Celebration Church

Yesterday was my last day at Celebration Church as an employee. In the process of my leaving I wrote the staff a letter just to let them know how much I appreciated working with them...I have copied and pasted it in here, because I think they deserve recognition of their awesomeness to others as well.

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Celebration Staff,

As you know this is my last week working here. Therefore, I just wanted to take the time to write an email to you all letting you know how thankful I am to have been given the opportunity to work at Celebration. Let me start at the beginning... :)

Chase and I, when we first moved here, had a real difficult time finding a church that seemed to actively love God and love people more than the comfort and security of the predictable/traditional/

complacent religion of Christianity. We literally looked every weekend for about 8 months ~ ironically Celebration was the first church we actually "tried out." As time passed I remember us getting extremely discouraged and frustrated with the whole scene -- because this is NEW ORLEANS!...it needs JESUS! and so many that lived here didn't seem to recognize the great gift they had been given through being able to live in this city. The gift of telling others about Him and creating God sized change in the lives of those around them.

In any case, we found ourselves coming back to Celebration every other weekend, or coming on Saturday nights while still checking out others on Sundays (that should have told us something!). One Sunday we were back at Celebration and both of us all throughout the service just sensed the peace of God and basically heard Him tell us this is where we were to stay and serve until He says otherwise. This was a church of diversity, of action, of loving God and loving people for the sake of His glory, and of opportunities to get plugged in. So we had found a church home!

Eventually we got plugged into leading LG's and I began working with the Hope Center as part of my internship. I began working here as a part-timer last year and to be honest I was a bit hesitant about it all because I was afraid that working so closely with the staff would make me see parts of the church that could be hidden from me if I were simply another person in the congregation. Parts that I didn't want to see were lack of quality or integrity or holding the name of Christ to the highest despite the rush/struggles of the days events. However, the opposite was true...

From day one, you each welcomed me, each seemed to live what you worshiped on the weekends, were individuals of quality, protected and proclaimed the name of Christ in the midst of struggles and difficulties, faithfully assumed He would come through when needed, consistently prayed for one another as well as the Celebration congregation and had such an integrity about you -- such that I have never seen before from any other complete group of individuals. I have been blessed to work here and to be a part of a team that truly loves God and believes He is who He says He is. You guys rock!

All that to say, Celebration Church is our church for good...we love it here, we love inviting people to come here (although typically they've heard about Celebration before from some other member!), and we love that God brought us to New Orleans so we could serve with you.

~ Megan