Weekend in Review

Our God is an awesome God. We sang this in worship this morning. As we did the rain poured down, the lightning flashed, and the thunder sounded. Talk about theophany!

Lights went out during the middle of worship. But there is a greater power at work in us. It is the power of God and we had worship in spite of all that. God's power trumped Satan's power this morning. Our God is an awesome God.

I should show you a picture of my forehead. I got knocked in the head by a box spring as I helped my brother and sister-in-law move this weekend. I told everyone at church this morning that they should have seen the other guy =).

Mowed lawn for the first time this year on Friday. It will be the first of many throughout the summer. I enjoy it however, because it is an excuse to be outside in God's creation.

Looking forward to the week ahead. Going to a leadership seminar called Zero-to-Sixty by Bob Franquiz. Always looking for ways to learn and grow as a leader.

One Month to Live Testimony 3

Ed and Carolyn share about their son Nick.

The New lolchurch.net is launched

We have launched a new version of lolchurch.net. There are still a few things to be added and we are working out a few more bugs. But we are off and running.

No one knows the day nor the hour

But I will say that the days of this blog are numbered . . . 

All the top Church news

Wow! In my last post I talked about too much info. Check out this site: church.alltop.com . It is enough to make your head spin. You could not begin to read all that.

I wonder who determined that this was the the top news? I wonder where the Good News fits in?

Too Much Information

God has put a dream on your heart. But one thing that will rob you of that dream is distraction. Life is filled with choices. Too often from this myriad of choices, we choose priorities other than the priorities God has chosen for us and it leads us away from his dream for us.

God's Word says: "Be careful how you live - not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-16 We need to heed this verse more than ever before.

These are complex times. In the information age we have so much thrown at us. We have all these gadgets and gizmos that supposedly make our lives easier, but the reality is that they often make our lives more complicated.

Here is an interesting video on the subject:http://pastorpr.blogspot.com/2009/04/what-does-it-mean.html

It goes to show how much more we have to process today than ever before. There are 540,000 words in the English language today which is 5 times more than Shakespeare had. Every day the number of text messages sent by cell phone users exceeds the population of the planet. The amount of information we have doubles every two years. These are incredible statistics.

All this leads to overload. We overload our brains. We overload our schedules. We overload our limits. We try to do it all. We try to learn it all. But it is all too much. Too much to process.

It's time to go back to the Word! It's time to focus! Live as wise! If you had only one month to live, the distractions would fall away so much easier. You would not try to do it all, but only that which is most important.

We don't need to wait. We can start today. Don't let the distractions rob you of the dream God has put upon your heart. It may take a little bit of effort, but in the end it will be all worth it.

Have a great week pursuing the dream!

What does it mean?

This is an interesting video that was shared with me on youtube:

42nd Anniversary of Belvidere Tornado

Today is the 42nd Anniversary of the Belvidere tornado. Even though I would not be born until 7 years later, it was always something that was there. My parents were students at Belvidere High School at the time. It is one of the deadliest tornadoes to ever hit a school.

Here is an interesting article: http://www.e-rockford.com/special_sections/deploy/index.html

One Month to Live Testimony 2

Weekend in Review

One big principle of church growth is that not everyone who shows up for Easter comes back the next week. This is true in every church. It was true in our church this morning. But it seemed we had good attendance in spite of the fact that it was the week after Easter.

I was glad I had two videos to share for my sermon today as I was not up to speaking much. (I included the interview with Jarret in a different post). I am a bit under the weather. Caught the flu or something. Haven't really done much all weekend but do some reading and play around on the computer. By the time worship was over, I was drained. Came home and crashed on the couch. Abby had bronchitis to start the weekend off. My mother-in-law is also sick. So something is going around.

The brownie bake off was a hit this morning. I expected to have a bunch of left over brownies, but there were few to be had. The raspberry flavored ones were my favorite. My vote is that the more gooey they are the better.

On a side note - I am going to be discontinuing this blog soon and moving to a new platform. So keep an eye out for the change. I will let you know when the change takes place and will provide a link to the new platform. The new platform will give me a few more options and a few more features that I am excited about.

Twitter Not for Me

Twitter has experienced incredible growth as of late. The big news story is that Ashton Kuchar recently surpassed 1,000,000 followers, beating CNN to the mark. 

For some time now I have resisted the urge to Twitter. And I contine to resist the urge. It is just one more thing. I am on Facebook and I think that is good - I think. I don't obsess about Facebook. I check in every couple of days.

Twitter sounds interesting, but we all are busy enough and this just adds one more thing to our busy schedules. On top of that I am more intersted to hear what God has to say than some overhyped celebrity. 

So for now, I am saying no to twitter. Plus, I don't think it has infiltrated our area like it has other areas of the country. But we will see. If it could be used as an effective tool for outreach, I might consider. I am just not sure of the value twitter adds to what we've already got. 

We'll see. Web 2.0 is here to stay. It will be interesting to see if twitter is a fad or if it is here to stay. Twitter has come a long way from when I first heard about it, but it still has a long way to go to reach the status of say a facebook - nor do I think it will. But what do I know - I thought text messaging was stupid. 

Our Mission Field

This video was forwarded to me this morning. It helped to confirm somethings in my mind about the use of media in the church.


Our Mission Field from City on a Hill Productions on Vimeo.

What would you do?

We asked the question last Sunday: "what would you do if you had one month to live?" Here are some of the responses we received:

• Surround myself with family
• Praise God!
• Spread the Lord’s words to as many as possible
• Live each day to the fullest, but for real this time
• Proclaim Christ’s name until He comes for me
• Take my 4 year old daughter to places that are the most beautiful to me, so that she would remember that those special places were important and share in the beauty of the universe!
• Enrich family relationships and all relationships
• Grow my faith each day I have left on earth
• Be a missionary and spread the Word of God
• Spend, spend, spend!
• Learn to ride a motorcycle
• Move to Hawaii
• Boldly proclaim the Gospel to unbelievers in the family
• Ask for forgiveness and love my family and others
• Luther said, “I would plant an apple tree today.”
• Give many more hugs
• Thank Jesus for the gracious time he gave me on this earth and for giving His life for me to live eternally.
• Witness to the ends of the earth God is in love with us and Jesus is the only way to Him!
• I would write, and I would love
• Inspire achievers to thrive with integrity
• Laugh with my family every day and serve as much as I can
• Devote each day to glorify the Lord in all I do
• Love one another and praise God
• Quit work, run every day, write a book and worship life with my family every day
• Spend all my time with my family
• Spend every minute with my children
• Love, love, love!
• I would win a hockey game and leave school
• I would not change a thing. Praise God!
• Spend more time with family and in God’s word.
• We would live the way we are doing.
• Live life with more passion and closer to God.
• Read more Bible and pray more
• I would buy an Alpaca farm
• Talk with all my unsaved family and friends about Jesus
• Prepare my family and spend time with my family
• Go on a trip with my family
• Help friends who don’t know God
• Live each day closer to Jesus and love others like He loves me
• Show my love and respect to everyone—a reflection of God’s love to me!
• More time in the Word, more time with family
• Live for God, mend fences
• Rededicate my life to God and my spouse
• Get married!
• Go deeper with Jesus!
• Laugh, love and embrace those close to me
• Pray
• Let my family know how important they are in my life and that I love them
• Live every day fully and travel to LA to meet Zac Efron
• Pull the kids out of school and travel as a family
• Prepare what I have not yet in order to die—I am speaking in reference to love and spirituality
• Be with the ones I love and spread the Word of God
• Have more faith and trust in God
• Write a letter to all my loved ones, showing my love
• Return home and spend time with my family and God
• Get all my friends and family together and tell them how much I love them
• To always trust, pray, praise, and be even more joyful in thanks!
• Do devotions
• Say “hi” to random people
• Go to the mountains with my family
• Read the Bible with my spouse
• Live as much as I can

Finding Hope When All is Lost

Hope! Spring is the in the air. The winter is behind us. The flowers are budding. Trees are turning green. Soon the fields around the church will be filled with activity as farmers begin plant their crops.

Hope! Politicians promise hope to win elections. Cubs fans hope that this year will be the year. Many of us hope for the best, but plan for the worse.

Hope! No doubt this has been a difficult year for many. You may be reading this having recently lost a job. Your finances might be in disarray. Maybe as you read this as you are going through a difficult divorce or separation. Maybe you are hung up on an addiction that you just cannot overcome. Maybe you are trying to reach out to your children, but they keep going down a difficult, dead end road.

Hope! Jesus Christ is risen! Jesus lives! By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. 1 Corinthians 6:14 There is hope in Christ. And this hope is not just wishful thinking. It is certain hope. It is confident hope. God’s promises are as sure and as certain as we will ever find.

Hope!
But those who hope in the LORD 

will renew their strength. 

They will soar on wings like eagles; 

they will run and not grow weary, 

they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:31

Hope! Are you looking for hope? At the end of May we will begin a brand new message series: Finding Hope when all is Lost. We invite you to join us on this journey. Discover the miracle that God desires to work in your life. You are never too far from the reach of his grace!

Easter Recap

I want to start off by saying thank you to our Lord for a wonderful Easter celebration at Lord of Life. I also want to say thank you to all of you. Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your support and encouragement. Most of all thank you for your sacrificial service. I am amazed at all the people who had some part (big or small) in the events of Holy Week. Everything from the Palm Sunday, the Seder Dinner, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Egg Hunt, and Easter Sunday. So many people served in so many ways. It is really what the Church is all about. It is not the pastor doing all the work, but it is the people of God who are equipped, eager, and ready to serve. This Easter was a testimony of how we can do so much more together with God's power than we could ever do alone.

A great start to the One Month to Live Challenge! Some of you have asked about seeing the Sharon and Bob's testimony again. I have posted it on my blog, pastorpr.blogspot.com. You can view it there. We will also be sharing a few other testimonies over the next couple of weeks on Sunday morning. You will not want to miss.

We will still have a few copies of the One Month to Live books available for the next couple of weeks. So if you did not get a copy last week, you can still get one this next Sunday. The books are also easily available for purchase at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Borders as well. Also, know that it is not too late to get into a Challenge Group. I will make a little plug for my own group. We meet at 6:45am every Thursday at Papa G's restuarant in Elburn. There is an open invitation to any men who would be interested in attending. We will be starting tomorrow with session #1 of the One Month to Live Study. I will have extra copies of the study guide available. Hope to see you there!

It has been great to see a bunch of new faces at Lord of Life over the last few weeks. I have met so many new people I am having trouble remembering all the names. Contrary to popular belief, remembering names is not a class they teach in seminary. I would encourage you that if you see a new face you don't recognize it, make sure to take the time to introduce yourself. It is a good challenge. In fact, I will challenge you to introduce yourself next Sunday to three people you don't know. I am sure you will have no problem finding three people. God's word tell us in Romans 12:13 to share with those who are in need and to practice hospitality.

Keep inviting those friends and family members. It doesn't stop with the the three people you invited to attend Easter worship. It's great to make that special effort on that special day. But the hope we share does not end on Easter Sunday. God's hope is for everyday.

One Month to Live Testimony

This is a testimony we shared on Easter Sunday at Lord of Life to begin the One Month to Live Challenge.

Staff Bowling

We started the One Month to Live Challenge at Lord of Life this week. Our staff kicked it off in style by going bowling today. Bob Fredericksen is retiring from our staff and we wanted to do something fun.

We were a sad bunch (that is all except Billy Croft who showed up with his own ball and rolled a 230), but we had a good time. And it was a great way to celebrate after a busy few weeks leading up to Easter. Everyone had been working hard, and it was good to take a little break.

Barbara and I also brought Abby. It was her first time bowling.

Weekend in Review

I'm tired! But it is a good tired. We participated in three Easter Egg Hunts. One at church, one at home, and one at Grandma's and Grandpa's. Abby has enough candy to last her for some time.

We hosted Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday worship at Lord of Life. All the services were very moving. We had a full house this morning. Set up every single chair that we possibly could in the Family Life Center. Started the One Month to Live Challenge.

I have put so much energy over the last few weeks getting ready for Easter, I am going to need to take some pray and access where to divert my energy the next couple of weeks.

God is so good. His love is amazing. Thank you, thank you! Jesus is Risen.

The Cross

I write to you this weekly email as I scurry about making preparations for our upcoming Holy Week services. Just a reminder - Maundy Thursday and Friday Worships are at 7pm on their respective nights. And Easter Sunday is at 8:30 and 10am. We are encouraging as many members as able to attend the 8:30am worship as we are expecting a full house at 10am and want to make sure to have enough room for our guests. I am looking forward to seeing God at work in wondrous ways this week.

Throughout the week, we remember Jesus' sacrifice upon the cross. The cross is a common symbol of our faith. We display it prominently in our church. Many of us adorn ourselves with it as jewelry. We wear it on t-shirts. We proudly display it on our Bibles and in our homes. There are very few places we can go and not be confronted with this symbol of life. We see it in the sacred and the secular. We see in nature and creation.

We see it so often, that sometimes it is easy to forget what the cross was all about. The cross for Jesus was much more than logo used to identify the organization he would start called the Church. The cross for Jesus would be the ultimate sacrifice he would make for those he loves.

Crucifixion was used by the Roman Empire and was reserved for non-citizens and violent offenders. Crucifixion would be used against a Roman citizen only in cases of high treason and desertion during times of war. It was largely recognized as the most painful and disgraceful form of capital punishment in a time when no form of capital punishment was not designed to be quick or humane. Crucifixions were public events to serve as a deterrent for others. They would often take place outside the city walls along a well traveled road for all to see. It would have been common for the charge against the guilty party to be written out and nailed to the cross above their head.

Victims would often be scourged and tortured prior to the crucifixion. The crucifixion could take place on a single vertical stake or on a vertical stake with a crossbeam near or on its top. Blocks where sometimes attached to serve as a seat or as a footrest to draw out the torturous pain for up to three days. Without the rests underneath, the victim would be held up solely by their arms which would be attached by nails or rope. This could prohibit the victim from breathing and would block circulation. Victims would die from a combination of suffocation and heart failure. This was why the soldiers intended to break Jesus' legs, to hasten death, before the onset of the Sabbath.

After a victim had died, their bodies would often remain on the cross for days as they rotted away and became food for scavenger birds. Eventually the body would be taken down and thrown in the garbage dump. In Jerusalem, this would have been the Hinom Valley, also know as "Ghenna." It was the valley of fire where the garbage was burned. Jesus used this imagery to describe hell.

In Deuteronomy 21:23 we are told that "anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse." Jesus became cursed by God so that we could be blessed by God. It is the great exchange. In it we discover the forgiveness of sins. It is our ticket out of hell to heaven. The cross is no small thing and for that we worship him and give him our thanks and praise.

Weekend in Review

Tomorrow is opening day for baseball and it is snowing outside. This is two Sundays in a row that it has snowed. I'm not liking this. We are in April, it is time for some warmer weather.

Fortunately, I did get to play a little baseball with Abby this weekend. She can really hit the ball. Check out the picture. The ball went flying over my head and hit the fence. Almost a home run.

Saturday was Men of God. Good discussion on the body of Christ and it's significance for us today. It is amazing when you just read the text of the Passion and just write down all that Jesus endured beyond the crucifixion. You think about the insults. You think about him being slapped. You think about the sleep deprivation. You think about the scourging. You think about the thirst. You think about the crown of thorns. How can we be so indifferent in light of all that he did.

This morning at Lord of Life we celebrated Palm Sunday. Dr. Harry Wendt of Crossways International shared the message. We had our children singing to open the worship. It was a great way to enter into Holy Week.

Then, tonight was probably the most powerful part of the weekend. We hosted a Seder Dinner at Lord of Life. In one word: Incredible! It was so fascinating to take part in this meal similar to the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples. I imagine that almost every person who attended this evening will experience the Lord's Supper in a whole new way the next time that they receive it.

This coming week is Holy Week. I am looking forward to this time of reflection, repentance, worship, and ultimately - Celebration!

Audible, Amazon, Ipod, and the US Postal Service

A few years back I had an account with audible.com. If you are not familiar with audible, it is a great thing. It is an online audio book store. Their prices are typically cheaper than traditional audio books. When used audible before, I would download the books to my Palm Pilot and would listen to them while I worked out at the gym.

Well, I no longer have a device that plays audible books (other than my computer). I no longer have a gym membership either. We have an elliptical trainer in our basement that I use three times a week. I usually watch TV while using it.

But this last week, I saw a great deal on Amazon: sign up for an audible.com membership and get $100 off of an Mp3 player. It was too good of a deal to pass up. Being the Mac fanboy that I am, I ordered my first Ipod. A Yellow Ipod Nano to be exact. Final cost $33. Not bad!

Yesterday, I went online to see when the package would be here. The tracking identified that the package started on March 30 in Kentucky. It then arrived at Forest Park, IL on April 1. As of last night it then arrived in Memphis, TN.

Ok, something doesn't make sense here. Now, I don't work for the post office, but that seems like an inefficient route to use to deliver the package considering Forest Park is maybe 40 miles or so from here if even that. Whereas Memphis, TN is hundreds of miles.

Hope in the present time

Easter is just over one week away. I am joyfully anticipating this time of celebration. I am looking forward to the party. It's going to be a great time. God's Word tell us: For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. Romans 6:4

Because he lives we have eternal life and we have hope. Yet, many of us are not as hopeful as we were last Easter. It has been a difficult year and many of us may be looking towards the future with doom and gloom. Maybe you are feeling like the resurrection is not enough. Maybe you are thinking: "Sure the resurrection is great. I am glad I have the promise of eternal life, but what about the here and the now."

Here are some thoughts from the Scriptures about building hope in the present time:

1) Put God first, above every other priority. When we put him first, he will take care of the rest. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

2) Ask him. He is in the business of answering our prayers. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-8

3) Believe in Him. Believe that in Jesus we have more than enough. Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty." John 6:35

4) Know that there is scarcity when it comes to the treasures of this this world, but there is an abundance when it comes to the treasures of heaven. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19 and "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:19-21

5) Learn from others. The Bible shares many stories of people who in difficult situations put their trust in God and saw him come through. Think about David (going up against Goliath), Elijah (faced persecution and famine), Daniel (feed to the lions), the Apostle Paul (arrested and shipwrecked).

6) Be in the business of giving hope. Turn the table on the devil. Don't let him get a foothold. Even if you are personally feeling down, commit to bringing a little bit of light into someone else's life. When you do so, you will discover that God will work in amazing ways to provide the hope and everything else you need. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4