Elevation « Smalls

Tippity Top

September 22, 2009 at 8:11 am | In Elevation | Leave a Comment

Part of our fall kick-off was a Student Takeover Sunday. Pastor Furtick’s message was mainly targeted at students, but easily applicable to the lives of adults as well. Pastor Furtick is equipping students at Elevation with the tools they need to live Christ-centered lives through the very tough, peer-pressure focused days of middle school and high school. I was speaking with one mom on Sunday who told me that her son and daughters were de-friending kids on Facebook because they drink, do drugs, and overall do not have the same values that her kids want to live by. I know that at that age, I did not have the courage to do what some of our students are doing in this city. Later that night, that same mom came up to me and told me that two of the friends that her kids brought that evening had given their lives to Christ that night. All-in-all, Student Takeover was amazing. Over 7,000 people were in attendance on Sunday and over 500 people gave their lives to Christ that day! All the glory to God!

I wanted to share this hilarious video that our production/creative teams put together for our service last Sunday. Our production/creative teams are SO talented and produce such amazing videos and trailers each week. This is one of my favorites so far. This video features two of our band memebers and our newest worship leader, London.

“Tippity Top” Music Video from Elevation Church on Vimeo.

Easter Opener

April 17, 2009 at 8:22 pm | In Elevation | 1 Comment
Tags: Elevation, Elevation Church, Worship

Check out the video below. This is what opened our Easter services last Sunday. The Elevation Church creative/production team is amazing!

Healer

April 12, 2009 at 9:13 pm | In Elevation | 1 Comment
Tags: Easter, Elevation, Elevation Church, Worship

“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53: 1-6

We had a great Easter Sunday!

7900 in attendance!

740 salvations!

Praise be to God!

My Top 3

February 7, 2009 at 3:23 pm | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baptisms, Elevation, Memories, Unleash

This weekend we are celebrating Elevation’s 3rd Anniversary! In just three short years, God has blessed this church in so many ways. Eric and I have been attending Elevation for just over a year and a half and love being a part of what God is doing in Charlotte through Elevation. Elevation exists “so that people far from God will be filled with life in Christ” and Eric and I have taken active roles in helping to see that vision fulfilled.

This past week, Pastor Furtick, his wife Holly, and the staff have reflected on their top three moments at Elevation. Today I decided to share my own top three. In no particular order…

1 – Getting the opportunity to attend the Unleash conference at New Spring Church in March 08. I was honored to be included in a group of about 150 Elevators who loaded up on a few buses to attend the one day event. I wrote a full recap of the day and you can read it here.

2 – Getting baptized in May 07 as a part of Elevation’s spontaneous baptisms! Then, in August 08, getting the privileged to be on the other side of the event and prepare for others to be spontaneously baptized. Words can not describe how amazing it was to be in the row of volunteers waiting to cheer on those who had decided to take the plunge and see the flood of people pour out of the auditorium. Tears of joy were flowing that day!

3 - Opening night of the 6pm service at Butler. I did not expect the crowd we saw that night. In fact, I don’t think anyone did. God blew our minds that evening! Over 750 people attended the service (over flow was packed!) and 125 came home that evening!

I am so blessed and so thankful that God has led Eric and I down here at this time to be a part of this movement. I can’t wait to see what God has in store for Elevation’s 4th year of ministry!

Elevation Sunday at Butler

December 17, 2008 at 3:05 pm | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Elevation, Elevation Church

I absolutely love our church! Elevation, is a portable church with services at Providence and Butler high schools and McGlohon Theatre in Charlotte. The campus where Eric and I serve as volunteers is the Butler Campus. We usually arrive at Butler at 6:30 on Sunday mornings to help set up and create a WOW experience for those attending services that day. Below are some pictures of before and after set up as well as Eric and the parking team and me with our volunteer connections team. Click on each picture to view a larger image.

My wonderful husband

October 1, 2008 at 7:58 am | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baptisms, Elevation

Exciting, though unexpected, events!

September 29, 2008 at 9:19 pm | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baptisms, Children, Church, Elevation

Yesterday at church we had children’s baptisms. My sister-in-law, along with all of the volunteers, spent countless hours getting everything ready and did an amazing job with the event! About half an hour before the festivities were to begin, Jessi came up to Eric to see if the parking team helped with cars exiting from the second service. His answer was no. So Jessi asked if he would help demonstrate the baptism process to the kids. His answer was yes, although he did not realize at the time that he would be getting dunked (he thought it was a dry demonstration). So yesterday, Eric got baptized again! There was one little girl who was getting baptized, but she had a cast on her leg. Since Eric was already wet from the demonstration, Jessi asked if he would help with the girl. So Eric carried her into the tank so her cast would not get wet and helped Jay baptize her. Eric didn’t have a change of clothes with him, so we stayed for the rest of the event while he dried off a bit. It was such a fantastic celebration and it was just awesome to see a couple dozen kids publicly proclaim their faith in Jesus! Quite the exciting day for my wonderful husband!

Front Page News!

September 15, 2008 at 10:35 pm | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Elevation Church

Elevation made the front page of the Charlotte Observer yesterday!

Check out the article here.

The Cat, a Daniel Fast & GP

August 22, 2008 at 11:02 am | In Elevation, Random Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Tags: Cats, Daniel Fast, Food

It feels like forever ago that I last wrote a post, so I figured I would just provide some updates today.

Madison has pretty much fully recovered from her surgery. We brought her home the day she had the surgery and as soon as she came out of her carrier she was ready to play. It was like the surgery never happened! A couple days later, she finally crashed and slept for about two days. She’s now back to her normal food and her regular self!

Eric and I have been participating in a 21 day Daniel Fast with our church. You can listen to Pastor Furtick explain it here and read about it here. We are on day number 5 of the fast and so far things are going pretty well. On the fast, we can’t eat any animal products, sugar, caffeine or any foods with additives. So far we have eaten salads, plain rice cakes with natural peanut butter, fruit, veggies, nuts and I’ve been drinking all natural herbal tea in the mornings. On Wednesday I had my first experience in cooking dried beans. I never knew how long of a process that was! 8 hours later, the beans turned out well and were added into a Vegetarian Chili (the recipe came from our Daniel Fast packet). It turned out very well, however I over calculated the beans, so we have a ton of extra!

I’m also getting ready to head up to Grosse Pointe tomorrow morning. The trip is for work, so I’ll be in our Southfield office all next week. It will be nice to work with live people again, not just voices over the phone! I’ll also get to see my family and attend a bridal shower for a friend of mine. It should be a great week!

Well, that’s about all for now. I’ll have a post up soon to tell you about my trip to Washington, D.C. last weekend!

Awakening

August 4, 2008 at 10:22 pm | In Elevation | Leave a Comment
Tags: Baptism, Elevation

Last year, on Mother’s Day Eric and I went to Elevation for the normal Sunday service. To our surprise, Elevation was holding spontaneous baptisms that day. Pastor Furtick preached for about 20 minutes on baptism and eliminated any possible excuse or reason that would keep people who needed to be baptized from getting baptized. I had been baptized as an infant but hadn’t been baptized since I had been saved in 2004. I knew during that service that God was calling me to take the plunge and publicly proclaim that Jesus is my Savior. Elevation staff and volunteers had everything needed to make people comfortable that day. Everyone who was getting baptized received a tshirt, shorts, underwear, flip flops and hair ties. (After the baptism, people were led to the locker room which, for the women anyway, was filled with hair dryers, mousse, hair gel, hair spray, makeup, deodorant, feminine products, etc.) It was so awesome to feel so loved and encouraged making my way on to the stage to be baptized. Pastor Furtick baptized me on the stage of Providence High School and as soon as I was lifted out of the water I heard an eruption of cheers and excitement. Elevation truly makes this a special and celebratory day for those being baptized. On that Sunday and the following Sunday, Elevation baptized 388 people!

The church hired a professional photographer to take pictures of everyone being baptized and then they sent them in the mail. Below is mine:

Yesterday I had the privilege to be on the other end of this event. We held spontaneous baptisms at both the Providence and Butler locations. Eric and I went to help get things set up at the Butler campus on Saturday which included doing a run through of the next day’s events and getting all of the bags filled with shorts, tshirts, underwear, flip flops and hair ties. I can’t even explain in words how amazing the day was. God showed up in a mighty way! As Pastor Furtick instructed those who wanted to get baptized to make their way to the restrooms to get changed, we had a tunnel of volunteers in teal shirts cheering, clapping, hollering and just making excited noise for everyone walking out. It was so amazing to see the crowd of people walk through the auditorium doors. I was so overcome with joy I just cried. God touched every one of their hearts that day and gave them courage to take the plunge. Just amazing. Between our two campuses yesterday, 629 people were baptized. All the glory to God!