the outside looking in, with their beautiful smiles and cheerful, helpful dispositions, you’d never know they were going through a difficult season in their lives.

Their once very active, spunky 10-year-old Addison suffers from two rare medical conditions. You can read details in this local newspaper article.

We are believing in total healing for Addison and we believe her story will bring God glory.

You can give her spirits a boost by voting for her in the “Rare artist 2014″ contest.

Do it. Tell everyone you know about it. You’ll be inspired.

Addison Rabon’s art photo on the “Rare Artist 2014″ contest. Children with rare disorders are competing for a $100 prize. Addison already knows what she wants to do with the prize money – buy a pink iPod for her 7-year-old sister Alana.

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Together in 2015 we will become better storytellers. We will “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,” (Hebrews 10:24) and we will tell the world about the miracles we see all around us. Great evening of vision, worship, and prayer with friends. Our outreach leaders change atmospheres and we are so grateful for their commitment to excellence in everything they do.

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Opportunities for our upcoming LOVE Weekend Uptown are filling up quickly. Serve Saturday or Monday with partners like Men’s Shelter of Charlotte, the Relatives, and Ronald McDonald House. Looking forward to starting the year off right in service with YOU!

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THURSDAY UPDATE: Neat opportunity to make the holiday super special for a child in need. Our LOVE Week events with outreach partner Beds for Kids are always filled to capacity because we get an opportunity to do really rewarding hands-on work at the warehouse. Saturday’s event is a family-friendly way to remind ourselves what a blessing it is to have a warm place to sleep. You’ll be making Christmas merry for a child who may have been previously sleeping on the floor or in a shelter.

By JILLANA JONES

This weekend Pastor Steven empowered us to “take the pen into our own hand,” and to decide how big our faith will be by how significant our gift to his kingdom will be. We remember that part of giving includes giving of our gifts, talents, and time. It’s Elevation Blakeney’s turn for a LOVE Weekend!

Appropriately, there are 25 chances for you to get out and serve. Below are some of our favorites. CLICK HERE to see the entire list.

SERVE FRIDAY

WRAPPING UP LOVE with A Child’s Place — A loving home is often the key to a child’s success in school. But for a child without this stability, A Child’s Place steps in to ensure that homeless children succeed in their education. This weekend volunteers will be able to bring their donated gifts to wrap together and brighten up the holiday of those children!

SERVE SATURDAY OR SUNDAY

JOY IN THE SUFFERING with Kindermourn — Imagine how difficult it is to enjoy the holiday season with the death of a family member fresh in your heart. Together on Saturday, we will assemble care packages to encourage families. On Sunday, we’ll serve refreshments to those coming to share their joys and sorrows together.

MAKE MEMORIES with Down Syndrome Association of Greater Charlotte — Join us as we help host a Parent’s Day Out! This is a spectacular opportunity for our volunteers to step in and give the parents of children with Down Syndrome a rare day to themselves. The kids and volunteers will spend the day at Elevation Blakeney.

DECK THE HALLS with Brookdale Senior Living Center — Come fill the halls with the sweet sounds of Christmas this weekend as we go around Brookdale bringing the gift of Christmas caroling, fellowship, and holiday treats!

CHEER ON YOUR TEAM with Inreach — Come for an afternoon of tailgating and football with our friends at Inreach! With an organization that has 15 homes in the Charlotte area that houses adults with disabilities, we not only have the chance to partake in a fun-filled afternoon, but we will also stand with the organization in empowering these individuals to succeed.

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It begins with the blank page. The flashing cursor. The spark of an idea. That moment of inspiration. The gaps between expectation, preparation and completion. The point where you commit to making something meaningful out of a bunch of thoughts, moments, pictures, statistics, and stories.

This fall our outreach team was blessed with the opportunity to take over the entire Thanksgiving worship experience. We starting hearing details in August, while the fatigue of LOVE Week 2014 was just beginning to wear off. The aftermath of hundreds of thousands of meals packed, dozens of homes, schools, and buildings refreshed, truckloads of mulch spread, nine days worth of video clips taken and photo streams uploaded was all still very fresh in our minds.

How to capture – now – the evidence of God’s faithfulness in the midst of all that and more? How to share with our church the impact we make together on both the grandest and most personal scales? The idea of the assignment was heavy and exhilarating at the same time.

Over the next several weeks, we would study, brainstorm, pitch, refine, study, brainstorm, refine, and pitch again. We debated, we questioned, we built up, we tore down – we kept thinking – Is this it? Or is there something more?

The outreach vision video we shared during our SURROUND series was one piece of the work we had the opportunity to bring to our church last month. The sound clips are from Pastor Steven’s 2008 One Prayer sermon called “This is That.” The video concept started with an idea Jamie Waldron had been thinking about for a couple of years – to show the exponential impact of what God has done through outreach in our church.

We took the idea, and we considered how to execute it in a fresh, inspiring, visually appealing way. We started talking about stacking stones (Banner Years) and drawing circles (Surround) and creating a memorable moment. MC Garrett and the staff and students at One7 Academy helped us write on the stones. Each girl chose a word that inspired her, or a word she is believing in for her future.

We stood on the place where we will help One7 construct a new multi-purpose building. We stacked stones to remember God’s faithfulness, and to say we are believing in Him for even greater things. We circled up and we prayed.

We brought our ordinary. And God made it into something more. He does it every time.

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