Dean Craig

Today was Todd’s first day at MapleGrove and (I think) just what we need right now to get us onto the top of the next mountain.  It’s really exciting to see how all of this just happened to happen.

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This, my second year at Change Without Compromise, I really expected most of what I was going to hear would be review. Boy was I wrong. Brad Powell was able to drive home the need for change in the church without compromising the message in a new and engaging way that was totally different than last year.

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Last weekend MapleGrove held an outreach event at a local gas station where we paid for $.20 cents off each gallon of gas purchased. It made the front page of the local newspaper and was a huge success overall.

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The first time someone visits your church shouldn’t be the last, but in our efforts to help someone feel welcome we can often do just the opposite. It’s kind of like the pushy salesmen - the harder you try the further you push them away.

Take a look at a couple ways people tend to separate themselves from visitors when their real intent is to get closer.

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This keeps coming up everywhere I am lately; We hear about someone who didn’t like something about how we do what we do and our response is “well, we can’t please everyone.” I say this all the time, backed up with what Jesus said about people that were being neither hot or cold, and what Jesus told people that if you follow me that the world would hate you.

And most people would agree. We can’t please everyone. But does that mean we shouldn’t try?

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