Prepare for Give Love This Sunday! 🌎 💸🎉

Hey Restored Fam!

This Sunday we are celebrating yet another Give Love. Give Love is a time once a year when our family of churches gathers around a gospel work somewhere outside of our own four walls. This year we are seeking to raise $100,000 total to fund Harbour City for a year and to fund our North African team members for a few years.

As we anticipate Give Love this Sunday we wanted to help prepare our hearts to give. We encourage you to set aside 15-20 minutes this week to intentionally think through and pray about what your gift will be. (2 Cor 9:7)

As you pray, the following questions may help guide your giving...

1. Once you’ve decided on a number, ask God, is this gift sacrificial? (Luke 21:1-4)

2. Do I plan to follow through on giving this gift? What do I need to do to remember to give it? (2 Cor. 9:1-5)

3. Does this gift demonstrate that I worship Jesus, not money? (Luke 16:13)

4. Is this gift motivated by gratitude for the grace shown to me? (2 Cor. 8:9)

Once you're ready, you can click on the link below to give! Select the "Give Love 2023" fund.

We pray that God's generosity towards us would fuel our hearts and our gifts! 

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." 2 Cor 8:9

In his Grace, 
The Uptown Leadership Team

Responding to the Last Three Weeks of Preaching! ⛪ 📚

Hey Fam!

In light of the last few weeks of teaching, and as we each seek to live faithfully into Jesus' vision of sexuality, we thought it might be helpful to reach out with some follow-up ideas. We are all at different places in our journeys pursuing both relational and sexual wholeness that reflect God's original, beautiful design. That being said, we want to challenge you to continue to respond to the work the Holy Spirit might have begun or has continued to do in your life these past few weeks.

There are two ways we would like to encourage you to respond to what you have heard so far, PURSUE CARE and ENGAGE WITH CONTENT

CARE

If you are wrestling with things like pornography addiction, marriage struggles, or are realizing you may have been the victim of abuse in your past, please reach out to us for help confidentially at info@restoreduptown.com. We will work to get you set up to meet with one of our pastors, staff members, or the licensed therapist we have on our team.

CONTENT

In addition to reaching out for care, we also recommend continued engagement with these topics by either re-listening to the sermon recordings, or picking up one of the recommended books below!

Recommended Content for Further Growth:

BOOKS
In light of the theme of the last few weeks, and what was shared we would recommend the following books to help you go deeper into these topics and to find practices to introduce into your life to help you to live as a disciple in our world in regards to these topics.

LGBTQ Resources
"A People to Be Loved" by Preston Sprinkle
"Why Does God Care Who I Sleep With?" by Sam Alberry
"Is God anti-Gay" by Sam Alberry

Theology of the Body/Gender Resources
"The Rise and Triumph of The Modern Self" By Carl Trueman
"What God Has to Say about Our Bodies" by Sam Alberry
"Love Thy Body" by Nancy Pearcey
"Embodied" by Preston Sprinkle

A Vision of Sexuality Resources
"Rethinking Sexuality" by Dr. Juli Slattery
"Sex in a Broken World" by Paul Tripp

Sexual Wholeness + Healing Resources
"Redeemed Sexuality" by Andrew Boa
"God, Sex, and Your Marriage" by Dr. Juli Slattery
"More Than a Battle" by Joe Rigney

Marriage Resources
"Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas
"The Meaning of Marriage" by Timothy and Kathy Keller
"Marriage" by Paul Tripp

Abuse Resources (Emotional, Physical, and Sexual)
"The Emotionally Destructive Marriage" by Leslie Vernick
"Is It My Fault?" by Lindsey Holcomb
"Rid of My Disgrace" by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb

SERMONS
Maybe you missed a Sunday, or maybe it was too much to process the first time around! Either way, you can re-listen or check out the sermons for the first time here...

A Vision for Sexuality (Link)
The Righteous Life: Freedom From Lust (Link)
The Righteous Life: Marriage + Divorce (Link)

We pray and hope these resources will be a gift to us as we seek to follow Jesus in and through every part of our lives.

Much Love,
The Restored Uptown Elders + Staff

Changes to Sunday's Gathering

Dear Restored Family,

When we originally made our reopening plans a few weeks ago, cases had gone down dramatically and everything looked like it was moving towards a full reopening. However, in the past week there has been a dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases in California. San Diego in particular is now on a watch list to observe as cases continue to increase. The latest announcement from the California Department of Public Health (CDPH), which was released on July 1st, has updated some miscellaneous guidelines for religious gatherings. One being that musical worship and public singing is now banned.

As a leadership team, we felt that the wisest approach was to re-route and not have our in-person gathering this week as we had originally planned. Your safety is of utmost importance to us. Moving forward we will keep you updated as announcements from the state are made.

We will live stream the service at our original planned time of 5:00 PM and would still encourage you to tune into the entire gathering.

CLICK HERE FOR THE LIVE STREAM

A recording of the live stream will be available on our website by the following day for those who are unable to watch it live.

There will not be GC Zoom meetings this week. However, an entire live gathering will take place with a sermon, announcements, offering talk, and musical worship. It should feel like the closest thing to a “real gathering” we have had in awhile.

We also still want to give your children a Kids Ministry experience, so we have provided a video lesson and activities for you to do with them tomorrow. The curriculum is already available on this webpage right below the live stream video.

With the direction that reopening is currently heading, it seems unwise to have a large centralized gathering even if it was outside. That being said this week we will be working with leaders from across our congregation to come up with a new Sunday gathering strategy that works for as many of you as possible. We are not currently planning on going back to the format that we have had the past three months (pre-recorded sermons and Zoom calls) as we know it has been harder and harder for folks to engage with it. A new strategy will be released sometime next week. We appreciate your grace and covet your prayers as we seek to lead in such an uncertain season.

That being said, for this Sunday we’re prayerful that as a family we can still encounter Jesus together even in the midst of these unique and challenging circumstances.

With Love,

The Restored Uptown Eldership Team

Good Friday + Easter Sunday Plans

Easter is just a few days away and we wanted to share three ways you can celebrate and remember Jesus this week:

#JESUSCHANGEDMYLIFE

Join thousands of Christians across the globe in uploading a 60-second story of how Jesus has changed your life to your social media between now and April 11! CLICK HERE to learn more.

GOOD FRIDAY

This Friday, April 10, 2020 from 6:00 - 7:00 PM, we will be gathering together with the Restored Family of Churches for a live-stream Good Friday evening of meditation and worship as we remember the Cross of Jesus. Together, we will hear scripture readings from the seven words of the cross and lift our voices together in praise of the One who gave His life for us! The Good Friday Livestream will be hosted on Restored LA's homepage. You can tune in by CLICKING HERE.

EASTER SUNDAY

We'd love for you to join us on Sunday morning at 10 AM for an online Easter celebration with the rest of the Restored Uptown family! We will worship together and hear a message presenting the Good News about Jesus that you can watch and share with friends and family. More information about Easter Sunday is available HERE.

We miss you all and can't wait to worship Jesus with you this week!

Much Love,

Andy, Royce and Adam

There were no needy among them...

We're in the midst of unprecedented times for our church, city, and world. As we all adjust to a new normal with social distancing and isolation, we are aware that many in our community may be struggling in different ways.

Last Sunday, Andy reminded us of Acts 2:42-47, which tells of the early church meeting the needs of those in their community. Right now, we have a unique opportunity to be the church and meet each other's needs!

If you have a physical need related to the COVID-19 situation (i.e. help paying a bill, food items, toilet paper, prayer, whatever it may be) or if you have an abundance of something that you'd like to share with someone in need, we want to make it easier to connect with each other!

Click here if you have a need!

Click here if you want to help!

Please reach out using these forms and as a church we'll do our best to meet the needs that arise.

Best Practices for a Sunday Zoom Call

If you have kids, let them know the expectation you have for them during the call.

• Do you want them in the room? Are they playing quietly in another room? Computer speakers pick up a lot, so do be aware of background noises.

• Could be great to have kids involved for part of the call but not the whole call depending on age.

• Kids can definitely be cute, but they can also be distracting and people might want to share heavier stuff, so please keep this in mind.

• For some families, the spouses may need to alternate being on the Zoom call each week because one needs to be in the other room watching the kiddos, which is fine. We would encourage you to still both watch the sermon though!

Don’t multitask. Assume you are sitting down for coffee with the person 1:1. Treat this call with the same respect. Don’t let the screen enable you to feel less involved. People can tell when you are engaged or not.

Download and install Zoom before 10 AM on Sunday! You can get it here for free.

Ideally call in from a computer, not your phone. But phones will work.

Try the link ahead of time. Depending on the tool being used, you may have a few extra steps for set up, so plan for that.

Make sure your camera and audio are working.

• Be aware of what is in the background of your camera. You may not want some items lying around.

• Know where the mute button is and how to use it. Ideally, I recommend not using the mute button unless you do have a lot of background noise.

• Have your tea, water, beverage of choice next to you for the call so you don’t have to get up during the call.

• Ideally don’t walk and carry your computer. If you need to do this, it might be good to turn off the camera.

• Make sure your computer is plugged in and/or fully charged, so you stay connected throughout the call.

• Please don’t call in while driving. Call in from a quiet, safe space.

• Participate just as if you were in your leader or host’s living room for a normal GC gathering.

Come Expectant!

• Just because we are listening to a sermon online and talking over a video chat platform doesn’t mean that the Spirit can’t encourage each one of our hearts with the Gospel! It doesn’t mean we can’t encounter him.

• Pray going into our time together on Sunday morning.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: NO GATHERING 3/15

Restored Family,

In light of recent developments we no longer have a space to gather this Sunday. So we are going to officially cancel our gathering on Sunday, March 15, 2020.

We didn’t make this decision lightly but felt it was the best one for our church and our city at this time. Stay tuned over the weekend though as we will be releasing updates regarding Gospel Communities and Worship Gatherings moving forward.

With Hope,

The Uptown Eldership Team

Update on the Coronavirus

Dear Restored Family,

With the increased concern and spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), there are at least two ways we want to be wise. First, we want to be wise by resisting the fear that seems so pervasive at this time. While fear catastrophizes and reacts, we are given resources as followers of Jesus to remain calm and resist over-reaction, even as we do our due diligence about the spread of the virus. We believe that living in the midst of a culture of fear with a different spirit is a great opportunity for His gospel of peace to spread. One of the ways in which we combat fear is by finding the comfort and presence of Jesus in the gathering of the church as we worship, proclaim the Word, break bread and fellowship with one another.

Governor Gavin Newsom has recently asked that unessential gatherings of more than 250 people in California be cancelled. We are a gathering of under 250 people and we believe worshipping Jesus together is essential so we will still be gathering. One helpful reality to remember is that as of today there has only been five confirmed cases of Coronavirus in San Diego and that person has been quarantined. If the situation changes on the ground here in San Diego we will not hesitate to make changes in the future. But for now cancelling gatherings seems premature.

So unless you or a member of your family are ill, we encourage you to still come out on Sunday to worship.

The second way we want to be wise at this time is by taking the necessary precautions to combat the spread of illness or virus and we wanted to inform you of the steps we are taking to make gathering together on a Sunday as safe a practice as possible for the time being.

Some Key Things...

• If you or an immediate family member have been sick recently please DO NOT come to gathering.

• There will be hand sanitizer at the back of the auditorium and we encourage you to use it.

• There will be no coffee, food or donuts available this Sunday.

• We have ordered pre packaged/sealed communion cups and wafers that we will use to remember Jesus together if they come in on time. Unfortunately we will not be utilizing our new, beautiful communion table for the time being.

• Please refrain from hugging or shaking hands on Sunday. A verbal “what’s up!”or “hey!” can get the point across that you are stoked to see your church fam! We acknowledge that this might sound extreme but it is currently being recommended by every credible source of information about the virus.

For more on the Coronavirus we encourage you to check out these two articles on it from a gospel perspective…

Anxiety + The Coronavirus

FAQ about the Coronavirus from a Pastor + Doctor

If you have questions or concerns please feel free to ask. We love you and are down to chat.

We look forward to worshipping Jesus with you, Restored Uptown Elders

Read the Bible With Us Over the Next 100 Days!

Our Bible Reading Challenge kicks off tomorrow morning, September 23! Over the next 100 days we are challenging ourselves to read through the entire Bible together!

During today's worship gathering, Andy mentioned that a great way to supplement the readings is to watch videos by the Bible Project. These videos are just a few minutes and give a great introduction to each book of the Bible, as well as themes that run throughout.

We have compiled a spreadsheet of Bible Project videos that correspond to the day's readings.

You can access the plan and video links here.

Starting tomorrow, the Bible reading challenge will also be available on the Restored Uptown App.

We can't wait to immerse ourselves in God's word together over the next few months!

Join us for Awkward Questions: The Bible on Sunday July 7

"How can I build my life on an unreliable, violent book full of contradictions?"

Have you ever questioned the validity of the Bible? Have you had a friend or coworker ask how you can trust a book that seemingly includes so many inconsistencies or so much violence?

Join us this Sunday as we look at some of the difficult questions and skepticism surrounding the Bible and explore its legitimacy together.

When: Sundays at 9 & 11 AM | Kids Ministry is available at the 9 AM gathering

Where: Hardihood | 4379 30th St., San Diego, CA 92104

Invite someone to join us this Sunday or anytime during the Awkward Questions series! Here's a look at the next two weeks:

July 7 - The Bible: How can I build my life on an unreliable, violent book full of contradictions?

July 14: - Suffering: How could a good God allow the world to be so messed up?

See you Sunday!

Restored Staff & Elders