Here and Now

Today is Trick-or-Treating night...we live in a really hilly neighborhood... Anyway, Rachel was a bride - I totally freaked out the first time she put it on - I'm sooo not ready for that (I know, like 20 years from now...still, it's going by too fast...). Elie was a fairy princess. Part of Elie's costume was a glow-in-the-dark magic wand. As she was getting ready, I heard her say as she waved her wand, "Abracadabra keep me safe." If only it was so easy, you know? Just wave a wand to keep her safe. Of course, we often treat God that way, don't we? Just say the right words, wave the wand, whatever...and, poof!, we get what we want. I worry about the girls all the time. I pray that they are safe when I'm not around... Man, I wish I had a wand... God - keep them safe...

The election is coming up too soon - and the presidential race, again, is not an easy choice for me... I found this from the Global Board of Church and Society somewhat helpful... Linky Here's the main page

I just read this in Judges: 6 After Joshua had dismissed the Israelites, they went to take possession of the land, each to his own inheritance. 7 The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. 8 Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. 9 And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. And I started thinking to myself, "How does that happen?" It seems like we're only the second generation after the Red Sea was parted and the deliverance from Egypt - and the 40 years in the wilderness - and they've forgotten. How? The only answer that I can come up with is that the generation before stoppe...

I was reading the latest issue of Outreach magazine - an interview with Erwin McManus: Q What's the key to unleashing that human potential? A Not seeing human potential and the glory of God as somehow in conflict with each other. You hear that all the time in churches! In fact, that happened at the Mayan, one of our locations, a couple of weeks ago. One of our attendees is this amazing artist, one of the Suicide Girls of SuicideGirls Radio on L.A.'s Indie 103.1 FM. [The four-year-old show features interviews, advice, current events andmusic, and Rolling Stone named Indie 103.1 "America's coolest commercial station."] She has incredible talent, musically and as a writer, and she's a brand-new follower of Christ. Well, some guy came up and was asking her questions. He said to her, "So, you're going to just let God do it from now on and you're going to fade away, right?" and she said, "Yeah." I said, "No! You're not going to ...

I just came from our service for prayer and healing. It's such a powerful service, I'm so glad that Christ church continues with it, even though it has the smallest attendance. In this case, numbers definitely aren't everything. One of the things we do at the service is pray individually with each person who wants prayer at the rail after communion. I mentioned the verse from James, "The prayer of the righteous is powerfully effective." And on the way home I started to think about some of those powerful prayers that I've prayed with people over the past 12 years of ministry. A woman whose heart was broken for her daughter who can't shake an addiction. For a woman who just needs hope, when her body is being eaten up by cancer. I prayed once for an older woman who said to me, "I just want life to be worth living." For a young couple who both have mental and physical and financial challenges in their lives, but who love each other and want to get...

Last week I went to Catalyst. It was an amazing conference. The quote that haunts me from the two days is this: To reach the people no one else is reaching, we have to do the things no one else is doing. Andy Stanley said that - he was paraphrasing Craig Groeschel...

I saw this on the Blood:Water Mission website and thought it was worth posting here, too... Since 1990 Newgate Mission has been serving the homeless population in Longview, Texas and the surrounding area. Newgate Mission exists to relieve needs, recover lives, rebuild community, and restore hope. They provide support for the spiritual, physical, social, emotional, educational, and financial needs of our community.“It was during one of our daily Bible studies that an amazing thing began. We were discussing helping those less fortunate than ourselves and some were questioning how they, as homeless individuals, could possibly help anyone else. I have donated to Blood:Water Mission for the last few years so I knew about the great things they are doing in Africa. I shared with our group how many people in our world lack the most essential of physical needs, clean water. I told them about the 1000 Wells Project and how $1 can provide enough water for one African for an entire year. They were...

I spent a couple days last week at the Catalyst Conference and I picked up the T-Shirt I wore yesterday at church. Drink Coffee Do Good It comes from Land of a Thousand Hills Coffee company which is Rwandan coffee that you can get mail order. The thing is, rather than some giant multi-national corporation benefiting from my purchase of coffee, Rwandan coffee farmers benefit from purchasing this coffee. Check out the websites. Here's an interview from catalyst . Cool idea - check it out...

My friend Michael posted something simple yet very profound for me the other day: http://barneyisfat.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-days-it-feels-like-world-is-going.html "It makes the scary go away when we read his [Jesus'] words."

Yesterday we celebrated communion. That, in and of itself, is not all that remarkable - we celebrate communion every Sunday here, though we only have it during the full worship service on the first Sundays of the month (in the contemporary services). Otherwise we celebrate an abbreviated communion service in the chapel after the services. Yesterday was World Communion Sunday. Again, not all that remarkable, really. We didn't use much different in the way of liturgy... In the chaos that was my Sunday morning, however, I forgot to get people to help me serve communion. Fortunately, we have some really great people here - who think more clearly on a Sunday morning that I do - and three people were pointed out to me to help - Rose, Dave, and Brenda (THANKS DENISE!). I "briefed" them on what to do - I mean, it's pretty normal and rote for me to a degree. And that's a problem, I think. After the service, I thanked them for helping with communion and Brenda said to ...

So I'm hearing a lot about this new movie, Fireproof . If anybody would like to see the movie and have some discussion on it, it's the focus of our Reel Sactuary for October. The info is here . See you next Saturday...

I came across this post on a blog and was intrigued: http://www.spendlessreachmore.com/?p=33 Recently I was watching FOX news and they had Political analyst Carl Rove. He was talking about bounce and bounce time. When he was the campaign manager for President Bush, they new their bounce time was about 4 days. In other words, 8 years ago when they gave a speech they knew the speech would be in the hearts and minds of people for about 4 days, he later went on to explain how today’s rules have drastically changed. He said the bounce time, today its about 1 hour! Staying in front of the congregation with information and being part of your organization is more and more crucial. As you know… Its a living organization that has continual needs, depending on them to show up week after week to get feed by the Senior Pastor is life time, that is a week to week is a lifetime! Putting together a strategic plan to engage with your audience on a daily basis is a really good idea. If you have no...