CORE

JOIN CORE for the ENCOUNTER presented by EnCORE!

DATE:     July 1st 2009

TIME:     7:30 pm

PLACE:  V3 Auditorium

“My ears have heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”–Job 42:5 (NIV)

You are invited to experience The Encounter, a special presentation by EnCORE.  EnCORE is CORE’s new drama ministry.  You don’t want to miss this. Please  remember to invite a friend. 

RECAP: In our last session, we were blessed with a message from guest speaker, Dan Halverson, on Encountering God through worship. When JC (Jesus Christ) meets PC (Personal & Corporate) worship, heaven and earth collide on fire and the walls of strongholds come down. Worship is not just praising God in church. When we read our bible, treat our co-workers, family, friends and enemies with love and grace we are worshipping God. Worship is a lifestyle  and a commitment to spending time daily with God.

 PLEASE DON’T FORGET!

We are collecting towels, wash cloths,  family size shampoo, and body wash to send to the City of Refuge Foundation.

Please bring your items with you when you attend  HerStory & The Locker Room this week!

HerStory… Every woman has one

DATE:     Wednesday, June 24th 2009

TIME:     7:30 pm

PLACE:   V1 Building (The Zone)

Join CORE Women on Wednesday evening of  HerStory. This new area of CORE  is tailored specifically for the single women of CORE.

Please invite other single women  to this event. We are excited about what God has in store for us. Come out and have a great time on Wednesday evening for HerStory…Everyone woman has one.

For more information, contact Ronetta Slaughter at 770.849.9400, ext. 140 or rslaughter@victorywc.org.

FYI - HerStory and CORE are on now on Facebook. Please  go to facebook.com and search for the page HerStory Core, become friends and invite friends to CORE, VWC and HerStory. You can get connected to what is going on, speak about the topics, and get reminders on upcoming events.

THE LOCKER ROOM - CORE MEN

 Wednesday, June 24th 2009

7:30 pm - V1  (Electro City Room) 

Come and hang out with other guys and talk about the real deal in a safe, relaxed, and comfortable setting.

Please remember to invite and bring a friend as we discuss  real issues single men experience in a transparent and open manner. For more information contact Andre Slaughter at 770.714.1732.

SPECIAL THANKS!

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate another blessed year with us.  Special thanks to the Social Team leaders and all volunteers in helping to make this event a success.

We had a great time with fun games, flag football, volleyball, softball, egg toss, water balloon toss, horse shoes, prizes, good food music, and fellowship.

We look forward to another year of growth and fellowship.  Thanks again.

PURE -  EYES, PASSION & HEART

DATE:      March 18th 2009

TIME:      7:30 pm

PLACE:    V3 Auditorium

RECAP:  In our last session, we delved a little deeper into the subject of the difference between love and lust. We discussed the signs of true love and went over other  real life scenarios. The  issue of Christians dating non-Christians under the guise the “missionary dating” was also covered as well as the reasons Christians give for dating non-Christians. In addition, we discovered what these reasons truly reveal about the heart.

Lastly, we were asked to answer the following questions:

What fuels your passion in life?

What can sabotage your “PURE” passion?

What we place into our hearts, fuels our passion which creates vision. Purity is placing God’s word inside our hearts, so that our heart beat becomes like His. His passion becomes our passion, His vision becomes our vision.

Come out and join us this week as we continue our discussion of Purity. You don’t want to miss this series!

COURAGE TO FAIL

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.” –Joshua 1:9

RECAP:    In this session, we  continued our series discussing the Courage to Fail.  We  had some fun by playing  a game called The Challenge in which each table was given a riddle that we had to figure out within 60 seconds.  If we figured out the riddle, we moved on to the next bonus question. However, if our answer was wrong we had to pick a  humorous consequence from a hat  for our whole table to perform, which was fun to see.

We discovered that some of the lessons we learn can only be gained through failure.  We were asked how do we respond to challenges when there is a strong possibility of failure. Do we  just for it and if we fail try again or do we miss an opportunity because of the fear of failure?

It takes courage to fail and we have to redefine how we view failure at times. There is a saying that the difference between greatness and mediocrisy is often how an individual views a mistake.  Thomas Edison said that many of life’s true failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.  ‘

THREE THINGS WE MUST RESIST:

1. The Courage to get started.
2. The Fear of failure.
3. The Consequences of failure.

Tell yourself , ” I failed at  doing something but I am not a failure.”  There’s a big difference. 

Do you believe God is ever behind our failures? If so, how and why?

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thanks to all who came out to celebrate and bring the New Year 2009 in with CORE!

What a great jump start to the New Year with friends, food, fun, music, praise, and dancing!

The Fusion Band was phenomenal bringing forth praise and worship in excellence. The guest DJ, Matt, kept us dancing on our feet in fun with flashes from the past as well as current songs and music.

The DJ started us off with a Soul Train line where brave souls burst onto the dance floor and showed everyone their best dance moves. There were many smooth dancers out on the floor.  During the night all the men surprised and serenaded Pepe Pemberton who was brought upon stage because it was her birthday.

Those who still had stamina and energy ended the New Year’s Party dancing, eating, and fellowshipping until 2:00 a.m.

Click here to view photos from this event!

COMMENTS:

CORE’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve Party!

“The 2009 NYE Party was SOOOO MUCH FUN! The Fusion Band rocked the house with praise and worship and the DJ was a great jump start to my FAST and exercise! I can’t wait til next year’s party. FUN FUN FUN!”–Monica

“The NYE party was so much fun! It was more fun than I even expected. I was glad to see so many new faces plus people I hadn’t seen in a while. Pastor Steven’s midnight prayer over us singles was awesome. It was a great start to 2009!” -NicoleM

“Thanks to the Singles Ministry for putting this together for us. This meant a lot for us to be able to celebrate the New Year in a Christian Singles environment.”

“I had a great time!  The NYE party was my second CORE meeting/event–I had a blast! Thank you for providing a great place for me to get out and have fun! I can’t wait for more fun events! It was truly a blessing for me more than you know! What a great way to start a new year!” –Chenita 

“The New Year’s party was off the chain. Thank you.”

“The party was great. Being a new Christian, this is the first time I have spent New Year’s Eve in a Christian environment. This was great!”

“I was able to have so much fun with other Christian singles.”

“Thanks to CORE for this party. This was the most fun I have had in a long time and I really needed it.”

“Wow, what did you all do to the people at the party? They were laughing, singing and dancing and they weren’t even drinking. LOL. I really enjoyed it.”

“The New Years Eve party was sooo much fun. I was sore for 3 days after from all those dance moves that I had to break-out of the vault I hadn’t done them in quite some time…. Thanks to everyone who made it a success. I look forward to this new year and the many new possibilities that will come. God Bless.”–Kim Murray

REJOICE! AGAIN I SAY REJOICE!

RECAP:

Last week we learned that rejoicing always is God’s will for our lives. Rejoicing in the Lord is to take pleasure in the Lord. HOW DO WE DO THIS? We must start the process with our thoughts. How we train ourselves to think determines how well we fulfill God’s will for our lives to rejoice in all circumstances. What we think about determines our perspective and our attitude.

1. We have to replace a complaining attitude with a thankful attitude.
2. Replace a covetous attitude with one of contentment.
3. Replace a critical attitude with one of love.
4. Replace a doubting attitude with one of faith.

HOW DO WE BUILD OUR FAITH? We cultivate our faith with the word of God. We confess our faith with our mouth and corner our faith with trusting action. Below is a great quote from the author Dr. David Stoop regarding faith:

“Most of us think of faith as being trust in something positive. But faith is a process of life. No one is faithless. It is not a question of whether we possess faith or not. It is rather a question of where we place our faith. And our thoughts are the best barometer of the object of our faith. Faith is a process that works in releasing life-changing power in either a positive or negative direction.” (Book - You Are What You Think)

In this July series, Pastor Steven challenged us with the question: Can one person make a difference in the world? The answer was: Yes! We were further challenged with the question: Will YOU be that person?

PART I - THE CRISIS:

With every legend story, there is always a CRISIS that the hero must face. In each of our lives, we must face the crisis. The crisis is what defines the character and integrity of the legend.

The top three crises of Singlehood are:  Isolation, Selfishness, and Purity. As singles, we must overcome these crises by guarding our hearts with the word of God and not guarding our hearts with our own human experiences. We must learn to trust in God completely and recognize that he will perfect all things concerning his children. This includes our purpose and our relationships. Finally, we must presevere. We must stay in the trial, if we desire God’s great purpose for our life.

PART II - THE SACRIFICE:

In every legend’s life there is also a time for SACRIFICE. The life of the legend is a life consumed with laying down his or her life and picking up their cross. That cross is the  sacrifice of living not for yourself but living your life so that through you others are drawn out darkness to the light.  A legend must also be a person who is totally committed and a person who keeps their word. If we cannot make a commitment in the small areas of our life, we will not be able to make a commitment in the large areas of our life. Someone once said that it is easier to die for God than it is to die to Him.

Therefore, we must make a personal commitment to dying daily and realize that our life is not our own because we belong to God.

Our CORE Singles Summit 2008 on April 18th & 19th was phenomenal with dynamic Praise & Worship and powerful messages from gifted speakers, Pastor Dennis Rouse, Wendy Widder, and Pastor Jeff Hidden.

We discussed how contentment is a huge issue for everyone whether you are single or married. However, there is a secret to growing in areas of contentment. Through the openess and honesty of the speakers in discussing their real life experiences and delivering God’s perspective on singleness, we discovered the secret to contentment.  We also learned what is means to commit and be a part of the church and how we fit in with our own unique gifts. We discussed the pitfalls of self-sufficiency, living alone, and going through transitions. We were shown how we can enjoy where we are at and the journey to where we are going by smelling the roses and embracing the thorns along the way. We were admonished to also make sure we don’t become so focused on the destination until we become unhappy when we see others reach the destination before we do.

Here is what some of you had to say about the conference:

“It was awesome! This is exactly what I needed.”

“I loved all the speakers. They said things that really hit home with me. They were honest and kept it real.”

“I met a lot of people and learned so much. I was so glad I came.”

“Awesome praise and worship and awesome messages!”

“What a wonderful Singles Summit! My only regret is that I didn’t invite more people. The speakers were awesome and I got to meet many new people by working as a greeter! I have been married before but am now single due to my husband’s death over 11 years ago. I do enjoy not washing dishes every night and being able to eat out whenever I desire to without asking. Living a single life can be easy if we really want it to be! I feel wonderful that God has allowed me to have experienced a great life being married and now He has ushered me into a contented life of singlehood.”

“This conference was great for me. I attend another church and was invited to come. You all are launching something that will have great impact for the single community. I’m just so excited by what I have seen and heard.”

We know that when we fully surrender things in our lives to Jesus, we will start living our lives to the fullest potential. With the right mindset (contentment/balance), operating with the tools of relationship with church and other Christians (authentic relationships), you will enjoy the Journey to the Center of Who You Are.

Click here to view pictures from the Summit.