Photo Courtesy of Brian Craig Photography

To our amazing Orion team… Here we go!

We just want to thank God for His faithfulness and for your partnership that brings us to this historic moment!

This Sunday’s Grand Opening will be a huge celebration, and we’re asking you to do a couple of things to make it as fun and smooth as possible. First of all, be prepared to welcome a LOT of new people! To get ‘em in and get ‘em parked, we need your help… here are 3 “asks” we’d love you to consider:

1. Please come to the 9:00am or 12 noon service for the next few weekends to free up seats and parking at the popular 10:30 service. If you do come at 10:30, please hang back in the lobby to make sure there are enough seats in the auditorium before you sit down. That would honor our new visitors!

2. If you’re volunteering, please park in the special gravel lot behind Milosch Collision (graciously loaned to us by Milosch Chrysler/Jeep). Please enter our South lot and follow the winding path to the gravel lot (it’s just south and east of our paved West lot). Please allow time to walk to the building.

3. If you’re “all in” at Kensington, please PARK AT THE BOCCE BALL lot and let us shuttle you to the building (Palazzo di Bocce is at 4291 S. Lapeer Rd, across the street and just north of us). Follow our signs to their back parking lot where a happy, smiling Kensington volunteer in a bright orange jumpsuit will greet you. We’ll have warm, comfy shuttles running from 8:30am until 12:30pm. (Parking there is especially critical for 10:30 service.)

So please come, please pray, and help us make history as we publically thank God for the miracle of Orion Campus!

Dave Wilson & Steve Andrews

PS – Be ready for some Kensington-style surprises on stage and if you missed last week’s message, “This Is The Year That I…” with Dave Wilson, check it out below.

Dear Orion Prayer Warriors:

As you may have noticed, the battles are fierce around the campus right now.  God is about to do something AMAZING, and the evil one wants to distract us from the Lord’s mighty work.  Thankfully, Eric Maust on the Prayer Team has been called by God to put together a Kensington Orion 40 Day Prayer Guide that we can use as a tool to stay focused and seek the Lord together.  The prayer guide is broken into six parts, one for each week:

1. Prayers for agreement with God
2. Prayers for Kensington Orion
3. Prayers for Ministry Objectives
4. Prayers for Personal Relationship with Christ
5. Prayers for Kingdom of God to increase
6. Prayers for Ministry impact and blessing

Please look through the Kensington Orion 40 Day Prayer Guide, and consider joining in as we cry out to God together.  We will start on Monday, November 12th and end on Friday, December 21st, the day we HOPE to open the new Orion building for a Christmas Premiere service.

And, please share this Kensington Orion 40 Day Prayer Guide with anyone you think would be willing to storm the heavenlies with us so that God’s mighty power is released and His perfect will is accomplished.  We’ve also included a Fasting Guide to accompany the prayer guide.

Together let’s pray for our church, our community and ourselves.  Hard copies will also be available at the Welcome Center.

Thank You for being on the front lines, impacting our community and future generations, for His glory, honor and Praise.

Nancy Wurm
Director, Orion Campus
Kensington Community Church

Hello Orion!  We have a lot coming up as we close out the month of October.  Below are a few things to keep in mind this weekend as well as some upcoming events that you might be interested in!

Week 5 of our “Marriage: Why Bother?” Series
Rob and Karen Shive, Orion attenders, licensed counselors, and core leaders on our Family/Marriage Ministry team, will be doing the message this Sunday. We have sold out of 800 of the Tim Keller Meaning of Marriage books so if you know anyone that is still interested in getting a book they can order online at kensingtonchurch.org/read. We also have discussion questions based on each message that you can download online by going to kensingtonchurch.org/marriage. We have been continuing to see God move in many ways through the Marriage series and our marriage mentor team has had lots of great opportunities to engage with singles and couples after services. Keep praying that God will continue to use this series to heal, restore and renew relationships!

Breakaway will not be meeting this Sunday. Middle school parents will be sitting with their families in the auditorium!

Edge will be heading to Cedar Point on Friday afternoon for their Fall retreat! Please pray for each student and leader to experience Jesus in an amazing way during the retreat. If you’d like to help scholarship a student who can’t afford to attend the retreat contact orion@kensingtonchurch.org and no Edge service Sunday night!!

Prayer Workshop Come meet Kensington Elder, Mike Carnill, and gain some fresh insight on how to pray effectively, anytime, anywhere. During the 9:00 am service in the Choir Room, October 28.  RSVP to orion@kensingtonchurch.org or just show up.

Halloween Candy Collection Christmas is just around the corner and several of our ministry partners in Pontiac are getting ready to do their Annual Halloween Candy Collection Drive.  Last year over 1300 Christmas treat bags were assembled thanks to EVERYONE that helped to collect TONS of candy! The bags were distributed to the children at the Salvation Army in Pontiac,  Life-builders Children’s program in Detroit, the Power Company Kids Club in Pontiac, the SWAT Christmas party in Detroit for children in the foster care system and the Salvation Army Seniors Luncheon. Tell your friends, get your kids involved by asking their class or school to do a candy drive.  Save left-overs from your home, church groups, co-workers, your neighbor’s home, your children’s bag, and hit the after Halloween candy sales!  Host an assembly party to put the bags together!  This is such a great way to give many who are less fortunate a gift for Christmas. Donations can be dropped off at the Welcome Center Sunday 10/28 or Sunday 11/4.  For more information contact orion@kensingtonchurch.org.

Upcoming Cool Events For Your Calendars:
Comedy Date Night November 9th
Invite a dating or married couple you know to come and laugh a lot while building a stronger relationship. Comedian Ken Kington presented by Orion Campus, the show runs from 7:30pm-9:00pm at Lake Orion HS. Doors open at 7pm. Tickets are just $20 per couple and can be purchased online at kensingtonchurch.org/datenight.

START November 4th, 11th, 18th
Invite someone new to attend START; it was created to help people discover what Kensington’s about, learn who Jesus is, and take their next steps in the journey. This 3 session class covers the history and vision of Kensington, Bible basics and what it means to follow Jesus + Q&A time. For more information contact orion@kensingtonchurch.org.

Thanksgiving Eve Dinner and Service Weds. 11/21
Mark your calendars for this annual event! Invite a neighbor to spend an evening without having to cook and to carve out time to reflect on how amazing God is! Details coming soon!

What an amazing weekend we just experienced with Good Friday and Easter services. I was so proud of our Orion team pulling off both services with incredible excellence.  From Jason Combs singing “There Goes My Hero” in cut off dress pants (& tennis shoes!) to the awesome band (including Steve Naseef and strings on GF), to Kelly’s wonderful drama sketch (I know we went pretty far for an Easter service!), to a couple forgettable love songs in the message, to the “rising & singing” at the close. And all of the behind the scenes people making it happen with excellence (sound, lighting, stage build and teardown, ushers, kids ministry, green room hospitality, parking lot…so many humble servants just wanting to share the death and resurrection of our Savior with the world. I am so grateful for the army of selfless Jesus followers that God has brought to Orion. I truly sense that the best is yet to come. It is amazing to think that next year’s Easter weekend will be in our new building. Pretty exciting stuff!

Don’t miss the start of our new 3 week series this weekend. It’s called Reverse The Irreversible: A Trilogy. You can check out the trailer below.

We will be looking at 3 Jesus encounters where He reversed someone’s life and also looking at how He still does that today. This week, “A Blind Man & A Worn Woman”, is the story of Jesus healing a blind man (read John 9 to prepare your heart) and also part 1 of Donna McCauley’s life. Both gain sight in very dramatic ways. Don’t miss it and don’t come alone. We do weekends for your neighbor, so invite them and watch God work.

See you Sunday,
Dave

Good morning, Orion community!

Almost everybody we know is searching for hope.

This week, we have a way to help them find it!

How about this year you and I trust a Big God to help us “fill a row” at Easter?  Be FEARLESS (my word for 2012) and “just ask!”  You will be amazed at what God can do with a simple invite.  God wants to do something big in your friend’s life, but He won’t do much if you don’t step out and trust Him.  This is the year… Just ask and leave the results to God.

I can’t guarantee they’ll have a big conversion right on the spot.  But I can promise that every detail of this Easter service was designed for that person who may be far from God.

So let’s invite our friends, neighbors, co-workers, whoever.  Danny Cox and I just did a short video about this Easter service, maybe it could help encourage you to be part of a miracle in somebody’s life.

Dave Wilson
Orion Lead Pastor

PS – So far, just over 20,000 tickets have been taken; download your FREE tickets today at KensingtonEaster.com and get enough for that person you’re inviting.

We all hear about mission trips that people go on and often times we hear about the wonderful and life-changing experiences people have when they go and serve.  The following e-mail from Joe Jacob talks about his experience as he gets ready to go on his mission trip to Haiti in October of this year.  I love how he walks us through the journey he and his wife, Lynn, are on as they continue to prepare for this transformational mission to help those whose lives have been turned upside down.

Hi!  As promised, here’s my first update to you regarding our Haiti Mission Trip this October 22-29, 2011.  You’re receiving this e-mail because you’ve offered to support me either financially, with your prayers, and/or with your encouragement…any or all of the above!

Please consider yourself a partner in this endeavor.  I really mean this: What you are providing to make this possible is perhaps much more than you realize.  My mission team and I are understanding this more and more as we meet regularly to equip ourselves…I discuss this further below in What can I pray for?

In this update…

• The book that motivated me to finally answer this call to serve
• Mission of Hope Haiti website
• What can I pray for?
• Highlights of upcoming updates

The book that motivated me to finally answer this call to serve
Six years ago, while Lynn & I were still living in northern Wisconsin, I was led to a book called The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.  Many of you know this book, of course.  Reading it daily, for forty days as suggested, I very quickly returned to reading my Bible and ultimately returned to Jesus, after THIRTY ONE YEARS of having slipped away.  Is God patient and persistent, or what?

Anyway, there’s a chapter in Purpose Driven Life about short-term mission trips.  I won’t get into the details of the chapter (please explore this book yourself, if you haven’t done so…you will be hugely blessed!).  That summer in 2005, God placed a burden on my heart to “someday” serve on short-term mission trips…and that burden grew over the next six years.

BUT…The Purpose Driven Life is not what ultimately led me to finally take the step in faith to serve.  It was another book that has been widely quoted by many of our leaders at Kensington Church, and I recommend it highly to you, whether you are a follower of Jesus or not.

Here it is:  The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns, president of World Vision.  Richard Stearns’ story in the first few chapters is incredible, from a wealthy luxury goods CEO to president of one of the most important worldwide ministries of our time.

Stearns’ front-line, eyewitness anecdotes of global hunger, poverty, disease, and injustice will break your heart over and over again…but he also provides lots and lots of encouraging, hopeful  solutions.

Stearns addresses and offers these solutions at a very personal level, recognizing that people are often overwhelmed by the enormity of these issues and feel hopeless (so do very little or nothing), noting how individuals collectively can and are changing our world for Christ.  Folks, this book describes, page after page, what Christianity is truly all about, being the “hands and feet of Jesus.”

Like I mentioned above, The Hole in Our Gospel is what motivated me, once and for all, to get going with pursuing short-term mission trips, after years of sitting on the fence and “waiting” for God’s call.

Mission of Hope website
Speaking of websites, have you also checked out Mission of Hope’s website?  This is where we’re staying in Haiti; it’s loaded with information and pictures!

What can I pray for?
You’ve offered to pray for me, for my team, and for our trip…but are there specific prayer needs?

Oh yes, there are, and here’s an immediate one:  As you may expect, when we are called to serve, we ALL encounter all kinds of hurdles, doubts, and discouragement that can easily throw us off course and even turn us away, if we don’t have the protection of our Lord…and that where we all really, really need your prayers.

Here’s how important you are to me (and Lynn can verify this, repeatedly!):  Whenever I become doubtful about my calling and pray about this discouragement, I am instantly reminded of YOU – that you have supported me financially, with your prayers, & with your encouragement, however you have been led…in other words, with your love.

With this reminder, my doubts and discouragement disappear immediately.  Thank you again…what you have done has built my faith even more, Lynn’s faith, and everyone else that we’ve told about how you have responded.  Amen.

Highlights of upcoming updates
OK, what can you expect in the next few weeks?

My thoughts about another terrific book from an author who founded a church in Charlotte, North Carolina a few years ago, which grew from seven families to over 10,000 who attend weekly (and this is not a “touchy-feely-feelgood church” by any means!).  He spoke recently at the 2011 Global Leadership Summit, which Lynn and I attended.  He’s an incredible speaker, an incredible father and husband, an incredible leader, and an incredible pastor of an incredible, Bible-based church community . . . and he’s just 30 years old!

I’ll also cover what we’re doing at our upcoming meetings, as well as our serving day on October 1st at Grace Centers of Hope in Pontiac.

Wow, we’re all connecting and getting to know each other in our group…and by serving together, working alongside and sweating together, it’s yet another terrific way to become even closer and tighter as a team…and hopefully, to be a blessing to those we serve at Grace Centers, too!

Please contact me anytime if you have questions…I’m blessed to have you as a mission trip partner!  Take care…Joe

What an amazing story on how God has worked in Joe and Lynn’s life to prepare them for this trip in October.  I’m looking forward to sharing in this journey with them and their team and can’t wait to hear about the impact the people of Haiti and God will have on their lives when the return.

If you are at all interested in Kensington short term mission trips, you can find out more information by CLICKING HERE.

Don’t forget to LIKE us on Facebook and FOLLOW us on Twitter!

What do you see when you look around? Do you see the other generations? What makes them different from yourself?

Usually “What’s Your Story?” is a feature each Tuesday, however, given just how impactful this story is, I couldn’t wait until next week.  If there was ever a time to see and hear how God can impact lives, read the testimony of Lori Stull and when you see her around the Kensington Orion campus, give her and her family a hug!

Lea, Lori, Brad and Lainie Stull

I was raised in the Methodist church by amazing Christian parents, so I don’t really have a come to Jesus story.  What I do have is a strong faith that was made stronger through the years, because I always believed.

We all have our wonderful moments when we see Christ in our lives…marriage, births of children, happy times.  But the times I was brought closer to Christ were times of hardship.

When I was 19, I lost a wonderful aunt and my sweet Granddad within a few months of each other.  These were the first family deaths I had experienced.  For the first time on my own, I went to my Bible for comfort, reading the Psalms.

One year later, my brother was diagnosed with leukemia and quickly went downhill.  He passed away after only 2 months at the age of 25.  He left behind a wife and 2 toddlers.  As a young college student, this was extremely hard to handle.  I talked to God more than I ever had before.  It became apparent quite soon after what good would come of this tragedy.  I became very close to the guy I had been dating for a few months.  We were married a few years later.  We got married in the church I grew up in, just as I had planned my whole life!  We got pregnant in Feb. 1994 and other than family, shared that for the first time in the prayer circle at the weekly Youth Club night we volunteered at.  The pregnancy was mostly uneventful, with just one little blood test out of whack.  The test showed the baby might have Down syndrome.  The only way to know for sure was amniocentesis, which we declined.  I knew God would take care of things.  I never thought of it or worried about it again.

Our daughter Lea came 3 weeks early, after a month of bed rest.  She had a little trouble with her heart and was whisked off to the special care nursery without getting to spend more than a few minutes with us.  A few hours later, our new pediatrician came in to tell us she suspected Lea had Down syndrome.  We would have to wait a week for blood test results, but all the signs were there.  I was devastated.  I did everything right…eating and drinking the right things.  Laying around for a month not able to do much.  I was grieving the loss of the “perfect” baby I thought I was having.  I spent all those months envisioning what our baby would look like, who she would be.  This was not in my vision.

Mark, Romy and Nina Busquaert

I was born in 1981 and baptized at the protestant state church in Berlin, Germany as a baby.  However, my parents are not born-again Christians, so I was not brought up in the Lord either.  I received my confirmation at the age of 14 after taking confirmation classes for a year, but I still was not a believer and mainly did it because of traditional and financial reasons.

In 1998 I went to the USA, to Copperas Cove, Texas for a semester as an exchange student.  The situation and atmosphere with my parents at home in Berlin had been rather bad when I left, for my dad had lost his job and became an alcoholic and that was rather hard for both my mother and me.  At the time it felt to me like I didn’t even have a father anymore.

In Texas I lived with a Christian host family, and I was immediately impressed by the warmth and kindness I felt in their house, although their life had been far from perfect as well, as they had lost their first born son four days after he was born.  But I also found out from them how going through crises like that with the Lord Jesus in your life can make you stronger.

In October, I was invited by my Area Representative to attend a revival service at our school church (I was attending a Christian school in Texas).  I went, mainly out of curiosity and also because I was open for experiencing new things during my exchange and I had a good feeling about it and felt comfortable at the school church.  During the service, which was rather spiritual, there was a lot of yelling, shouting, clapping and crying going on, but I didn’t feel scared, even though experiencing something like that is rather unusual and probably highly uncomfortable for most Germans, but I felt at ease and good about it.  They were telling stories about people getting healed by the Holy Spirit and Testimonies.  At one point they asked all people to come up front and kneel down on the ground and pray with them.  They said that we should think about our sins and things we have done wrong in our lives, and then pray for forgiveness of our sins.  I began to think about my father and about all the terrible things I had thought about and said to him, and I felt very guilty and started to cry, but I also prayed that Jesus would take away my sins and forgive me for the things that I had done wrong in my life.  After this we all went back to our seats and the preachers told us that if we wanted the Lord Jesus to work in our hearts, the way to do that was by lying down on the ground.  They compared it to getting operated on, which also takes for the patient to lie down.  So I went up front and some people started holding me by the shoulders and the preacher came up to me and put his hand on my forehead and started praying for me and then he pushed me back with his hand and the people behind me caught me and put me on the ground and then our school pastor’s wife was there next to me and she started praying and singing and speaking in tongues and I just closed my eyes and opened my mind to the things and sounds and words surrounding me and all of a sudden the noises grew very distant and I focused more on my inside and then I felt the touch of a light, and it started on my shoulder and spread out through my entire body, into my toes, my fingertips and my head until my whole body was filled with this bright light and it also spread an incredibly warm and comforting feeling, it felt like all the sadness, anger and dark feelings inside of me were washed away by that light.  And there was also a face that I could see inside of me, looking at me from the distance and slowly drawing closer and giving me a feeling of peace and rest.  After what was probably only a couple of minutes but felt like a very long time, the surrounding sounds came back to me and I opened my eyes again, filled with such joy and happiness and bliss that after telling the pastor’s wife about all that had happened, I started to cry with tears of joy and I went outside and danced in the rain, thanking the Lord for what he had done for me.

What’s your story?  Were you inspired by this and want to share your story?  Please send an e-mail to Patrick Reyes at patrickreyes6@gmail.com and we’ll post it next Tuesday.  How can your story make an impact on the life of someone that might not know Christ?

Don’t forget to LIKE us on Facebook and FOLLOW us on Twitter!

As we continue to move forward with God’s vision of a building for Kensington Orion, it’s important to know that what we are trying to accomplish with this building goes beyond the walls that will surround us every Sunday when we finally do move in.  Our hope is that once we do have “our home”, it will serve as a launching pad for us at Kensington Orion to get out into the north Oakland County community and invite those that don’t have a church home or more importantly don’t know about Jesus Christ to a place where they can feel comfortable and part of a community of believers that will embrace them with open arms.  All of us should be looking to be catalysts within our own circles of influence to help people continue to grow in their faith in God and all that He has to offer.

How can you be a part of all of this?  Well the first step is checking out the building for yourself!  As we prepare for the first wave of tours of the building next weekend, a small group of volunteers made their way to 4640 Lapeer Road to do some “light” weeding in and around the building.  This has affectionately been termed “weed-a-pull-ooza” by Chuck Snyder from the Field & Stream Team who led this volunteer effort.

If you haven’t done so already, sign up for a tour by CLICKING HERE.  After that, check out the pictures from this past weekend and the weed that was as tall as Dennis Hines!

Don’t forget to LIKE us on Facebook and FOLLOW us on Twitter!