It’s time for our nation to band together to rise above the fear! Town Hall For Hope isn’t just a one-time event; its a nationwide movement to bring hope back to all Americans.

Invite friends. Invite coworkers. Invite neighbors. Invite family. Invite the lady that checks you out at Aldi. Invite the person that serves you coffee at Panera. Invite the wait staff that serves you lunch today. Invite your dentist. Invite your babysitters. Invite, Invite Invite!

Plan to Attend

Join in the crusade by making your voice heard! We want to spread the message of hope across this country in every way possible, including the best social networks on the internet.

Trying to make sense of the economy?

Leading financial expert Dave Ramsey joins us to share timeless advice on the money matters right under your own roof. Learn how to take control of your financial future and launch a personal financial revolution during our upcoming message series starting March 15th.

Sunday, December 28 is Your Choice Sunday. Neither Craig nor Jerris will be speaking that Sunday, so you get to help choose what message we hear that Sunday.  We can experience one of the messages we skipped this year or we can have a rerun of a popular one that we’d like to revisit.  It’s Your Choice.

Tell us what you want below:

Or Click Here to fill out the survey.

Wow! Sunday night was an incredible time of fellowship, worship, and sharing what God has been doing in our family. Several people asked if any of this will be available online.  Here are a couple of the videos that were shown.

How Great Is Our God - Celebrate Grace 2008

God of This City - Champaign, IL

2008 has been an amazing year where God has clearly shown up and led us forward. I can’t wait to see how 2009 unfolds.

Here’s a short video of some of the work that was done today.

Thanks to everyone for showing up and cleaning up all sorts of things around Grace. Great job!

Yesterday at Grace we mentioned the 3 Month Tithing Challenge. In Malachi 3:8-10, God asks us to literally test Him in regards to tithing. That’s the idea with the 3 Month Tithing Challenge — test out tithing for 3 months and if you aren’t convinced of God’s faithfulness to bless your life as a result of your obedience to His Word, we’ll refund your money. It’s that simple.

To register for the 3 Month Tithing Challenge download the form linked below and return it to Grace:

There are several local athletes currently competing in the 2008 Paralympics in Bejing, including our very own coach Mike “Frog” Frogley. Grace Community had originally planned to host live video of the gold medal games for both women’s and men’s wheelchair basketball. But due to the recent bad weather we decided to encourage you to view these events on your own. The most interesting live coverage is early of a morning this Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Below are links and details for viewing these live events from your computer.

Live Internet Video Coverage:
http://www.paralympicsport.tv/
http://www.universalsports.com/

Monday, Sept 15
8:30a Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Gold Medal US vs Germany
The US women’s team features several athletes and coaches from the University of Illinois.

Tuesday, Sept 16
6:30a Men’s Wheelchair Basketball Gold Medal Canada vs Australia
7:00a Wheelchair Rugby Final

Wednesday, Sept 17
7:00a Closing Ceremony

Live Internet Video Coverage:
http://www.paralympicsport.tv/
http://www.universalsports.com/

There are 20 University of Illinois students, alumni, and coaches represented in this year’s Paralympic Wheelchair Basketball, including our very own Steve Serio (US) and Mike Frogley (CAN).

For more information, here are a few more websites to check out:

Mike Frogley’s Blog:
http://blog.chicago2016.org/index.php/author/mfrogley/

University of Illinois Paralympic News:
http://ahs.uiuc.edu/news/paralympic.htm

Bejing 2008 Paralympic Games:
http://en.paralympic.beijing2008.cn/index.shtml

Wheelchair Basketball Schedule (-13 hours for CDT):
http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRMP/ENG/Schedule/WB.shtml

ParalympicSport.tv Live Coverage (-13 hours for CDT)
http://player26.narrowstep.tv/assets/players/3206/html/player.html

Universal Sports Coverage Schedule (-1 hour for CDT)
http://www.universalsports.com//SportSelect.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=23000&KEY=&SPID=13327&SPSID=107950

A group of 8 of us from Grace attended the Leadership Summit at the Peoria satellite campus last week on August 7-8. Lots of others at Grace expressed interest in attending this conference, but couldn’t fit it into their schedules. So, below are some highlights of the summit.

View More Photos

Besides some great music and worship, there were 9 main sessions that featured some of the most innovative and effective leaders in the US. Below are links to videos and overviews of each of the sessions.

Session 1
Bill Hybels - The High Drama of Decision Making
Overview & Comments
Video Highlights

Session 2
Gary Haugen - Just Courage: Charging the Darkness
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 3
Bill George - Finding Your True North
Overview & Comments
Wendy Kopp - Stand Up and Lead
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 4 - Leading in New Cultural Realities
John Burke and Efrem Smith
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video with John Burke
Backstage Video with Efrem Smith

Session 5
Craig Groeschel - IT: How Leaders Can Get IT and Keep IT
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 6
Chuck Colson - Defending the Faith
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 7
Catherine Rohr - Risk Taking, Barrier Breaking, Bold Leadership
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 8
Brad Anderson - An Uncompromising Focus on People
Overview & Comments
Backstage Video

Session 9
Bill Hybels - Relentless
Overview & Comments

For more information about what we experienced at the Summit, ask Brian, Bunny, Curtis, Cynthia, Ellen, Jerris, Judy, or myself.

Currently 1480 churches representing 830,000 people in 27 countries are standing together sharing their One Prayer for the church. This coming weekend is the official weekend we will be receiving an offering (in addition to our regular offering). Together we will support four international organizations in planting 500 new churches in Cambodia, India, Sudan, and China! The local church is the hope of the world, and these churches will be able to make a sustainable, lasting and eternal impact on these four strategic regions. The OnePrayer network explored many great causes and organizations that we could collectively support, but the vision of local churches from around the world uniting to invest in planting churches was the most synergistic with the vision of One Prayer.

100% of all funds collected for the One Prayer offering will be distributed to four international church planting organizations. These organizations will plant 500 new churches in the geographical regions of Cambodia, India, Sudan, and China.

Lots more details and resources are available at http://www.oneprayer.com/missions/.

One of the action steps of our current One Prayer series is to fast. Fasting generally means to give up eating for a specific time in order to focus more clearly upon God. We’re encouraging everyone to fast each Tuesday in June and to join hundreds of thousands in prayer for the Church.

If you’re like me, giving up an entire day’s food is a huge step. So, maybe you want to consider giving up something specific for the rest of this month. Then throughout the month when you crave whatever you gave up, you can use that as a reminder to pray. I’ve heard several people around Grace throwing out ideas for this sort of fast. Here are some ideas I’ve heard of things to fast from this month: sweets, fast food, soda, coffee, television, sex, movies, snacks, french fries.

Here’s a video with some more advice on fasting from JT Moody, the Campus Pastor at the Stillwater campus of LifeChurch.tv:

Check out our website each Tuesday morning for tips on what we can pray for as the Church. Today’s prayer topic is for salvation of people we know.

Are you joining us in this fast? Have any suggestions of things to give up this month to help you focus on prayer? Share your stories.