Great weekend at North Creek!

Worship was AWESOME! What a wonderful set that honored God from start to finish. I almost bought Corey a hammer because he nailed it! Way to go team! Welcome back Tiffany and Scott! Also welcome to Matt, who has recently joined North Creek and can S-I-N-G!

I loved Mark’s sermon. It’s was a passionate look at how the first Christians acted and reacted to their new faith. We need to boldly live of lives of faith and tell the world about Jesus. Does that represent the picture of your life right now? If not, it’s time to change your reality.

Mark and I have been WRESTLING with God this week. He has been challenging us to the core of who we are and how we lead. It’s wonderful and awful at the same time. I see it as growth pains towards the next step in our leadership and church. The reality is that we never arrive! We are always growing, changing, adjusting, dreaming, and working out our faith with fear and trembling.

Happy 1st Birthday to James!

Daylight savings time is brutal. My daughter had a sleepover on Friday night and then Saturday night was shorter, so by tonight I feel exhausted! I can’t wait for a good night’s sleep!

Watching the devastation in Japan is unimaginable. As a church we support www.convoyofhope.org during times of disaster. Please consider making a donation to give basic necessities to people who desperately need our help.

On a side note, the thing I love most about my small group is seeing them in church. There is definitely a deeper connection and relationship when you spend time in the same group during the week. It’s an awesome win for my life!

We love our team! Our staff goes on the roller coaster of leadership with us and processes with us through what is best for this church. It’s a gift that is hard to describe and I wouldn’t want it any other way!

We are on a mission to make North Creek more of a presence in our community. Get out there and do something for Jesus and then point people to a great church!

Have an amazing week! May God do miracles in and through you!

I’ve been digging into my house all week as our church is corporately supporting the Regifting Store (www.regiftingstore.org) for our current outreach project. The Regifting store is a thrift store that sells donations, but also freely gives things to people that need help. They give away everything from household goods to furniture to food items. They also donate all of their proceeds back into the community!

Sometimes the best way to make a difference is to partner with organizations that are already set up to bless people in our community. This particular outreach is a double blessing – we get to clean out our houses and other people get the benefits! I’ve begun hearing about people sorting, cleaning, and dropping off things that will help people in our community. North Creek is also making a monetary donation so that they can continue their work in our community. You can also volunteer your time to help work at the store.

I hope that you will jump onboard with us! When you donate, tell them that the Coffee Church believes in them! It’s a fun, easy way to make a difference in Vancouver!

We wrapped up our giving series at North Creek this weekend. What an encouraging three weeks it has been for us! Most pastors shy away from talking about money because people get all crazy and angry. We have seen the opposite with emails and thanks for opening up their hearts to the idea of generosity. What an amazing look at our humanity!

Here is one of those emails:

I just had such a God thing happen in my life and I feel the need to share it with you. Last week I got paid from my second job. When I opened the paycheck and found out it was only for $41.07 the first words out of my mouth were, “What good is that gonna do?” The next day at church we wrapped up the Fistful of Dollars series and Pastor Mark talked about being a cheerful giver and when the cards for the Regifting Store were passed out I felt God say take that “useless” paycheck and use it to buy items to donate. The next day I went and shopped and I got so caught up in the spirit of giving that it made the rest of my day. I felt this feeling of such joy and happiness that I can’t even being to explain except to say that it definitely came from God and letting him use me to give cheerfully. Thank you guys so much for opening my eyes to this subject. I can’t wait to see who God has me bless with my next paycheck!

I love our kid’s pastor! She had one very talkative class this weekend that was hard to manage. Every once in a while that happens and it’s hard to deal with. Pastors know how much is at stake with every word that they teach. It is truly life and death every weekend. It’s always discouraging when it seems to be a rough day because we all take it so seriously! Kim – you are doing an amazing job molding and shaping our young generation! I love what you do and how deeply you love. Keep it up!

We had a new baby born on Friday. Welcome to Cloey Featherston! Congrats to Mikel and Samantha on your new blessing!

We got new carpet in the nursery! It is beautiful!!!!!

Mark highlighted the Regifting Store for our outreach this spring. You can check them out at www.regiftingstore.org. They are a great non-profit donation center that gives away things for free to help people and gives all of their profits back into the community. Please consider cleaning out your closets and making a donation in the month of March. They take all household goods, food, furniture, cash, etc. It all goes to help people! When you drop off your things just say, “The Coffee Church supports you and thanks you for being a blessing to this community!”

Don’t just plan on being generous. DO it!

I, like the rest of the country, have watched in horror at Charlie Sheen unraveling his life and saying the most entitled and egotistical things that could ever be spoken. My first reaction was how destructive fame and money could be in our lives. However, I changed my tune after a brief conversation at the homeless shelter this week. Someone came to complain that they were only allowed 10 minute showers. I thought to myself, “How interesting that people with literally nothing, being blessed by this organization, after all of the sacrifices made by volunteers, is complaining about only getting 10 minutes in the nice hot shower before they went to their nice warm bed, paid for by people who believe that nobody should sleep in the cold in our country.” It was in the same vein as Charlie Sheen announcing that he needed to make $3 million an episode, rather than his measly $2 million. Completely on opposite sides of the spectrum, but the very same heart behind it!

As I thought about it, I realized that all of us have a streak of entitlement in us. Definitely not as pronounced as what we have seen by Sheen on the news, but nonetheless, we still think that we DESERVE and EARN the right to have whatever it is that we WANT when we want it.

Maybe that’s the real reason that Christianity is so difficult for most people to grasp. God’s love is UNDESERVED, you CAN’T earn it, and you have to surrender everything YOU want for what HE wants. It’s contrary to everything that our flesh pushes us towards. It truly becomes an exercise in sacrificial love and surrender to a God that you trust with your needs and desires.

I can say that the most beautiful people I know grasp the undeserved love, unearned grace, and release their own entitlement to His will. It is the polar opposite to the insanity that Sheen is parading in front of the cameras. My prayer for him, and for all of us, is that we would bend against the force of entitlement in our lives and rest in the fact that, if nothing else, we have the love of Christ available to us. What more could we possibly need?

I was watching the Nate Berkus show during my bout with the flu as I spent WAY too much time in bed. One moment in the show literally messed me up, so I thought I would share it with you and mess you up!

They had an organizer come to help with simple solutions. She took a purse from a lady in the audience and dumped it out on the table. Of course the woman was horrified by the disaster! The lady began to say, “Honestly, this is just my purse! I’m a very organized person in every other area of my life!” The organizer pursed her lips and shook her head. You could see the lady feel the need to convince her. “No, really, it’s true. My house, my car…the REST is really clean!” The organizer then said a statement that changed my life. “How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

It was like a lightbuld went on in my life. I say all of the time, “Sorry about my car, everything else is organized, but my car is always a mess.” As that organizer said those words “how you do one thing is how you do everything”, I thought about my cupboards, my garage, my own purse, my life…it’s all crammed with too much stuff with very little plan or purpose for WHY I have all of this stuff!!! I had to stop and change what I believed about myself.

Now I’m on a quest. I’m not planning on just fixing my car anymore, but rather planning to rethink my strategies for my entire life. The reality that I faced is that there is a core in myself that stops me from organization and changing little pieces will not change the reality. (I still blame my creative streak, but I think I can be creative and organized, so we’ll see!)

What areas of your life do you need to rethink from top to bottom? Are there areas of yourself where you are denying the reality of your weaknesses? Good luck facing that reality and changing what you want to change about yourself! There’s always room for improvement and let’s all fight to be who we want to be!