Church of the Heartland – Logansport

This week, Pastor Jim and his team of painters worked really hard to update our KWAM room, nursery, and the hallway in between.  It looks awesome!!!!  I’m shocked at how it looks.  All I personally did was paint the yellow at the bottom of the KWAM room wall – but combined with all the other colors, even I can’t get over how good it looks.  I LOVE our new look.  I can’t wait to post pictures and show you all  how awesome it is!  Thanks, Heartlanders, for your hearts to make things excellent for our kids!

Last Sunday our Rock Youth group was supposed to go canoeing.  We were really excited, and we had lots of canoes and lunches and big plans.  The week before, the river was too low.  Then it rained for about four days and the river was too high, and we had to postpone the trip.  As Robert would (and did) say, BOO!  A few true outdoorsmen were willing to take their chances on the river, but we made other plans instead.

Instead of canoeing, we made other plans and decided to do a photo scavenger hunt.  We had a great turn out – 16 teens and 9 adults – who filled three vans and drove all over Logansport, acting crazy and taking picture of each other with our cell phones.  I was so proud of our teens and our adult team – especially our drivers, who did awesome and didn’t look stressed out at all!

Some of the things you might have heard in one of the vans (in all caps because, let’s face it, there was a lot of yelling):

“STOP!”

“PULL OVER!”

“I THINK I SEE ROADKILL!”

“DOES IT HAVE TO BE A LIVE ANIMAL?  LET’S PUT THE CHIHUAHUA IN THE FIELD!”

“CAN I JUST ACT LIKE ROADKILL?  I’LL LAY DOWN IN FRONT OF THE TIRES.”

“If there’s five minutes left and we still haven’t found everything, you can act like roadkill and someone else can act like a dog with another person walking you.”

It was a great day.  Our youth group is growing, and I am excited about the relationships that we’re building with teenagers from our church and from the community.  God is going to do something great with this generation, and I am really thankful to be a part of helping them fulfill His plan for their lives!

Next week, we’re at the Ben Long Center for basketball and, for those of us who are less excited about sports, sit-down games Bring your A game and your tennis shoes, practice your 3-point shot, and come hang out with us next week!

Leigh Anne

I love these encouraging words, and I just wanted to share them with you!  Whether the world appreciates it or not…. let’s do it anyway.

Leigh Anne

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.

Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down

by the smallest people with the smallest minds.

Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.

Fight for the underdog anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

People really need help, but may attack you if you help them.

Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you’ve got and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.

Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.

This Sunday at the Logansport campus we had an awesome open mic Sunday where we heard from several members of our congregation… from singing performances to personality tests to inspiring messages – it was a great day!  We love doing life with you!  We captured some of the fun on film!

At Church of the Heartland, we are really excited about Back to Church Sunday!  We’re tired of our friends and family slipping away from God and are ready to partner with Him to get them back.  Check out the following article about Back to Church Sunday, which will be celebrated at churches across the country on September 13th, and get ready!

Congregations to invite friends, family, former members to ‘rethink church’

Church of the Heartland is gearing up for Back to Church Sunday: As millions of Americans head back to school, organizers of a new faith-based outreach campaign hope that millions more will come back to church as well.  The “Back to Church Sunday” campaign makes it easy for church members to invite their friends and family by creating a worship service specifically geared toward visitors.

The program kicks off with national “Back to Church Sunday” on Sept.13 aimed at reaching the “un-churched” and “de-churched”- people who used to go to church, but don’t any more.  The campaign is based on a simple idea. If you ask un-churched people to come with you to church-mostly likely they’ll say yes.

LifeWay Research found that 82 percent of un-churched people surveyed said that they’d be open to visit a church, if a friend or family member invited them.  Unfortunately, said Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay, few church members invite their friends and neighbors. “Only two percent of church members invite an un-churched person to church,” he says. “Ninety-eight percent of churchgoers never extend an invitation in a given year.”

While most Americans say they believe in God, and many tell pollsters that they attend church regularly, only about 20 percent of Americans actually show up in church on Sunday, according to the “The American Church in Crisis,” a recent study of church attendance.

Organizers say most people who drop out of church haven’t lost their faith in God. Instead, they fell out of the habit of churchgoing. Some moved or had another change in life circumstances, or had a falling out with their former church and simply drifted away. Most often, life simply became too busy.

That means they are open to returning to church.

“Many de-churched people are a simple re-invitation away,” says Mark Batterson, of the National Community Church in Washington, D.C.

Start praying about who YOU will invite to come back to church on September 13th!

I know that God has a plan for the youth of Logansport.  Here at Church of the Heartland, He has been stirring people’s hearts to work with youth.  Right now we a great team of adults who care about teenagers and want to connect with them, and we have teenagers who are hungry for relationships and excited about youth group.  After an amazing service with Chris Miller and a team of teens from COTH Plymouth, we’re really excited about what God has planned for the teenagers in this area who are waiting to be loved and reached with the message of hope and purpose that can be found in Jesus.  I can’t wait to for what we have coming up next!!  Write these events down on your calendars, everyone!  It’s exciting!!!!

August 6th – Don’t forget about HOGsix in Knox!!  We are meeting at the church at 4:45 so that we can all go to Knox together.  You won’t want to miss this huge bonfire with competitions, a live band, a worship service to get you fired up for school, and of course………. lots of hot dogs   Call me if you need a ride!

August 16th – Starts our six-week series of weekly meetings.  Come join us for these awesome youth meetings!!!  We are planning all kinds of exciting things for you, teenagers, and you won’t want to miss any of them!  Plus, I don’t want you to ROCK youth will meet from 2-4 on Sunday afternoons, starting on August 16th, for six weeks.

August 23rd – Canoe trip!  I’ll give you an update with the specific details on this one, but you will want to keep this Sunday open because we can’t wait to go canoeing!!!

So – teenagers, parents of teenagers, and people who know and love teenagers, these are great opportunities to invite teens you know to join us and see what life at Heartland and life as a child of God is all about.  Pray for us as we seek God about how to reach this generation!

Leigh Anne