We just finished up “Epic Gift,” a mini-series in our “Epic” study through the book of Genesis. This walk through the life of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph began back in September when we moved into the Elementary School for Sunday morning worship. We started in Genesis 12 with God’s call to Abraham to “get up and go” and we have just witness the culmination of his learning to trust God with the near-sacrifice of Isaac on the altar in Genesis 22. I am really enjoying this story so far. What do you think? Send me an email to let me know what you’re thinking about this series so far.

We have the rest of Genesis tentatively mapped out... It goes like this:
Epic Life (January-Feb)
Epic: The Next Generation (Feb-Mar)
Epic Family Issues (Mar-April)
Epic Dreams (May- June)

As always, God reserves the right to change our plans at any moment, so you may not want to put these in your calendar.

I hope you are loving the EPIC series that we’re doing in Genesis! We’ve learned about God’s promises, our obedience, His consistency, and who Melchizedek represents in our lives today!



The rest of this EPIC journey of knowing God is broken up into epic miniseries. The first one starts THIS SUNDAY, and in it we’ll ask the question, what happens when we FAIL at what God has called us to? How should we respond to our own failure, and how does God respond to it? Join us as we look deeper into the story of Abram, and see how it parallels our own.

If you need to catch up on our series to date (we’ve had SIX in the series so far) you can hear them all on our podcast page.

I can’t believe that we’ve already had four worship services in the Ellijay Elementary School! Honestly, we expected there to be a BUNCH of weird kinks that we’d have to work out. While we definitely have to “grow into” a few things, I have been amazed at how smooth the transition has been!



I have to give a HUGE SHOUT OUT to our teams, because that have really gone the extra mile to iron out any wrinkles BEFORE they had the chance to pop up! Of course, our Logistics team is thrilled that they don’t have to be on at the theater late on Saturdays... And they’re doing a great job getting everything set into place early on Sundays. Our Hospitality team makes everything warm and welcoming. Our CHILDREN’S MINISTRY team are just plain knocking it out of the park with GREAT environments for babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary school kids every weekend. Get this... We’ve seen our children’s ministry EXPLODE from an average of THREE kids in preschool & nursery to over 40 kids in just four weeks! WOW!

Here are just a few observations that I’ve noticed in the past four weeks:

• We’ve had over FIFTY first-time visitors since our big move! If you’re one of them, thanks for visiting!
• We’ve seen 12 people turn their lives over to Christ for the first time! Praise God!
• Kidmo is a LOT more fun than I thought it would be! I sneak in there sometimes during worship in big church.
• Everything is WAY spread out now... I can’t just leave my notebook lying around somewhere or I will NEVER find it in time for the message!
• There are LOTS more people in the room now!
• We have a “confidence monitor” on the back wall now. It has the same image as the screens in front. It doesn’t instill me with confidence. Why is that?
• ONE service is easy.
• ONE service allows us to get everyone together
• ONE service gets us to lunch quicker, too!
• Ken Neybert is an encouragement BEAST. Thanks for lifting me up, dude.
• Green signs everywhere!!!!!

If you haven’t joined us yet on a Sunday morning since we’ve moved, you really should... We are the SAME church that we were in the movie theater, but there are some very different dynamics going on now, and I love it!

We’re off to a great start in our new meeting location, and our new message series through (most of) Genesis is going to be great.



So, several people have asked me, “If you’re going to do a study on Genesis, why begin in chapter 11, instead of... You know... At the beginning?” I say, “Great question!” I usually give a short, fairly concise answer... But the truth is a little more complex.

The PENTATEUCH, what we know as the first five books of the Old Testament, (also known as Torah) were penned by Moses originally as a single story with basically five chapters. It was much, much later that we further subdivided them down into chapters and verses as they are today. The Pentateuch is the foundational teachings of the Hebrew faith. The first section, “Genesis,” is really the BEGINNING of the redemptive work of God in humanity.

Typically, when we think of Genesis, we think of the act of creation, Adam and Eve, and the Garden story. But the real story of Genesis begins with the call of Abram in Genesis 12. (45 out of 50 chapters in Genesis are NOT about creation.) All of Genesis 1-11, including Cain & Abel, Noah & the Flood, the Tower of Babel... All of it should be regarded as PREFACE, or SETUP for the story of Abram, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Their story is our story. It is all about a group of people trying to stumble their way through a relationship with God.

That’s why I’m excited about this series. I think we’ll find a lot about ourselves, and about how God works in and through us right here in Ellijay. I hope you’ll join us for it.