Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Life @ Grace for the week of 06.14.09

In case you didn't see this week's Life@Grace email. . . .



Celebrating, proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus on the Central Coast and beyond . . .

Beloved Family of Grace,

Let's remember to pray for our Mexico Missions Team this week as they labor for the Lord (safety, energy, unity, attitude).
Can you believe it's the middle of June already? Here are some updates and opportunities you need to be aware of as we head into summer together. . . .

  1. 09 Annual Meeting Stuff Now Online: Did you miss the the June 7 Annual Meeting? So much vital and encouraging information was shared. We want you hear it, so we've put the audio and presentation slides online here. Please take some time to process this information. . . and praise the Lord as you do!

  2. Dessert with a Purpose this Thursday, June 18, 7:00 PM at the Phillip's Home: Come and hear from Grace Church missionaries Michael and Tammy Grainger about the exciting work God is doing in Western Africa. Also, Ross Newby will share about his recent mission to share the Gospel as a short-term missionary with Solid Rock Climbers for Christ. Directions to the Phillip's are here.

  3. Wills & Trusts Seminar, Saturday, June 27, 9 -11:30 AM in the Founder's Hall: As a part of their ongoing vision to provide stewardship education here at Grace, the Financial Trustees would like to invite you to join them for this free upcoming seminar hosted by Christian Foundation West, a non-profit ministry that works with churches to educate their congregations on being wise stewards of God’s resources. Contact Todd Talley for more info or questions.

  4. SON ROCK KID's CAMP Vacation Bible School, June 29 - July 3. Your K - 6th grader will have a blast! Email Jenny Nelson to sign up, for more info, or questions.

  5. 4th of July Picnic, 11:30 AM-3:00 PM at Meadow Park: A great tradition here at Grace! And a great event for friends, coworkers, family and neighbors. Invite a friend and they eat free. Use the tab on the worship folder the next 2 Sundays to sign up and let us know your lunch plans. 4th of July will once again serve as the kick-off for our Grace Summer Nights, but we'll tell you more about that next week.
As usual, there's a of ton of fun stuff going on. None of us can do it all, but we want you to be informed and aware so can keep encouraging one another as we live by faith together.
Look to the Lord and have a great week!

Because of and for the Gospel. . . Pastor Tim



just she and I


Light posting this week. No posting next week.


This week our 3 older kids have been having at Cousin's Camp, hosted by their grandparents in Sutter Creek. Haaken has been down south with the other set of grandparents. Susie and I have been having the time of our lives. I don't think we've had this much time alone together since Sage was born 12 years ago. Still lots of spark there. . . . Praise the Lord . . . . at this point we'll be just fine someday as "empty nesters."

At the same time, I've been studying for 4 sessions of teaching out at Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island next week. I'm looking forward to seeing all many of our Family Camp friends again.

Posting will be light, but I'll try and at least Twitter a bit. . . . Hope you're having a great week!


Wednesday, June 10, 2009

wanna dance?

Seth Godin referenced this crazy video. . . . out of curiousity I clicked over and then could not pull my eyes away from it. I dare you to click and see what I mean . . .



Come on now, isn't that the craziest thing?

What do you make of this?
How do you explain this?
What does this reveal about human nature?
What are the implications for Gospel community and Gospel ministry in our community?
Where in your life at are you "dancing"? Where are you afraid to "dance"? Where do you refuse to "dance?" Where are you "dancing" with the crowd, when you should be getting as far away as possible?
Where are you serving as guy #1? Guy #2? Guy 3? Guy or Gal 100?

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Annual Meeting Resources Now Posted . . .

  • Did our staff spend more than the congregation gave last year?
  • What's up with the Osos Parking Lot?
  • How much did the 1011 Pacific Street property really cost?
  • What was the final price tag for the remodel of the Founder's Hall and Early Childhood Center?
  • How much has the congregation given to the Building on the Legacy Vision?
  • What is the Building on the Legacy Vision?
  • What is the "Big Gift" and what happened to it?

All these questions and many more were answered at our Annual Congregation Meeting last Sunday evening.

We had a great evening together and we missed you, but we still want you to know the vital information that was shared. So we've posted the audio and a pdf of the presentation slides right here.

Find an hour and dig in. After all, it's your church and you need to know this stuff!

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

get ready

Allen just forwarded me the June 1, 2009 Presidential Proclamation. . . .

http://tinyurl.com/kqavyk

read it slowly and carefully and consider the implications, where this might take us, and what's coming next. . .

As we've been seeing in Genesis, from the beginning humankind has set its heart to live apart and autonomous from God, His ways and His order. That trend continues.

It makes me fear for God's judgment. . . . .But thanks be to God for Jesus, who has come to take us through judgment to life. . .

John 5:21 “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.
John 5:22 “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son,
John 5:23 so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.

John 5:24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
John 5:25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
John 5:26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;
John 5:27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is [the] Son of Man.
John 5:28 “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice,
John 5:29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
Brothers and sisters, do not fear or obsess about these dark days, but look to Jesus who endured the cross of judgment for us.

2Tim. 3:1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2Tim. 3:2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
2Tim. 3:3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
2Tim. 3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
2Tim. 3:5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.
2Tim. 3:6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,
2Tim. 3:7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2Tim. 3:8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith.
2Tim. 3:9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’ and Jambres’ folly was also.
2Tim. 3:10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance,
2Tim. 3:11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!
2Tim. 3:12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
2Tim. 3:13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.
2Tim. 3:14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them,
2Tim. 3:15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Let us be humble, gentle, and loving with those who oppose God and His Word, yet standing firm without compromise.

Grace: the God who remembers . . .

Last week we saw how God met Noah's faith as he exited the ark with more over-the-top abundant, abounding, amazing grace. . . . (LISTEN HERE, if you missed it!)

Toward the end I quoted Walter Brueggemann on how God's remembering is His grace . . . Janice Phillips asked if I'd post it, so here it is. . .


The Gospel of this God is that he remembers. The only thing the waters of chaos and death do not cut through (though they cut through everything else) is the commitment of God to creation. His remembering is an act of gracious engagement with His covenant partner, an act of committed compassion. It asserts that god is not preoccupied with Himself but with his covenant partner, creation. It is the remembering of God, and only that, which gives hope and makes new life possible. . . . The flood not only has no memory. It means to destroy memory and set us in a world of utter amnesia. But the flood will not have its way. Yahweh will not be "brain-washed" by the flood.

The experience of chaos and death lets one conclude that everything is broken off, that everything in creation is ended. But this God stands free from and not controlled by creation. His commitments are not subject to such circumstances. And that is the ground of this Gospel in this narrative. The world rests on a graciousness not subject to the waxing and waning of historical initiatives, or even to the rising and falling waters. --Walter Brueggemann

I love that. The fact that God remembers does not imply that He ever forgot, but that He never forgot. He keeps remembering us in His unfathomable grace and He remembers still.

compromise

Seth Godin usually makes me think. . . . he does so again in this post.

The Gospel should be nudging us, moving us, challenging us on our place on the sprectrum. . . don't you think?

Believing the Gospel, life is never static, but always dynamic and a bit dis -settling. It should make us content, but not comfortable. Free from guilt, but never free from thought and movement and change.

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

boys digging into God's Word


I pray that my boys will love God's Word and center their lives around its life-changing truth. Needless to say, I smiled when Susie sent me this precious pic of Zeke reading Haaken's new rhyming Bible to him today.

Haaken loves to rhyme and he's been complaining every Sunday, "Mom, I don't have a Bible . . . ". Obviously that was a problem we needed and wanted to fix. So his new Bible came in the mail (that delivery guy sure comes a lot, usually bearing books!) and Zeke just started reading it to him. Apparently they read the whole thing together in one sitting.

Diggin' that!

09 Men's Getaway

Great spirit of fellowship at the 09 Men's Getaway last weekend. I was there Friday and most of the day on Saturday and had an opportunity to open God's Word and what it means to be a man after God's own heart. P. Ken took over and continued the theme on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

I suggested that David was a man after God's own heart because . . .

  1. He had a heart that believed God
    (we see it in his faceoff with Goliath, in his relationship with Saul and later with Absolom

  2. He had a heart that beat after the things of God
    (Gods name, God's fame, God's ark, God's temple, God's praise)

  3. He had a heart that broke before God.
    (we see it throughout the Psalms and especially in Psalm 51 after confronted in his sin)

I enjoyed seeing some less involved guys join us and having a great time and, as last year, got in some great MTB riding. If you missed it, you missed out. Its so hard to get away, but so worth it.

Here's a great pic of a big group ride . . .