Happy Thanksgiving

We are headed to Des Moines this afternoon to spend time with family for Thanksgiving. It is that time again to stuff ourselves full of food until we are sick. I can't wait! Seriously though I want to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving. Remember to be thankful for all the blessings that God has given us this year.

Pop, Soda or Coke?

We have some friends visiting us this week from Texas and I got in an interesting discussion about soft drinks. I have always grown up calling it pop and I have heard many people call it soda but in Texas they call it Coke. This confuses me! So when you go to a restaurant, what do you say, "I want a Pepsi Coke?" or a "Doctor Pepper Coke?" Coke is Coke, there is regular Coke, Diet Coke and Cherry Coke and that is it. Anyways, what are your thoughts? Do you call it Pop, Soda or Coke?

Goble, Goble

We had a great Turkey Sunday yesterday. We gave away fourteen turkeys to guests and had great services. Thanks to Cody and Derek for the skit. They did a great job and it was quite humorous. Also thanks to everyone who invited someone to church. Outreaches like these wouldn't be a success if it wasn't for everyone coming together and inviting people in our community. Way to Go!!!

Turkey Sunday

Turkey Sunday is this Sunday and it has always been a great outreach for us as a church. We will be giving away turkey's to every guest in our church so make sure you invite a friend. Tomorrow we will also be going door to door to some of the areas in our community so we also could use the extra hand. We will meet at the church at 9:45 a.m.

Celebrating Wins!

This past week I have received a very encouraging card and email from some new people that have been attending our church. Here are a few things they said.....

I have finally found my perfect church home and best of all through you, a rewarding relationship with God that I never had before. I always 'thought' I had a relationship with God, but not like I do now. ..........Three Sundays ago I did raise my eyes to you when you asked us to and it had a powerful effect on me since then. You and your church seemed to come along for our family when you needed us most. Unhappy where we were, I felt myself beginning to drift away. Now we are anchored, and it feels so good!

Here is another message I received this week as well.....

What a tremendous blessing each Sunday service has been for us, attending Community Hope! We thank you for the warm welcome and your prayers! We feel God's leading in requesting to become members.

I share these letters with everyone because these letters represent victory for all us! Every person who volunteers at Community Hope from the greeters, worship team, to the nursery and Sunday School teachers to the ushers all play a part in these letters. We are all a team and we are making a difference in this community and lives are being changed! Thanks to everyone for helping make these type of life transformations happen.

Browns win on Monday Night

My Cleveland Browns are not having a great season but last night they won their second Monday Night Football game. I think Brady Quinn will make a good quaterback someday but he still has a lot to learn. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season plays out.

Healing the broken

We continued our message series yesterday on "Heaven." We talked about the importance of the resurrection and what that means for us today. I know growing in church I was always confused about the resurrection. Not the resurrection of Jesus but the resurrection of the believer and how that whole heaven, resurrected body, new earth thing fit. It wasn't until I took some classes to get my credentials that I understood it. I hope I didn't confuse anyone yesterday with a bunch of theology. My prayer is that through resurrection we understand God's heart. God's heart is to restore the things that are broken as a result of sin and the curse. When we understand God's heart the resurrection gives us a whole new understanding. It is not just information but transformation. We are transformed in the light that God wants to heal the things that are broken which should move us to heal the broken things around us. That is why Paul closed the chapter in 1 Corinthians 15 on the resurrection to tell the people that their work was not in vain.

I think Operation Christmas Child is a great example of healing things that are broken. Our church partnered with Christmas Child and we are giving away shoe boxes to kids that who would probably not have a Christmas if it wasn't for the shoebox. When we see the world through God's eyes we are moved to projects such as these knowing that our work is not in vain. Thanks to everyone who participated in healing something that is broken.

Day in Des Moines

Spent the day today in Des Moines with other pastors at our Next Generation meetings. We are reading a book called "Leadership Challenge." This is definitely a great book for any type of leader not just ministry. Today we talked about the four key things that people look for in leaders. Here are the four:

1. Honesty
2. Forward-Looking
3. Inspiring
4. Competency

Great things that all of us should aspire too.

Convention and Sunday

We took ten kids to youth convention this weekend. It has been awhile since I've been to Youth Convention so I expected to pretty much get no sleep but out teens actually went to bed around 2 a.m. I was pretty surprised. It was a great weekend with some great services. It is so important that we get our kids to events like these where they can get away and experience God. It was at a Youth Convention that I was called into the ministry. I know that some of our kids were really touched this weekend. Looking forward to Spring Convention as they are moving it to HY-VEE Hall and bringing in KJ-52. Pretty cool!

Sunday we continued our series on heaven and in week three we covered 'hell.' This was a heavy subject and definitely not an easy subject to preach on but it is so important that we understand the reality of hell. Hell is a real place, so much so that Jesus talked more about hell then He did heaven. My prayer is that we will be burdened like never before to reach our community knowing that hell is a real place. I closed with the challenge to make a "heavens top ten list" of people you want to see come to know Christ in the coming months. Let's pray that their hearts will be opened to receive the message of God's love. Jesus said that He would build His church on the gates of hell and that promise I am standing on for our church.

Breakfast Club and MA Meeting

Had another busy day today as we had our second Breakfast Club at the church. The Breakfast Club is an outreach we started on late start days at the school. We had fourteen kids today as we cooked pancakes and had cereal and juice for them. Thanks to all those who helped out this morning.

I also had our monthly community ministers meeting today. It sounds like we are going to do a community memorial service for the first time this year in December. We are going to hold it at the funeral home and light candles for those who have passed on this year. We also talked about the Christmas Joy project. It looks like we will be helping over 100 children this year with presents. CH will be taking 25 of them to sponsor. Look for the angels in the foyer in the coming weeks. It is great to work with a bunch of guys in our community that is Kingdom Focused.

Time to Vote

Today is finally election day! I can't say enough about how I am so glad this is finally over. I have never seen our nation so divided over the last year. People get hot tempered when you try to talk about politics and don't always agree with their views. The one thing I challenge us all with this election is this-GOD IS IN CONTROL! I really believe that there is a spirit of fear racing through our country and especially Christians with this election. Remember that fear is not from God. 2 Timothy 1:7 clearly teaches us this principle. God has not given us fear but a spirit of love, power and a sound mind. These are the three things that should guide us as believers. Let me break it down for you:

1. Love-We should love everyone, including those of the opposite party. Some believers really believe it is ok to gossip and accept slander against politicians. I don't see that in the Bible. I know some people would not agree with me but there will be republicans and democrats in heaven. Jesus won't ask us at the gate what political party we are a part of, rather He will ask us if we have accepted Him as Savior and Lord.

2. Power-God has given us the power through the Holy Spirit to overcome fear. We shouldn't live everyday with this fear of what will happen if a certain candidate gets elected.

3. Sound Mind- God has given us a mind that can reason and know what to do. That sound mind should guide us, even when we go to the polls. The sound mind should also help us to decide which candidate best stands for moral and biblical values. Where do the candidates stand on issues of abortion, marriage, the elderly and compassion for the poor? These are important issues as believers.

I hope that that these three things will guide us today and the months ahead. Believe that God will still be on His throne after the election process is all over. Jesus Christ is the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Heavenly Tension

We had great services on Sunday. We continued in our series on heaven and talked about "What heaven is like." We talked about what will not be in heaven and what will be in heaven. The main take away was that God has called each of us to live with a heavenly tension. The heavenly tension comes from Philippians when Paul said, "To die is gain but there is still fruitful labor to be done on the earth." Paul knew that heaven was going to be great but he also knew all the work that still had to be done in his ministry. God wants us all to look forward too and anticipate heaven but at the same time, that anticipation should cause us to want to do more for God while on the earth. Each of us should look at how we are spending our time and how we are spending our resources. Are we spending those two things with eternity in view? When we get to heaven I want to know that I did all I could do while on the earth. Let us all live with this type of tension while we still have the time.