CORE

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.

Check back here later for photos from this event!

COMMENTS:

“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.”

“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

Special thanks to all who came out for  CORE’s Dinner & Theatre aboard the Grand Jubilation!

Through an incredible evening of food, drama, interaction and laughter, we discovered that one of the passengers had resorted to crime! We then solved this humorous whodunit with the help of our guests.

After helping us solve this whodunit, one of our guests won a prize, and we ended the evening with a conga line of Caribbean music, dancing and socializing. 

Special thanks to the director, Natalie Mentor, producer,  Ronetta Slaughter, and all the cast and crew for such an wonderful performance.  

Special Thanks To:

Leah Stevens and to everyone who helped us be a blessing to the refugee children from Africa, Myanmar, and Bhutan by bringing gifts.

Also Special Thanks to:

Everyone who joined us in an opportunity to serve in our community by distributing gift bags to families at the Nocross Co-op.

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)

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14th & 28th

THE LOCKER ROOM - CORE MEN 

7:30 pm - V1 Building (Multi-purpose Room)

CORE Men will be discussing pertinent and challenging topics.

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

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.

Why is it sometimes hard for us to focus on the things that are essential for our life? What are our motivations and how do we pursue pure motives? How do we know when we are getting good or bad counsel? Who should we really be listening to for advice?

We discovered the answers to these questions the month of March and April.  Our first session topic, Living Large - Building High Impact Priorities covered the great need for us to build high impact priorities for our lives. Our priorites define our direction (where we are going), devotion (what we spend our time doing), and dynamics (who we are).  We have to be aware of priority killers and at times, refocus our priorities.  Sometimes we need to ask ourselves are we still on a Kingdom direction for our lives and are we walking towards God’s word in our lives?

In our second session topic, Living Large - Pursuing Pure Motives, we discovered  how to pursue pure motives for our lives. We found that pursing pure motives moves us closer to becoming more like Christ, who is pure, and allows us to become so aware of His presence, that we forget about ourselves, become sensitive to His directions, and the needs of others. 

We were challenged to ask ourselves: Are my actions in harmony with God’s truth, will my plan of actions work under real-life conditions? Is my attitude pleasing to God?

We should examine our emotions considering another person’s perspective.

In our third session topic, Living Large - Whose Your Lifeline?, we discussed the need to seek wise counsel. Sometimes within us there are obstructions to seeking wise counsel, and we have to be aware of what those obstructions are so that we can overcome them. Seeking wise counsel is for our own well-being, as it provides security, broadens our vision, and holds us accountable. Any counsel we receive should always be evaluated in the light of God’s word. 

Questions for discussion:

     What are you doing now that you need to stop doing in order to start building high impact priorities into your life?

     How do we know when “speaking the truth” or just saying what is on our mind is done with the wrong motive or right motive?

     Have you ever neglected to seek wise counsel? If so, why and how did the situation turn out for you and what did you learn, so that it may help others?

Do you have thoughts, opinions, and questions on love and relationships? We all do. 

In our February series, What’s Love Got to Do With It? - Truths & Myths About Love, we explored some truths and myths about love and relationships with an experienced panel of singles and marrieds. Sometimes we mistakenly live by the myths created by Hollywood and society regarding love and relationships. We learned that understanding our personality type can affect our relationships in positive ways and discovered our personality type from the 4 personality types: Popular Sanguine, Perfect Melancholy, Powerful Choleric, and Peaceful Phlegmatic.  We also discussed how crucial it is to be transparent in our relationships and talked about the work that goes into developing healthy relationships.

Recommended Book Reading: Personality Plus by Florence  Littauer

      What are your thoughts, opinions, and/or questions on love and relationships?

Welcome back, CORE! We ended last year with a series entitled, “Born Identity.”  In this series, we learned that we were created to live in the image and character of Jesus Christ.  If you are like me, you have to admit we have a lot of changing to do. We began our first session for 2008 entitled, “Embracing Change,” tackling the big question, Are You Ready For Change?

Since we know we must be transformed to His image, how do you face change? For many of us, we face change with fear, denial, or eagerness. Depending on how you relate to adjustments in your life, change can be seen as an enemy or a friend. We move from subtle, to moderate, to radical change all the time in our lives.

God wants us to move with radical change when it comes to him. Radical change requires us to totally depend on God and trust him for each step that we take. Change represents the movement of God as He moves us from our current human mindset to having a mind like His. Our “Born Identity” is shaped and becomes clear as we journey from one point of potential with God to the next.

Are You Ready For Change? This year let’s get radical with God about changing our attitudes, our ideas, and our habits to take on the journey to the new life in Christ.

Our Opening Question:

        How do you manage change or deal with it in your life?

Welcome to CORE WEBlog

At this season’s end, CORE will have a short hiatus in meeting, to resume in January.  However, we will stay connected via our weblog. 

If you missed our last CORE session, WOW you really missed out…we got down to the real issues of living a Christ-like identity.  What we found out about ourselves during this session really challenged us to seek deeper to understand where we stand on a lot of issues facing singles.  The bible says that we will be victorious by the blood of Jesus and the testimonies of others. 

Supported by a panel of our CORE leaders, many of the singles shared their struggles and victories, which served to create hope for those who needed it.  We also learned how much we need each other as support and accountability. 

Here is what some had to say about the session: 

“This series was so good.  It was great that we had the freedom to talk about what was really on our minds.” 

“I really appreciated the leadership team’s honesty about their struggles; it helps to know that you are not alone.  They were also an encouragement in hope about the future.” 

“This was really great to get real for a change in a safe environment.  I will not miss the next CORE sessions.”

This format of open, honest discussion is just one of the many to come in the future.  As we begin to see ourselves in the new “Born Identity,” we will be able to reach others for Christ in a powerful way.