God Sightings

For starters, I cant believe it has taken me this long to blog in the new year, alas, here goes the first blog of 2009.  As a reminder, you can catch me on Facebook and Twitter easily these days. You can click on the links on this blog and it will take you to my sites on those social networking tools.

Anyway...a few weeks ago our Lead Pastor encouraged us to pay attention to God who is working all around us. He also encouraged us to write down what he referred to as "God Sightings". Well, ashamedly, I had not sat down long enough to really think about this and the good thing is, it didn't take me long at all. 

I am reminded of yesterday in the worship service as we began playing and singing the song, "God With Us". It is a great tune by Mercy Me and such a great message. Emmanuel, means, God With Us. We began to sense God's presence in the room as He took center stage while hearing voices raised, arms stretched out to the ceiling, people yielding themselves to the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Wow! What a powerful time! God truly inhabited the praises of His people in the few moments we had together in corporate worship. 

This is my first God sighting of the week. What will be yours?

What a great day and opportunity to help someone in need. Our Youth and Families Pastor Mike Lehew came across a code enforcement officer in town that contacted us out of the blue and asked if we would be willing to help clean up an elderly couples yard. We said absolutely! When we got there it was in really bad shape. overgrown with weeds, brush, car parts, broken down limbs from big trees, cars, a boat, you name it, it was probably on the property. The everyone who helped did an excellent job, worked hard and did not complain.     We completely filled the largest industrial trash container I have ever seen. They could probably use 2 more container s full of debris before the entire yard is cleaned. 

It was a blessing to us that we could help and also to the couple who are elderly and the man is taking care of his wife who has cancer. What do I have to complain about? This opportunity today was a reminder to me that we need to help each other. When we see a need, if we can help, we need to rally the troops and jump in to help. Thank you team for your help and time as you gave of your time and resources to make this possible. You all did a fantastic job!

Christmas Perspectives

Wow. Our people did such a great job tonight on Christmas Perspectives. From the acting, to helping with the stage building, set-up and tear down, to the tech stuff, we had a great evening. My daughter Mikayla was in the play and did a great job. I am so proud of her and the young women she is becoming. It is hard to believe I have a teenager, but alas it tis true. 

Anyway, it was a blast for me watching our people do what they are passionate about in the arts. Telling their perspective of Christmas through each one of the characters. Our Drama Team Coordinator wrote the script and the people acted it out-way to go everyone!

I am sure I will encounter many different perspectives this year, but one recently has sorta rocked my thinking  and I wanted to take a moment and share it. I was listening to Steven Furtick on his website and he made this statement, "People worship the resource and forget to worship the source". That statement hit me between the eyes! I am am still wrestling with it and wondering when in my life I have done this. How does that tie into Christmas Perspectives? Well, Christ came and was the gift. But how many times do we focus on everything but the gift. We have the tendency, I have the tendency to focus on everything but the gift of Jesus Christ.  He is the source. He is the life. Worship the source not the resource. This is what I am wrestling with. Maybe when you read this, we can wrestle with this together and discuss. 

One of a million Christmas Perspectives...