Calvary Assembly of God

What happens when we truly let the Holy Spirit have His way in our lives?

Could we experience today that things that are recorded in the Book of Acts?

Is it possible that God wants to do so much more through our lives than we are allowing Him to do now?

That last question, we believe is the most important one. One of the Apostle Paul’s prayers went like this:

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:17-21)

This is an expansive prayer … a mind-blowing prayer … a prayer that is asking God to go beyond our ability to contain all that He has for us.

The only way we can get to this place (and our desire is for all of us to get to this place) is if we let go. In other words, if we will let the Holy Spirit totally immerse us in His presence, if we will not try to box Him up, or shut Him out of any area of our lives.

We’ll be learning more about Immersed this Sunday at Calvary Assembly of God. We hope you can join us!

This is how our pastor describes Calvary Assembly of God in this video on his blog…

If you’ve followed my blog for even a short period of time, you have see this phrase often: I ♥ My Church!

Here’s just one more reason why…

[Click here to watch Pastor Craig’s video message.]

If you live in West Michigan and you are looking for a church home, you couldn’t find a more loving church that Calvary Assembly of God! I hope to see you soon.

Usually when we go to church on Sundays, we think of going to be served (“I’m going to a church service”). But a group of churches in Cedar Springs are flipping that around: We’re going to go away from church to serve our community.

On May 20, Calvary Assembly of God is joining with other churches in Cedar Springs to leave our churches in order to serve our community. Basically we’re showing up at our individual churches just long enough to pray together and get our work assignments for the day. Then we’re heading out to do things like:

• Visit the residents of the Metron nursing home and pray with them
• Clean up our parks and city streets
• Top off the washer fluid, check the oil, and pump gas for people at Wesco
• Wash the windows of the businesses along Main Street
• Deliver cookies to people who have to work on Sundays and cannot attend a church

“We’re not saved by good works; but we’re not saved without them” —T.M. Moore

Let us give credit where credit is due on this. The Service Sunday concept was already being done by Solon Center Weslyan Church (with Pastor Tom Holloway) and The Springs Church (Pastor Barry Briggs). But we liked the idea so much, that we asked these guys if they would consider doing this on the same Sunday and allowing other churches in Cedar Springs to join with them.

As of now, there are at least five churches participating in Service Sunday on May 20. If your church is in Cedar Springs, ask your pastor if you can join with us as well. If you live in a different community, perhaps this is an idea you can implement in your city. Let’s show people our good works so they can glorify God!

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” —Jesus Christ

We ♥ Cedar Springs! So we get involved everywhere we can. Here are some pictures of our group that served in the Earth Day cleanup on April 28.

Everyone is still buzzing about the Easter breakfast drama Where’s God? And we’re still feeling the “afterglow” of God’s presence from this amazing morning!

Here are some pictures (courtesy of Delbridge Langdon) from our drama. But, as our past wrote on his blog, “The best part is… ten people invited Jesus into their lives! It was a lot of work to put on our third annual Easter breakfast drama, but it was so worth it!”

Here’s some of the written comments we received from folks who attended:

• I loved the continuity and the overall picture of God’s sacrifice and plan! Great for the Bible “newbies” that haven’t understood yet.
• It was very detailed and easy to get the message across. Very good!!
• Very creative
• Awesome job explaining and presenting the message. Everything was wonderful. I was proud to represent my church to my kids who came.
• What a great way to illustrate God’s Word. Great job!
• Wonderful!!
• Very powerful!
• Fantastic message and illustrated sermon.
• It was a blessing. Thank you to each and everyone who was a part of it.

Hey, Calvary Assembly of God, how did you do on your 1:one:(12) challenge in February? Hopefully you got your 1 in! if not, March is a brand new month, so get started on your 1 for this month.

For our guests that may not know what 1:one:(12) is all about… just ask us!

How wonderful it was to hear the annual reports of the great things God did among and through Calvary Assembly of God in 2011! We heard reports of God’s blessings in our outreaches in the community, our finances, and our ministries within the church. And we heard about the plans for our increased involvement in ministry to our community in 2012.

Another highlight was our annual Souper Bowl competition. This year Harrison Owens reclaimed the title for the second year in a row with his amazing chili recipe. His name will be appearing on the trophy again this year, but we’ve already heard talk from other chefs about their plans to win the trophy from him next year.

All in all, it was a great morning of celebration, and everyone came away with the same feeling: I ♥ My Church!

We were thrilled to once again tell the Christmas story with our full set, live actors in costume, and live animals. This year we were joined by the choir from the play A Christmas Carol. It is so amazing to hear the hush come over the crowd when we begin acting out this story, and to watch the faces of people as they listen with wide-eyed wonder to this incredible account of Christ’s birth. Wow!

And it always adds a lot of fun when Santa comes to town! Santa Claus made his appearance to light the official Cedar Springs Christmas tree, and to meet the boys and girls. What a great way to kick-off the Christmas season!

In case you missed it, you can click here to see some pictures from this great night.

Many thanks to all of our actors and behind-the-scenes helpers who made this evening such a success!

The 2011 version of Light The Night was a huge success! We saw nearly 500 people at our site on Halloween night… what a wonderful night it was!

You can check out some pictures by clicking here.

Also check Pastor Craig’s blog for some other Light The Night thoughts by clicking here.

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Around here, we have a simple statement: We ♥ Cedar Springs!

Because we love our city, we are happy to do good whenever and however we can.

Yesterday we pulled on our waders, took a generous supply of trash bags, and even secured a couple of trash grabbers so we could participate in the Cedar Creek Cleanup. We sloshed through the creek, and up and down the banks on each side, and found all sorts of interesting things. When we were done, we were wet and muddy (and probably didn’t smell too great, since creek water is not usually a favorite cologne/perfume scent!), but we were also happy. No one was complaining, because we were excited to serve.

We are always on the look out for more opportunities to show the love of Jesus as we do good to others.

If you’d like to see some more pictures from our fun day of service, click here to go to Flickr.