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God is moving at Grace Place church in new ways. There is a fresh wind blowing. If you haven’t been at worship services and don’t know what I’m talking about, please watch or listen to my message (on our website, www.graceplace.org) from August 16 called “Fully Devoted.” I shared openly and frankly about a new work that God, through the Holy Spirit, has been doing in my heart, and in the hearts of others at the core of Grace Place. There is a new awakening happening, and the best is yet to come. That’s not just a cliché. I’m serious. We are pressing in, asking God for the outpouring of his Spirit, and for revival. And we are not going to quit. If you live in northern Colorado and can get time off at lunch on Tuesdays (regularly or occasionally), come join the pastors and staff for prayer every Tuesday from 12:00-1:00 PM in Berthoud. I love that line in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, “Aslan is on the move.” Well, it’s happening!

GRACE PLACE FAMILY: Beginning September 6, we are moving the Loveland Campus worship location to Loveland High School and worship time to 6:00 PM on Sundays. Why do this?
1. Thompson Valley High School is too large for our Loveland congregation, and this will allow us to be in a more intimate setting (400 rather than 1200 seats), much closer to the stage, with more of the feel of the Berthoud auditorium. There will be more energy and togetherness at this new location.
2. As primary teaching pastor, I will be able to be at all four worship gatherings in person (except on rare occasions where video-cast teaching may be utilized). I’m looking forward to seeing the eyeballs (and the rest of you!) of those who worship at the 10:30 AM gathering in Berthoud!
3. We are going to be saving a little over $2000 per month. This is significant since we have been in a financial downturn and are seeking ways to make cutbacks. (Side note appeal: Please give generously if you are able. Give as God has blessed you!)
4. By moving to Sunday evening we will provide another time option which may help in reaching people who work, sleep-in, or play during the day on Sundays.
5. We are planning to have a meal time at 5:00 PM which will enhance fellowship as we seek to create an Acts 2 environment where they (“ate together with glad and sincere hearts” Acts 2:46). We are currently offering a meal from 5:30-6:30 PM Thursday nights in Berthoud; and the café is open before, during, and after Sunday 8:30 and 10:30 AM gatherings in Berthoud for the same reason.
6. Loveland High is farther north which separates our two locations more. We hope this will provide more outreach opportunities and also want to encourage our core group to lock in more at one location as their primary place of worship, service, and fellowship. I’m not saying that folks can’t visit back and forth some; but make a primary commitment to a time and place for sake of community.
7. We believe this will be a relaxed gathering with some time afterward for such things as prayer, discussion groups, Q & A, dessert, hangin’ out together, etc.
We are planning to include a class for middle school students as well as younger children during the Loveland Sunday night gathering. Also, plans are being laid for a new Tween/Teen service (4th-8th grade) Sundays in Berthoud at Five Stones at 10:30 AM.

I’m so energized about many, many things that God is doing at Grace Place. Exciting new “glocal” (global and local) outreach plans are being developed, and we have a whole list of amazing life-change stories that are going to be told each week this fall. Buckle up your seat belts and prepare for take off! I’m loving my job (calling) and God’s people (you) more than ever before.

Jessica Jackley is co-founder of Kiva.org, the world’s first peer-to-peer on-line micro-lending website. Kiva.org allows internet users to lend as little as $25 to entrepreneurs in the developing world, providing affordable capital to start or expand a small business. In just three years Kiva has helped raise over $84 million and connected thousands of people across 120 countries. A graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Jackley’s work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show and the Today Show.

These are some of Jessica’s comments at the 2009 Leadership Summit when she was interviewed by Jim Mellado:

* I grew up in a home where my mom and dad thought I could do anything and I was crazy enough to believe them.
* It was in Sunday school that I first heard that Jesus said, “…even as you have done unto the least of these you have done it unto me.” I was captivated by the idea that I could do something of ultimate significance.
* I started interviewing entrepreneurs who lived in East Africa that started their businesses on $100 and I was blown away by their success. I began to wonder how I could participate in their success.
* Since launching Kiva.org four years ago $84 million have been loaned to entrepreneurs in under-resourced places around the world; and that number will surpass $100 million in the next year.
* Mission of Kiva.org: Connect people through lending to alleviate poverty.
* It all started with seven entrepreneurs and $3000.00 in loans.
* Remarkably, 98.5% of lenders get a full repayment.
* At Kiva.org we believe that people want to do good. We also believe that if we act in a way that expects you to be trustworthy it is likely you will respond in a trustworthy manner.
* “Great poets show, they don’t tell.” Show people how they can give and what a difference it can make and don’t tell them.
* When you truly believe in the potential of people, the rest of the solution to any problem is just logistics.
* Two pieces of advice for young leaders:
#1 Don’t be afraid to start small. The best way to create big change is to start small.
#2 Just start. Don’t wait. Take action.

Selene and I have found it very rewarding to invest in the people who are trying to better their lives. We keep reinvesting every time people pay back the loans and so far there has been 100% pay back!

Good stuff from John Eldredge:

Either we wake to tackle our “to do” list, get things done, guided by our morals and whatever clarity we may at the moment have (both rather lacking to the need, I might add); or we wake in the midst of a dangerous Story, as God’s intimate ally, following him into the unknown.

If you’re not pursuing a dangerous quest with your life, well, then, you don’t need a Guide. If you haven’t found yourself in the midst of a ferocious war, then you won’t need a seasoned Captain. If you’ve settled in your mind to live as though this is a fairly neutral world and you are simply trying to live your life as best you can, then you can probably get by with the Christianity of tips and techniques. Maybe. I’ll give you about a fifty-fifty chance. But if you intend to live in the Story that God is telling, and if you want the life he offers, then you are going to need more than a handful of principles, however noble they may be. There are too many twists and turns in the road ahead, too many ambushes waiting only God knows where, too much at stake. You cannot possibly prepare yourself for every situation. Narrow is the way, said Jesus. How shall we be sure to find it? We need God intimately, and we need him desperately.

“You have made known to me the path of life,” David said (Ps. 16:11). Yes-that’s it. In all the ins and outs of this thing we call living, there is one narrow path to life, and we need help finding it.  (Waking the Dead, p. 95)

“In the ‘Prayer Meeting Revival’ of 1857-59 there was virtually no preaching at all.  Yet it apparently produced the greatest harvest of any spiritual awakening in American history: estimates run to 1,000,000 converts across the United States, out of a national population at that time of only 30,000,000.  That would be the proportionate to 9,000,000 Americans today falling on their knees in repentance!

“How did this happen?  A quite businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier started a Wednesday noon prayer meeting in a Dutch Reformed church…in New York City, no more than a quarter mile from Wall Street.  The first week, six people showed up.  The next week, twenty came.  The next week, forty… and they decided to have daily meetings instead.

“ ‘There was no fanaticism, no hysteria, just an incredible movement of people to pray,’ reports J. Edwin Orr. ‘The services were not given over to preaching.  Instead, anyone was free to pray.’

“During the fourth week, the financial Panic of 1857 hit; the bond market crashed, and the first banks failed. (Within a month, more than 1,400 banks had collapsed.) People began calling out to God more seriously than ever.  Lanphier’s church started having three noontime prayer meetings in different rooms.  John Street Methodist Church, a few doors east of Broadway, was packed out as well.  Soon Burton’s Theater on Chambers Street was jammed with 3,000 people each noon.

“The scene was soon replicated in Boston, New Haven, Philadelphia, Washington, and the South.  By the next spring 2,000 Chicagoans were gathered each day in the Metropolitan Theater to pray.  A young 21-year-old in those meetings, newly arrived in the city, felt his first call to Christian work.  He wrote his mother back East that he was going to start a Sunday school class.  His name was Dwight L. Moody.” (p.150, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire)