As we approach the two year anniversary of the tornado, we look at the story of Jesus and his disciples in the boat during the storm. The disciples learned that day that they had a choice where to look. At the storm...or at the man in the boat who had control of it.

“Looking up” means to live life by continuing to move up the ladder of generosity, to keep growing in what it means to be generous toward God and His kingdom as a response to His grace.

“Moving up” means becoming a proportional giver: someone who gives to God a tenth of their income as first fruits out of gratitude and devotion.

“Stepping Up” means becoming an initial giver: someone who is moving from “getting all I can for myself” (and the stress and anxiety that comes with it) to “giving significantly for the good of others”.

In Back to the Future 2, Marty McFly travels 30 years into the future to October 21, 2015! The movie didn’t really get a lot right. Where are the Hoverboards? God, however, does know the future, he cares about our past, and he wants us to experience Him in the present.

In Christ, we find life that is really living! Refuse to simply go through life, but instead, let Jesus’ life go through you!

The fourth awakening we look at is the Awakening for Love. When we find our way back to God, we will discover our identity as a deeply loved, unconditionally accepted child of God.

The third awakening we look at is the Awakening for Help. When we admit we are powerless to fulfill our longings on our own, we’ll discover there’s help and that help has a name. His name is Jesus.

The first awakening we look at is the Awakening for Longing. The longing to be loved, to find purpose for our life, to find meaning in our pain is given to us by God and intended to lead us back to him.

As we come to the end of our second year as Connect Church, we’ll look at a passage from Isaiah that talks about God promising the Israelites He was about to do a New Thing! What are the New Things we can hope for from God this coming year?