"Unashamed"...Ready for the good news?

Wow...Wednesday's message was hard, right? Just in case you missed it:

God is not mad at you. He's not some bully ready to pounce on you at every wrong turn and every single fall. God loves you...it's how it was from the beginning and its still that way TODAY. God is pursuing you, He loves you...and yet there are some of us who are content with acting like it's okay to be ashamed of God. You know what I mean...there's a hard teaching, a hard verse, an uncomfortable truth about God or Christ in the Bible, and we are either ashamed to accept and live it out in the real world, or we unashamedly ignore it all together and pretend it doesn't exist. Can you believe it?! Ashamed...of the truth! So...which one is it? And the question isn't even if you accept it or not...right now I just want you to own up to it: "do you want God's message, do you want to follow God, no matter what?"

That's the question that led us to talk about the bigger question: "Do you want God, do you want Christ, is He in you?" We talked about in Isaiah 65 where God is speaking about those he delivered and how He unashamedly calls to those who don't ask for Him, who mock and provoke Him to His face. He reveals Himself to us...yet we rebel...and then have the audacity to call ourselves "good" and think its perfectly fine to live like Jesus is our dirty little secret. See, apart from Christ we are not good...far, far from it. But there's more to the story...there's repentance, there's forgiveness, there's life.

This week is the good news... this week we're getting loud with it...

Unashamed with a chance of Snowballs

Soooo... you think you've got it down...you think you've got it together...you think you can master the frigid spheres in unseasonable conditions and aim them to perfection at unsuspecting targets to your everlasting glory! Okay... that's a little intense to say, yes...yes...we are unashamedly having a real, honest-to-goodness snowball fight this Wednesday!

In Case You Missed last Wednesday:
Here's what's abnormal - acting like God is some distant, uncaring, quiet, and always angry being, and that we don't really have to tell others about Jesus because they'll figure it out eventually.
It's normal to tell others about Jesus, but it's not just supposed to be facts, it's supposed to be you telling others how Jesus has pursued you, how He is in love with you, what he gave for you, and how you aren't even recognizable anymore because you are soooo changed. But now we have to tackle something a little more complex. If Jesus has called us, and he wants us, and through the Holy Spirit in our lives we can see real, physical change in people's lives in Jesus' name, then it's time that we start living it in the real world.

What that means: we're going to take what we've learned to the real world. There are some challenges that have been set before us and we're going to put it all on the table and decide if we're all in or if we're going to fold. I'm just going to tell you...we ain't gonna fold!!!

This Wednesday, come for some hard-core snowball fightin', some intense unashamed worship where Jesus is centerpiece, Jesus is the everything, and we get honest: have I been ashamed about God? You get to face the moment and you get the chance - we're gonna pray it everyday for the next month: "Lord, let me live every moment unashamed for you today!"

Back2SchoolBash Cancelled

Hey all,
Due to the chance of rain and cooler temperatures forecasted for Saturday, we thought it best to cancel the B2SB at the Lake. We'll look at scheduling something else out there in the near future. We just want it to be fun and not wet and miserable! Don't worry, we'll come up with something else fun very, very soon! The ideas are already turning in our heads...Have a good weekend, and if you have any questions just let us know! Thanks!!!

Worship @ The Square on 9/16

Hey, here's the full details on Worship @ the Square. We're kicking off the night at J&J's Pizza at the square at 6:00 p.m. For those of you whose Moms and Dads have to be at the church at 6:00, Tracy and I will be at the square at 5:30 p.m. so they have time to get to church. This is the last week of our series called Abnormal. It's a great night to invite a friend! We will have some awesome worship on the courhouse lawn. Afterward, we will go eat some fantastic icecream at Beth Marie's. Your parents can pick you up at Beth Maries or on the courhouse lawn on the side opposite of Beth Marie's at 8:00 p.m. Each person needs to bring $10 to cover dinner and dessert! If you are one of the people who emailed me at abnormalchurch, you will recieve special directions via email. Also, if your parents sing in church choir, we will make arrangements to take you back to church. I am so excited to see what God will do!

Abnormal

So we're in the middle of what we're calling "Abnormal" and we're asking the question "what if all the stuff in the Bible that Jesus does and his disciples do is normal, and maybe the stuff we do is really not normal at all?" We've been in the book of Acts, 1 Corinthians, and even seen Jesus pull out a whip and start turnin' over tables at the temple in John. The premise is simple: Scripture is not full of Christ-followers sitting around talking all the time and studying the Bible. No, no, no...its full of people going out and making real, physical changes in the lives of those they come in contact with. What if that's what were supposed to be doing? And when is the last time we've been there and done that? Whoa!

So for the next two Wednesdays, we're going to be diggin' deep and getting real, and we're going to start making real differences in the lives of those we meet! Email me at abnormalchurch@yahoo.com and let me know your story...God is going to do crazy things as we start trading up our version of "normal" for God's!