Live Videocast of Grace Covenant meetings, Kansas City

You won't be able to watch the food fights during meals and the all-nighters at Denny's...
But...how amazing is this ...you will be able to watch many of our sessions of our Grace Covenant family reunion/Ministry Conference from Kansas City next week
right here on this handy little screen below (or at this website)!

IF the session I am leading is broadcast, I might just give a shout-out to all of you...by name! (:

Some of you who are not able to go have a theory about what we do every year: we have toga raves or American Idol auditions in Hawaii.
Well, as this live video stream will prove, we are now able to fake a broadcast that makes it look like we are not! Schedule is below, and more info here, all times Central Standard (2 hours later than Calif).

Watch live streaming video from gracecovenant at livestream.com

Grace Covenant Ministry Conference 2010
February 2-5
“Greater Measures of Faith”
(Event Location: Howard Johnson Plaza Hotel-Kansas City, MO)

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Monday, February 1
7:00 pm Conference Praise Band Practice (Led by Spiesses and Tuggles)

Tuesday, February 2
10am-12:30pm Executive Board *Board Room (lobby level)
12:30-2:30 Lunch Break
2:00-4:30 Board of Ministry *Board Room
6:45-7:05 Pre-service Prayer *Board Room
7:15 Praise and Preaching: “Filling a Faith Vacancy” by Dallas Elder

Wednesday, February 3
9:30-10:30am Praise and Prayer Season: Shawn and Maryann Spiess/Dallas Elder
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45-12:00pm Teaching: “Faith to the Fullness of Favor” by Dallas Elder
12:00-2:00 Lunch Break
VisionVestors Fellowship Lunch
2:00-4:00 Inspiration and Equipping-Ballroom
(2:00-2:55) *Intercessors: “Gap Faith” Dave Wainscott/Nancy Boyd
(3:05-4:00) *Vision and Faithfulness: “The Power of a Made-up Mind” Steve Youngblood
2:00-4:00 VisionVestors Forum -Tiffany Room
Young Adult Ministry Connection -Hotel Restaurant

4:00-5:00 Board of Ministry- Board Room
6:15-8:00 GC Banquet Dinner-Golden Corral
*Meet in hotel lobby-Caravan leaves hotel at 6pm sharp
9:00-10:30 “Worship Out Loud” (Young Adult led) *Ballroom

Thursday, February 4
9:30-10:30am Praise/Devotion: Message-Raquens Turenne-Haiti
10:30-10:45 Break
10:45-12:00pm Affirmation of Leadership, GC Vision & Ministry 2009
12:00-2:00 Lunch Break
Missionary Fellowship Lunch
2:00-4:00 Missions Highlights Ballroom
2:00-4:30 Board of Ministry Board Room
4:00-6:30 Young Adult Fellowship Connection
5:00-6:30 Supper break
6:45-7:05 Pre-service Prayer *Board Room
7:15 Praise, Commissioning and Preaching: “Faith Launch” by Kevin Clancey

Friday, February 5
9:30-10:30am Praise/Devotion/Communion: Message and Serving-Nancy and Bert Boyd
10:30-11:30 Closing Remarks and Prayers of Blessings


Note: There will be an Infant Nursery (0-5 years) for morning, afternoon and evening sessions.

urgent prayer for pastor of our sister church in Haiti

This just in below.
Pray and watch for updates at this link.

Pastor Raquens called me a few minutes ago with this message: Today Pastor Oseme of Haiti went into Port Au Prince to meet with the American Consulate. While he was there he was kidnapped. He is now being held for ransom. Unless $1500 US is paid in ransom by tomorrow, Pastor Oseme will be killed. It would appear that the logic here is that being Pastor Oseme went to the American Consulate that he has contacts in the US who would pay. Otherwise, Haitians would not kidnap another Haitian. Pastor Raquens and I agreed that right now we need to bath the situation in prayer and pray for his release. Remember Peter was released from prison by the power of prayer. If the Lord shows us something else to do we will do it. But for now we need to generate as much prayer toward pastor Oseme, his captors and his family as possible. We will give updates as we get them. Please seriously pray and get the word out to other intercessors at this hour.

Blessings.
Dallas

SOME OF OUR HAITI TEAM:
The staff at St. Marc's school from left to right: Associate Pastor Jean, Professor Onel, Madame Dina Oseme, Professor Samuel, unknown professor, and Pastor Desir Oseme.

steering cats is evil...Len Sweet and Reggie McNeal quotes on planning

"It could be you're spending too much time planning and not enough time preparing. The planning mode leads to dissonance. The modulation mode leads to consonance....There is no evidence that 'planning' leads to a brighter tomorrow. Never has. Never will. Ask any gardener... Modulation means replacing 'plans' with metaphors and songlines of preparedness. Modulation means replacing a philosophy of 'results:' (production, sales, cash flow, net profit, membership gains...) with a philosophy of "resonance 'where power and success reside not in rank or position but in relation and being.. What organism plans its life? What person can plan his or her future? Can you plan your love? Life is false to formula.. In our world, planning is worse than a mistake-it's an evil.. Ever try to steer a cat or a puppy? No one steers a living thing, it moves forward one step at a time. No living enterprise moves forward by 'planning'.. When you come to a pothole, you don't need a srategic plan to get by. You improvise. After a brief pause, you ad lib your zig zags until you regain your bearings."

-Leonard Sweet , Summoned to Lead 76-77




"New Reality Number Five is the shift from planning to preparation.. Much of what has ultimate effect on the church happens outside it it and its control...Typical approaches to the future involve prediction and planning. This works OK in a world that experiences significant continuity. It doesn' t work in the current environment. Planning tends to be incremental, pushing what we currently are doing into a world that we imagine wil be the same as today. Incrementalism as an anticipatory strategy is dead,, The Bible sounds a recurrring theme : Go0d wants his people to pray and prepare for his intervention ...It is God who declares 'I know the plans I have for you ', in Jer 29.11. He does not say 'I am waiting for you to develop plans I can bless." I am not against planning. I am just suggesting,.the North American church has settled for (its imaginations, plans and dreams).. The future belongs to those who prepare for it, not plan for it. If the North American church is going to make the leap off the sigmoid curve and avoid the sure death guaranteed by incrementalism, it will have to shift its beginning point from present to future"

. -Reggie McNeal, The Present Future, 92ff
http://www.nextreformation.com/html/general/present.htm

Adopt a Jesus...in Fresno

Don't miss the free film screening, the Fresno premiere of "Adopt a Jesus," including conversation with its maker/ producer, Brandt Russo.
Free! Hosted at Fresno Pacific University
Fri Jan 17, 7pm, Ashley Auditorium
PDF MAP

Here's an audio interview about the film (and the story behind it) with Brandt Russo himself that our man Ken Adams himself just did:

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PART 2 OF INTERVIEW HERE

The film?:
"For 14 days, we travelled in a bus that ran on used cooking oil. We picked up hitchikers and listened to the stories of the homeless, and those who devote their time to caring about them. We survived on the street skills that Brandt Russo acquired from the time he spent on the streets of Houston and hitchhiking throughout the US...
This is our story "

DVDs will be for sale at the event for $15..
Faceboook page for this event

Watch the trailer here( "I just spoke with the associate pastor, and y'all will have to move on"):

• Film website
• MySpace
• Brandt's website