We are blessed to have Jason Goodman join the team as our Worship Pastor. Jason and Nicole have been married 13 years and now have 3 kids. Jason served on the pastoral staff at a church in Tennessee before going to Colorado Springs to attend the New Life School of Worship. We are looking forward to welcoming this family to Flagstaff and to Grace the first of August. Yep, that’s next week!
Tomorrow our church is taking a portion of our normal worship service to serve the school that we have been meeting in for almost 18 years. It’s amazing to me to think of how long God has allowed us to meet in this place.
As I was preparing for my message tomorrow, I was reminded that as we serve the school tomorrow we’re serving God and people. Sinagua is not a building. It’s people. Many of them may not be followers of Jesus, but they are people He created. People He loves. So, we’ll be serving Him and His purposes by taking some time to wipe down some shelves, move some desks and do some clean up work. I can’t wait.
If you’re a Gracer, here’s the plan for tomorrow:
Come to church and get a good seat. I suggest 9:50. It’ll be packed tomorrow. There is no children’s ministry or nursery. EVERYONE will be together for our worship and teaching and serving! We will shorten the service significantly so we can jump right in and get to work on some basic projects around the school. We will then gather and finish our time together with lunch.
Yesterday was our “Vision Update” Sunday. On Jan 1, I talked specifics about Grace Community Church and what I believed God was leading us to do during this year. Yesterday was exactly 6 months, so it was a good time for an update.
I am so excited for the plans God has for Grace Church. It’s hard to put into a few words on this page all that is happening and the why of it all. Let me jump to the end. I ended with a brief picture of Paul writing to Timothy at the end of his first letter. Paul had just worded a ‘charge’ if you will, kind of a call to arms, “O man of God…fight the good fight of faith.” Then he closes in verse 20 with “O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you.”
I can’t go into all of it here, but you can listen if you’d like on our website, and you could even skip to the last part like maybe the 41 minute mark (how’s that, a pastor saying skip to the end!)
Not unlike Timothy, we too have had the gospel entrusted to us to carry on and carry out. I don’t know where we got the notion that this was an option. It’s a command, a commission, it’s a way of life. A way of life that says, “there’s nothing in the world more important than receiving what God has for me and then living a life in response to that gift of grace and passing it on to others.”
A very thoughtful couple recently gave me this small fountain for my office. They’ve been paying attention!
We’re all the middle pot. For this to function the middle pot must both receive and give. If you’re receiving and not giving, you’ll become bloated and not healthy. Think of the Dead Sea. Water only flows into it.
If you’re giving and not receiving, you’ll run dry. Imagine how long it takes for the fountain to cease flowing if the water from the top stops. You can only give out what you’re receiving.
Who is speaking into your life?
And into whose life are you speaking?
Ministry – Am I receiving? Am I giving?
Truth – Am I reading, studying, learning? Am I sharing, teaching?
Relationships – Am I listening? Am I speaking the truth in love?
“You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Tim 2:1-2
I know, I know, Father’s Day has come and gone. In Sunday’s sermon, I talked about the significance of dads that have been touched by God.
Here’s where my thought came from:
I was reading last week in 1 Kings. You remember how you keep seeing this pattern of how the next king in the line did what his father did, whether good or evil? For instance, “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin which he made Israel to sin.” That is 15:26, but really there’s a whole slew of verses just like that. Point is, the sin of the father was easy to pass on to the next king, and guess what the consequence was?
Perhaps you’ve read or heard me say before how blessed I am by who my father was. You see both my dad and my wife’s father were not raised in homes where they were taught the things of the Lord. And actually it was a pretty dismal outlook when you consider the other details that I wont go into here. Looking on from the outside, you might assume that neither of them had a chance or would ever amount to much.
Then God touched them. Without a dad, or anyone in the home to point the way, my dad was 12 when he trusted in Jesus for his salvation. Laurie’s dad was 15. And guess what? Everything changed. Each would go on to marry amazing Christian women who were raised in wonderful, God honoring homes. Each would raise a large family of Christ followers. And each became missionaries. I’ve never tried to do the math of the influence, I’ll let God keep that record, but I must believe it’s amazing.
You see dads, it matters. Yesterday at Grace as we were honoring our dads, we were also getting a quick report from our youth who just returned, (like seriously 6 hours earlier) from a week at Hume Lake, where 11 students trusted Jesus for their salvation. Imagine the young person whose life changed this very week, and imagine the next generation who just may be impacted by each of those individuals. Is there a Jim Smith in that group, a Larry Cardoza? Maybe. Probably. How about most definitely?
I love summer in Flagstaff, don’t you? Here are a few dates I want you to know about and mark down:
July 1st – Vision 2012 Update. I’ll use time during the sermon to update you on what we set out to do on January 1.
July 8th – If I were you, I wouldn’t want to miss this Sunday!
July 22nd – Grace @ Noon and Sinagua Service day. Regular worship service, themed on serving, then an all-church lunch (this is what we call Grace@Noon!), then an all-church work day for a few hours to minister right there at Sinagua.
July 29th – Grace 1.0
Aug 19th – Baptism!!
We just sent our kids off to Hume Lake today. I love seeing all these kids, many I don’t know, many friends going because they were invited. I love seeing a huge, cool bus. I love seeing a group of parents watching, knowing the real cost of something like this. I love watching the young ones launch out for the first time and get on that big bus with kids they don’t know. Yet. Mostly, I love seeing our man Timothy Serrano step up and own this. I love that he was mentored by Pastor Bob and raised by godly parents. This is what a church does. It raises up and launches. It invests in others.
Be praying for Tim and Makensie and all the youth workers as they love and lead this group of students in a wonderful week.
All week I’ve been considering Acts 4 in preparation for tomorrow’s sermon at Grace.
4:8 “The Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, …”
I wonder if we realize what a big deal it is that today, followers of Jesus who know Him because they’ve been saved, have the Holy Spirit. We teach here that a person receives the Holy Spirit when they come to faith in Jesus as their Savior. Romans 8:9-11 tells us that if we know God through Jesus, then we have the Spirit. In Ephesians 5:18 we realize that there is a regular (perhaps daily?) filling of the Holy Spirit. Are there Christians who have the Holy Spirit yet don’t live as though they are filled with the Spirit? Sure.
To be filled with the Spirit is to yield your life to Him and not be “filled with yourself”, but instead, know the Holy Spirit is in you to empower you for serving, loving others and let Him guide you.
Imagine the words, “Then [fill in the blank with your name] filled with the Spirit, said…”
Finally opened my blog site, and I’m noticing a poor pattern here.
Seriously, it’s just about everyday I think of something I need to blog about. What that means is, there’s something I want to either add to last weeks sermon, or some observation I just made, or I just witnessed a real-life answer to prayer and I want you to know it. There’s always something. I am a little intimidated to even think about making a list of such observations since I last wrote here. Yep, it’s that bad. (Maybe a few highlights will show up if I can in fact get on this horse and stay on it for a while.)
I’ve mentioned before that I like to read either a chapter from Proverbs each day or one of the Psalms. No matter what else I’m reading (currently the wild ride of King David), I like to keep the Proverbs open. As you probably already know, the 31 chapters in Proverbs makes it easy to stay in the game. You know life happens, you get busy, and you realize it’s been too long since you’ve had meaningful time in the Scriptures. With the Proverbs, you simply pick up reading on the corresponding day of the month. That’s not why I read it, but it’s probably what got me started and yes, it still helps.
Have you found yourself saying, “yep, it’s been awhile” since I …? It’s not too late. If it’s about taking care of your soul by reading, meditating, enjoying some good worship music, then do it. Now. Today. Open the Bible and read a paragraph and stop for 5 minutes and think on it. Has it been awhile since you’ve exercised, enjoyed your favorite meal, or written in your journal or spent time with someone near you? Just do it. Today. Even if it’s simple.
Kinda like today’s blog.
It is so good to be home. The time in Thailand was amazing and I’m so grateful I was able to be a part.
I really don’t even understand jet-lag. I mean the time change makes sense that it would bother you a little, but this is just odd. I’d think a good night’s rest would take care of it. Of course I know better. We’ve traveled enough to know what this is and to expect it. But that doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve heard it best described as living in a ‘fog’. That about says it. So, forgive me if over these next few days you and I meet and you leave wondering if I haven’t suffered a stroke. I think I’ll be fine. Eventually.
This morning at Grace was one of those special times. I can’t wait for Resurrection Sunday and the opportunity to share more of what happened today. Blew my mind! God’s grace is amazing the more we understand and celebrate who HE is and what HE had done for us. To think, we deserve hell, but instead we find ourselves in the righteousness of Christ. All because of His love and grace for us. What a blessing to be a part of this church and to know God is working through a bunch of ordinary people.
Nice.
PMark's Blog World 