therstblog

Had an opportunity to preach @ Epic Village this past Saturday. I debated and debated about posting, but know that there are some of you who wanted to be there but couldn’t, and well some of you are just nosy… so i have decided to post the video… I hope you enjoy, but more importantly I pray that you hear something that resonates with your heart concerning His love for you and His desire for your life…

PS- it starts midway into my intro, so forgive me in advance for that…

the power of one…. from lloydowens on Vimeo.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity of sharing my heart with the Epic Village family. It was an amazing night of Worship!!!

Greetings

I am sorry first of all for not providing updates more regularly, but I wanted to take this time to update you on my family, peculiarplace and all that God is doing and how you can be praying with us.

The last two and half months have been a major adjustment. A good one at times, and well a difficult one at others. The boys are back and in school. Enjoying, so that is something to get up and do a praise dance for…lol Esther and I are in an amazing place as far as our relationship is concerned. Still growing, but enjoying the time and growth as opposed to fighting it. Did I mention my little man, Zion, is now 9 months old!!! Whew! He will be 1 in less than 3 months, where does time go?

At this point, she (Esther) is a full time mom, and I have found myself being a pastor, freelance graphic designer and a potential business owner. With that said, things are tight, or are getting tight. We are needing God to show up in a MAJOR way in our sources of finances whether that is support, or a job for me. My desire is to raise enough support, 2500.00, to pay our bills- rent utilities and car insurance, and get a PT job in our community to pay for the rest of our daily lives. I include numbers because I believe in being specific when going to the Father. A PT job would give me the freedom to BE in the community working versus OUT of the community with a job. I believe God has called us to this community and therefore want every stitch of our efforts, work, toil, frustration & joy to come out of this community.

We have an amazing project coming up next month. God has shown us a possible way to touch the lives of 10,000 people with a simple flier. We are going door to door with a flier we are designing that will ask our community “How can we serve YOU?” on one side and on the other will ask how we can help making this a better community. We will then direct them to a website where they can submit their ideas. We will also provide a phone number for those who do not have computers or cant get to a computer. We will take those ideas and create a list of serving opportunities that will run every month until our public launch. We will also be asking for those who share ideas to get involved and help, a way to get some face time and build relationships with people in our community. To top it all off, i must brag on God, we have a possible army of 200-400 college students who will provide 3 hours of their time to help us pass out these fliers next month!

We had a meeting this past weekend where two important things came out of that meeting. One, we will begin sometime next month, all of us, serving at least 10 hours in the Old Fourth Ward community. Whether that is at John Hope Elementary, the school we partner with, or at a homeless shelter, or at a community clean up… this is going to be somewhat STRONGLY encouraged behavior for the peculiarplace launch team and then the church when we go public. Imagine a community where 80% of your church membership spent 10 hours somewhere, someway affecting the lives of others by giving up a small amount of one of the most precious commodities, time. That’s what we are striving for!! Serving Groups!!! We want to BE the church Monday through Saturday, giving us a REAL reason to come together and celebrate on Sunday!!

Also out of that meeting we discussed finding a person or couple to begin mentoring/discipling. We are all praying right now for God to openly make plain and share with us who in our lives or what “perfect” stranger He would have us invest in!! God is going to do something BIG here I know He is. Again, this is something we are starting today, that will continue long after we launch.

How can you pray for us & peculiarplace:

1.)Finances, we all could use more right now, but this is a prerequisite to us being able to live in the community God has called us to serve. Pray that He open doors for support, that He opens doors to freelance design gigs, pray that He multiply seed sown!

2.) A successful flier, “survey project” next month. We possibly have the man power, but we need funds to purchase fliers(270.00), tshirts 500, water for army of volunteers, & snacks(150.00). Pray that God through this simple flier awaken His sleeping spirit in this community. Pray that lives will be invested in, hearts will be changed, minds renewed, hope restored & that peculiarplace will be in the position to Shepard those who heed the call to be a part of what God is doing in O4W. Pray that the lives of those college students will never be the same after this project!

3.) Pray that our volunteer hours spent in this community are not in vain. Pray that Lives our touched, relationships are built, God is Glorified in our efforts to serve this community through a number of venues. Pray that doors are opened to new and innovative ideas in which we can serve this community in the future. Pray for our safety as we venture into realms outside of our safety zone in our volunteering efforts.

4.) Pray that Esther and I will come up with the finances to make two very important trips next month. One is to Houston, TX for an assessment. The other is to Tenn. for an amazing opportunity to be in the presence of people who can teach us and build relationships that may lead to partnership.

5.) Continue to pray that our marriage, our ability to parent, our ability to be sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, as well as friends continues to look like the image God has created these relationships to look like. We must first be an example of His Grace, Mercy & Redemptive Power before we can ever honestly share Him. The evidence MUST BE evident in our lives!!!!

Thank you and let me know how we can pray for you, because I BELIEVE HE IS A GOD WHO ALWAYS, and I MEAN ALWAYS, ANSWERS PRAYERS!

Love you!

GOT YOUR ATTENTION… GOOD!

Listen, let us be honest with ourselves, we are losing a battle that is bigger than anything we have ever fought. Look around you right now, where you live, work and play. Someone you know and love, a stranger at the coffee shop, a co-worker who cries themselves to sleep every night is hurting, dying on the inside and ultimately is going to spend eternity in HELL because of you, me, we wont… we just wont do enough about it!

This is not a “church” bashing post, but this is a cry, a plea, an urgent message that i believe we all need to hear. If you are offended, good. If you think I have no room to talk, then stop thinking and do something. I don’t care! We are sitting by arguing with each other while we tell our friends, family and others to: GO TO HELL!!, by not BEING the CHURCH!!!

MY HEART BLEEDS…

my heart concerning the Kingdom of God. These are the things I believe He has sent me to teach a group of people that He has set aside for a peculiarplace. That’s what I believe and nothing can change that. Church growth strategies, marketing, and all the other “church planter” stuff is great, and honestly a must have to some degree, but if we believe God IS, and not was, if we believe in the depths of our heart that He is ALL powerful and has created us in His image, if we believe that like Abraham, Paul and others that He has created a place for us, if we believe that He is the one who moves on the hearts of people as He did Pharaoh, then what is the fuss about? What are we debating theology, doctrine and church “styles” for? I mean really! People are dying and going to Hell, not because we don’t have the latest and greatest, but because we are SILENT! Because our lifestyles don’t match our perfectly coordinated/programmed services, because our words are not the Father’s Words, because our prayers are so self-centered, because we don’t GIVE without looking to receive, because we don’t die daily to sin, because we make excuses about sharing the greatest gift ever given, because we stop falling on our faces to confess and repent, because we choose a “private” savior over a PUBLIC LORD, because we hide behind past hurts and pains and assume vulnerability is from hell, because we have tolerated and not LOVED… I could go on forever and I am just as guilty as anyone else as being caught up in these issues! I am NOT PERFECT, nor do I LIVE the PERFECT life and I will never pretend to be! What I know is that the way we LIVE, LOVE & GIVE can and WILL change the world, or at least the parts of the world assigned to us .

I am simply looking for people who agree to come along side of peculiarplace and get their freaking hands dirty!! Looking for people of all races, backgrounds, experiences and cultures to DO SOMETHING instead of all this FREAKING TALKING! LETS BE THE CHANGE!!

Interested?

peculiarplace has decided that we are going to make Him famous through the way we LIVE.

ITS THAT SIMPLE!

People NEED, MUST and WANT to see Him in the way “we” who follow Him live. Not just on Sundays or Mother’s Day or Easter, but everyday and in everyday situations! They need to see families growing stronger together in good and bad times. They need to see examples of how to handle “situations” that would drive most to brink of destruction. People, you neighbor, your coworker, your friend for 20 years MUST see you in a new light, pointing and headed in a new direction with PEACE in your front pocket and the Word in your heart!!

Teaching people how to live for Him, IN Him and through Him, that’s why we are being SENT to Old Fourth Ward. This wont be an event, but we will CELEBRATE. This wont be a social gathering where gossip and competition reign supreme, but we will “LOVE” one on another, support one another, relate and build relationships with one another. This is not and never will be a soup kitchen, not that anything is wrong with that (I can hear the chatter now), but we will give BIGGER, BETTER and HARDER than any other organization in the community in which “we” LIVE!!

making Him famous through the way we LIVE!! ..Living for Him, IN Him, and through Him!

Want to know more, email me lowens@peculiarlove.com… thank you!!!

I have been asked this question several times. Although, never as much as, “Where exactly is Old Fourth Ward or O4W?” I can answer both of those and have decided to do that here now.

Why?
It reminds me of myself.

I know some of you were expecting some super spiritual answer, but this is the biggest reason I know. Its not quite there yet, a work in progress, its bursting through the seams with promise and potential, its a diverse mix of experiences, lifestyles, cultures, and creativity, it has a past that only makes its commitment to its future that much stronger, its located in between right now and yesterday (downtown and the historic MLK centers), its safe and not so safe… I could go on, but at the end of the day it is just like me. I feel at home there. I have watched it grow into who it is over the lat ten years just as it has watched me grow. I remember when it wasnt so pretty and clean. I know there are some who remember the same about me. So, besides God allowing me to be a part of what He wants to do there, this is the reason. Any questions?

Where? Old Fourth Ward, O4W, is located between downtown Atlanta and Little Five Points. Two of the biggest landmarks I can think of, that the casual visitor or resident would actually know where they are. More specificaly its West border is Piedmont, North border is Ponce de Leon, its arbitrary East border is the Beltline, and its Southern border, for me anyway, is Edgewood Ave. Im hoping the map will help you out…. Any questions?