Southside Blog

This past weekend was a wonderful start to a new sermon series on the Warner Robins campus called “Forgotten.”  We will be looking at the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  So many cool things happened this weekend, here are few highlights.

• Our worship was amazing this weekend…Greg kills it each time he is on stage!
• We had 25 people show up for our new member’s class…excited to baptism lots of them in the coming weeks.
• Many people at each service came forward to pray / talk with a staff member about spiritual decisions…always good seeing decisions made.
• We were up 15% from last year…no slowing down
• Had a lady say Sunday “Every time I walk into Southside I feel like I’m getting a big hug”…I’m assuming that means she feels very welcome.

We had a great day at both campuses for Mother’s day. Quietly, Mother’s Day rivals Christmas for attendance at Southside. My guess is that mom’s put the “squeeze” on family members to come to church…can’t really say “NO” to your mom on Mother’s day. Here are a few things I saw at Southside…

• Pastor wore a tie this weekend…He must have had a fever or something. We will all pray over him during staff meeting.
• We have 37 people sign up for our new membership class that starts next week…can’t wait to meet all the potential new members.
• We reviewed some numbers and it looks like we were up 8% from last year’s Mother’s Day…great job to all those people who tirelessly invited their friends.
• We dedicated 15 babies/families in the last service…be fruitful and multiple!
• We were able to have an entire trailer of items donated for the Tornado Relief project we are a part of…if you forgot to donate, you can stop by the church this week and drop it off.

• Warner Robins campus had a standalone message about the home. The foundation scripture was Psalms 127. The focus of the message was leading your children / home in a godly way. Here are a few things that were stated in the context of raising your children:
  *How you act in church is not what’s important; it’s how you act outside of church.
  *If they don’t feel accepted, they will look elsewhere.
  *Parents have two main responsibilities to their kids (1) love them & (2) lead them.

• Kathleen Campus kicked off a new series called “The S word.” It’s a 4 week series on Sin. Here are a few points from week 1.
  *When it comes to sin, “my bad” is not good enough.
  *There is a big difference between a sin & an accident.
  *If I’m only causing accidents, then I can make up for them…but if I’m actually sinning, then I need a Savior.

This is Drew and I’m posting live from Atlanta, Georgia.  Myself, and a few others of the family ministry team have been at a conference called the “Orange Conference”. I’m sure some of you have wondered, “What is up with this orange color that is so prominent in our children’s ministries?”  Well, let me educate you on something we call the “Orange Philosophy.”

We believe that what happens at home is more important that what happens at church.  Simple math shows this to be true.  The average child will spend between 40-80 hours a year in church.  We see them once or twice a week for 1-2 hours at a time. That same child will spend over 3000 hours with his parents.  When looking at that time difference, we realized that we have to do our best to partner with parents if we truly want to make a difference in a child’s life.  We want to enable parents to take what is taught at church, and use their 3000+ hours each year to instill biblical virtues.  That is why we do a thing called the “Family Experience”.  This family production takes place during the 10:30 am service time each Sunday.  It is music, drama, and games that are geared for both child and parent to participate.  During this production, we introduce, or re-emphasize a biblical virtue.  The “Orange Philosophy” gives the family a color of red. The church has the color of yellow.  When these two colors are combined, you get orange.  The family experience helps us to mix with families. We desire to partner with parents, and to paint our community orange.  Creating strong families will last no matter where life takes the parents and their children.

I want to challenge parents of elementary children to come and check out the family experience we call Fusion.  Bring the whole family! It takes place in the Fusion building located to the west of our main worship building.  We want our church to mix with your family, so that this partnership will give the children of our church the opportunity to eventually become successful Christian adults.

We are excited to begin blogging again! It’s our goal to share information that might have been missed throughout the week and to communicate all the life change that happens at Southside.

Well, we just completed our Easter services. We had 5 services to choose from. Last year we had just over 4,000 show up. We never really set a numerical goal, but this weekend we had right at 5,000 attend a service!

Of course this could never have happened if it were not for a few groups of people:
1. All those that “took the challenge” to attend the Friday Night service. We had 499 show up! That opened up lots of seats Sunday…thank you!
2. Our amazing volunteers. There were orange shirts everywhere! You guys did a great job. Over 700 of you committed to make the weekend outstanding…and you did.
3. Our Music Ministry. They were on the Warner Robins Campus for all 4 services…dedicated & Passionate…thank you guys!

Later this week we will have new building updates.

We also saw at least 67 people give their hearts to Christ in the service. That was what we could count…Huge blessing!