Dream Come True

In just 2 days, I get to embark on a journey of a lifetime. Relevant Church opens its doors for our very first preview service on October 11th. This has been in the making for 5 years now. It has been an exciting journey, and I know that the fun is only beginning. We are looking forward to what God has in store for us at Relevant. Here is a little video promoting this weekend. We hope to see you there.

Filed under: Church Planting, My Journal, Uncategorized , Relevant Church Charlotte

Help Relevant LAUNCH with a BANG!

Well, Relevant Church is opening it’s doors for our first preview service in 22 days. Pretty exciting stuff! We have been preparing, planning, and asking for financial donations, but we really want to make an impact. So I am going to ask for something different. I believe that we can make an impact in our world even before we open our doors.

There is an opportunity for all of us to come together and provide clean drinking water to those that are in need. I would love to see us be able to provide for the building of 1 well that will supply clean water to 1 community serving 50 families.

You can be a part of something huge. Let’s do this and make an change our world, one community at a time.

Click on either one of the links above to help. You can also spread the word to help us make this happen.

Filed under: Outreach/Missions, Uncategorized , charity, clean water, relevant church

Need Your Prayers

I wanted to send out a prayer request to all the blog readers.

We are in the process of praying for a worship leader for our church plant. One thing that I know is that the position of a worship leader is a very important. I am not taking this search lightly. We have had two people show interest, but we want to know that God is in the decision.

So we need your prayers. Would you pray with us that God would reveal the right person for us.

If you are interested in leading worship, and feel that God has called you, feel free to contact us at 704-759-6355.

Filed under: Uncategorized , God, Relevant Church Charlotte, Worship

Defining Moments

We all have had one in our lives. Maybe some of us have had multiple moments. A defining moment is when the light bulb in your head goes off about the reality of a new, or old, truth. It is when you realized that the thing you have heard or seen all of your life is true. It may be unexplainable, but completely and undeniably true. The story in John 9 of the man born blind is a great story of a defining moment. This man was healed and had no explanation of how it happened, are really did not  care. All that he knew was that he was blind and now he could see. It was his defining moment of where the unexplainable came head to head with the undeniable.

For us, we tend to focus in on the unexplainable happenings around us and forget the undeniable truths that surround us. The challenge is how will we respond to those defining moments in our lives? How will you embrace the moment that will change you forever? Will you sieze the moment of truth, or will you retreat back to what is natural to you?

What is natural to us is that which we can explain, but I think God wants us to move beyond our comfort zones of what we know and what we can explain to embrace the undeniable.

I believe that we do not have to understand everything in order to believe in something.  There are many things about God that we cannot explain, but are undeniably true. The fact that He loves us so much that He chose to die for us is hard to explain or sometimes grasp, but the fact that it is true is undeniable.

One thing I know is, when I try to focus in on the unexplainable and really try to figure it out, my faith tends to wither. But when I turn my focus on the undenialble truths of God, my faith skyrockets.

God may be challenging you to think outside the box you have placed Him in. You know, that box that says “This is how I want God to answer me”, or “In order for me to believe, God must do this”. Please don’t miss out on what God has for you because you don’t have all the answers. The fact is, we will never have all of this figured out, and the good part about it is, God has never said we needed to in order to believe.

Remember, we do not have to understand everything in order to believe in something.

Filed under: My Journal, Uncategorized , blind, defining moments, God, Jesus, unexplainable

Freedom

This weekend marks our country’s Independence and freedom. Many people will be setting off fireworks and grilling out, but let us not forget what kind of freedom that we have. The freedom from sin and death that was provided by Jesus Christ on the Cross.

[youversion]Romans 8:1-2[/youversion] talks about how we are free from the law of sin and death. And [youversion]John 8:36[/youversion] states that if God sets you free then you are truly free (my paraphrase)

So this weekend as you and I are eating our hamburgers and watching the firework shows, let us remember that if you are in Christ, then your true freedom lies with Him.

Filed under: Uncategorized , freedom, God, independence, jesus christ, July 4th, Relevant Church Charlotte

Attention: New Blog Address

I have transferred all of my blog posting to our permanent website. The new location of our blog will be www.relevantnc.com/blog.

Please make sure that you change your rss feed if you have it saved.

We will soon have our church website up at www.relevantnc.com.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Happy Father’s Day

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. One of the greatest joys in my life is be the dad of 3 awesome kids. They are truly a blessing in my life.

Dads, God has given us the great responsibility of raising up a generation of men and women that will follow after Him. We should never take lightly the call of fatherhood. Whether you had a great father figure in your life or not, remember the best example we have is our Heavenly Father. He loves us unconditionally and shows us how we can do that with out kids.

I know that this is your day, but take some time to spend it with the people that matter most to us, our family.

Filed under: Uncategorized , dads, Father's day, God, Jesus

Get Connected Pt. 3

The best way to start this post is to completely give God the glory for all He does. He is truly the God of all supply. With that being said, I wanted to give a quick update on the status of our “Get Connected” financial campaign. In my last post we told you about the 9 partners we have seen come along side us to help us toward our 40,000 dollar start-up goal.

I am so excited to tell you about how God has blessed us just this past week. We have been meeting with several people to ask them to become a partner of ours, and we have seen one person step up and donate 500 dollars! I told you God was good.

We have also been blessed with someone donating our business card printing, and another 2 people donating 300 dollars.

So far we have seen God move on the hearts of people to get us to 17 partners. These 17 partners have cought the vision of Relevant Church and know that God wants to connect with people in a deep way.

Please continue to pray for Relevant Church as we grow closer to our launch of January 10, 2010.

Blessings

Pastor Kalum

Filed under: Uncategorized , church, finances, God, provision, relevant church, Vision

Twitter Haters

I just wanted to speak my peace about something. There have been people talking about the good and bad things about twitter lately. Some people are really hating on it and I just wanted to chime in on my two cents.

First of all, social networking, just like anything else can be used for the wrong reasons. With that being said, I have come to realize that Twitter along with Facebook, are two of the most effective social networking tools available to churches today. (this is only my opinion) My basis on this came from an experience that happened today. I use Twitter to network with other churches and church planters to pass along useful information and to network with like minded people. This morning I had breakfast with a guy that I met via Twitter. This meeting, from my opinion, was a God appointment. There were things shared between us that I needed to hear.

I believe that God can use the social networking tools to His benefit and glory if we use them properly.

This is my two cents. If you want to check me out on Twitter you can follow me here.

Filed under: Uncategorized , church, facebook, God, networking, social networking, twitter

Get Connected

Relevant Church is a new, exciting, and diverse community of people that are dedicated to seeing the people of Charlotte NC connected to Jesus. Charlotte, NC is one of the fastest growing cities on the East Coast. The growth numbers are staggering. Our commitment is to the people of this great city. Our desire and passion is to give ourselves fully to the mission of reaching the lost for Jesus. Our hearts are big, Our dreams are bigger, but we know that Our God is the biggest. With all of this being said, we still need YOUR help.

We have 2 goals that you could help us attain. We are calling this financial campaign “Get Connected.” We want you to have an opportunity to partner with us as we connect people to Jesus.

Our first goal is to raise $40,000 for all of the equipment we need to have to launch. You can download a copy of our equipment list to see what we need. Our prayer with this goal is to see 400 people donate $100 each to help us raise the funds. We know that starting a church in the middle of a recession isn’t the smartest thing to do by the world’s standards, but God is calling us to raise up to His standards and to trust in Him.

Our second goal is gather monthly partners. These partners would donate help support Relevant Church in maitaining our monthly budget. Our prayer is to raise $100,000 in yearly support for the first 2 years. Our goal is to be self supporting by year 3. You can download a copy of our first years budget here.

Financial donations are always a blessing, but there may be items on the equipment list that you, your business, or church could donate. Not only will the cash equivalent of these donations count toward our grand total of $40,000, but these donations are also tax deductible.

If you would like to know more about who Relevant Church is you may email us at or you can download a copy of our vision proposal here.

Remember, all of your financial donations are tax deductable. Please send your financial support to

Grace Covenant Church c/o Relevant Church Plant

17301 Statesville Rd

Cornelius, NC 28031

“Please mark all payments for Relevant Church Plant.”

Feel Free to check us out on Twitter and you can check out Pastor Kalum’s Facebook and Twitter pages here.

Filed under: Church Planting, Uncategorized , church, connected, finances, fund raising, God, Jesus, relevant church, support, Vision