Sundays wear a pastor out!  Yesterday, I preached on “The Power Of Storms!”  and when I got home, I discovered that I had a flat tire on my truck, which I decided to ignore until Monday!  Last night when we got home from church, we discovered that Joy had a big bolt stuck in one of her tires.  I removed the bolt and the tire went flat in a little under three minutes.  I laughed and said to God:  “Are you correcting, perfecting or is this the devil?”  (If you were here yesterday – you will understand!)  It’s Monday morning now and I have taken care of fixing both tires and I am back on task doing the things that God has called and gifted me to do!  (By the way – fixing flat tires is not one of them!)  God’s grace is sufficient, but a flat tire will really give that a testing!  (HA HA)

Just wanted to remind everyone – as you face your storms this week – make sure that you:

Talk to God!  His persective is the only one that really matters!  Don’t get caught up in the blame and complain game!  Talk to God and He will keep you and your life on track!  Don’t ignore your sin!  Deal with it by confessing it and God will forgive it and you can be free from it!  Learn something!  What is God trying to help you learn, know and understand about your life?  Remember:  God is more and has to be more than a good luck charm!  Make Changes!  If you are going to grow the way that God intends for you to grow you can’t stay the same.  Life is about growing and growing is about changing.  What is God saying to you and what are you going to do about it?  Don’t wait – get busy right now!  Today is the day of Salvation – take advantage of all that God has done, is doing and will do for you!

Church today has become about a lot of stuff that it was never intended to be!  All of the stuff distracts us and keeps us from being successful, the way that God wants us to be successful!  God gave the church it’s marching orders with the Great Commission – we are to go into ALL of the world and MAKE DISCIPLES!  Our mission is to help people who do not know Jesus to come to a place where they know Him in a real, personal and life changing way!

Maybe instead of being called  a “member” of a church – we should be called a “missionary”, because isn’t that more of what we are supposed to be and do?  We need to start seeing ourselves as representatives of Jesus – sent into our communities to bring healing, purpose and direction!

We need to stop looking at church as a place to go and instead see it as something that we are day in and day out!  Remember – the church is not the building – it’s the people!

We need to look for Jesus in our community, figure out what He is up to and join Him in His work!  (ie. Experiencing God!)  By the way, He would love for us to join Him!  I was wondering:  Do we have to ask Him to join us and bless our work, if we have joined Him and what He is doing?

It is time to stop hiding out in the church building and start getting out into a lost, dying and frustrated world, so that we might share with everyone that we can the ONE who can really make the difference.  We don’t need to conform to the culture that we live in and around, but we do need to get busy engaging it!

In what way have you served the community that you live in?  What kind of relationships have you built outside of the church?  What have you done lately that wasn’t for you, but for someone else?

If we will accept and live in the power of our relationship with Jesus and yield to the leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives – we will see God do some incredible and amazing things!  I am so looking forward to it!

WOW!  All I can say is WOW!  Northwooders came through again by hosting over 400 ladies for an evening with Janet Pascal!  Our Ladies Banquet Ministry Team did an outstanding job in planning, organizing and putting on a first class, top rate ministry event!  Our ladies did a beautiful job preparing beautiful and welcoming tables!  Our men prepared a delicious meal and served with with an amazing spirit.  So many people pitched in to help us have a magnificent evening of ministry impact!

It is amazing what we can do, when we come together to accomplish something great for God and His glory!  Janet did a super job in sharing a special word from the Lord and I am so looking forward to the harvest from the seeds that she planted!  Thanks JoJo and team for great leadership and thanks for everyone of you that helped to bless this community with a very special touch from the Lord!