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The Man Series

I’m loving our Beautiful message series.  If you missed week one, you can watch it here.  This series for women is great and much needed, but after Tuesday morning’s planning session, I think The Man Series will be the best series in the history (7.5 years) of Graystone Church.

During The Man Series we will have a contest for men each week.  As I mentioned last Sunday, we are having a beard growing contest.  If facial hair is not your strength, you will have an opportunity to compete by consuming large amounts of food in record time or displaying your athletic prowess.  Awards will be given to all the contest winners.  We debated giving participation trophies but quickly decided against it.

There will also be a raffle each week for the men to win some cool prizes.  We’ve thought about giving away everything from 4-wheelers, motorcycles, bass boats, shotguns, fishing poles, tool boxes, autographed football helmets, Braves tickets, etc.  None of these prizes have been secured, so don’t hold me to any of them.  If you would like to donate something (i.e Sea-doo), please let me know.

The Man Series begins on June 3rd and will run through Father’s Day (June 17).  The services will have elements that we have never had  before and will be much different than a normal Sunday at Graystone.  At the finale of The Man Series we will give a special gift to all the men that has specific meaning to all 3 messages.  Let me just say, the men are going to love this series, and June will be a blast.

 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11

Email Update from Jeff Anfils, Pastor of Voice of Christ in Haiti
Hey guys, how are doing? Just a reminder to tell you that I am not sleeping. We are busy 24 hour days and 7 days a week. God is pouring his blessings with the presence of a doctor coming from California Dr. Teddy Bartnett who has been seen dozens of patients at the mission. We having seen, this weekly only, 200 hundred patients. Our 100 plus of our students have been seen. We are looking forward to see another 3 to 400 hundred for the next couple weeks. He is here until the end of this month. I will be in Saint-Marc this weekend for a special prayer on Saturday for their spiritual and numerical growth and also to buy a piece of land to relocate our church. More babies more responsibilities. We have been so gracious to meet at their front yard. Our shelter can hold about 100  and God is adding every day those who have been saved to his church. We continue to send different lay preachers every week to Saint-Marc until the Lord will provide a permanent preacher. Also, our bible school is open this year in August. It will be for one month every summer for now. I will be the only teacher this summer. We are taking students from our all three churches. They will all come to stay at the mission for the whole month of August. We will have a very long schedule every day. We will be working from 6:00 am until 9:00 pm every day. We will be  sending them out every weekend to our different churches to observing and practicing.We cannot wait to see you guys. We have a lot to accomplish. We are working on faith and not by sight. I will be in Port-au-Prince checking on the French and the Creole bibles and I will send you the quote. One amazing news. As you know that we are fighting a warfare againt principalities and dominions. An amazing miracle happened just this week where we were casting 200 demons an a lady’s head in our church as we were fasting last Wednesday. You may ask how did we know it was 200 demons. The demons as we have in Marc chapter 5 have said it to us. “We are 200 demons, we come to look for her and we want to take her with us”. They litterally dragged her all over the place and wanting to run. 5 of us had to hold her very tight. We did not want her to cause any harm to herself. After spending times in prayers rebuking the demons. The demons were fleeing and she calms down and not agitating and screaming annymore. She was sitting still and her good sense. Now, she is completely healed. She was in our clinic today for dental check up. It is exactly happened the way you see it in Marc ch. 5. It is similar to the jewish people in Jesus time. This is what making our ministry so powerful in the village and else where. We will be able to win the whole of Haiti by such great move of the Holy Spirit. We have been under several circumstances like this. We have been always prevail. The people feel so secure spiritually and continue to bring so many of them to Jesus Christ.Let us continue to pray and fight.

Jeff

We live in a world full of quitters.  People quit on their teams, jobs, marriages, families, churches and faith.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about FINISHING STRONG.  The old saying is true:  ”It’s not how you start but how you finish.”  At least the back half is true.  It really is all about finishing.

Our baseball season has been the most difficult we’ve ever experienced.  But my message to Joelan (and myself) is to persevere to the end and FINISH STRONG.  We will put a 4 game losing streak on the line this Saturday as we head into the playoffs.

If we FINISH STRONG in the tourney, we could turn the entire season around.  We’ve had a ton of injuries (Joelan broke his nose at the first practice in December.), bad attitudes from players and parents, and we enter the tourney as the last place team losing our last 2 games with a combined score of 0-23.  But if we win 4 games, which we are capable, we could find ourselves on Cool Ray Field playing for the championship.  And I’m pretty sure that would be the lasting memory of this team.

As this season of life and school year come to a close, let me encourage you to FINISH STRONG.  FINISH STRONG with your team, school, job, small group, marriage, family, church, and faith.  Although, I do think getting off to a good start is important (I.e. Valley Town Church), what’s more important is how we finish.  True authentic faith in Jesus Christ perseveres to the end.

I like what Paul says at the end of his life…

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” 2 Timothy 4:7-8

In what area of your life do you need to recommit to FINISHING STRONG?

P.S. If truth be told, Joelan cares more about Friday morning basketball with his church buddies after his discipleship group, than his U14 GGBL Baseball Season. BTW, their discipleship group started strong and FINISHED STRONG.  Thanks Nate for your leadership and investment into our young men.

This past Sunday at Graystone, Barry and Wendy Weaver shared their story of taking the 3 month tithing challenge.  I have talked with several families at Graystone who have recently started tithing, and it has been so encouraging to hear testimonies of God’s provision and faithfulness in their lives.  God promises to BLESS US if we trust Him with the tithe (Malachi 3:8-10).
One of the resources we have to help us with faithful stewardship is online giving.  This is especially helpful in the summer months when we are in and out of town with vacations, traveling to see family and weekend get aways.
Here are 6 reasons why Jennifer and I give online:
  1. It is simple.  Too many things in life are way too complicated.
  2. I (Jennifer) am not organized.  I lose things and can’t ever find my checkbook.
  3. We’re sure it happens.  We want to make sure that our tithes and offerings get turned in, so just like our other bills are now drafted automatically, so is our giving to Graystone.
  4. It is good accountability.  We committed when we first got married to give at least 10% of our income each month.  Over the years we have stepped out in faith and increased our giving to around 20% (a double-tithe.)
  5. I (Jennifer) am weak.  I would be tempted to hold some back if it weren’t for the automatic draft to the church.
  6. We are blessed beyond measure and want to be a channel of blessing to others.  It brings incredible satisfaction to know that we are obedient, and God is using the money for lives to be changed.

If you would like to give online, whether one-time or reoccurring, simply click here to go to the online giving page on Graystone’s website.  If you have trouble, you can contact our Stewardship Pastor, Elliott Rogers, at elliott@graystonechurch.com or 770-466-3159.  He would be more than happy to walk you through it or set it up for you.

Here’s Barry and Wendy’s story:

This Sunday May 13, Mother’s Day, Justin Wojtczak from 375 photography will be at Graystone Church to take FREE family portraits.  Justin is an award winning professional photographer and will be taking pictures from 10:00am-12:00pm.  You can have a picture made with your entire family, mom and kids, or just the kids.

Justin has been taking pictures for my family for years, and we absolutely love them.  They are some of my most treasured memories.  I have posted below a sampling of Justin’s work with portraits of a few Graystone families.  We are so thankful to have this opportunity at Graystone on Mother’s Day.

If you have kids (age 8-13) who play football, this is a tremendous opportunity for them to have fun, improve their football skills, and be influenced for Christ from some big time coaches and players (David Greene, DJ Shockley, Alge Crumpler, etc.).  Also, all the proceeds go toward sending our local Gwinnett County High School Football Players to FCA Camp this summer.

Here’s the info brochure:  FCA Youth Football Camp 2012 Flyer (2)

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