Financial Peace

Financial Peace is coming to Community Hope in September. I am really excited that our church can offer this program by Dave Ramsey. Dave is an expert on finances and this thirteen week study will help everyone manage their money correctly. Their will be a preview of this class on September 8th at 7 p.m. This will be an opportunity to get an idea of what the class will be like and order materials. Please spread the word and make plans to attend. It will be one of the greatest investments you will ever make.

Four New Rules about Rural

Recently I read a book from Shannon O' Dell called "Transforming church in rural America." This is a great read for rural pastors. In September there will be a group of pastors headed to Arkansas where Shannon pastors to meet with him and have a round table discussion. Shannon took a church in a community of 400 people in rural Arkansas and today they reach over 2,000 people through multi-site campuses. It is truly unbelievable how God is using him to reach rural America. In his book, Shannon shares four new rules about Rural.

1. Small does not have to mean boring
2. Rural does not have to mean lack of innovation
3. Excellence is not found in the detail or design of the building
4. Success is not found in the building size.

I remember when I announced five years ago that I was leaving Des Moines and headed to Montezuma Iowa. I had some people call me out and tell me I was crazy. Small town churches won't grow. They are stuck in tradition. It was career suicide. I knew though as soon as I visited Montezuma and Community Hope that this was the place for our family. I knew that God was bigger than many of the mindsets that people had about rural churches. We have seen some of that over the past five years. We have seen growth and lives changed for the kingdom of God. I also know God is not through and the best is yet to come.

Weekend Reflections

1. Quiet weekend at the Jones household. I took Olivia on a date Saturday morning and we went fishing at a local pond. Olivia caught four fish! Way to go sweet girl. Saturday night we went and saw "Despicable Me." I would recommend this movie for all ages.

2. Sunday we started our new series called "Words". Over the next few weeks we will be talking about the power of our words. Our big idea is that our words have the power to steer and determine the direction of our life and the lives of others. It is so true that our words have the power to affect the most important things in life. Whether that's our relationships, our emotions, our health and even our future. That is why we need to get a hold of our words. James 3 tells that spiritual maturity is marked by a person who can control their words. This is so simple yet so profound. As Christians we have a hard time getting a hold of our words. James says that we can tame all sorts of animals yet we have a hard time taming our tongue. How many times have people been hurt because of gossip, slander, or words said out of anger. That is why we need to learn this principle and choose our words wisely. We ended with a prayer that is found in Psalms 141:3 that says, "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips." Let us all pray this prayer on a daily basis asking the Lord to help us with our words.

3. Sunday night we had a leadership team meeting with our department heads. We are gearing up for a new series this Fall called "Get into the Game." I am pumped about this series as there will be lots of surprises and fun. The series big idea will be getting all of us off the bench and into the game that Christ calls the church.

We are starting a new series this Sunday called "Words". The next few weeks we will be taking a look at the power of our words. Proverbs 18:21 says, "the tongue has the power of life and death and those who love it will eat its fruit." It is so true that in our words holds life or death. That is why we must choose our words wisely. This Sunday we will be talking about the power of the tongue and covering one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, James chapter 3. Make plans now to attend CH and hear this exciting series.

Random Thoughts

The last four weeks have been pretty crazy for me. We started with Kids Camp and then a week of VBS to a missions trip in Springfield to some time away in Chicago. Here are some random thoughts.

1. Had a great time in Springfield with a twelve of our people helping out Rural Compassion. Kent Anderson and the Rural Compassion ministry is doing a great job helping rural churches. We packed hundreds of shoes for other churches, backpacks and also helping with their monthly mailings at the office. The warehouse was extremely hot but the team had a great attitude and were great workers. Wednesday night we went to James River Assembly to their prayer service and really enjoyed the time in the Word and prayer.

2. Jen and I celebrated thirteen years of marriage last week and to celebrate we went to Chicago, IL. We spent some time at the Aquarium, the Navy Pier and did some shopping. We also went on a dinner cruise as well along Lake Michigan. I can honestly say that my wife is my best friend and I love her more today than thirteen years ago. I love getting away and spending time just the two of us.

3. I had a wedding this weekend with two of our former Grinnell students Dave Krist and Christina Wagner. Dave and Christina were very active in our church while they were attending Grinnell and what an awesome couple they are. It was my privilege to perform the ceremony for them.

4. We had our second Back to School Bash on Sunday and saw over ninety people walk through our doors. We gave away shoes, backpacks, school supplies and free haircuts. God is good. I was reading in Psalms 37 just this morning that says, "The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives." I believe that one of the best ways we can express the kingdom of God is by showing mercy to people and giving with no strings attached. Jesus showed us love unconditionally and by giving back to our community we can do a little of the same. Thanks to everyone who donated school supplies to make this event a success!

Rural Compassion

We are getting ready to head out early tomorrow morning and head to Springfield to Rural Compassion. Rural Compassion is an organization that helps rural churches with outreaches. We are teaming up with Rural Compassion this year with our Back to School Bash. We will be handing out school supplies, backpacks and shoes. Rural Compassion will be helping us with the back packs and the shoes. Instead of just taking, I felt in my heart it was important to give back. That is why we are going down to the warehouse for a couple days and packing shoes and backpacks for other churches. I believe it is so important to give back when we can. We are also bringing down thirty I Mac computers that were donated from the Montezuma school. These computers will be given to churches with after-school programs. Please be in prayer for us Wednesday through Friday as we travel.

Vacation Bible School

It has been a great week at Vacation Bible School. The theme this year is "Water Works Park". Which means lots of water games! We decked out the sanctuary like a water park, picked up the chairs and put beach towels on the floor for the kids to sit on. We have had up to eighty kids this week. Jennifer and all our great workers are doing a great job investing in the lives of these children this week. Here are some pics I've captured so far;

Camp

We had a wonderful week at Kids Camp. We took five boys and girls to Ogden and God did some great things. There was a team from Illinois that did the services and they were very creative in presenting the Gospel to the kids in ways that they could understand. We also had fun riding the zip lines, go-carts, inflatables and the zorb ball. Good times! I encourage parents to plan ahead and encourage your children to go to camp. It will be the best week of their life, guaranteed. It is a great way to get away from all the stuff that life throws at them and just get alone with God. God always does tremendous things around the altars and I love hearing the testimonies of how God touched these kids. I remember when I was a teenager how camp affected me. I am so thankful for the leadership of the Iowa Network that puts on such a great camp. Way to go guys!

The Community in Hope!

I was reminded this weekend why our church is named "Community Hope." As a church our vision is to reach our community. How do we do this? We do it by being involved in our community. This weekend we had a great opportunity to do just that. Starting Saturday we were at the local parade and afterwards handing out free water bottles and juice boxes to people on the square. Many people were amazed when we told them that the drinks were 'free'. I loved the looks on people's faces like there was something wrong with us by giving away stuff. This was just a practical way to show God's love to our community. Over all we gave away over 200 water bottles and 80 juice boxes to thirsty people. Praise God!

On Sunday our church was able to worship with the other area churches for a 4th of July celebration service. We are so blessed as a community to get together with the other churches and worship together. It is great to build the kingdom of God together as a community and not be about our church vs. their church. Each church will reach different people. The goal is to build the kingdom not individual churches. I love each pastor and each church in this community and thank God for them. They are great men of God and it is a privilege to work with them.

Next week we have another opportunity to be involved in the community. Montezuma is sponsoring Summer Nights every second Tuesday night of the month. Our church has an opportunity to be involved at the square and offer games for the kids. I want to encourage you to come on out and volunteer an hour or two of your time. I will be at Kids Camp that week so we could use all the help we can get.

As the years go on, we must remember as a church that we were called to be in the community and serving Jesus Christ to the community in practical ways. The people of our county need to see Christ followers serving God in tangible ways they can see. There are many opportunities for us to serve so let's keep the community in Hope!

4th of July Community Service

This Sunday we will not be at Community Hope for worship but gathering at the Court House in Montezuma for a special 4th of July Celebration service with the other churches in the community. I will be sharing along with Pastor George from the Presbyterian church and Pastor Klink from the Methodist church. We will have special music, taking communion and also taking a special offering for the needy in our community. Service time is at 9 a.m. Bring a lawn chair if you wish or there will be seats available. Hope to see you there!

Weekend Reflections

1. Friday night we went to see Toy Story 3. It was a good movie but a little scary in a few scenes for Ethan my four year old. Buzz and Woody are always fun and there was funny scenes throughout especially Ken and Barbie. This movie was a little sad with Andy growing up and making the decision to get rid of his toys when he was a kid. All and all it was good movie and would recommend it to anyone.

2. Saturday we celebrated Father's Day since Sunday is such a crazy day. We went to Iowa City and ate at Red Lobster. My wife got her normal motzerella sticks and I got a Lobster and shrimp platter. Yum!

3. It is funny how Mother's Day is our second highest attended Sunday of the year and Father's Day is one of the lowest. Makes you think.

4. Continued our Q & A series on Sunday with the question "How do we know the Bible is accurate?" Many people have this question and I hope that I gave everyone some good information on the reliability of the scriptures. The truth is, if you take the Bible and compare it side by side with other historical documents of that time period, the Bible is one of the most accurate historical writings known to man.

5. I hope everyone got the point that the best way we can prove the Bible is by living it out. God's Word is truth and changes us from the inside out.

6. Gave away a GPS system to Ed Hundley, a Theisens gift card to Pat Cashman and a Grinnell Steak House gift certificate to Austin Young. All great guys and great dads.

No one stands alone

I was reminded this Sunday of one of our core values at Community Hope as I visited another church. One of our core values is 'No one stands alone." This value simply means that when we see somebody in our congregation that is all alone we go and stand by them and engage in a conversation. This also could mean that when someone visits our church for the first time and we see them sitting alone that we go and introduce our self and be friendly and make the visitor feel welcome. Sunday we visited a church in the Pella area. Right before service began, the worship leader talked for about four minutes on the importance of getting to know one another. He then gave everyone about three to four minutes to greet. It is always interesting to look through the lens of a guest in a church and not the pastor. As our family stood there, we only had one person come up and greet us. We stood there for the awkward three to four minutes and had no meaningful conversations with anyone. In fact, the whole time we were there we did not have one person come up and engage us. Now I am not being harsh on this church as the worship was very good and the message was good as well. The reason I bring this up is simply for the benefit of our church. Let's not just have a value for the sake of having a value. Let's practice this value of "No one stands alone." The church we visited was a very large church. This made me think that the larger we get the harder it gets for this value to be practiced. When we were 80 people, it is easy to practice engaging new people and making them feel welcome. It was even easy at 100 and 120. But what about 200? What about 250 or 300? This value will get harder and harder to practice as we grow. That is why it must be intentional. Here are some simple things we can do to make sure "No one stands alone."

1. If you see someone in the foyer that looks lost, go up to that person and introduce yourself.
2. If there is someone sitting in the sanctuary all alone, ask if you can sit by them and engage them in a conversation.
3. During greet time-PLEASE DO NOT ALWAYS GO TO THE SAME PEOPLE THAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. Find people you don't know so well. Greet them and make them feel welcome.
4. If there is a guest with children-make the children feel welcome. Jesus said that if you welcome one of these little ones you would be welcoming Him. Tell the family about our great nursery and children's ministries in the education building.

I want to encourage all of us to continue to reach our to new people. I believe that in these last days, God will bring a harvest to our church. As they come in, we must be ready and welcoming. Let's make sure that "No one stands alone."

Six Flags and Yogi

Had a great week of vacation with the family. We went to St. Louis and camped at JellyStone with Yogi Bear. JellyStone is a great place for the kids as they have activities during the day and a swimming pool to hang out. Tuesday it rained all day so that kind of ruined our plans a little. We ended up finding a Pizza place that had go-karts and games. We spent Wednesday at Six Flags and rode some roller coasters with the kids. Also the kids got to meet some Super Heroes. (Green Lantern and Flash pictured.) All in all it was great week and time of refreshing. It was definitely good to be back and sleep in my own bed on Friday. Sunday we visited a church in Pella and enjoyed the worship and the message. ( I will have to say, I missed our church and our people.) God is good and I'm looking forward to a fruitful week back at the office.

Vacation

Heading out tomorrow for a weeks vacation! We are going to St. Louis and will be camping at JellyStone Park with Yogi bear and Boo Boo. We will be hiding our picnic baskets so the bears can't get them. We also will be spending a day at Six Flags as well. We'll see how many roller coasters I can talk my two older kids to get on. It should be a great week of relaxing and spending time with family. I will see everyone next weekend for Father's Day.

Q & A starts this Sunday

Our Q & A Series starts this Sunday! Thanks to everyone who put in questions who have voted the last couple weeks. This has been a lot of fun. It was fun to get input on what the church was thinking and it was fun to see how the votes went. The funny thing is the votes keep changing besides the top two. This Sunday I will be taking two questions and combining them into one sermon. Looking forward this coming Sunday.

Weekend Reflections

What a beautiful weekend the Lord gave us! Here are some of the highlights;

1. Friday I spent the night hanging out with some great guys as we had a going away/bachelor party for Derek (student ministries leader). We ate some wings at Buffalo Wings, played some mini golf and then went to Bass Pro for some bowling. I'm not for sure when the last time I stayed up until 1:30 a.m. We wish Derek the best the next two months and can't wait for his return in August with his new wife Samone!

2. Sunday we wrapped up our series on "Judgment Call" with a message on when it is the right time to make the call. This is a difficult message but such an important one. The Bible clearly teaches that there is a time to judge and sometimes judging is the loving thing to do. We must always remember though the guidelines set in God's Word before we make that call. 1. First depend on the Holy Spirit, 2. Trust in the authority of God's Word, 3. Accountability is the key to maturity. Always first look to our own hearts and ask God if there is a plank in our own eye. Also, does that person's sin truly break your heart. If it doesn't, then the problem is not with the person but you. If you didn't listen to the message, I encourage you to listen to it on the website at http://www.communityhope.org/

3. On Sunday we also credentialed Darren Mathes with a local church credential. It was exciting to see Darren's family there to support him. Darren will now hold a church credential as a minister of the Gospel. This will allow him to get into the prisons and other ministry opportunities. We are so excited for Darren and how God is using him in great ways.

4. Memorial Day we went to the Omaha Zoo. I love the zoo! The fish aquarium never gets old and they had some new exhibits there as well to explore. The kids had a great time looking at all the animals and it was beautiful day to spend with the family.

Questions are up!

So the questions are now on the website so vote now on which questions you want answered for our June series. Go to www.communityhope.org and click on the Q and A link. We have been getting in quite a few votes already so it's been interesting to see which ones will get the top votes. The series begins the first week of June so vote now.

Fishing Day

Saturday was our Men's/Children fishing day. It was a great day and the bluegill were biting which makes things fun. Here are a few pics of our day.

Money Raised

Yesterday was Possibility Sunday and just wanted to give everyone an update that yesterday we raised a little over $63,000 for the building project. This is definitely a miracle offering and I praise God for the amount. With the money raised yesterday and the current amount we had already raised, we currently have $117,000 raised towards the $250,000 match. I want to thank everyone who sacrificially gave yesterday towards this project. With God-it's possible! We are seeing this come to pass right before our eyes. With this amount we can start pushing ahead to break ground this summer. God is good!

Q and A questions

The questions are in so now it is time to place your vote. I'm hoping to have everything on the website soon. We will have four weeks in the series but I will probably have one Sunday where it is more of a round table discussion for some of the questions that may not take a whole message. Here is what we have so far.

- Does everyone go to heaven? What is the unpardonable sin?
- Why is prayer sometimes so difficult?
- What is speaking in tongues and how to seek the gifts of the Spirit?
- Why is it unChristian to curse?
- Why did God want a blood sacrifice for sin?
- Why is Christianity the right religion?
- Would God send someone to hell if they've never heard of Jesus? What about those in the Old Testament that never heard of God?
- How do we know the Bible is accurate?
- Why do we take communion only once a month?

These are great questions so far. It is still not too late if you want to get your question in. We will have the cards on the information table this Sunday and you can still put your question in the Q and A box. Looking forward to our series in June.

Possibility Sunday Video Two

Weekend Reflections

1. Kicked Sunday off with Baccalaureate service at the school. Pastor Chuck did a good job preaching and so did the Barnes City worship team. It is always good to worship with other churches in our community.

2. This was graduation weekend so we had no first service and no Sunday School. Numbers were definitely down but still had a good service. Started a new series called 'Judgment Call', yesterday we talked about the 'tale of the two trees.' In the Garden of Eden, there were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve decided to partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil over the tree of life. This is where sin originated. When we partake of this tree, we are saying that we no longer need God but came become our own god of sorts. Satan the accuser is still trying to get people to partake of this tree. When we do this, we try to become a judge. We often judge ourselves, judge others and judge God. If you were not here, I encourage you to listen to the podcast on the website.

2. This year we had eight kids graduate from our church. It makes me proud as a pastor seeing our kids excel in their school and also get up in front of their classmates and give glory to God. 2010 class was a great class and we will miss many of these kids.

3. Sunday afternoon was all about eating cake, more cake and did I forget to mention cake. I think my stomach still hurts from the cake. (And oh yeah, pork sandwiches as well.)

Possibility Sunday Countdown

Possibility Sunday is just a little over a week away. We are believing God for the impossible this Sunday as we want to kick start our building project with a love offering. Our goal is to break ground this summer. If we can do this, it is possible to get the shell up and start working on the interior for the winter. Please be in prayer about what you can possibly give towards this special offering. Here is the breakdown of the numbers;

We have a matching gift of $250,000
So far we have raised $53845.83 of this match
Goal for Possibility Sunday is to raise $100,000- This would get us half way towards the match.

After Possibility Sunday we would like to take pledges for monthly gifts and or pledges of people's gifts and time. Let's say you have experience doing dry wall, then you can donate your time to help dry wall when it comes time. Or maybe you have done electrical work, than you can donate time to do some of our wiring for the new building. Whatever gifts you have, we can use them for the building project.

I know these are big goals but I know we serve a big God. God has called us to live in the area of faith and I believe that this is where God wants us as a church. Please be in prayer for Possibility Sunday on May 23rd.

In the month of June we are doing a Q & A series based off your questions you may have about God or the Bible. This will really be an exciting series so fill out a question form in the bulletin and put it in the question box. We will list the questions in the coming weeks on the website and you can have a chance to vote on the ones in which you would like to hear a sermon on. Time is running short, so get your questions in as soon as you can.

Weekend Reflections

1. Crazy week we had last week as we went to Springfield MO for a couple days for Evangel University graduation. Had a good time seeing some of our students who are doing really well with college life. I also had the chance to visit James River Assembly for the first time. Was pretty amazed by their facility. Starbucks coffee anyone?

2. Great services yesterday at Hope. Talked about the three characteristics of a godly mom. We had four people get up and give testimony of how their mom made a great difference in their life. I don't think there was a dry eye in the building in first service. A godly mom is one who knows how to pray, she is a woman of strength and a woman of love. Thanks to Vanna Bushong, Ashley Meyer and Derek Bates and Taren Young for sharing about their mom.

3. Mothers Day is bitter sweet for me as it has been a year since my mom passed away. I know my mom is in glory celebrating with Jesus.

4. Spent the rest of the day with the family and took a walk at Diamond Lake. It was definitely a beautiful day and a great day to spend with my wonderful wife who is a great mom! The kids made a special book for her that they colored and they also got her a plant and a book by Karen Kingsbury.

Breakfast Club

Today was our Breakfast Club for late start at the school. We served over forty kids this morning pancakes, cereal and bread. We had some good help and Jennifer always does a great job keeping the kids occupied with her games. This will be our last Breakfast Club of the school year.

Weekend Reflections

1. Saturday was the Ladies Tea. Jennifer told me there were over fifty ladies that attended our event and many of them were not from Community Hope. I saw the decorations and they looked amazing. The ladies did a garden theme and it looked great. Rhonda Minner filled in as our speaker and did an amazing job. We have some amazing ladies at our church that organized this event. Way to go!


2. Got hang out with some amazing guys Saturday night in Des Moines and ate some good steak at Texas Road House. Yum!


3. Sunday was another amazing day at Hope. Our worship team rocked the house. I love the new version of 'It is Well' by Todd Fields. Great song! We wrapped up our series on Fearless talking about the 'fear of the end.' We covered what Jesus had to say about end times and how we are not to be troubled by what we see in our world. Instead, the church's mission is to expand the kingdom. Jesus used the parable of the talents to illustrate this by teaching us that when things get tough we are not supposed to hide our gifts, abilities and resources but instead we are to go out into the world and use what God has given us. Jesus made it clear that the Gospel would be preached to all the world and then the end will come. That's His plan, so lets get to work!


4. Sunday night was full of meetings. We had a great Sunday School meeting with all our teachers. We are heading into the next quarter in a couple weeks at Hope University with some great seminars. I will be teaching one on the Holy Spirit. In August we are going to have Family Sunday School. This will be an opportunity for parents and kids to sit together and worship as a family It should be lots of fun. After the Sunday School meeting was over we went right into a leadership meeting with our department heads. What a great team we have!

Possibility Sunday

District Council

I spent the last two days in Des Moines at our Assembly of God District Council. Here are some of the highlights:

1. It is always good to hang out with other pastors. It is fun to share stories and hear what God is doing all over the state.

2. I got to see my old youth pastor John Masachio. John is a missionary to Guatemala and I had no idea he was going to be there. John has started a youth skateboard outreach in which they bring portable ramps into towns to attract teenagers and then share the Gospel with the kids. They have also been able to get into the schools as well with this outreach. What a great way to be culturally relevant! John brought a young man with him who has been changed by this ministry. This young man is leading a Bible study of over sixty students each week as a result of the skateboard outreach. God is doing some great things in Guatemala and through my old friend John.

3. Doug Clay was the speaker over the last two days. I really enjoy Doug as he is really down to earth. Doug was the pastor of a great church in Toledo, Ohio while I was in Cleveland. He later became the District Superintendent before moving to Springfield at the National Office. I'll never forget the time I was in a workshop with Doug at a Ohio function when we heard the news that the twin towers were hit by two planes. At that point, we really didn't know what was going on. They ended up canceling the event so we could go home and be with our families. That was definitely a scary time in our nation's history and a drive home I will never forget.

4. I am really excited about the leadership we have as a Network in the Assemblies of God. These are trying times and many denominations are straying from the truth. I thank God for our leaders who want to be led by the Word of God and be led by the Holy Spirit. I believe that if we do these two things, God will continue to lead us as a denomination.

Weekend Reflections

1. Great weekend of NBA basketball. The Spurs are up 3-1 against Dallas. I have doubted my Spurs all year but they are beginning to look like the old Spurs that won the four championships. There is still a long way to go but if they keep it up, they could go a long way.

2. Pat Cashman gave his testimony on Sunday of the events that happened to him regarding his near death experience. Pat is such a great guy and he is a testimony to the power of prayer.

2. Sunday we continued our Fearless series and talked about worry. For some reason we tend to accept worry as a part of our everyday life. When you look at Matthew 6 Jesus taught something entirely different. Our big idea for the day as 'our point of worry often points us to our greatest devotion.' We only worry about the things we are devoted too. For example, we worry about the things we have invested in like our jobs, our marriage, our children, our money, etc. We worry about these things because we have devoted our self to them. Jesus' answer to this; don't be devoted to stuff. Life is not all about stuff. We don't add any value to our life by worrying about the stuff. Instead Jesus' answer was to "Seek the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness." Don't seek the kingdom of this world, seek the Kingdom of God. When we pursue after God's Kingdom, we know that God will take care of the stuff. That is the promise Jesus gives, 'seek the Kingdom and all these things will be added to you.' It is not that Jesus isn't concerned with our needs. But what Jesus really wants is our devotion totally to Him and not the cares of this world.

3. Ken and Trudy Moeckel was with us last night for our Family Potluck. Ken and Trudy have a great ministry of taking the Word of God to countries that do not have the Word or are not trained in the Word of God in their particular language. Ken in particular distributes Fire Bibles which are Full Gospel Bibles with commentary along side of it. Ken and Trudy have distributed Bibles all throughout Africa, China, and Europe. It was a great time of fellowship and learning what God is doing throughout the world.

Thursday Download

It is going to be another great Sunday at Hope. We will be in part four of our series called "Fearless." We will be talking about the little brother of fear, 'worry'. For some reason we accept worry as a part of our every day life. I would beg to differ that worry should not be a regular part of our life. We will be looking at some things Jesus had to say about worry. I am also excited because Pat Cashman will be sharing his testimony this Sunday from some of the events that has happened to him last month. Pat is a living, breathing miracle and I know as Pat shares, God will use him greatly. Invite a friend and see you Sunday.

Weekend Reflections

1. Friday and Saturday our youth were in Des Moines for Spring Youth Convention. We ended up taking eleven students this weekend. Many were last minute which meant they all had to cram in two hotel rooms. We are so blessed to have such great leadership with our youth. Derek does such a great job with the kids. I pray that things they learned will truly impact their lives to make a difference in their families and in their school.

2. Friday was Spring Cleaning day for the Jones family. We threw away a lot of stuff and bagged more to give away. It feels good to get rid of so much clutter.

3. Jennifer's cousins stayed with us this weekend from Des Moines. Went to Williamsburg to do some shopping and got some good deals.

4. Another great day of worship at Community Hope. We had 181 in attendance on Sunday. Thirty nine were children in children's church. God is doing some great things. We were short-handed on the worship team but our team still did a tremendous job. They did a remix of the Doxology and closed the service with the Jeremy Camp song "Walk by Faith'. Way to go team!

5. Sunday night was our monthly Missions Team meeting. Our team decided to support Rural Compassion on a monthly basis, and give $1000.00 to the Iowa Camp project. What a great group of people to work with. We also discussed ways to reach out this summer. Loved some the ideas that came from the meeting. Talked about a single mom, widows free oil change for the community. Also talked about a date night for parents and also the 4th of July weekend. As a church we constantly need to be outwardly focused and be visible in the community. It is great to know that our missions team has this heart.

6. Finished the day watching the Spurs lose by six points in their first playoff game to Dallas. I think it will be a tough series but I'm not for sure if the Spurs can pull it off. Sure hope so!

Pray for our Youth

Just a quick post to please pray for our youth this weekend as they will be going to the Spring Youth Convention in Des Moines. We have nine teenagers going and many of them are unchurched. Pray for Derek and Samone as they will be leading this trip. Pray that God would truly touch these teens and we would hear many testimonies of what happened this weekend. We desperately need a Jesus Revolution in our school and it has to start with a few teenagers that get on fire for God. Please Lord, let it happen this weekend!

Don't be that couch!

OK, so growing up my mom and dad had the ugliest couch you could ever dream of. I believe they got it in the seventies when orange was the thing. It had orange and brown flowers all over it. I would bring up to my mom every once in a while that it was probably time to get a new couch. After all, she had new carpet, new blinds and a new chair. Right before she passed away she even had a new LCD television. But for some reason, she wouldn't give up the couch. It didn't match anything in the house and stood out like a sore thumb. Now I realize why my mom wouldn't give up the couch. There were lots of memories on that couch. My dad sat on that couch, all of us children sat on that couch. We celebrated Christmases, birthday's and other special occasions and the couch was there for them all. Good memories that go along with the couch.

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for One Day Catalyst and Andy Stanley was speaking on that old couch. I had to laugh because as he was illustrating the old couch to old ways of doing ministries, I could relate as I thought about my moms couch. What Stanley said makes perfect sense. Here are some thoughts on a few of his points:

1. Church programming always began with an answer to a question, over time though the answer becomes a part of the churches culture. Here's the problem, as the culture changes, many of the questions remain the same but the answers don't. For example, we still need couches to sit on but probably not orange and brown ones from the seventies. Many churches are still doing church like it was the seventies. We no longer live in the seventies and that means church may look a little different. The message is still the same but our methods have to change with the culture.

2. We must be more committed to our mission than our programming. Programs are never the mission of the church. Winning the lost is the mission of the church. Sadly, some churches are more concerned about their way of doing church than reaching the lost.

It is easy to get comfortable on the old couch. Over time we get used to the old couch that we don't even notice that it sticks out. The funny thing is, when new people enter your home, they notice it right away. They think, how strange. I wonder why they kept that old couch over all these years. I wonder how many people who enter the church wonder the same thing. Here is the question I think we need to be asking ourselves as a church body and a good question for many churches today; 'Are we falling in love with the methods of doing church that may not be effective in reaching people anymore?' Remember, mission not methods wins people. The mission is to reach the lost. The message of the Gospel never changes but methods must change with the culture. Let's not be that old couch!

BGMC Hair

If you were not here on Sunday, you missed the unveiling of the colored hair for the kids BGMC fundraiser. Since the kids raised over $900.00 the great surprise was Austin Young coloring his hair rainbow colors. What a great group of leaders we have for our kids. They are absolutely awesome!




Jennifer's green hair for $300.00

Lisa's pink hair for $400.00

Kyra's purple hair for $500.00
















Austin's Rainbow hair for exceeding their goal!

The Unveiling!

Last month we gave everyone Buddy Boxes to put their change in as our kids set a BGMC goal to raise a certain amount of money. If $300 was raised, my wife Jennifer would color her hair green. If $400.00 was raised, Kyra Smith would color her hair purple and if $500.00 was raised then Lisa Huff would color her hair pink. Everyone participated and I am excited to say that we raised over $900.00 for the month of March for BGMC! That is truly incredible. This Sunday we will unveil the new hair dews with another special surprise. Don't miss out!

Fearless

This Sunday we continue our series on 'Fearless". We will be talking about how we can overcome fear. This will be an exciting Sunday as we will have another testimony from someone very special on how they were able to overcome fear in their life. Let's keep the momentum going from Easter so make sure you are here and bring someone you know.

Easter Reflections

What a great Easter weekend we had. I have been out of town since Sunday afternoon so I haven't had the time to blog about some of the great things that took place. Here are the highlights.

1. Maundy Thursday was a good time to get together with the other churches in the community. I spoke on the symbol of the cross and how God views the cross opposed to how we view the cross. When we look at the cross we see love, grace and forgiveness but when God looks at the cross, He sees sin, wickedness and judgment. It was a great time of reflection and worship to our God for all He has done.

2. The Easter Egg Hunt was a blast on Saturday. We had almost 300 children attend the event this year. Thanks to John Bushong for doing a a great job once again for organizing this event. I was so thankful that we had a beautiful day and no rain. God is so good! It was awesome to see all the kids have their baskets filled with candy.

3. Easter Sunday was a wonderful day of worship. We had 219 in worship combined for both services. The worship team did a great job, special music and a special skit by Gary Smith and Derek Bates. I was very proud of Austin Young who gave his testimony Sunday of how the Lord changed his life. When we hear stories like this, it makes ministry worth it all.

I want to encourage you that if you invited someone and they didn't come for Easter, don't give up. Keep planting seeds and you never know when the door will opened. For the guests that were there, let's pray that the seed of God's Word was planted on good soil and that seed would grow a harvest thirty, sixty, hundredfold!

Ten Questions the Unchurched aren't asking.

1. Who is speaking on Sunday?
2. Do you sing hymns or choruses?
3. What denomination are you affiliated with?
4. What version of the Bible do you use?
5. Do you have Sunday School or Small Groups?
6. How do I go deep?
7. Are there a lot of crosses and pictures of Jesus in your church?
8. Is your pastor's teaching exegetical, topical or some other method?
9. How do I become a member or transfer my membership?
10. Does your church have the latest technology?

It's Easter so it's not time to think inward but outward. Many first time guests who do not know Christ will be showing up at church. People need Christ and Jesus is the answer! They aren't asking the questions that many church people are asking. They don't understand all the insider language of the church world. This weekend we need to give them Jesus. They need to hear the simplicity of the Gospel. God and His Word is the only thing that can change lives!

Thanks to http://www.perrynoble.com/ for the inspiration.

Firefighter Outreach

Today we packed thirty bags for our volunteer fire department as a special thank you for all their hard work. I know our guys work hard and do a great job at what they do. Here is what was in the bags:

1. Fireproof Movie

2. Bag of candy

3. Home made bread

4. Popcorn

5. Easter invitation

Praying that some seeds are planted as we distribute the bags on Thursday night. Thanks to our Missions Team that came up with the idea and helped getting all the things we put in the bags and putting them together.

Ready, Set, Go!

Easter is usually one of the biggest weeks in ministry. This week seems to be especially crazy. Here are some of the things we have going:

1. Mailing out 2500 postcards to Montezuma, Barnes City, Malcom and Deep River.
2. Finishing up the filling of 14,000 eggs and getting all the prizes together.
3. Special outreach to the Fire Department for Easter. Each fireman will get a Fireproof movie along with some candy, popcorn and thank you from the church.
4. Maundy Thursday I am preaching at the Methodist church. Really pumped about the message.
5. Easter Sunday!!!! Starting our new series called 'Fearless'. We will be talking about the fear of belief. What are we supposed to do with an empty tomb?

Please be in prayer for the weeks events. Ready, Set, Go!

Weekend Reflections

1. Went to the Montezuma School play on Friday night. We had quite a few of our church kids in the play. I didn't realize we had that many talented kids. They did an awesome job and Derek did a great job leading them. My kids loved the Little Red Riding Hood played by Emily Cashman. Her mood swings were awesome!

2. Saturday went to the pig farm. Read "Today I rode a pig" and you find out how that went. I know a lot of people got few laughs out of that one. I'm just thinking of a way I can use it in a sermon illustration but without reacting the whole thing.

3. Another great Sunday as we wrapped up our series on 20/20 vision. We talked about the importance of "Finishing Strong." God has called each of us to a vision but over time something called vision drift will settle in. Things will come that will try to drift us away from the purpose that God has for us. Jesus illustrated this in a parable of the seeds and the sower. Jesus listed three great distracters.
1. Satan
2. Trials and Tribulations
3. Worry
In order to finish strong, we must not allow these vision distracters get us off course or trip us up. Remember its now how you start that matters but how you finish.

4. Sunday night was our business meeting to move forward with our building project. I am excited to say that we had a unanimous vote. God has truly blessed us with a spirit of unity in our church. I am thankful to God everyday for every person in our congregation. I can't wait to see what God is going to do in the next year. I know He has big plans.

Today I rode a pig

Well there is a first for everything. I got up this morning and met a couple of our guys at a pig farm of one of our congregation members who just got out of the hospital. We are trying to help with the chores while he recovers. I grew up in the city so for me at a pig farm was interesting enough. Things were going pretty good until we found that a couple of the pigs had gotten out of their pen. We tried to coral them back into their gate but one of the pigs weren't moving very easily. We thought we had him when the pig came straight at the city boy. He went straight at my legs and I ended up riding him for a few moments before I got threw off. Needless to say it was experience. We did finally get the pig in the pen and all was well. This will definitely be a experience I won't forget.

New Building

This Sunday night at 5 p.m. will truly be a historic night for us as a church. We will be voting on the proposed building project that we presented a couple months ago at our annual business meeting. It is so important that everyone is in attendance that night. We want every one's voice to be heard on this project. I was reminded once again a couple Sunday's ago of why we need to build. I was told that we had a person drive into our church and could not find a parking space and ended up turning around and leaving. This presents a huge problem as we are not called to turn people away from worshipping our Lord. The new building project will present solutions to many of our problems.

1. Parking - We will ad an additional fifty spaces right away with more coming.

2. Sanctuary Space- We can go to one service and have room for growth

3. Sunday School Space- We will have adequate space for our children and youth rooms.

The new building also presents possibilities of using our current buildings for outreach. I am excited about some of the things we can do with our facilities.

We have fasted and prayed and now it is time to move. Please be here this Sunday night for our business meeting.

Sunday Thoughts

We had another great Sunday at Hope. We are in week three of our series on Vision. Yesterday we talked about the importance of 'moral authority'. This was one of those messages that was a little hard hitting yet it is so important. Moral authority can also be defined as your character or your integrity. It is the alignment between what you say and what you do. Nehemiah was a man of moral authority. People listened and followed his vision because there was alignment in his life. As Christ followers we are called to walk with moral authority. If we ever want to influence people for the Gospel then our walk needs to match our talk. When there is misalignment between these two, people will not want to follow us. Christ said that we need to be salt and light. In other words, people will be attracted to what we have. Today in the church there is just too much dead religion. People don't want dead religion, they want to see people with a living relationship with the living God. This is what will make a difference in the world.

21 Day fast

Today we are on the fifth day of our fast leading us to Easter. I want to take a minute and explain a little bit about fasting.

What is fasting?
- Abstaining from something, usually food for spiritual purposes.

What does the Bible say about fasting?
-There are so many examples in the Bible that deal with fasting. Moses fasted, David fasted, Ester, Daniel, Paul and the early church all fasted. Jesus placed fasting on the same level as financial giving and prayer. Paul even tells the church that there should be a time to prayer and fasting.

What is the purpose of fasting?
-The purpose of fasting is to focus on God and center our attention on Him. Fasting can increase our effectiveness of prayer, bring guidance to our lives in our decisions, it can help our physical well-being, and bring deliverance in certain situations.

What are the different types of fasts?
- Absolute fast: No food or water
- Normal fast: Only water but no food.
- Partial fast: This is often referred to as the Daniel Fast
- Lenten fast: giving up something specific for the duration of Lent
- Fasting from things: media, telephone, habits, etc.

Whatever type of fast you chose to do, I encourage you to do something. Let's believe God for a great outpouring in our church services and also for many to saved this Easter.

Weekend Reflections

1. Had to deliver girl scout cookies to Des Moines so we made a Friday and Saturday trip out of it. The kids had Friday off so we went to Chuckie Cheese and stayed at a hotel so the kids could swim. Hoping to build fun memories with the kids.

2. It was Spring Break during the Sunday School hour at Hope University. The kids had their beach party and the adults had a good time as well. Thanks to John Bushong for all the hard work decorating the sanctuary and putting on a great program. Looking forward to the new semester of classes this Spring.

3. Sunday was another incredible day. We continued in our 20/20 Vision series with Nehemiah. Yesterday we spoke about how to face the opposition. If you have a burden from God, expect opposition and even critics. This is the hard part of the vision. No one likes opposition and no one likes to be criticized. I know that early on in ministry I had a huge issue with this. I constantly wanted to please people. When people opposed or criticized what I was doing, I would get upset. I have had to learn to not always be a people pleaser. We need to learn are we going to please people or please God? Nehemiah wasn't concerned about the opposition or the criticism. Nehemiah did three things that I think we can learn today;

A. Intensify your prayers- Nehemiah was a man of prayer. He was God-focused not critic-focused.

B. Be on your guard- Nehemiah got his men ready for battle with swords, bows, shields and armor. We need to be on our guard against the enemies attacks. Remember, our enemy is never people but rather Satan.

C. Surround yourself with fellow warriors- The Jews that were rebuilding the walls had to depend on each other. While one was protecting the walls, the other was rebuilding. As a church, we need each other. We need to uplift each other in prayer and when the other is weak we need to strengthen each other.

4. Started our 21 Day fast Sunday. Our whole family is doing the Daniel Fast. I am praying that God will truly lead us in the days ahead as want to see many people come to know Christ this Easter and as we also move ahead with the building project.

This Sunday

Don't forget this Saturday to move your clocks ahead one hour. You definitely don't want to sleep in and miss our 'Spring Break' Sunday. We will kick things off around 9:45 a.m. with our activities. The kids will head to their beach party in the fellowship hall and the adults will be in the sanctuary. Also, come dressed in your favorite spring attire. It should be an interesting Sunday. We will also continue our series on 20/20 vision. Don't miss out.

Business Expo

Last night was the Montezuma Business Expo. This year our church gave away the "Book of Hope" to teens and kids. We also gave information about our church and Easter events. The business expo is always a good time to meet people and know the area businesses. Thanks to everyone who sat at the table and greeted people as they came by. We are so blessed!

Easter Candy

Our Easter Egg Hunt is quickly approaching which means we desperately need candy. We are once again so thankful to Montezuma Telephone and Iowa Telecom for their generous donation to get us started but as you know we fill around 13,000 eggs which means we need a lot of candy. Please no tootsie rolls or bumble gum. Anything else would be awesome! Our goal was to have the eggs out Sunday for people to take home and start filling but at this point we still don't have enough candy to do that. If everyone could get a couple bags of wrapped candy from your local store or Walmart, that would be great. Thanks for all your help.

Weekend Reflections

1. Friday night was our Sweet Life Cafe for the women's ministries. I heard lots of great things about the night. I appreciate all the hard work that Brenda Smith and the ladies put into this event. We really need ministries in which we can fellowship and be a community. I have been praying once again about a Men's Ministry and what we can do to fellowship as men.

2. Saturday was day of relaxing. Basketball is over so it was weird not to be rushed. We headed to Oskaloosa for the day and did some shopping for the kids. Caleb keeps growing like crazy so he needed new jeans and tennis shoes.

3. Sunday we started our series on 20/20 Vision. Nehemiah is a great story in the Bible. Vision will always start with a burden of what 'could be and should be'. Nehemiah had a vision to go back to his homeland and restore the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah teaches us two things about the burden we carry;

A. Seek God- Nehemiah got on his face before God and prayed and fasted about his burden. We cannot forget to seek God's will on the things in our lives. Prayer and fasting will internalize our burdens and insist that we quiet our hearts and listen to the voice of God.

B. Make a plan- I love what Mark Batterson says, "Pray like it depends on God, work like it depends on you." Nehemiah had a strategy in place to see the vision come to pass. I know a lot of people who have a vision, but they don't do anything to work towards seeing that vision to come to pass. For example I know pastors that will say, 'I want to see my church reach my community." But my question is, "What is the church's strategy in reaching the community?" Does it have opportunities for people to evangelize? Are your promoting missions in your church? Do you have a system for discipleship? Are you following up on guests? What's the plan? I am so thankful for my time at Berean Assembly in Des Moines as Pastor Weets my former Pastor taught me this valuable lesson. He taught me to have goals and make action steps to obtain those goals.

3. Sunday was also our Ministry Spotlight on BGMC. Remember to fill your buddy boxes for the month of March with any loose change. If the kids reach their goal of $300.00 for the month my wife will die her hair green. ( Still not for sure how I feel about that one.)

4. After church we headed to Grinnell with the Bushongs and ate Mexican. I love Mexican food. I think I can eat it at least three or four times a week. Especially chicken fajitas. Yummy!

Ministry Spotlight

This Sunday is Ministry Spotlight Sunday and we will be featuring BGMC. For those who don't know BGMC stands for Boys and Girls Missionary Challenge. BGMC money goes to help missionaries in all sorts of ways like funding for sound equipment, teaching materials and other supplies for missionaries on the field. We are asking everyone to help our children out with BGMC this month. Everyone will be getting a buddy box to take home. We are asking that you fill that box with change and on the last Sunday of March please bring back the box. We want to help our kids make their goal this year of 2010.00 for 2010. BGMC is a great cause so let's fill our boxes with change and support our children.

Father & Son Cake Bake

Last night was our monthly Boy Scouts meeting and this month was Father & Son Cake Bake. Caleb wanted to make a Koopa Troopa from Super Mario Brothers. I was pretty pleased on how it turned out. We got third place over all. Caleb did most of the frosting and I did the drawing. The cakes were auctioned off later that night. We won our cake back for a whopping $12.50! Can't wait to bite into the Koopa Troopa.

Starting a new series this coming Sunday called "20/20 Vision". We will be going through the book of Nehemiah the next four weeks. I am really excited about this because I think this is the first time we have actually went through a book in the Bible on a Sunday morning. Nehemiah is an awesome book because it is book about a man who had a vision to do something big for God. I believe this series will challenge us to get a vision for our lives. I also want this series to challenge us as a church to have a vision to reach our community. Looking forward to this Sunday.

Video on forgiveness

Here is the video we showed on Sunday on forgiveness.

Weekend Reflections

1. Had a great date night with my wife on Friday. Went out to eat and then saw "Percy Jackson and the lightning thief." Basically it was the only movie at the theater that was rated PG. Kind of corny movie but hey, a date is a date with your wife.

2. We wrapped up the Upwards Basketball season on Saturday. I was really proud of our girls as they improved a lot over the season. We even ran a few plays correctly. I am going to miss meeting with them every Tuesday night for practice and Saturday games.

3. Had lunch at Red Lobster with friend and our crazy drummer Pete Smith. Both of our wives hate seafood so we decided to head to Iowa City just the guys.

4. Sunday we a great day of worship. Worship team did a special number called "Love is not a fight" from the Fireproof movie. We wrapped up our "Love is a Battlefield" series on the 'Battle to forgive." Talked about the story of Joseph and how Joseph chose to live a life of forgiveness. Here are the three points if you missed it;

1. Joseph had the right attitude
2. Joseph let go of the past
3. Joseph chose to bless instead of curse.

We wrapped up the message with a video on forgiveness that I found on Youtube. Really powerful video. If I can, I will try to post it on here this week. Felt the Holy Spirit really move in our second service. I believe God was doing a work in some people's lives.

5. Sunday night was the Q & A discussion on our building project. I thought there were a lot a good questions and ideas on the building. Not as many people there as I would have thought but the discussion was uplifting. It is really awesome to be part of church where there is unity.

Q & A this Sunday

We will be having a Question and Answer time this Sunday night at 5:00 p.m. for our proposed building. This will not be a voting meeting, just a meeting for anyone who might have questions or suggestions. We are in the early stages of this building and are open to any suggestions. We want to make sure that everyone is on the same page and we simply want the Lord's will to be done. We will also be sharing some ideas that we might have on our current buildings and how they can be best utilized. Looking forward to Sunday night for a time of sharing and a time for vision casting.

Pastor Board Banquet

Had our annual Pastor/Board Banquet last night in Oskaloosa. This is a time that our District officials share their vision for Iowa to the local pastors and board. I thought it was interesting that the theme of the night was "Reaching the Next Generation." Many of the things that were shared last night was in my message from Sunday. I feel the Holy Spirit is moving our leaders and churches to realize the importance of this truth. Many of the things Tom Jacobs our superintendent shared were right on. Here are a couple things that stood out to me;

1. Some of the greatest ideas are not going to come from my generation but the next generation. It is my job as a leader to help cultivate and fund those ideas.

2. As a church, we must not choose our traditions over our children.

It was a great night of vision and can't forget the great food as well. I am exciting that our state leaders have a vision and heart to reach our state in creative and innovative ways.

Just got done creating our Easter Postcards for our Easter Weekend. We will be printing 3000 cards this year and sending them to Montezuma, Deep River, Malcom and Barnes City. We will also use these cards as invite cards as well in church. Easter is not that far away so begin praying about Easter services and the lives that will be touched this year.

Weekend Reflections

1. Had the touch of the flu on Friday and Saturday. I don't get sick that often so it was definitely an unpleasant experience. Still pretty weak on Sunday when I preached but got through.

2. Rhonda Minner hit a home run on her song on Sunday. She definitely has a great voice and an anointing as she sings.

3. We picked up twelve kids on the van on Sunday! That is great numbers for the winter months.

4. Preached on the "Battle of Parenthood." Continuing our "Love is a Battlefield" series. Talked about the importance of reaching the next generation. We must realize that if we don't reach the next generation, the church could easily become extinct. We have an opportunity as a church and as parents while our kids are with us. Statistics show that we only have a 4% chance of reaching someone after they reach the age of 18. This has to be a wake up call for us all. We must fight for our children and fight for our teens. We had a powerful time of prayer for our kids and teens around the altar this Sunday.

5. Still no solution on the sewer system. It looks like we have a frozen pipe somewhere underground. The question is where?

We are up and running (Kind of..)

OK, so are sewer system is still not working. It looks like we have a frozen pipe underground and not quite for sure yet what we are going to do. We brought in some external tanks so we can have running toilets in the main building so church is on. I think we got most of the stench out at least. What a crazy week. I am believing God for some GREAT things tomorrow with all the chaos we have experienced this week.

Our Church Stinks!

No literally, it really does stink. Our sewer backed up in both buildings on Tuesday night. What a mess! We have sewage water in the foyer and in the Education building bathrooms. Problem is still not solved as we are going to have to blast out the sewer underground with a huge water blaster of some sort. Just praying that it works. There will be no Bible Study or youth tonight due to the horrible smell. YUCK!

Lent

The season of Lent has officially begun. I want to invite everyone to the Lenten Breakfast that will be taking place every Wednesday at the Methodist church from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. until Easter. Lent is a season that leads us to Easter and it is a time of prayer and self-denial. I know we are not a liturgical church but there are some things we can learn about Lent. We will be doing our own 21 day fast leading to Easter in March.

New look

The blog is getting a makeover. I thought it was time to change the look of it. Hope you like.

Weekend Reflections

1. Went to Joe's Crab Shack on Friday night with the family to celebrate my birthday. Gotta love Joe's. I enjoy the fun atmosphere. This is the one time of year I get to enjoy seafood since Jen despises it.

2. Most of Saturday was spent on basketball and then to Cedar Rapids for hospital visitation. Jen and I are also looking for a Wii Fit but can't seem to find them anywhere.

3. Sunday was a great day. We had 185 in attendance and it was just one of those fun Sundays. We are in part two of "Love is a Battlefield" and I talked about the fight for marriage. Paul gives us two commands in Ephesians 5 for men and women. He calls the women to respect their husbands and he calls men to love their wives. When we don't do these two essential things, we get caught in the crazy cycle. The key is learning to stop this cycle and energize each other with love and respect. Jen bought me some crazy glasses to illustrate that men see through blue lenses which represents respect and women see through pink lenses which represent love. Got a few laughs out of that one. The key is to look through the lens of your spouse and not your own lens. Also, remember Jesus is our example. Jesus' love for the church should be present in our love for our spouse.

4. Sunday Night was our Valentine Banquet. The ladies did an excellent job decorating the fellowship hall. It looked amazing. The food was great and the fellowship was great as well. We played the "Newlywed Game" and had lots of laughs. It was a fun night.

Cookie Outreach

Today we did our annual Valentine Cookie Outreach. We wrapped over 120 plates and gave them away to the community. What a great and practical way to show the love of Jesus!

We started our series entitled "Love is a Battlefield" last Sunday. I really felt it was important that before we talked about relationships in general that we needed to understand God's love towards us. If we don't understand God's love, then we will not be able to show true love towards others. Remember that Jesus prayed that we would be filled with the same love that He and His Father have for each other. (John 17) God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are able to express perfect love. There is no selfishness in the Trinity. We are to be filled with this love and then give this same type of love. This was Jesus' prayer for the church. Let us know our worth in Christ! Know the the battle that Jesus went through on the cross so that we can experience this love. When we understand this truth, then we will be able to go to the battlefield for others.

More Snow!

Anyone tired of snow yet? Working at home today because we are snowed in once again. Looking forward to Spring and warmer weather.

Blogging Again

Hey everyone, so it has been a long while since I have blogged. It has been a crazy year for me especially in my family life. I am excited to say that things are starting to slow down and so I want to try to blog again. There are many things happening right now at CH and I am excited about what God is doing. I feel that the blog is a great way to keep everyone posted and share their thoughts. Please stayed tuned!