The Principal’s Office :: 2.22.9 February 24, 2009

This was the last night of our “Lessons from Losers” series.  We brought in a guest speaker – a principal – Dr Lamar Brown – to share his story (hence the title).  A big piece of that story is the ministry he does with our church in Nicaragua.  He led a team of missionaries down in January that focussed on Education.  So in addition to hearing about who Lamar is he also shared about the wonders that are happening in the Leon area.  As he talked we watched a slideshow of beautiful photos from that January trip.  We’ve also recently signed on to be a Sister Church to a congregation in Las Parcellas – a very rural, very remote community about 45 minutes from El Ayudante’s property in Leon.  So he helped cast a vision of interaction with those folks by inviting people to pray for the different families represented at the church.  We came forward and took a card with one of the family’s names.  This summer’s team will be working toward creating a structure for the group to meet in.  Right now they meet in a  sort of lean-to off the pastor’s home. 

Lamar challenged us to find our “holy discontent” (Bill Hybels term) – to discover what it is that breaks our heart, because it probably breaks God’s heart, too.  To get to work, because whatever that holy discontent is, is where God has gifted us to serve and make a difference for Him in the world.  Lamar shared that he never imagined God would be using him the way He has, but that’s the kind of thing that just falls into place when you’ve put yourself out there to be used.  He did a great job!  Thanks Lamar!

We opened with a couple songs: Fields of Grace (Big Daddy Weave) & Here is Our King (David Crowder).
We watched our final installation of “Interesting Interviews” – a blooper reel that was pretty cute.
After Lamar finished speaking we closed with a couple more songs: Grace Like Rain (Todd Agnew) & Sing to the King (Passion Band).

It was a rare, simple night at The Water’s Edge.  This week we’ll start a new series: Scandalous Love…

Here are our prayer requests this week:
(Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: We have an “unspoken” prayer for a man struggling with depression – pray he can find healing and hope.  (“unspoken” just means they want to remain nameless.  God knows his name, that’s all that matters!)

:: Sonya Cooper’s Aunt – Mary – is home and feeling pretty good.  Pray that she will continue to feel good as long as possible as her battle with cancer continues.

:: Louise & Keith Kenney’s daughter in law – Michelle Kenney – in treatment for breast cancer. So far, so good, but she still has LOTS of treatment ahead – keep praying for her and her family (husband and two kids)!

:: Pray for Lynn Kelly – she’s doing good, but still struggling with several recovery issues. Her sister-in-law also just had emergency surgery for cancer – her name is Susan.

:: Pray for Britta Alton’s grandmother (Louise Kirby) – she had a full hip replacement – she’s 88!  She’s doing much better this time around!

Interesting Interviews on Youtube!! February 20, 2009

Sorry this took a while – I’ve added a link to each video in the post for the Sunday we used it.  But I thought some of you might just want to watch them.  They took a couple hours to load EACH – and the quality is very poor compared to what we actually produced.  Not sure what’s up with that.  But they’re watchable, so here you go:

David
 

Abram

Gideon

Israelite

Jacob

Lessons from Losers (who should have known better) :: 2.15.9 February 16, 2009

Lesson 5 – Don’t run away (even when you’ve been really dumb and swindled your hairy brother out of his birthright and he threatens to kill you because you could end up wrestling with God and that doesn’t always work out well.)

Tonight was our last official night of this series – although next week we’ll get a visit from the principal to wrap up.  Lamar Brown will be sharing then.  We started with a couple songs: Foreverandever, Etc. (David Crowder Band) and Lead Me To The Cross (Hillsong United) then had our last “Interesting Interview” – tonight’s character: Jacob.  This was the funniest video of the series I think – I’m going to try to get them uploaded to youtube soon, I promise!  The main thing for the night was doing a small team building exercise.  We gave out “handcuffs” – a piece of rope with a loop at each end for your wrists.  Everyone got a partner and they linked themselves with the handcuffs, making two interlocking circles.  The challenge was to get disconnected without removing the handcuffs or unting the loops.  They wrestled with each other, tried all kinds of things, got pretty frustrated, a few figured it out.  Everyone sat down with their partner and we talked about the experience. 

Were you frustrated? YES! 
Does wrestling with a problem like this make you want to give up?  YES! 
Isn’t life like that? 

We talked with our partner about a problem in life we’re wrestling with right now.  About our frustration level in it.  About how we’ve wanted to run away – about how some of us have run away.  We talked about why the struggle is an important part of life – about what we learn from it, how we grow in it.  We talked about how we’ve seen God working (sometimes only in hindsight) along side us.  We talked about our calling to stick with it, to fight rather than run, to work through the struggle so that we can come out the other side a better, a bigger, a bolder human being. 

We looked at Paul’s words in Colossians 1:9-12 (The Message) …
Be assured that from the first day we heard of you, we haven’t stopped praying for you, asking God to give you wise minds and spirits attuned to his will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the ways in which God works.

We pray that you’ll live well for the Master, making him proud of you as you work hard in his orchard.
As you learn more and more how God works, you will learn how to do your work.

We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul-not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.

God never said any of our living – struggles – wrestling – would be easy.   He just promised to be with us in it.  If we can draw on him for that “glory strength” to stick it out, rather than running away – then just maybe we can get to that joy Paul mentions. I don’t know if you can get to it in any other way.

We were challenged to look at our feet – to consider their status - they can stand firm, they can run, they can take you in God’s direction, or they can take you on a journey of self that pushes life’s lessons aside.  We thought about Jacob’s feet (tonight’s “loser”).  He stayed and swindled his way into birthright and blessing – he was fighting for the wrong things then. He ran away from home when things got tough and put the struggle behind him only to find new struggles. He took the long walk back to face his mistakes – to redeem his relationship with his brother. God brought the struggle right to him that night on his way back as he wrestled with an angel – anybody relate to that?  Wrestling with God instead of the good fight he has for you?

The steps we take and the stands we make are so important.
We passed out some sharpies – and everyone thought about where they want their feet to be.

Are they firmly planted so you can keep wrestling through the troubles before you?
Are they taking you somewhere – where?
Are they taking you away from something – what?
On the sole of your shoe – they wrote down what they think God wants those feet to do.
What does he have to say to you about the struggle,
about running or fighting, about giving up or standing firm?
Are you busy wrestling with him? What do you really want the outcome to be?

As they did this we sang One Pure and Holy Passion.  Then 5 people joined the church!  Then we wrapped up with a closing song: Song of Hope (Robbie Seay Band).  It was an interesting night, even by Water’s Edge standards!

Here are our prayer requests this week:
(Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Susan Stamey and her Mother – Joyce Stamey. Joyce had knee replacement surgery. She’s 85 years old. Pray for Susan as she helps her Mother through recovery and therapy.

:: Sonya Cooper’s Aunt – Mary – is in Mexico undergoing treatment for very advanced cancer – pray for healing and safe travels and the family as they struggle with their grief.

:: Louise & Keith Kenney’s daughter in law – Michelle Kenney – in treatment for breast cancer. So far, so good, but she still has LOTS of treatment ahead – keep praying for her and her family (husband and two kids)!

:: Pray for Lynn Kelly – she’s doing good, but still struggling with several recovery issues. Her sister-in-law also just had emergency surgery for cancer – her name is Susan.

:: Pray for Britta Alton’s grandmother (Louise Kirby) – she had a full hip replacement – she’s 88!  She’s doing much better this time around.

Lessons from Losers (who should have known better) :: 2.8.9 February 10, 2009

Lesson #4: Be patient (even when God himself delivers you out of captivity and then schedules a meeting with your leader that has gone on for 47 days.)

Last night we started like normal: welcome, announcements, mission statement video, intro video for the series, then we hit a snag.  About half of the band was “missing”!  I apologised and sent someone to look for them.  I asked everyone to be patient, and share with their neighbor about their weekend.  We waited.  John came up and pretended to be frustrated with me.  I asked everyone to go ahead and get divided into small groups – this was to be a small group discussion night.  And we waited.  We waited for 5 long minutes before the band magically appeared again.  I apologised for the waiting – but it was necessary to set up this little object lesson.  I shared the Lesson for the night and asked about their frustration level.  It quickly drove us all home to the night’s lesson.

We sang a couple opening songs: Because of Your Love (Baloche) and Your Grace is Enough (Tomlin).

We watched our Interesting Interview video - Brick Tanner had an in-depth conversation with Bridgette – a valley girl sounding Israelite.  She told the story of the waiting the Israelites did when Moses was on Mount Sinai with God getting the 10 commandments.  He was up there for 47 days – and in the meantime, the Israelites lost their patience – they made a golden calf (holy cow!) to worship instead of God and thew a big party.  Moses was ticked – smashed the newly carved 10 commandments but was able to convince God NOT to wipe them off the map then and there. 

We moved to the small group discussion.  Here is what we thought/talked through:
1) Describe what’s going through your mind and body when you’re having to wait for something.
2) Does our culture help or hurt our ability to be patient? Give specific examples.
3) Share the story of a time you really struggled with having patience. How did your IMpatience affect the situation?
4) What does patience look like? Where is the focus? How is it maintained? When is it learned?
5) If you were going to argue for why someone should be patient, what would you say?
Isaiah 40:28-31 says:
The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. 
He never grows weak or weary.
No one can measure the depths of his understanding.
He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
But those who wait on the LORD will find new strength.
They will soar high on wings like eagles.
They will run and not grow weary.
They will walk and not faint.
6) If you were to “wait on the Lord”, how could patience become a blessing in your life?

Following that time, John shared some wrap up thoughts and then we did a couple more songs: Blessed be the Name of the Lord (Redman) and Everlasting God (Brenton Brown).

Here are our prayer requests this week:
(Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Susan Stamey and her Mother – Joyce Stamey. Joyce had knee replacement surgery.  She’s 85 years old. Pray for Susan as she helps her Mother through recovery and therapy.

:: Sonya Cooper’s Aunt – Mary – is in Mexico undergoing treatment for very advanced cancer – pray for healing and safe travels and the family as they struggle with their grief.

:: Louise & Keith Kenney’s daughter in law – Michelle Kenney – in treatment for breast cancer. So far, so good, but she still has LOTS of treatment ahead – keep praying for her and her family (husband and two kids)!

:: Pray for Lynn Kelly – she’s doing good, but still struggling with several recovery issues. Her sister-in-law also just had emergency surgery for cancer – her name is Susan.

:: Pray for Britta Alton’s grandmother (Louise Kirby) – she had a full hip replacement – she’s 88! She’s doing much better this time around.

Lessons from Losers (who should have known better) :: 2.1.9 February 2, 2009

Last night was AWESOME – not because of anything I planned, but because one very brave woman trusted God enough to share her story with us!  My friend, Amanda, told us about her struggle with an eating disorder – about how it tried to kill her – about how God was with her through the struggle – about how He has brought her to a place of recovery and healing, of grace and redemption.  It was amazing to see her up there sharing – a VERY big deal for Amanda.  It was inspirational and powerful and God was up on that stool with her!

Our Biblical Loser for the night: Gideon.
Our Lesson…

Lesson 3 – Follow Through
(even when you’ve been used by God in an impossible situation, come out the other side victorious, and all you want to do is take home a little plunder.)

Gideon’s story is a cool one – starting in Judges 6, it is full of great twists and turns.  We used another “Interesting Interview” video to get some of the story told.  And Amanda shared the rest.  Our theme was focussing in on the end of Gideon’s story – which doesn’t get mentioned often.  Here is some of what she said after telling her story of struggle and recovery (these are words from her notes)…

Looking back I often wondered where God was in all of the pain and destructive behavior. Often I felt abandoned, but now I realize he was there waiting on me. He was ready to meet me exactly where I was, but only when I was ready. That is when the miracle happened for me, just like God did with Gideon’s battle with the Midianties.

So let’s talk about Gideon for a minute. I don’t know about you, but I’m finding these “Interesting Interviews” very informative as well! You heard that Gideon was the smallest of the weakest of the most overlooked. AND YET, God chose him. Maybe that’s why. So that as Gideon found success, people would know that it was God, not Gideon, making it happen.

Well, what Gideon didn’t tell you in the video was why their victory over the Midianites was so miraculous.  Gideon started out with 72,000 soldiers – going to fight against an army of 300,000.  Those were tough odds already, but God told him that was too many. He told Gideon to give his soldiers the chance to leave – and whoever he had left would go to battle. All but 10,000 men took off. Gideon was still optimistic – with God on his side they would still prevail. But God wasn’t done. He told Gideon to send the men for a drink from a pond. As they drank, some scooped water into their mouths with their hands, others knelt down and lapped the water right into their mouths. God had Gideon separate the men into two groups based on how they drank. One group was 300 men, the other 7,700. God said – there’s your army! Gideon thought, ok, I can get by with 7,700… God cleared his throat, no, THAT’S your army, pointing to the 300. When Gideon and his men won that battle, it was VERY obvious that it was God’s doing, not Gideon’s. What a miracle – what a deliverance story! God taking the small and weak and bringing victory though them to show his glory.

That’s what happened with me, too. God’s strength filled in where I was weak. God’s power shone when I had none. The point of tonight’s theme though is WHAT NEXT?

Since Gideon is obviously the loser here there must be a difference between us, right? The biggest difference is that following my miracle, I have continued to follow through – Gideon, did not. In fact, he quit working for God and turned around and took his people right back to idol worship – he collected his share of some plunder from the battle, made it into an idol, and then he and his people worshiped IT for the next 40 years!  After a miracle like he experienced, he really should have known better!  

And that leaves me wondering why he even bothered if he wasn’t planning on doing his part and following through? Maybe he did plan on continuing his work, but it wasn’t easy and all of the excitement was over so he gave up and took a different path. I think that happens to us more often than we think. We experience the miracle, but once that is over the real work begins and we get sidetracked. We have to keep on working – keep on striving toward the work God has before us. For me that’s a daily battle. And even though it’s hard, it’s worth it. This faith thing doesn’t have a retirement age. Let’s learn from Gideon’s mistake and finish well. Let’s leave a legacy that honors God, not just that one miracle story to pass on.

She was awesome!  And she gave communion a whole new meaning for that night.  We set up a big fancy banquet table with flowers and candles and fancy linens.  It was in the center of the room.  She brought us into it like this…   

As you have probably guessed, tonight is communion night and I have been thinking about what communion really means as I have prepared to talk to you guys tonight. When I was talking with a friend, she proposed the idea that our feast of the body and blood of Christ is the perfection of our “hunger” here on earth – that when he says “every time you do this remember me” might just mean every time you eat – not just every time you take communion, but literally every time you drink and eat – that when we take in sustenance, it should be a reminder of who really feeds us – feeds our souls and hearts and minds.

There is also more than communion on the table tonight. I celebrated my birthday last week and I brought little cakes to share in the celebration of all God has done in my life. After you take communion please help yourself to a cake. When you decide to eat it I ask that you name the area in you life where you need to follow through the most. It doesn’t have to be any thing big like a recovery issue. Just think about all of the little miracles in your life and how you can follow through.

It’s a miracle that God has given us people to love – follow through – be a real friend to someone who needs you and doesn’t have anyone else.

It is a miracle that God has given each of us gifts and talents – follow through – figure out how to use those gifts to honor him!

It is certainly a miracle that God loves us in spite of who we are. Maybe you find it easy to be a Christian in this building and you forget to follow through when you get home. Following through means your faith affecting the whole of your life!

Whatever is it, just name it and commit to doing your part in the wake of God’s miracles.
Follow through.

During communion we sang “Breathe” and “Came to my Rescue” – awesome!  We had opened the night with “Happy Day” and introduced Amanda’s talk with “Come and Listen”.  After a closing prayer we sang “Mighty to Save”.  It was a good night! 

Here are our prayer requests this week:
(Anyone can ask for prayer, just let me know! You can talk to me or drop one of our prayer request cards in the worship space Drop Boxes.)

:: Susan Stamey and her Mother – Joyce Stamey. Joyce had knee replacement surgery last week.  She’s 85 years old. Pray for Susan as she helps her Mother through recovery and therapy.

:: Sonya Cooper’s Aunt – Mary – is in Mexico undergoing treatment for very advanced cancer – pray for healing and safe travels and the family as they struggle with their grief.

:: Louise & Keith Kenney’s daughter in law – Michelle Kenney – in treatment for breast cancer. So far, so good, but she still has LOTS of treatment ahead – keep praying for her and her family (husband and two kids)!

:: Pray for Lynn Kelly – she’s doing good, but still struggling with several recovery issues. Her sister-in-law also just had emergency surgery for cancer – her name is Susan.

:: Pray for Britta Alton’s grandmother (Louise Kirby) – she had a full hip replacement – she’s 88! She’s doing much better this time around.

:: Jackie Anderson has an injured foot and is still struggling through some funk – please pray that she can continue to fight for healing and wholeness