Can't Get No Satisfaction

Did you hear the video testimony from one of our Pastors this weekend? Pastor Ken Ballenger shared his story this last weekend and talked about how he found complete satisfaction in Jesus. (thus the title of my blog) Ken’s story is powerful!

Be praying for Ken as he steps out to be one of our Campus Pastors and begin our newest venue on June 6^th, The Encounter.

The Encounter is an extended, unplugged worship experience with me doing the weekend teaching via the big screen. This venue will begin Sunday night June 6^th at 5pm. If you want to be a part email Ken: ken@alivechurch.com This venue will have children’s classes and nursery provided. I’m stoked! (stole that from my daughter Kadi)

Big, Big News! I told you all a few weeks ago that I would be sharing a couple of things soon that we will be doing…this weekend I will be sharing one of the two things, can’t tell you here, I want to share it with you all live first. I will tell you it has to do with…(tell you this weekend)

Have you ever struggled with guilt? Guilt of the past or are you driven by guilt that others lay on you? You won’t want to miss this week’s teaching. Pastor Toby will be teaching us on “The Truth About Guilt”.

So, I need to redeem my Man Card this week after putting the “Girlfriends” picture in my blog last week. So I am putting a picture of my dream truck, I’ve wanted one since I was a kid: 1961 Willy’s (Jeep) pick-up:

Sunset Painting

Just finished painting this piece, "Open Vault Of Heaven". I painted it in the studio from a picture I took of a sunset out near a ranch in Old Marana where I paint En Plein Air quite often.

The name of this piece was in reference to Psalm 19:1-4,

"The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
The skies display his craftsmanship.
2 Day after day they continue to speak;
night after night they make him known.
3 They speak without a sound or word;
their voice is never heard.
4 Yet their message has gone throughout the earth,
and their words to all the world.

Good Times Are Happening

Hey gang, I am more excited about our future than ever. Let me start by giving you a quick update of something from the weekend: our ladies had a Girlfriends event last Saturday morning and during that session there were two ladies who committed their lives to follow Jesus. Yeah God and way to go girlfriends!!! (thus the picture – it’s kind of painful for me to put this on my blog! Next week I’m going to have to go with a Jeep pic or something to redeem my man card)

Not only are great things happening at Alive Church, but we are at the healthiest place we have ever been with our missions. The balance of having ministry in concentric circles the way Jesus told us to is more than a suggestion; it is a mandate for the church. (Acts 1:8) You can help “Get Er Done” this Saturday by participating in “Servant Saturday”.

We are doing Life Together through Life Groups. You may have heard me say before that if you only have time to do one thing in a week and you have to choose between attending Life Group or the Weekend Service – go to Life Group. Having authentic relationships with other believers where real life happens is imperative for our Spiritual health and well being. Our greatest need as we go forward is more Life Group leaders and host. If you don’t think any of our groups fit you, consider it God’s way of leading you to Lead. Our Life Groups are sermon based so your preparation time as a leader comes from attending a weekend service. As a leader, we need you to help develop the questions for the groups to go along with my messages – if you don’t like the questions – easy – become a group leader and help us develop them and let’s make a difference as we Do Life Together with Authentic Relationships in our Sermon Based Life Groups!!!

Success at Campus - What's a Campus Anyway?

Something exciting is happening at Continental Ranch! In case you have not heard, we do have a campus in the Continental Ranch community and this last weekend we baptized 6 people! Way cool!!! There are now around 250 of you who have made that campus your preferred environment here at Alive Church. Let’s keep going and reach the CR community. You guys rock, and Toby, our campus pastor, is doing awesome. (last weekend we had 3 people make decisions to follow Jesus – yoo hoo! That’s a chocolate drink isn’t it?)
What’s an Alive campus you ask? An Alive Church campus is us taking the church to the community. A campus has a live band for praise and worship music, a campus pastor is on site and gives pastoral care and leadership to those attending a particular campus throughout the week, but the message is the same via the big screen. The message is live, you can always ask me questions or make comments through text, twitter, FaceBook or the web. I love getting questions during the message to respond to – always let me know what campus you are on, it helps connect us.
So our strategy is to begin campuses throughout the Tucson valley and beyond, we are looking ahead at others campuses continually. Taking the church to the community.
What we need in any given location to start a campus is first and foremost a leader. If you have a pastors heart but teaching /preaching is not your thing and love the DNA of Alive church then let’s talk.
We are one church, one vision, one purpose with multiple locations. I ran into someone at a store recently and they told me that they attend the Continental Church, I quickly responded, “you mean campus”. I knew what they meant, but I am passionate about protecting unity, especially as we go forward and begin many more campuses.
I’ve been asked how many campuses do we plan to begin and when? The answer is simple: as long as there are lost people and communities that we can make an impact for God Kingdom we will go. Join me in asking God to open doors to new communities, to give us quality campus pastors who want to join with us and the means to continue to “leading people who are far from God to be followers of Jesus.”

Ready to Rock n Roll

Tops off, doors off, I am loving this Tucson weather.

Easter Weekend Update: Fun Jim Vid

What an awesome Easter weekend as nearly 1,500 of us gathered on our different campuses to celebrate Jesus resurrection. Because of Easter we can have life and there were several folks who made decisions (12) to have the life of Jesus from the weekend services. Many of you made commitments in your spiritual journey regarding fears as we talked about the Easter message of “Don’t Be Afraid.”

We began our new series: “The Voice Of Truth”. My prayer is that over the next several weeks, throughout this series that we would all commit to and learn to listen to “The Voice Of Truth”, the voice of Jesus, rather than fear. I love freedom!

A big thank you to all of our volunteer staff! You rock! You all did an incredible job making the Easter weekend a big success for everyone. If you are not on the team here at Alive, we have a place for you and we need you. As we continue to reach more people in our communities and beyond we need to continue to build and develop our team. Email me and I will make sure you get connected as a part of the greatest volunteer team on the planet. jeff@alivechurch.com

Two weekends ago our family spent some time vacationing in Colorado. Pastor Toby wrapped up our last series and did a great job. As always I enjoy working with Toby. If you did not get a chance to hear Toby’s weekend teaching you can watch it online at: www.alivechurch.com in our archived message.

Another one of our pastors I love working with is Pastor Jim. Jim is the Oro Valley campus pastor so I know a lot of you never get to hear his incredible announcements. He has a gift! He keeps us all in stitches. Well, I want to make sure you all get a taste; this is one of Jim’s shining moments while I was away on vacation:

See you all this next weekend as we continue with “The Voice Of Truth” with “The Truth About Worry.”