Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas all! What a great night we had last night, being together with our church family and all the visitors was an awesome way to kick off the holidays. I want to say a special thanks to the creative team, who spent untold hours preparing for our Christmas service. You are awesome! Also thanks to all the others who made last night a great night for people to experience the love of Jesus in a practical way!

By the way, Monica is back at home and feeling well, thanks for praying for her.

Kristine and I want to wish you all a Christmas full of the love of God, family, friends and great food! We love you all and we feel blessed that God has called us to share life with you. Have a great one!

Thoughts on 2009

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about and praying about 2009, and I am pretty excited about what I think God is about to do. I spent a couple hours on the phone with a pastor friend of mine in Toronto and we were sharing some of the things that God is doing. we also talked for a while about what we believe God is going to do in 2009!

I just feel that there is a hunger for God right now in our nation, and that God wants to fill that hunger through His church. The thing is though that we need to do our part in reaching out to these hungry people. As I have said before that it is going to take us stepping out of our comfort zone and actually telling people about Jesus and also inviting them to be a part of His church.

Please spend some time praying and fasting over this next couple of weeks, and ask God to give you wisdom about how to reach the people in your sphere of influence. Take a few minutes in the next few days and invite some people to the Christmas service on the 23rd, and also pray for the people that will be coming to that service, that they will experience the love of God.

There are a couple of things that I need to address about Sunday services:

1. Please try to come on time, it makes it seem that church is unimportant if people can't even show up on time. Also it is quite distracting when people walk in late.
2. I have had a few people complain to me that people are talking a lot while the speaking is going on , to the point that they are having a hard time listening to the message, so please be considerate of the people around you and save your conversation for the way home.

I really believe that God wants to do great things, but we need to do our best as well. I love this church and I am so thankful that we get to do life together!

The Divine Mentor

Hey, I have been reading a book called "The Divine Mentor" by Wayne Cordeiro and I have been loving it! I have believed in reading for a long time and also in allowing myself to be mentored through the persons writings, but Wayne takes it to a whole new level. Here are a couple things that I have learned so far:

1. Life has given us to very effective teachers, one is Wisdom and the other is Consequences.
2. If we choose Wisdom we can learn how to avoid problems and thereby learn by other people's knowledge and experience.
3. If we choose Consequences then the personal cost will be sky high and we will learn by our own experience and mistakes.
4. Just as we have two teachers, we have two pains. They are the pain of Discipline and the pain of Regret.
5. If we want to learn from some amazing Mentors then open the pages of the Bible and we can find people in all walks and situations of life, that are waiting to mentor you through the situation that you are in.

Don't forget to pray for the weekend service and ask God who you can bring with you. Have a great one