What I want EVERYONE at Starting Point to know about our Friday night worship nights!

Starting Point Church,

Our 3 Awakening worship nights kick off this Friday!! Be awakened in your relationship with God through these worship experiences!! They will be on January 13th, 20th, and 27th from 6:30-8:00pm. All three worship nights will be held at LIFEPOINTE CHURCH - 4112 Garland Dr., Raleigh, NC. The worship nights will focus on prayer, worship, and serving the poor in our community.

This Friday night we are asking you to bring canned food that we will distribute to Ship of Zion ministry. Ship of Zion is one our local serve partners that reaches out to under resourced families in downtown Raleigh.

Click this link to watch a video of our Send Pastor, Jeremy Hyde sharing more about this opportunity!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruo9_pWHgs8&feature=youtu.be

We will also be bringing in 3 well known local worship leaders to lead each night. Check out the line-up below!

WORSHIP LEADER LINE-UP:

1/13 - JASON GORE - Pastor at Visio Dei
My favorite part of this job is helping people to see what they were created for. In our lives we have all kinds of different expectations placed on us that leave us feeling empty. I get to help point people towards the gospel… the good news that we are free, forgiven, and loved by God through the work of Jesus – just where we are.

1/20 - JEREMIAH HAMBRICK - Worship Pastor at The Creek
Jeremiah grew up just outside of Roanoke, VA and is the son of Jim and Debbie Hambrick who are full time missionaries. Jeremiah graduated from a couple of nice schools and has a few degrees that hang on his walls. He married his beautiful wife, Jennifer, in May of 2003 and they have four awesome and extremely cute children, Ella, Ezra, their adopted son, Eli, and the latest edition, Zoe

1/27 - LANE WOOD - Worship Pastor at Capital Community Church
Lane has a passion for leading others into authentic worship of God and loves working with students. He has traveled extensively over the past nine years leading in worship, concerts, and speaking. Lane married his childhood sweetheart, Meghan, in 2006 and they have one son, Durham, who was born on Valentine's Day of 2010 and a second son due in December of 2011.

Awakening Journal & Fasting Instructions - Starts this Sunday!

Starting Point Church,

This Sunday we will launch into the 21 day fasting and journaling phase of Awakening!

JOURNALING: Starting THIS SUNDAY, we are encouraging everyone at Starting Point to journal through the book of John together. The book of John is 21 chapters long and our period of prayer and fasting is also 21 days. Therefore, we encourage you to read one chapter a day and then use the Starting Point Journal to put your thoughts down on paper. We are giving the Starting Point Journals away for FREE on Sunday morning the first two weeks of Awakening. We also encourage you to share what you are learning on our Starting Point Church Facebook page!

FASTING: Starting THIS SUNDAY, we are encouraging everyone at Starting Point to join us on a 21 day period of prayer and fasting. The goal of fasting is to experience God's presence in our life. The fast is for 21 days and consists of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains with one day out of the week (Fridays) just liquids. At the bottom of the email are some great links and resources for you to a have a great experience throughout the fast. Many people around church have been asking, “What can I have or not have to eat?” Honestly, we want to leave that up to you. Remember the next twenty-one days is not as much about abstaining, but pursuing after a God who is infatuated with you. We believe this year will be your best year if you aim to make it your best year spiritually.

This year, 2012, we believe to see God do great things in our community. We have a goal toREACH twice the number of people we are currently reaching through our weekend services and life groups. We will be TRAINING people on how grow in Christ and use their gifts for his Kingdom. We will be SENDING out one of our staff pastors, Matthew Bradham and about 50 people from our Raleigh campus to the town of Apex to launch our second Starting Point Church! Also at the end of the 2012 we will be SENDING Leadership Resident, Jason McKenzie to launch Connect Church in Durham, NC. Even though we have great expectations this year, we know it will be impossible to do without the presence of God in our lives.

We not only believe great things for our church, but also in your individual life. We believe God wants to work in every area of your life! However, we know you cannot do it without the presence of God. Jesus said in John 15:4,5 that we are capable of nothing when separated from Him.

For the Kingdom,

Chris Hankins
Lead Pastor

FASTING RESOURCES:

Fasting calendar, worship nights, and other info:

www.startinpointchurch.com/awakening

Great Site for Recipes

www.daniel-fast.com

Foods normally used in a Daniel Fast:

All fruits. These can be fresh, frozen, dried, juiced or canned. Fruits include but are not limited to apples, apricots, bananas, blackberries, blueberries, boysenberries, cantaloupe, cherries, cranberries, figs, grapefruit, grapes, guava, honeydew melon, kiwi, lemons, limes, mangoes, nectarines, oranges, papayas, peaches, pears, pineapples, plums, prunes, raisins, raspberries, strawberries, tangelos, tangerines, watermelon

All vegetables. These can be fresh, frozen, dried, juiced or canned. Vegetables include but are not limited to artichokes, asparagus, beets, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chili peppers, collard greens, corn, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, ginger root, kale, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, mustard greens, okra, onions, parsley, potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, scallions, spinach, sprouts, squashes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, turnips, watercress, yams, zucchini, veggie burgers are an option if you are not allergic to soy.

All whole grains, including but not limited to whole wheat, brown rice, millet, quinoa, oats, barley, grits, whole wheat pasta, whole wheat tortillas, rice cakes and popcorn.

All nuts and seeds, including but not limited to sunflower seeds, cashews, peanuts, sesame. Also nut butters including peanut butter.

All legumes. These can be canned or dried. Legumes include but are not limited to dried beans, pinto beans, split peas, lentils, black eyed peas, kidney beans, black beans, cannellini beans, white beans.

All quality oils including but not limited to olive, canola, grape seed, peanut, and sesame.

Beverages: juice, black coffee, spring water, distilled water, or other pure waters.

Other: tofu, soy products, vinegar, seasonings, salt, herbs and spices.

One Church - Two Locations!

Our first Sunday being one church in two locations was AMAZING! We had tons of new volunteers step up to serve in both locations and God worked out all of the details! We had 250 people in Raleigh and 120 in Apex which gives us a total of 370 people for the Sunday! Last year on this day we only had 249 in one location!

Our Apex Campus will officially launch on 2/26/12 and our last preview service is 1/22/12! Starting Point Apex will be meeting for worship services at Apex Middle School.

I could not be more excited or more proud of our team as we begin to live out the vision of planting 30 churches in the Triangle in the next 15 years! #30/15

Leadership Moment - Expectations

Today we will be talking about expectations. Have you heard the phrase: "You get what you ask for?" It is true in both the world and the church!

In 1 Timothy 3, Paul lays out the expectations that we should have for people in a Pastoral/Elder/Overseer role in the church. Listen to what he says.

1 Timothy 3:1-7 "1 Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer,[a] he desires a noble task. 2 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap."

Paul lists roughly 13 expectations that make an elder/overseer "above reproach."
1. One woman man
2. Temperate
3. Self-Controlled
4. Respectable
5. Hospitable
6. Teacher
7. Sober
8. Gentle (not violent)
9. Peacemaker (not quarrelsome)
10. Generous (not greedy)
11. Leads his family well
12. Seasoned believer
13. Good Reputation

What if we did not have expectations for leading in the church? I can promise we don't even want to think about the disaster it would bring on the bride of Christ.

Yet, for some reason we often think expectations for people volunteering in our church are not that big of a deal.

As a church planter who is hungry for volunteers & leaders in every area, it is easy to fall into the trap of putting anyone who is breathing into a volunteer or leadership position.

However, as we move from a survival mindset to a mindset of giving God our best this has to CHANGE! In the long run allowing people to serve with no expectations will cause pain and frustration to you and the church.

The idea of taking whatever you can get in serving the Lord in not found in scripture.
The idea of allowing people to serve halfheartedly is not found in scripture.
The idea of allowing people to give minimal effort when serving the Lord is not found in scripture.

We desire to implement the idea of expectations all across our church, but the area of greatest need currently of raising expectations is on Sunday morning.

Here are the five expectations that we are rolling out for everyone who serves on Sunday morning at Starting Point…and you as Leaders get to hear them FIRST!

1. Serve every other week.
2. Provide make up date when you can't serve.
3. Confirm via Planning Center whether you can serve or not.
4. Be on time to the prayer meeting for your ministry.
5. Flexible/Christlike attitude.

We believe that as we put expectations in place for serving in the church, people will be more fulfilled serving in an environment with people who are prepared and giving their best!

Happy Birthday Starting Point Church!

Hey Prayer Team!

One year ago today Starting Point Church was born! This past year has been tough, exciting, stressful, rewarding, and most of all an Adventure in trusting God with everything I have...our church, finances, family, job & future!

All day today I have been thinking about what has happened over the past year...the highs & lows and as today draws to a close one word continues to echo through my head...FAITHFUL!

God has been so faithful to me personally, my family, our staff, and to the everyday missionaries who decided to join us for at least 6 months as a part of our launch team!

Last week I asked you to pray for our final service of the year...our remember 9/11 service...and guess what...once again God was FAITHFUL! We saw 526 people (our largest attendance of 2011), we were featured on two local television stations, the service was amazing, & most importantly the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ was remembered in a BIG way!

Also, I wanted to share that over the course of the last year my biggest prayer was that we would see people follow Christ in Baptism every week at Starting Point Church!...well 52 weeks later we saw 87 people baptized! If you do the math...I think that comes out to...God being FAITHFUL!

The most exciting part is that I believe the best is yet to come and I have no doubt that in our second year, God will still be...FAITHFUL!

I wanted to close by thanking everyone on our prayer team who has faithfully prayed for & supported our family & our new church over this past year!

For the Kingdom!

Prayer Needed! Huge 9/11 Sunday for Starting Point Church!

Hey prayer team! I wanted to give you a brief update from my last email. We came up short on our Finish Strong Campaign and finished the year $12,000 under budget. I am still trying to raise funds to help make up that gap, but we did want to recognize that we met 96% of our first year's budget which is a HUGE PRAISE!

I also wanted to share about a big opportunity this weekend that I need your prayer for! We are so excited to welcome John Cerqueira to Starting Point Church this Sunday for our Remember 9/11 service. John carried a woman in a wheel chair down 68 flights of stairs and escaped moments before Tower 1 collapsed. John will be sharing this Sunday at Starting Point how this experience has changed his life and help us to reflect on how we can remember the sacrifice of those who sacrificed their lives that day by living sacrificial lives for others.

The services will be at 9:30 & 11am at Mission Valley Theater - 2109 Avent Ferry Rd., Raleigh. We are advertising this week on the largest local radio station, G105 and would like to ask you to join us in praying:

1. For people in our church to be bold in inviting their friends, classmate, coworkers, & family!

2. For our services to be standing room only!

3. For God to work in a powerful way during the service and guard from against any technical difficulties.

4. For new people who come to find a church home at Starting Point Church.

5. Our ultimate prayer is that this day would be the beginning of hundreds of people finding their way back to God through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

I am believing God for BIG THINGS this Sunday!!!

Prayer Team...URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!

Hey Prayer Team! The first year of Starting Point Church has been the ride of my life! Let me share some exciting things that have happened just in the past week!

- We had 100 COLLEGE STUDENTS come to church this past Sunday!
- We had our largest Sunday Morning Attendance (besides Easter) in 2011!

- We met at Apex Middle School for the first time ever for our Apex Praise & Worship Night...2/26/12 we officially open our second church!

- 6 more people indicated they wanted to surrender their lives to Christ and be BAPTIZED!

However, being a new church also has it's challenges and I have an URGENT PRAYER REQUEST!

We only have one more week in our budget year and we are $16,000 behind budget. We are desperately praying that God would provide financially this week so that we can FINISH STRONG our first year and be prepared to see God do even more amazing things in YEAR 2 of Starting Point Church!

We are even having a Prayer Breakfast this Sunday from 7-7:45am at the Theater to pray for God's provision! If you are in the area...we are also bribing people with Bojangles Biscuits!

If you feel led to help by giving, you can go to www.startingpointchurch.com/giving to give a one time gift.

Thanks for your continued prayers!