I watched Akeelah and the Bee last Friday night with my family. It was a warm movie about an inner city middle school girl, who competes, and wins the National Spelling Bee. Lawrence Fishburne plays her coach. The uplifting story line contained elements of overcoming, of rising above, of stepping through fear, of daring to be great.
I’m honored to be a part of a church that is a part of a similar kind of uplifting story. Overlake is truly pursuing God’s call. It is a selfless story of overcoming. Of rising above. Of stepping through fear. Of daring to be great. I’m not overstating this.
OCC is called to be a church of 10,000 lives living free in Jesus, impacting 100,000 lives around the world. In a season of economic uncertainty, we seek to invest $3million in each of our 3 purposes: Love God, Love People, and Serve the World.
The Love God initiatives will focus on local Bringvitation, sharing Christ’s love with our community. The Love People initiatives will focus on Transformation, growing more and more like Jesus. And the Serve the World initiatives focus on Multiplication, caring and sharing around the globe. Which, practically speaking, means this: 1000 slaves set free. 2000 orphans placed in homes. 50 HIV/AIDS clinics opened. 1000 churches planted. Lives will be saved. Eternities will be changed. Hope will be offered.
I’d love to invite you to be a part of this journey too.
In Akeelah and the Bee, there is a quote from Nelson Mandela (at least it is credited to him; perhaps he just quoted it as well). It goes like this:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.”
Overlake, you are not a church that plays small. Let us Love God, Love People, and Serve the World, together.
4 comments:
Mike that is a quote from Nelson Mandela's inageral speech and it is my favorite! :) I will get you the whole excerpt I have. It's on my wall in my office at work. Inspiring, true, AND exactly the right message. I'm loving going on this journey with you, friend! You rock!
Jaci Reed
Great post!
(you mention Samuel L. Jackson but you mean Laurence Fishburne, right?)
Nobody's perfect Andrew, even hip pastors forget actors from time to time...but seriously, Mike, everyone knows Sam. L. Jackson doesn't do kids movies. JK. :) hehe
Go OCC!We love Jesus and Washington like crazy!!
Samuel Jackson is a Jedi, and Lawrence Fishburne is Morpheus, so either way there is a strong guru-type win...
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