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 Pt. 2

In my last post I told you about our financial campaign we were beginning. We are calling this campaign the “Get Connected” campaign. The thought was to allow anyone to be a part of what is happening with Relevant Church.

This post is to give a quick update on the progress. We started this just this past Monday 5-12-09 and already we have 9 people committed for $100 each. God is awesome and He continues to blow me away with His provisions.

With that being said, we still need your help. You can be part of advancing the Kingdom of God from wherever you are. We have a start-up equipment budget of $40,000 that we need to meet. Our need is not just dollars, it is also equipment. If you have the ability to donate any equipment on our list, that would go to help us reach our goal.

Some of the major items we are in need of are:

1. A sound system
2. Enclosed 20′-24′ trailer
3. Computer and video projector
4. Printing (we are in need of getting biz card, brochures, fliers, banners, and signs)

Would you consider becoming a partner? Help Relevant Church connect people to Jesus.

Filed under: Church Planting , budget, church, Church Planting, donations, finances, God, Jesus, partners, relevant church, Relevant Church Charlotte

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

Programs or Steps?

I am currently reading Andy Stanley’s book 7 Practices of Effective Ministry, and I just came across something that made me think. It was his idea of running “programs” or creating “steps” for ministry.

How many churches out there are measuring themselves on the amount of programs they are running? Are you too busy with the calendar that you are missing the mark of effective ministry? Andy states that many “churches have a reputation of doing ministry without an end in mind”.  Having the goal in mind makes all the difference in effective ministry.

Being a church planter, I have read many books and studied many ways to do church. The one thing that I have concluded is that ministry is about being focused on what God called you to do. There are a ton of “good” things out there to do, but there are a few “God” things that each church is supposed to do. We can get wrapped up in doing the “good” things and miss the “God” things.

I am challenged to make sure that we are focused on what God is calling us to do.
How about you? Are there some things that need to be pruned at your church? Are there some things that need more focused attention? The process of focused ministry can be challenging if you are a well established church, but the effectivness that can come out of it can be greatly rewarding.

Filed under: Church Planting, Leadership , andy stanley, church, effective ministry, Leadership, ministry, Religion

Relevant Update

Happy December to all of you. Thanksgiving is over and Christmas is around the corner. It is hard to believe that the year is about up.

I wanted to give you all an update of what we are working on for the month of December so you can pray.

We have put together a list of families that we are going to invite to a home meeting this month to share our vision and heart for the church. We are going to take some time to fellowship and have some fun as well.

We would like you all to begin to pray that God will start working on the hearts of those families and others that we may not know yet. We are going to ask for a committal as to what their involvement might be.

Our other major request this month is to nail down a meeting place. We have put a decision date as January 1st on where we are going to meet. We have looked at several schools and we are determining which one is the right place. Please pray for God’s discernment.

Thanks for all of your prayers.

Pastor Kalum
Relevant Church

Filed under: Church Planting , church, Church Planting, God, prayer, relevant church

Church Plant Resource

Just found a great new resource that I wanted to share with the blogging world. If you are familiar with Portable Church Industries (PCI) or Church on Wheels (COW) then you will like this one.

PCI has formed a sister company specializing in a single box solution. If you know what you want for your new church and you do not need a consultation or training, then Church in a Box is the right solution. I just got off of the phone with Adam and he was awesome. They are able to give you the things that you need at a great price.

Check them out.

Filed under: Church Planting , church, church on wheels, church plant resources, Church Planting, mobile church, portable church, relevant church

Leadership Axioms

I just ran across this website and found some great videos from Wayne Corderio. He is talking to a bunch of church planters.

Check it out here.

Filed under: Church Planting , axioms, church, Church Planting, Leadership, planting, wayne corderio

God’s Ordained Time

Earlier today we were able to go through an assessment to evaluate our church planting potential. What made this one different that any other, was we had already been through the process. Our paperwork had been lost and our Church district wanted us to go through it again. On top of being frustrated to have to do this again, we had to dedicate most of our Saturday to doing it. The night before my wife and I had an in depth discussion on what our future holds as it relates to our church planting call. There have not been to many times that I have questioned the call to church plant, but last night was one of those times. We had a horrendous time trying to find childcare to watch our 3 kids for a Saturday. When we found some people, one of their kids got sick yesterday. So as of yesterday afternoon we were not going to be able to attend the assessment. After our long discussion about what God is doing in us and taking some time to pray and really let the Holy Spirit do His work in me, we came to the conclusion that our “discussion” (actually it was an argument) was a spiritual attack from the enemy. The amazing thing was as soon as we called the attack for what it was, we received a phone call from my sister-in-law who said she would watch our children.

Saying all of this was to lead up to today. We went to the assessment with our pre-conceived ideas of what it was going to be like and thinking what we were going to face. As we started the 3 hour process it started the same as it did 2 years ago, but as we moved along, we quickly realized that there was a real reason why we were there for a second time. At the end of the 3 hour assessment, there were some confirming words, affirming words, and some great encouragement in the Lord from the panel who conducted the assessment. We walked away and knew that God had ordained this day and knew that He has something special for us today.

I just have to say that God is an awesome God and He has all of us in the palm of His hands. He knows what we need, when we need it.

Filed under: Church Planting, My Journal , calling, church, Church Planting, God, god's calling, God's hand, prayer, spiritual attacks

God's Ordained Time

Earlier today we were able to go through an assessment to evaluate our church planting potential. What made this one different that any other, was we had already been through the process. Our paperwork had been lost and our Church district wanted us to go through it again. On top of being frustrated to have to do this again, we had to dedicate most of our Saturday to doing it. The night before my wife and I had an in depth discussion on what our future holds as it relates to our church planting call. There have not been to many times that I have questioned the call to church plant, but last night was one of those times. We had a horrendous time trying to find childcare to watch our 3 kids for a Saturday. When we found some people, one of their kids got sick yesterday. So as of yesterday afternoon we were not going to be able to attend the assessment. After our long discussion about what God is doing in us and taking some time to pray and really let the Holy Spirit do His work in me, we came to the conclusion that our “discussion” (actually it was an argument) was a spiritual attack from the enemy. The amazing thing was as soon as we called the attack for what it was, we received a phone call from my sister-in-law who said she would watch our children.

Saying all of this was to lead up to today. We went to the assessment with our pre-conceived ideas of what it was going to be like and thinking what we were going to face. As we started the 3 hour process it started the same as it did 2 years ago, but as we moved along, we quickly realized that there was a real reason why we were there for a second time. At the end of the 3 hour assessment, there were some confirming words, affirming words, and some great encouragement in the Lord from the panel who conducted the assessment. We walked away and knew that God had ordained this day and knew that He has something special for us today.

I just have to say that God is an awesome God and He has all of us in the palm of His hands. He knows what we need, when we need it.

Filed under: Church Planting, My Journal , calling, church, Church Planting, God, god's calling, God's hand, prayer, spiritual attacks