|giv| 2019

Every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people. We like to call it our |giv| series.

During the series, we will walk through the first two chapters of Matthew to prepare our hearts to celebrate God’s greatest gift to the world: Jesus. As Christians, because it’s far too easy to just get caught up in everything else so we want to make sure that we approach this season thoughtfully. Each week, we’ll look at different aspects of Christ's coming that ought to shape the way we think, feel and react to the Christmas season.

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

Week 1: Jesus’ Resume - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Jesus’ Mission - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Jesus’ Kingdom - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

1. Start Tithing

We want our first step of ongoing generosity to be towards the mission of our church. By financially supporting our church together, we set ourselves up for a stable and sustainable ministry for years to come. We are encouraging our family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but during all seasons of our lives.

2. SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with not only our finances, but our time and energy as well. We are coming together to serve our seven partner organizations and their clients at Serve the City Weekend from January 18-20, 2020.

3. RAISE $22,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

We want to fund Serve the City events throughout the next year and continue to do things like feeding Epworth students each Wednesday night at Student Groups.

4. Attend the Personal Finance Class

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted to us. On Sunday, January 26, February 2, and February 9 from 9:00am - 11:00am at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a class that consists of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

Celebration Sunday 2019

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Life of David

We often prop David up as a great hero of faith. When in reality, he was a regular person just like you and me. He trusted God and God did mighty things through him, yet he also ignored God and failed miserably. Whether you’re a long-time Jesus-follower or you think you’re too far away from Him, David’s life will have something to say to you.

For this series, we hope your trust in God matures and you are moved towards God's steadfast love as we dig into both the victories and defeats of David.

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series.

Week 1: David and Gratitude (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: David and Lament (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: David and Reorientation (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: David and Bathsheba (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 5: David and Nathan (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 6: David and Saul (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 7: David and Tamar (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

To view more reading recommendations, go to our online bookstore.

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As God’s people, we want to be guided by His Word and empowered by His Spirit to fuel us to be a Jesus-centered family on mission. Our reading plan will help ground you in God’s Word and give you daily prayer prompts to better prepare your heart for the teaching you’ll hear on Sundays.

Click here to download/print our entire Life of David Reading Plan.

Stand-Alone 2019 | Submitting to One Another

Sermon by Ant Frederick on August 4, 2019.

Stand-Alone 2019 | Easter

Sermon by Antony Frederick on April 21, 2019.

Stand-Alone 2019 | Good Friday

Sermon by Adam Gibson on Friday, April 19.

Stand-Alone 2019 | Looking for Water

Sermon by James White on March 17, 2019.

Serve the City

One of our favorite ways to kick off a new year is to rally our family toward Serve the City Weekend. To do that, we’re spending these first two weeks focused on understanding why we serve. We want to learn from Scripture and see how God first served us. Our goal is that the ultimate act of service, the Cross, would motivate us to sacrificially love and serve the people around us.

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD LIFEGROUP RESOURCES.

Week 1: Count Others as More Significant - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Death Defying Compassion - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: Jesus for Shalom - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with not only our finances, but our time and energy as well. We are coming together to serve our six partner organizations and their clients at Serve the City Weekend from January 18-21, 2019.

RAISE $21,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

We want to fund Serve the City events throughout the next year and continue to do things like feeding Epworth students each Wednesday night at Student Groups.

|giv| 2018

Every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people. We like to call it our |giv| series.

1. Start Tithing

We want our first step of ongoing generosity to be towards the mission of our church. By financially supporting our church together, we set ourselves up for a stable and sustainable ministry for years to come.  We are encouraging our family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but during all seasons of our lives.

2. SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with not only our finances, but our time and energy as well. We are coming together to serve our six partner organizations and their clients at Serve the City Weekend from January 18-21, 2019.

3. RAISE $21,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

We want to fund Serve the City events throughout the next year and continue to do things like feeding Epworth students each Wednesday night at Student Groups.

Stretch goal - Any money we raise beyond the $21,000 will be put towards renovating and installing a full kitchen in our unused building on Barnwell St. beside our office. This will allow us to serve meals as part of our ministry to the homeless, use the facility to save money on food cost for future events, and utilize the building as an event rental space.

4. Attend the Personal Finance Seminar

We want to equip our church family to be spiritually healthy by stewarding the financial resources that God has entrusted to us. On Saturday, January 26 from 9:00am-3:00pm at our Downtown church, we’re hosting a seminar that consist of practical training to manage your finances, pay off debt, invest well, and practice biblical generosity.

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

Week 1: Mercy - Its Source & Motive - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: Grace Givers - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: A Test of Genuine Faith - (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Celebration Sunday 2018

We did not have a sermon during our city-wide Celebration Sunday Gathering on November 18, 2018, but you can grab the LifeGroup Guide and watch all of the baptism videos that played during the Gathering by clicking the buttons below.

Stand-Alone 2018 | Lessons From Church Planting

By 325 A.D. Christianity had spread like crazy. Scholars say over half of the Roman Empire had become Christian. Kenneth Scott Latourette, a history professor at Yale, said:

“Never in so short a time has any other religious faith—or for that matter any other set of ideas, religious, political or economic— ever achieved so commanding a position in such an important culture without the aid of physical force, or social or cultural prestige.”

It all started with twelve guys on a hillside with no power, no money, no celebrity endorsements —they just had an absolute conviction that Jesus had risen from the dead and a strange power poured into them called the gift of the Holy Spirit. The key was that every person, not just a handful of specialized apostles, carried the message wherever they went.

Now there are over 2 billion Christians across the world, but the work isn't done yet. Today we continue the mission of extending the Gospel to people of all ages, races, genders, backgrounds, economic statuses, and political affiliations. Join us as we see how our LifeGroups and church can grow from looking at the Lessons From Church Planting.

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD RESOURCES

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series. Homelinks are a tool used to connect parents and their children by helping them review what's being taught on Sundays - we'll be posting one for each week of the series. 

Week 1: Athens (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

I Am God | A Study of the "I Am" Statements in the Gospel of John

Throughout the book of John, we see Jesus making claims about His identity. He say's things like "I Am the bread of life" or "I Am the good shepherd", but are these "I Am" statements just nice reminders about Jesus? What if He was inviting us into the fullness of His character? What if He was using ordinary everyday objects to point us to His supernatural nature? Join us for this 7-week series called "I Am God".

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion, we'll be posting resources for each week of the series. Homelinks are a tool used to connect parents and their children by helping them review what's being taught on Sundays - we'll be posting one for each week of the series. 

Week 1: I Am (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 2: I Am the Good Shepherd (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 3: I Am the Ressurection and the Life (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 4: I Am the True Vine (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 5: I Am the Bread of Life (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 6: I Am the Light of the World (Sermon) (LifeGroup Guide)

Week 7: I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life

Stand-Alone 2018 | Fight the Good Fight

Sermon by Will Broadus on May 27, 2018

Personal Liturgy

All of the pictures of an abundant, joyful, others-centered, and God-ward life that we see throughout the pages of the Bible often feel far from reality in the hustle and bustle of 21st century existence. Apathy, distraction, self-reliance, cynicism and self-absorption steal our joy and rot us from the inside out. 

So we are taking 5 months to fight these things with everything we have--to fight for our joy and peace and vitality and flourishing as humans made to image and be filled by the God who created us. 

The things you do do things to you, so join us in taking a deeper look at the things we do.

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LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD Resources

To help facilitate LifeGroup discussion we'll be posting resources for each week of the series. Homelinks are a tool used to connect parents and their children by helping them review what's being taught on Sundays - we'll be posting one for each week of the series. 

Intro

Week 1: The Life You Were Made For (And the Things that Ruin It) (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Apathy

Week 2: The Things You DON'T Do Do Things to You (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 3: The Things You Do Do Things To You (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 4: Lay Aside Every Weight (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Distraction

Week 5: You Were Made to Behold (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 6: Be Still and Know that I Am God (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 7: Redeeming the Time (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Self-Reliance

Week 8: Pray Like Jesus - Part 1 (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 9: Pray Like Jesus - Part 2 (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Week 10: Pray Like Jesus - Part 3 (Study Guide) (Homelink)

Cynicism

Week 11: The Doubting Thomas in All of Us (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Week 12: Why "Parakletos" Should be Your Favorite Word (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Week 13: A Spirit-Filled Life (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Self-Absorption

Week 14: Freedom from a Life-Long Temper Tantrum (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Week 15: A Blueprint for Biblical Encouragement (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Week 16: The Joy of a Life Not About You (LifeGroup Guide) (Homelink)

Conclusion

Week 17: Seeing and Celebrating What God Has Done

|giv| The Advent of the Son of God

Every year, we take 3-4 weeks to intentionally focus on growing in generosity. We take this time to think about how God has given us undeserved grace while we were still sinners and continues to grow us as his people. We like to call it our |giv| series.

During the series, we will study passages of Isaiah to prepare our hearts to celebrate God’s greatest gift to the world: Jesus. We want to make sure that we approach this season well as Christians because it’s far too easy to just get caught up in everything else. Each week, we’ll look at different aspects of Christ's coming that ought to shape the way we think, feel and react to the Christmas season and stir our affection and longing.

1. SIGN UP TO TITHE

We are encouraging our family to set up a recurring tithe because the gospel transforms us not just to be generous around the holidays, but during all seasons of our lives. Regular tithing from our Midtown family enables us to more strategically plan and budget to continue to be Jesus-centered family on mission with Him in Columbia and the world.

2. SIGN UP FOR SERVE THE CITY WEEKEND

The gospel transforms us to be generous with our finances as well as with our very lives. Our Serve the City Weekend is a great chance to be generous with our time and energy by serving marginalized and vulnerable people groups in our city. Serve the City Weekend will be during MLK Weekend from January 12-15.

3. RAISE $5,000 FOR OUR SERVE THE CITY PARTNERS

The goal of this year's |giv| project for our Downtown church is to raise $5,000 to support our Serve the City Partners. For each partnership, we are committed to serving their staff and their clients on a monthly basis. Some of our events are really big like STC weekend and some of our events are as simple as serving breakfast for the committed staff of each organization. Your giving this year will help us: 

• Provide supplies and resources for the students at Carver-Lyon.

• Repair houses for widows in our city who cannot pay for or complete the repairs on their own.

• Provide a stable church family atmosphere and moments of relief and joy for the orphaned kids of Epworth.

• To love on foster families and support the efforts of DSS in Lexington.

ADVENT GUIDE

To help enrich our understanding of the Advent season, we've created an Advent Guide for you to use with your family or your LifeGroup. Inside, you'll find daily readings, weekly devotionals, family discussion questions, and study guides for your LifeGroup.

LISTEN TO SERMONS & DOWNLOAD STUDY GUIDES

Week 1: Grace for Our Sin - (Get the Study Guide)

Week 2: Hope for Our Suffering - (Get the Study Guide)

Week 3: Peace for the World - (Get the Study Guide)

Week 4: Joy for Eternity - (Get the Study Guide)