Patrick O'Connell

Stories from Liberty

Nate Williams, Campus Pastor of our newly launched Liberty Campus, is blogging. I love his vision to focus on story telling. I am confident that God is going to do some cool things in Liberty and Nate's going to be there for every minute of it.

Foundations

I was reading in Corinthians yesterday and inspired by Paul's words. I found them relevant to what we are doing in Liberty. I am praying that we never forget the foundation upon which we are building this thing.

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 3:10-11) ESV.

Restore is Launching in Liberty this weekend!

Troy sent out this message to the Restore community. I can't wait until Sunday.

This weekend at Restore Community Church will be one of the most significant in our two year history.  From the very beginning we have dreamed about being a church that is focused on reproducing leaders, artists and churches that help people find their way back to God.  This Sunday that dream will continue to come to life as we launch Restore in Liberty, MO.  We will be meeting at 10am at the Liberty Community Center, 1600 S Withers Rd, Liberty MO.  If you live in Liberty or have a friend that lives nearby, I encourage to attend and bring someone along with you.  If you have any questions, just email Nate Williams at nate@restorecc.org.

A Day of Prayer for Reachout

Yesterday was my day off. I was able to respect that boundary, at least until the evening when I capitulated and started catching up on some administrative tasks.

But during the day I was able to spend several hours at the International House of Prayer here in KC. I prayed for Restore and more specifically, our Reachout ministry. I found the experience refreshing and energizing.

I am finding that more of my time, energy, and passion is being invested in our Reachout efforts. This is both exciting and challenging.

We dream of Restore being a church that makes a difference in the community, in the city, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). We are doing some pretty cool things already if you ask most .  And yet, I know that God will call us to that 'one thing' in the community where He wants us to make a difference. I prayed about this today. The fact that I was able to focus on Reachout (despite all of the other things that are going on at Restore and in my life) was encouraging.

What my day of prayer and contemplation at IHOP reminded me is that this 'one thing' will come to us through prayer. And so I am resolved to keep praying and praying and praying.

511!

Yep, that's right. This was the final attedance number for Sunday at Restore. We had two services ( 9.30 and 11) and both were very well attended.

Oh yeah-- we also celebrated 9 Baptisms.

What a great day at Restore.

The funny thing is that Sunday was a preview of our two services. All of our marketing and outreach has identified the 14th as the offical launch of two services!

I can't wait to see what God does this weekend.

Tommy Bowman's Song for Community

Tommy Bowman is a gifted songwriter. Moreover, he and I have been on this amazing journey together at Restore and we have worked really hard at trying to determine how Restore can be a difference-maker in our community. 

And so I was thrilled when when we sang his new tune 'Together You and I' about God-community this weekend at Restore. Wow was it powerful. 

The cool part is that Tommy and I are part of this Theology Club that meets at Starbucks every Tuesday AM and we were discussing the Trinity and the fact that God was in community with himself long before he created man. Tommy took the idea and wrote this song. 

You ought to check it out. Better yet, tell your worship leader to do it during service because Tommy will get the royalties and he has a baby due and all.

Seriously, it's a moving song. Check it out here.

Parkville Days Booth

This weekend Restore set-up a booth at Parkville Days Festival along the river in downtown Parkville.

We thought that having a booth would be a great opportunity for us to reachout and connect with the community. Our plan was simple: be present in community, handout free water bottles, and ask people to complete a simple survey. The survey asked them to identify the 'Best of the Best' in our community before asking them for their opinions about its greatest needs.

By the end of the festival Sunday evening we'd given away a total of 1500 bottles of water. Our contributors had some really cool conversations with people while doing handing out the water. And nearly 200 people took our survey. We plan on using this information to begin a formal assessment of our community--more on that later.

I am convinced that it's essential for the church (especially new churches) to listen and dialogue with the community as frequently as possible. 

 

Restore Fan Page on Facebook

So we now Restore Community Church has a fan page on Facebook. Be sure to join as we are going posting content regularly.

Replenish 3--School Supplies

Check out Troy's post about Replenish 3 earlier this month. 

For those of you who don't know, Replenish is the quarterly effort of Restore Community Church to replenish one of our partner organizations with some sort of supplies. We did food during Replenish 1 and 2 and now tried our hand at school supplies. 

I am really inspired by this outpouring of supplies for kids who really needed them.

Heating my focus

I arrived to the high school this morning only to learn that we STILL didn't have any air-conditioning.

Complicating things was the fact that it was a scorcher in KC today.

But despite the heat, our team rallied. Our contributors made the best of it and we made sure to hand out plenty of water and fans to everyone.

The lack of air-conditioning was sort of like fasting. My discomfort from the heat fueled my focus on God.

Sort of a blessing I wasn't expecting.