There’s STILL a reason to celebrate.

If your house looks anything like mine, it resembles the aftermath of a Toys R Us bomb. There are leftovers in the fridge and on the counter, and you’re exhausted.

Although there are 365 days left till Christmas 2012 (2012 is a Leap Year), there is just as much of a reason to celebrate today as there was yesterday. Jesus is still our Savior, He’s still in love with us, and His blood still pays the price for our sin!

For the Christian, every day holds a reason to celebrate, so don’t lose your Christmas spirit.

He will save His people from their sins. - Matthew 1:21

I hope your Christmas was merry and it helped to remind you what really matters in life.

The gift that keeps on giving

Merry Christmas!

Let me guess, you’re reading this while still in your PJs? That’s ok. It’s Christmas Day! Just do us all a favor and put some real clothes on before walking out of the house today!

I wanted to invite you to join us online for a Christmas message we put together for today. I’ve been encouraging our church to be intentional and invitational this Christmas season, and we wanted to give them a hands-on way to do that. So, at each of our Christmas Eve services yesterday, we handed out “Christmas Kits” complete with hot chocolate, candy canes, a Christmas card, and a DVD with a special Christmas message.

If you weren’t able to make it to one of our Christmas Eve services, you missed out on an awesome time, but you can still watch the video below.

Before you do that, though, would you do me a favor?

Copy and paste the sentence below into a tweet, Facebook post, email, or whatever other method you choose to spread the word. We pray this creates a way for you to discuss the story of Christ and the impact He still has today.

Merry Christmas! Take a few minutes & watch this short Christmas message with some family or friends! http://www.awakenchurch.org

Jesus gave Himself once as a baby in a manger, again as a man on a cross, and He keeps giving today by providing mercy and grace whenever we need it (Hebrew 4:16). Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving!

Merry Christmas and God bless!

simplify. (a defining series at Awaken Church)

HUGE vision.

SIMPLE focus.

That’s the idea behind our new Wednesday night series that begins January 4, 2012.

Awaken Church is a very simple church. Instead of doing a million things in a mediocre way, we want to do a few things really well. So we’re taking the month of January to cast the vision for the church, define who we are and what we’re all about as a church…as well as make some HUGE, exciting announcements! Put it on your calendars now – you won’t want to miss what I have to share on these Wednesday nights in January. Plus, the series will wrap up on January 25 with an epic night of worship!

If you call Awaken Church your church home, you need to be there! 

As far as the announcement(s) we’ll be making, I will simply say this: at our 2-year birthday, I told you we’d be turning the volume up on the Gospel this year. Come on January 4 to find out exactly how we plan to do that. This has been on my heart since we moved to Clarksville 2 1/2 years ago, and after a lot of prayer, it’s finally time to go full speed ahead! Can’t wait to share with you all.

If you’re not in the Clarksville area or can’t make it on Wednesday nights, never fear, our faithful podcast and videos will be available…but you’ll want to be there in person, if possible!

Unconventional Christmas

This year, Christmas falls on a Sunday, which makes things unique for churches around the nation. We played around with a lot of ideas this year at Awaken, but we decided to approach the situation in a unique way. We decided to have church on Christmas Day…but not in our typical way.

At both of our Christmas Eve services this year (3 & 5pm), we’ll be handing out “Christmas Kits” to each family in attendance. Each Christmas Kit contains a Christmas card with a summary of my Christmas message on the back, packs of hot chocolate for each family member, some candy canes, and a DVD. The DVD will contain a 13-minute Christmas message that we spent 5 hours filming last week.

One thing I stress to my church each year is that Christmas is a unique time of the year when people are naturally talking about Jesus already. So we should use that to our advantage as much as possible. People are much more willing to go to church for Christmas and talk about Christmas as the holiday approaches. I also wanted to remind the church that our church building isn’t the only place that we can meet with Jesus and talk Christmas – we should be doing it in our homes and neighborhoods anyway.

So, in an effort to equip people with some conversation starters, as well as encourage discussing the beauty behind the holiday, we’re not canceling services this year at Awaken – we’re moving them to living rooms around the world. I say “world” because not only will the Christmas teaching be available by DVD in our Christmas Kits here in Clarksville, but it will also be streaming all day on our website at awakenchurch.org. We’re encouraging people to post a link on their Facebook, Twitter, or blog, so they can share this Christmas gospel message with people all over the world.

We look forward to hearing stories of deployed soldiers celebrating Christmas with us from Afghanistan, as well as family members and friends in California, New York, Brazil, and many other places.

The challenge for Awaken Church this year is to be intentional and invitational. Christmas is a unique time of year and we want to use every opportunity that we can to share the Gospel with as many people as we can.

Will you pray with me that God would use the Christmas teaching in a powerful way this year? We want to reach as many people as possible with it, and I’m praying that many people will pray with me at the end of the teaching to give their lives to Jesus!

If you live in Clarksville and you’re sentimental about going to a church on Christmas Day, here are a few churches in the city that are having service on Christmas Day…

LifePoint Church: 10am

Xtreme Church: 10am

Hilldale Baptist: 9:45am