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Four18 Update

May 8, 2013 in Blog, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 2 Comments

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Today I wanted to take a moment and share with you what has been going on in the Student Ministry at Open Door. Four18 has had one incredible and busy month. We have had some awesome things happen, so here we go…

  • Roughly one month ago we had our Four18 Easter services. We had our student small groups praying for this service in the weeks leading up to it. They were “circling” their fellow students and friends. Their faith was at a whole ‘nother level and did God show up! We had our highest attendance of people, 108. Not only was it standing room only, we got to see 10 students step into a relationship with Jesus!!! It was an awesome experience to see God meet us as we stood on His promises in prayer.
  • Overflow 2013 is rapidly approaching. July 15th seems to be creeping up on us quickly. If you are not familiar with Overflow, it is a week long youth camp that we host for our students. Last year was our first year putting on a camp and the process has been completely different the second time around. During our first year we took just over 40 students, and getting that number was pretty difficult. This year we announced Registration for camp was open, and within 2 months we exceeded capacity. We currently have 85 students signed up for Overflow and have just a few spots available. We are beyond pumped for camp! So Open Door family here is your warning: these students are going to come back and you better be ready to run with them because they are going to set this area on FIRE!
  • Last week we had our last fundraiser for Overflow. We had our BBQ Dinner Fundraiser. I just want to say THANK YOU to all those who participated, volunteered, and bought a dinner. We went from selling 450 dinners last year to 1,330 dinners this year! I am stoked about that because each plate that was purchased went towards helping cut costs for students to go to camp. So thank you!

Thank you for taking the time to read about what’s going on with the students of Open Door. Continue to pray for us as we plan and get ready for camp this July. We believe this will be a catalyst in our year. We appreciate all your support!

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Tyler Braden
Student Director

6 Things You Need to Know

November 7, 2012 in Children's Ministry, Community Outreach, Four18 Students, From Aaron Kennedy, Message Series with 1 Comment

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I just wanted to take a moment and update you on a few things coming up so that you can help us pray as we continue to seek what God has for us as a church! As always we are praying for you and are so blessed to have you as a part of the Open Door family!!

1. I’m so excited for what God is doing in our student ministry! We are literally seeing teenagers come to know Christ weekly in Four18! Our attendance has grown to average around 70 students or more, and we are continuing to see growth. We already updated the room earlier this year and we just ordered more chairs and we are still running out of room! To help, we are getting ready to expand space again by ripping down more walls upstairs which will provide more space for our Students and our After School program that meets during the week which has now grown to around 50 children each day!

2. In addition to our students, our Children’s Ministry has launched our new 4 & 5 year old ministry Kidmo Jr. This has been a huge win; and parents have responded as we continue to see tremendous growth in that age range. Thanks for answering the call, and helping us reach more children than ever!!! We are so blessed by the incredible volunteers that serve throughout the month!

3. Please be praying for our Senior Pastor, Greg Kennedy, as he is in Latvia over the next two weeks speaking into pastors and spiritual leaders in that country. Pray for protection over him in his travels and strength as he will be teaching over 20 times in the next few weeks. God is continuing to grow our influence to the nations and we are so excited to see what God continues to do as we change the world for the kingdom of God!

4. One of the most important times of year is upcoming as our City Outreach Day is right around the corner on November 17. Because of how many we have had answer the call in the last few years we have expanded what we normally do in the Fall, and we need your help!! We still have some openings to fill for this year’s Outreach Day. We are also collecting food all month long. Please consider bringing some needed items with you throughout this month. Click here to get more information about all the different events your family can participate in to reach our community and show love and compassion to them this Holiday season!

5. Our Christmas service is going to be held on December 23rd and we are so excited about what we have planned for this service and the opportunity we will have to reach tons of unchurched people that day. Please be in prayer for that day and we are asking you to ask people to attend! This is a great opportunity to invite someone to church and believe God to impact their lives. We will be releasing invite cards to help you as the date approaches!

6. We are currently in a VERY IMPORTANT series on family and relationships called Worth Fighting For.  Please be praying for me as we continue in the series over the next few weeks and make plans to be here if at all possible. I believe this is an important time in our families in which God wants to grow us closer to each other by growing us closer to Him. If you missed last Sunday’s service, you can check it out by clicking here.

Thank you for all the sacrifices you make for the kingdom of God. Open Door is blessed because of you and your love for the King we all serve…. it is only getting better and may Christ receive all the glory!!

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Aaron Kennedy
Executive Pastor

Got Rhythm?

September 5, 2012 in Blog, Children's Ministry, Community Outreach, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 0 Comments

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Our Family Ministries Department is growing and we have rhythm! Rhythm is defined as a movement or procedure with uniform or patterned recurrence of a beat or accent. Who doesn’t love a good beat? Since the beginning of summer, we have been seeing a steady flow of God and a rhythm in our children’s ministries and student ministries.

We had a great response for the book bag community outreach. We were able to service families here and give to Hope of Glory Ministries, one of our Community Outreach Partners, to help service those in need.

On September 2, our children’s ministries launched Kidmo Junior. We are excited to be able to minister to our four and five year olds in their own setting, with worship, word, and tons of fun! For more information or how you can serve, contact our children’s director, meganpulaski@go2odm.com. We’ve also got an exciting event for families right around the corner: Kidmo Primetime! It’s an event for kids (ages 4-5th Grade) and their parents and families on September 23 at 6pm. Check out more information by clicking here.

After our summer student ministries camp, Overflow, our student department has been experiencing growth, which is producing a rhythm amongst us! Relationships are forming and our students are flowing in that rhythm as we provide opportunities for them to worship, connect, and serve! To continue the rhythm, this Friday the 7th at 7:30pm is the Genesis at Open Door. Students and parents will come together at the Genesis to hear our hearts, to see how Four18 works and what’s ahead for your families as we partner together in the growth of the next generation. Details on the event can be found on our website here or by contacting our student director, tylerbraden@go2odm.com.

Another opportunity for families we are excited to announce is our Fall Festival on October 31! More details will be available soon, but you don’t want to miss this evening of food, fun, and worship with our Worship Team and our special guest, Michael Taylor. We are amping up the food, increasing the games and ending the evening with PRAISE!

We want to give our families as many opportunities to worship, connect, serve, and give together. Our hopes are that you will be able to continue the flow of rhythm within your home. If Sunday worship is the only constant rhythm we experience, then we will be offbeat during the week!

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Gina Robinson
Family Ministries Director

5 Things You Need to Know

August 22, 2012 in After School, Blog, Child Development Center, Current Events, Four18 Students, From Aaron Kennedy, Message Series with 3 Comments

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Hey guys, I wanted to take a quick second of your time and share with you five things that are important for you to know as part of Open Door. It’s an amazing season and things are happening all over the ministry that are exciting! Continue to believe with us for the continued favor and blessing of God as we pursue all that He has called us to do.

1. Our students in Four18 are experiencing an incredible move of God over this summer. We had standing room only this past Sunday night as students were hungry for Christ! Bottom line is God is answering our prayers from earlier this year that God would raise up a generation of students that would seek the face of God!

2. We currently have almost 200 kids enrolled in our Child Development Center and new After School program! That means that on a daily basis we will have the opportunity to pour into families and kids the great and mighty love of Christ!! That is awesome…. I am stoked…. God is amazing!!

3. We have been gathering on Thursday nights for some “Old School” prayer meetings and God has been stirring a passion for His presence in our people… pray that we continue to have a hunger stir in us as a people for God. Please make an effort to get here on Thursday nights from 7-8pm. Remember, as we’ve been saying during the Heart to Heart series, if you want something different than you have, then you have to do something different than you’re doing.

4. Uprise our college ministry is starting back this week. Please be praying for our volunteers and students that God would do something awesome on the campus this year. We are blessed to have tons of students that attend Open Door! Be sure to make them feel welcome and encourage them to attend Uprise on Wednesday nights in Mendenhall from 8-9pm in Room 15!

5. We are starting a new series next month entitled Epic Faith. We strongly believe that God wants to do something powerful in this new series over the month of September. I want you to invite everyone you know from young to old as we believe God to work in our lives and for our faith to grow. We’ll be looking at some very practical steps to walking out our lives with epic faith in God. You don’t want to miss this new series, and invite everyone you can because we are praying that God would continue to change lives each and every Sunday!

I love you guys and I am so grateful to be one of your pastors. Please know that God is for you and not against you and that as we place our faith in Him our potential is unmatched. No matter what you have done, His love for you does not waver!

I leave you with a comment from Pastor Dad this past Sunday that truly encouraged me: “Two days living in your sin is at least one day too long… get up, ask for forgiveness and go on.” You guys are awesome, and remember our best days are ahead of us!

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Aaron Kennedy
Executive Pastor

Overflowing for Overflow

June 5, 2012 in Blog, Four18 Students, From Our Staff, How We are Changing the World with 2 Comments

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So camp has been creeping up on us quickly. It’s really hard to believe that we are only a week away. We’ve been in the process of planning this for almost a year now and it’s finally here! So we wanted to give you all a little rundown of what’s been going on and how the people of Open Door have really stepped up!

A couple months ago we sent out an announcement. Our announcement was simple. We gave you a chance to sponsor a student who, because of the cost, couldn’t go. You responded and it literally blew us away! We have been able to raise over $3,600 in sponsorships alone. Do you know what that equates to??? Being able to send almost 20 students to camp!!! It has been absolutely incredible to see you respond and send these students to a place we believe will forever change their lives.

The crazy thing is that you didn’t stop there! We have had two pretty big fundraisers. One at Chick-fil-A and the other was our huge BBQ Chicken/Bake Sale combo fundraiser. With these fundraisers you shocked us again! We were able to raise a combined total of $2,700. All of this fundraiser money goes to our students. It was able to cut the cost of the students who participated in the fundraisers and who didn’t already receive sponsorship money down $100. That simply puts us at a loss for words.

YOU have caused an Overflow before we have even gotten to Overflow. We are so incredibly proud of our church. We want you to go ahead and celebrate with us and thank God for what he has done here. Now we get to rest in His Overflow, because so many students’ lives will be changed from this!

Thank you for all that you’ve done for these students. There is no way to express what it actually means, but thank you!

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Tyler Braden
Student Director

The Little Things

May 11, 2012 in Blog, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 0 Comments

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Recently at Four18, I spoke a message entitled The Little Things. It was a message that went along with our series, and it was also something God was dealing with me about as well. So today I thought I would share it with you.

I called it The Little Things because that’s how our enemy attacks us. Believe it or not, it’s the tiny stuff that can cause the biggest problems. A huge example of this is the Holocaust. If you don’t know what the Holocaust is then Google it or turn on the History Channel. But this event was largely caused by one man, Adolf Hitler, and his hatred towards a race. This hatred started with a thought that he failed to check and eventually lead to the death of over 11 million people. Pretty big disaster that started so small right?

Well, this is how our enemy works: by dropping little thoughts into our mind, whether they are thoughts of temptation, hatred, jealousy, insecurities, anger, etc. If he can put these thoughts into our minds, and if we fail to check them, then they will grow to huge problems in our lives.

So what do we do, how do we handle this? To check these thoughts we must know the Word of God and what it says about our minds. To become like Christ, we have to know who He is first. The only way for us to do that is to get into the Word and spend time with Him.

So today or this week when you have something little pop up into your mind that’s probably not honoring to God. Instead of just allowing it to sit there, take action! Don’t just allow Satan to trip you up over your failure.  Get into God’s Word and see what He has to say. A great place to start is 2 Corinthians 10:5. Check out what God’s Word says about our minds and the thoughts we think.

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Tyler Braden
Student Director

Coaching

May 9, 2012 in Blog, Children's Ministry, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 5 Comments

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In January of this year, I took the position as Director of Family Ministries at Open Door. My responsibilities are to lead and guide the directors of our children and student ministries. I see myself much like a coach of an athletic team. My heart is to coach beyond my capacity. In other words, I want to lead and guide by faith and believe for the impossible through God. A good friend of mine, who is a coach and former college athlete said, “A coach is someone who takes you to a place or a goal that you could have never attained on your own.” This statement rings true throughout God’s word. He used many coaches and team members to build and grow His kingdom.

Even today, we must wake up and make a decision to continue to build God’s kingdom through widening our influences. We weren’t meant to do life alone or just with our immediate family. Our children, and us included, need mentors and coaches in our lives that will help lead and guide our hearts to our heavenly Father. Regardless of your stage of parenting, I can promise you one thing: a time will come when you and your children will need another adult in their lives besides you.

Here’s a piece of research I read from Parenting Beyond Capacity, by Reggie Joiner and Carey Niieuwhof: Teens who had at least one adult from church make a significant time investment in their lives were more likely to keep attending church. More of those stayed in church, by a margin of 46 percent to 28 percent, when five or more adults at church had invested time with them personally and spiritually.

I encourage you as a family of Open Door Ministries to read Deuteronomy 6. Moses was speaking to a community of people, not just to one family. The circle of influence in the Hebrew culture could be comprised of as many as eighty people. I am a product of many adults who took the time to widen their circles and invite me into a safe place where another trusted adult could have a meaningful relationship with me. Whether your child is three or thirteen, we want to partner with you in nurturing the hearts of your children at all stages of their lives. Whether it is participating in our children and student ministries or even joining a Life Group, come join us and be blessed beyond capacity.

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. – John 10:10

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Gina Robinson
Family Ministries Director

New Series in Four18

April 19, 2012 in Blog, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 0 Comments

Starting this Sunday night four18 Student Ministries will be kicking off a new series called Uprising.

Check out the Trailer below.

Uprising is a series about the warfare that goes on in our minds. Many of us know that Satan begins with attacking our minds. Let’s look at this a little deeper. Everything good and evil that we do stems from a thought that we’ve had. Example: The Holocaust…. This catastrophe stemmed from one man’s thought of hatred. That hatred cost 11 million people their lives. The mind is a powerful thing that can be used for something great or disastrous!

So during this series we are going to uncover the tricks and tactics of the enemy and begin to revolutionize this powerful tool we have been given. By the end of this 3 part series, students will understand how to battle back and defeat their enemy!

Students, you can’t afford to miss this, so we will see you this Sunday night!

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Tyler Braden
Student Director

Overflow Twenty12

March 29, 2012 in Blog, Four18 Students, From Our Staff with 0 Comments

This year marks the first of many things at Open Door Ministries. It’s included building plans for new facilities, the Uprise College Ministry on the ECU campus, our very first worship album, and last but not least Overflow Twenty12 which is our very first camp for Four18, our Student Ministry for Middle School and High School!

So today I am here to talk about Overflow. The starting of this camp has been something that has definately been on my heart, as well as the heart of all the staff members here at Open Door for a while. So first of all, we are really excited that this is the year we can finally kick it off!

We wanted to give you an update on what’s been going on with the camp up to this point. So far we have had one fundraiser at Chick-fil-A. Thanks to you, Chick-fil-A told us that our fundraiser was the best fundraiser they have ever had!!! We also have had more students sign up then we ever dreamed possible for our first year! We will be taking 60+ people with us when we make that drive to Myrtle Beach this June. And last but most importantly, we have been so blessed by the families here. Because of your generous giving of sponsorships to these students we have been able to help send 16+ students to camp which totals out to be over $3,500! So give yourself a pat on the back because that’s all you!

So from the bottom of our hearts thank you for investing in the next generation!

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Tyler Braden
Student Director

Four18 CAMP!!!!!

January 19, 2012 in Four18 Students with 0 Comments

We can’t contain ourselves with excitement as we are making plans for Open Door’s first ever Four18 Camp coming this summer!  Check our this video blog with some of our staff for some more details!

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