LifeGroups Season 2 is on

07May

LifeGroups Season 2 is on

Consider being part of any LifeGroup now! Check the schedules and send us a quick email at arnold[at]lifechurchmakati.com or call/text 09209518075.

THE CHRISTIAN ATHEIST
A book review of one of Craig’s books
Wednesdays 7:30 pm Glorietta 4 Food Choices Leader: Joyce Gamboa (Women’s)

THE BASICS
A look at how you can grow to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus
Sundays 5:30 pm
Leader: Prudy Verzo (Mixed)

FOUNDATIONS 1
A detailed study of Christianity’s foundational doctrines
Thursdays 7:30 pm EDSA Shangrila Mall
Leader: Arnold Gamboa (Mixed)

MORE FUNDS IN THE PHILIPPINES
Learn how to save and invest
Tuesdays 7:30 pm Glorietta 5
Leader: Deo Pante (Mixed)

21Mar

A Serving-Story at LifeChurch Café

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Frae & Rafael with their baby Luke under the LifeChurch Makati Café signage

This story was told to Prudy by Rafael…

Since becoming a part of LifeChurch Makati family, having Frae baptized here, this has been a great blessing to our very young family life.

We’ve experienced better changes in our lives. We’ve been blessed spiritually, emotionally and financially. Most importantly, truly we are blessed by having a relationship with God making Him center of our everything. Through LifeChurch Makati a God centered-life is at hand.

This being said, we are happy to serve Him in our own little way by being part of LifeChurch Makati Café. It is one way of paying forward the blessings that we have.

LifeChurch Makati is God-driven and God-centered church, and Jesus is with us here.

While Mommy Frae serves Dad Rafael & Baby Luke look over.

29Nov

Carols – FREE Christmas album

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God is with us – in answered promises, realized dreams, and refreshed hope. How could we help but sing? Let’s explore the songs born from our joy that Christ has entered the world.

This December, LifeChurch.tv is taking a look at the meaning of familiar Christmas songs during the message series, Carols. To get in the spirit of the season, you can download the featured songs – along with a few others – for free.

Please share this page with your friends and family so they can enjoy the carols.

Download

Click here to download CAROLS Christmas Album

Carols by lifechurchtv

Sunday Experience

LifeChurch Makati meets every Sunday at 3:30 pm, Glorietta 4 Multi-purpose Hall.

23Nov

Thanksgiving at LifeChurch Makati

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We’re celebrating Thanksgiving, Pinoy style, at LifeChurch Makati!

Bernard and Jasnia is hosting a thanksgiving celebration this Saturday, November 26 at their residence at Rosewood, Taguig. Event starts 3 pm onwards.

Lifers, your friends, everyone who wants to hang out with us, celebrate and EAT — a lot — are welcome.

How to get there:

1. Meeting place

We’ll have a group that will meet at Glorietta 4, Food Choices with Prudy (09172462587). They will leave at around 2 pm.

2. Commute

From Ayala MRT Station proceed to the ground level parking on the right of the escalator. Look for the van with the signage Pallar. Tell the driver or barker to drop at Pallar. At Pallar ride a tricyle going to Acacia Estate Rosewood. Proceed to club house.

What to bring?

Yourself. And some swimming gears if you want to dive in the pool

See you all!

View Larger Map

22Nov

David Bowden, live at LifeChurch Makati

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David Bowden first became known to us when he performed with the LifeChurch.tv a piece for Easter Celebration.

David is a poet and follows the tradition of the Beat Poets of the 1950’s and Slam Poets of the 1980’s. David uses poetry to challenge and inspire individuals and groups to give a voice to the voiceless, promote social justice, and care for the needy throughout the world.

David writes and performs for non-profits, activist movements, and youth conferences around the country. David is married and living in Oklahoma City, working as the Executive Director of the non-profit Give a Goat.

He is currently here in the Philippines for his Foundation. And this Sunday, he’ll be generous enough to share with us his poetry and talent as he visits LifeChurch Makati. Don’t miss David Bowden as he inspires us this Sunday, November 27, 2011 at 3:30 pm. LifeChurch Makati meets at Glorietta 4 Multi Purpose Hall.

Bring a friend! Try to be there earlier as David will render a piece before the experience.

12Nov

Our Moves…to Move LifeChurch Makati!

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Volunteers doing team activity during one of the dinner & vision nights!

Our church is passionate in leading people to become fully devoted followers of Christ and we are establishing it as a church where people who are far away from God would love to attend! These are the things we strongly believe God would like us to do in Makati City.

More so we are so much blessed with a team of leaders who owned for themselves the church’s mission and vision and a bunch of strong dedicated volunteers whose transformed lives are sold out to what LifeChurch Makati has to accomplish!

Because of these we are assured that when we do anything, short of sin, we will be able to accomplish our calling!

OUR 2011 MOVES…

The LifeChurch Makati Band

1. Despite of the comfort we had at Glorietta 4 Cinema 1 as our Sunday Experience venue, for more than a year, we decided to move to Glorietta 4 Multipurpose Hall and adjusted our time schedule from 10:45 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon. We did that to be strategic in our time because our target population were mostly available during the Sunday afternoons. Doing so the lifers were given an enjoyable team effort in transforming the venue to a theater-like ambiance, hanging draperies and the screen, set up the stage and some signage. That happened last September 18, 2011!

Just a note: We also put up a LifeChurch Café where our guests can chat with the lifers over a cup of coffee before the start of the Sunday Experience.

The result of this was the increase of the weekly attendance and we never saw a Sunday where there were no new guests! Lifers were encouraged to bring their friends to a more convenient time and an accommodating venue!

Praying Team

2. Another Makati Lifers’ big move was setting up a Prayer Team who prayed for the prayer requests written in the provided Connection Cards. We have organized our team to pray for every request during the week and made it sure that the prayer messages were sent to those who requested either by mobile phone text message or through their email addresses.

We found out that people appreciated very much being prayed for and they acknowledged that this church really cared so they came back!

3. Then we moved to make our praise and worship time up to another level by organizing three LifeChurch Makati Bands. They sing positive music with state of the art equipments and performances to lead the guests and attendees to worship God in it’s fullest!

The Glorietta Activity Center

OUR 2012 MOVES…

This coming year we were impressed by God to saturate the city in an intentional way!

1. We will start to make the presence of God felt through LifeChurch Makati in the mall where we are house. We plan to have activities such as events in the activity center and the hallways, awareness of our existence through print ads and movie commercials in the Glorietta cinemas. Through these we will shout out that GOD CARES for this city, for its workers and residents!

2. Another move we will do this coming year is to multiply our LifeGroup meetings during the week nights to enhance the way how we lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ (Disciples) by developing and training leaders, as we end 2011, to create new LifeGroups!

We know He will bring many lives back to Him through what we are going to do…THESE ARE BIG MOVES FOR GOD!!!

To all Lifers, Volunteers, Friends and prayer and financial Partners we would like to thank you for being with us in doing church for God…We do these MOVES to bring life to the people of this city because we believe…WHOEVER FINDS GOD FINDS LIFE!!!

17Oct

Thoughts on James 1:1-8

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We started the two part series “PASSING THE TEST” at LifeChurch Makati yesterday. The center of the message was the Bible passage James 1:2-5. Dr. James Macdonald, the senior pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel, explosively opened the most needed message of many who were going through the tests of life!

Then this Monday afternoon I attended a Pastoral-Mentoring group lead by Manong Don Cua (founding pastor of Philadelphia Christ-centered Fellowship). I was gladly surprised when Manong Don shared with us, the pastors he is mentoring, the same passage yesterday. (Posted in picture above).

Let me share with you here what Manong Don presented…

Here are 4 facts about problems that come into our lives (according to the letter of James):

Problems are inevitable. James said “when you meet trials” NOT “if you meet trials.” By that, he meant problems will definitely come in our lives. Problems will come for sure!

Problems are unpredictable. It is a fact of life that we cannot say when is the exact time a problem will come. It will come whether we are ready or not. Whether we are capable of handling it or not. You do not know what kind of problem will attack us. And it comes in the most unexpected time, in the most unexpected way.

Problems are of many kinds. Problems that will come our way are in many varieties. It will be petty, controllable, tremendous, unimaginable or out of this world. And to say the least, it comes also in different sizes and forms.

Yet the good thing is, with God problems are PURPOSEFUL! God has always a way to make all of these problems that come our way to give purpose, meaning and reason in our lives!

To end Manong Don stated the 3 purposes of the problems God allowed to come in our lives:

Problems PURIFY our FAITH!
Those FORTIFY our PATIENCE!
And they SANCTIFY our CHARACTER!

All of my fellow pastors who were struggling in their personal and in their serving lives were so much blessed with these thoughts. And I was doubly blessed by hearing the thoughts on the same passage two times, in two different ways.

I pray that you my readers are blessed alike!

06Sep

Letter to Lifers: What we want to become

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Lifers,

September 18 is a huge day for all of us. It will be the time for the "Bold Move". We're moving from the comfortable, "spoon-fed" and majestic place in Cinema 1 to the "Do-it-ourselves", smaller-yet-very-personal Glorieta Multi-purpose hall. From the usual morning experience to an afternoon, 3:30 experience. Change is always challenging. But with change also comes excitement. We're excited on what God will do through our concerted effort as a team. We'd like to see how God uses each and every one of you when we all move together to prepare the new place and in inviting our friends who are far from God to this new experience.

While we're in that mood of excitement, let me tell you what we want to see in the future — reason why we're doing this. You've heard us tell you this over and over. But let me repeat again — 'till you are tired of hearing it: We want to see a church built where people far from God love to attend.

Recent studies suggest that only 20% of the Philippine population claim to have a relationship with God. And most churches now-a-days cater to the 20%. How about the 80%? Who will reach out to them? Those who are far from God and wouldn't be interested with God using traditional means?

With great respect to other successful churches in the metro — they are our allies, our co-workers for God — let me say again that we are called by God to be different. We will not be Victory, or CCF, or JIL. Our ways, our methods, are different.

That's why we use High Definition video in delivering the message from Craig Groeschel and the teaching team at LifeChurch.tv. That's why we don't call our leaders as "pastors". That's why we use technology heavily. That's why we don't want to bother you with church activities on weekdays so you can be the church in your offices and in your homes. That's why we keep things very simple.

Because we want to see people far from God loving our church.

And while other Christians from other churches will help us in carrying out our mission to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ — believe me, we need matured Christians in our midst — and yet we don't want to fill our church with "transferees". We want to see people far from God gracing our Sunday experiences and LifeGroups. We want you to bring people far from God to LifeChurch.

I'm being redundant, I know. I know. But hey, I can't be redundant enough to make the message come across clear for all of us to understand! Because we're excited to reach people far from God! We're excited to see the hand of God in the lives of our friends, family members and even in our own very lives! This is why we're doing this. This is why there is the Bold Move on September 18! This is why YOU ARE A LIFER!

As we move forward into this unified direction, let's all remember that God will "never leave us nor forsake us". We'll encounter challenges ahead. But nothing can separate us from the love of God. Let's travel together in this exciting season of LifeChurch Makati.

Your fellow traveller,

Arnold

14Aug

Why we try not to call our leaders “Pastor”

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We usually call our church leader’s as “pastors”. We attach this title to their name. “Pastor Joe”, “Pastor Bill”, “Pastor Dude”. Lately, it’s much cooler to just call them “Pastor” … then the first letter of their name. ie. “Pastor J”, or “Pastor B”. In the church where I came from, if you finish a 4 year theology course, they will start calling you “Pastor” even if your job is teaching a University subject on History.

At our church in Makati (LifeChurch Makati), we encourage our people to not call our leaders as “Pastor”, rather just by their first name or just “Kuya”, a typical Filipino term used to convey honor to an older person.

I’m not trying to make a case against other churches who call leaders as “Pastor”. It’s the current church culture, and I don’t see anything wrong with it. It’s just that we’re trying to create a subculture different from the rest — I’m going to explain in a while.

Here’s why I believe it is OK not to call your church leader as “Pastor”:

1. Being a pastor is not a title, it’s a function.

Pastoring is caring for people. It’s a function. Technically, I’m pastoring my family. But I don’t hear my kids calling me “Pastor Arnold”. I’d prefer “Dad”. If you lead a small LifeGroup of say 10 people, you’re technically caring for them, thus “pastoring” them. Should you then be called “Pastor J”?

You don’t need a title to function as a pastor. You simply need to decide and stand up to take the challenge of leadership. Lead, care for people and be a pastor. No title is needed.

2. It breaks down barrier between the clergy and the layman.

LifeChurch Makati’s vision is to be a church people far from God love to attend. If it has to happen, things should function differently. “Church” should not look like the way “church” is right now (where at the heart of it’s approach is to cater for the church people). The way we talk, the way we relate with people, the way we approach a problem and the way we deal with people far from God should be different. One step is to break the leadership titles attached to the names and be available as you are.

3. It create a whole different culture where everyone who are becoming fully devoted followers of Christ can be and should “pastors”.

When people far from God looks for solution, they will not go to the clergy. They will not go to their “Pastors”. They go to their friends who are trained by the leaders to take care of their friends. To be their “pastor”.

Obviously, there are church leaders who take care of the affairs of the church on a high level capacity. They lead, the cast vision and makes sure the church is in the right direction, they teach, they train. But every leader functions as “staff” doing what they are gifted to do. Not to be higher than anyone else as a “Pastor”.

So if you attend LifeChurch Makati, please don’t call us Pastor Arnold or Pastor Prudy or Pastor Whoever. “Arnold” or “Kuya Arnold” works fine. Not “Tito Arnold”. Kuya Arnold, alright?.

08Aug

Invest and Invite!

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In my blog “LifeChurch Makati’s Bold Vision” which was derived from Arnold and myself’s tandem message about the same topic. Arnold stated our vision as “building a church where people far from God would love to attend!”

This is a very challenging vision because you seldom find people far from God go to church…in fact they are most probably if not afraid, hate to attend a church, an institution directly identified with God.

To make them love to be in our church we need to have Bold Actions, one of which is to have BOLD INVITATIONS. But do you know people will not be interested in your concern unless they sense that you are interested with their concerns and that you are interested to know who they are and what they are? If they sense that….they will be attracted to what you are telling them and as a result will be interested with your invitation. That calls for INVESTING in in them!

Investing in people means spending time with them when they needed you. That may even mean investing your personal money to share goods or food to them and let me add emotional investment – that is a bit uncomfortable but if you really wanted your friends who are not incline to be with God will love and enjoy our church experiences we are called to boldly do that.

…to Christ for our BIG MOVE!

I have some few strategical tips in INVESTING and INVITING your friends and family (like that of what most networking companies are advising their members) whom you will invite:

First, PRAY BOLDLY for God to open your eyes of who are the people whom He would like you to lead to Him.
Secondly, you need to MAKE A LIST OF AS MANY FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS WHO ARE FAR FROM GOD. Do not label them by behaviors, characteristics and attitudes while you are writing down their names. Just make a list of all of them.
After doing so, start the screening process, again not by their characteristics and attitudes but by IDENTIFYING THEIR RESIDENTIAL LOCATION. Take out from the list those who are living in the Visayas and the Mindanao and retain the ones who are living closest to the Makati area so that our church venue will be accessible to them.
Then after identifying those who are residing closest to LifeChurch Makati venue…begin the big work of investing in them by RECOGNIZING WHO AMONG YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS ARE LOW MAINTENANCE, RETAIN THEM IN THE LIST, because people who are high maintenance will tear you down in the long run. Later go back to your high maintenance friends and family when the Lord molded you with more patience and love!

As we prepare for the BIG MOVE on September we have our slogan of “LEAD ONE to Christ!” From the remaining names in your list God will give you the right insight of whom to invest and invite so that you will have someONE to lead.

I pray that you will enjoy your INVEST and INVITE…so that you will be over joyed when you see them enjoying our church’s experiences. God Bless your INVESTING and INVITING!!!