Pushing The Pause Button & Prayin’
If you’ve been part of our church community you’re aware by now that our continued financial strain has made it necessary for us to take the bold action of moving out of our rather pricey office space in order to bring needed relief and stability to our situation. We’ll use the basement apartment of our house as a temporary office until we can again afford space back in Williamsburg.
Course adjustment
However I sense in my spirit that this is part of a bigger, deeper, much needed “course adjustment” God is working out for our church which will include a revamping of our leadership and recalibration of how we go about our mission. I have a feeling that what may appear to be a big step backward for us is actually God’s grace working among us. Read more ›
Living Parables
You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it. (2 Corinthians 3:3-4, The Message)
Subversion
We’ve just begun a new sermon series on the Parables. Jesus was a master at subversion. He appeared harmless enough – A carpenter from the backwoods of Galilee turned itinerate rabbi. At first glance he seemed ordinary but a closer look revealed more, much more. Below the surface, hidden from plain view he was starting a revolution whereby one kingdom would be thrown out and another put in its place; a kingdom that was much more livable than the present one. And he would do this without the means of military force or democratic elections. He would act subversively. Working from the inside out. Capturing and changing human hearts which eventually, like a growing seed or a bit of yeast in dough, would influence and change the whole culture.
‘Suffering Well’ Is Worship…
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercies to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is true worship. Romans 12:1
Over the last few Sundays we’ve been going through a series of sermons we’ve called, “Faith In The Face Of Suffering”. Someone said that a faith that only works when things are going good and doesn’t help us when times are bad is not worth holding on to. So we’ve been exploring a faith in God that helps us “suffer well” and found that it looks like Jesus. We’ve seen that when our trust in God allows us to respond to adversity like Jesus would or when we allow it to make us more like him, it can be said that we’re suffering well.
Suffering can be an isolating and lonely experience. And it’s easy to make the mistake of facing it alone. But this coming Sunday our final talk is going to be on how suffering well means suffering together as a believing community. You won’t want to miss this one. I think it’s going to be really helpful.
Something Very Precious
We had our Core meeting last Wednesday evening. This meeting is open to everyone that buys into the mission of our church and demonstrates that commitment with an investment of his or her time, energy and money.
We call them the “Core” because they are the foundation of our church community. Twice a year they’re invited to share a meal and to hear reports on church business as well as help brainstorm issues that our leadership is grappling with. The following is the vision talk pastor Mike gave to the group that evening…
Something precious
I want to remind us all of the preciousness of what God has given us as a community that we’ve found worth committing to and sacrificing for. We have something wonderful that shouldn’t be taken for granted because unfortunately it’s in short supply in many Christian circles today. When I think of it I’m reminded of a story found in the gospels…
Are You Happy Yet?
Interesting survey
Americans have always had a thing about happiness. We all have certain unalienable rights declares our Declaration of 
Independence. Among them, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
So then, a couple of centuries into the chase, how are we doing? Alas, only so-so. A recent Pew Research Center survey showed that just a third (34%) of adults in this country say their very happy. Another half say they are pretty happy and 15% consider themselves not too happy.
The Church Is Amazing
Do you understand what God has made you a part of? Your’re a member of the greatest and most effective community ever – the Church. We don’t just go to church we are the Church!
It has outlasted empires. Out distanced religions, idiologies and philosophies. Survived natural, political, sociological, economical upheavals. It’s been battered and bruised. Come to the brink of disaster. It’s shot itself in the foot more than once. And through it all when the dust settled the Church has remained standing.
Life After The Leap: Fighting the post leap blues
I know what a lot of you Leap Of Faithers are saying right 
now. “I’m really bummed out. Just when I was on a roll, it’s over. I was prayin’ everyday, gettin’ into Bible study, believin’ for big things. I had a good God-streak going. But it’s ended. What am I gonna do? I feel like I lost a friend… Quick let’s do another 40 days so I can keep this good thing going.”
I call this the “post-leap blues” and it doesn’t have to get the best of you. Even though Leap Of Faith is over the good things we learned and experienced don’t have to end.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The Results Are In
Well the votes are all in and the results show that Leap Of Faith was a big success. You might say it was a “sleeper”. A number of our folks said that when our 40 day prayer experiment first began back in March they were less than enthusiastic. They admitted that they were rather skeptical that it would catch on and doubtful it would make a whole lot of difference in their lives and in our church. Rather than a leap you could say they started off by taking a crawl of faith.
But something happened along the way to Easter Sunday. It began to catch on. Like a seed planted in good soil, watered each day by God’s words from the gospel of Mark and by prayer, faith started to grow. At first you could only sense it slightly, but then as the jar began to fill up with jelly beans and beer can tabs you could see that God was showing up in all sorts of ways; ways we never expected. Jobs, finances, healings, discoveries, changed lives, God-coincidences and divine appointments, little things, big things, unexpected surprises, lot’s of God-things.
And then last Sunday on Easter there it was in plain sight – the experiment was a success! Our crawl had become a leap and we all knew that somehow God had changed us. We celebrated it together, telling stories and singing songs about it. We had taken a leap together into the arms of God and ended up with a lot more faith and confidence in his love than when we began 6 weeks ago! You could feel it. You could see it!
A Good Friday Pilgrimage
What are you doing this Friday? You know it’s a special day, don’t you? The day we remember Christ’s crucifixion. Will you be taking some time out to think about what that means to you? Unfortunately it will slip the minds of a lot of us.
Stations
I grew up a Catholic and was told to stop whatever I was doing at 3:00pm that day to remember the Cross. Stop and think about it and let it sink in. It was kind of a rule. Looking back on that now, it wasn’t such a bad idea since it’s so easy to motor through our busy routines at work or at school or wherever, without as much as giving it a thought that entire day.
I wasn’t a very good Catholic and I hardly did any of the good Catholic stuff I was supposed to but there was this one thing that went on at the church each year on Good Friday – a way of remembering – that I thought was pretty cool called the “Stations of the Cross”.
When Things Are Crazy We Have The Cross
As Good Friday approaches I’ve been thinking a lot about the Cross and how it was the opposite of what anybody expected and how today God continues to work in a cross-shaped way in our lives.
The Cross reminds me that there are times when, despite doing your best to follow Jesus and believe he has good stuff in store
for you, suddenly things can go haywire and it looks like God flew the coop? You’re rocked. All the air goes out of your balloon. You ask yourself what’s going on because it looks like you failed and your faith has been a waste of time, just the way the crucifixion at the time made no sense at all to Jesus’ followers and family. To them it looked utterly chaotic and pointless.