It’s Hard!

For some strange reason, Easter for me this year didn’t hold what I expected, anticipated, and even planned for.  Even to share this seems somewhat like I am sinning. Easter is supposed to be a big day of celebration and praise, but this year nothing.

Personally, I did all I could to prepare; I rested, studied, sought Him, and even asked in prayer for God to do amazing things.  I truly anticipated that God would move, and we would see a great harvest at Fellowship Church, but to me it was uneventful and blah.  Don’t get me wrong, Jesus Arose; and, that in itself, is glorious and amazing.  The fact that God loved me more than I could love myself is overwhelming.  However, in my remembrance there seemed to be a silence.

Since Sunday, I have struggled with how to reconcile my feelings, am I broken.  What did I do wrong or not do right?  How could the biggest day in the year pass without me sensing His presence in a new and exciting way?  I prayed about it, nothing.  I talked with the team members at FC and nothing stood out.  Tina and I talked, and I expressed my feelings and I just could not put my finger on it.

This morning Mickey sent me a blog post that really fit what I was trying to say and what I was certainly feeling.  So, I encourage you to take a moment to read this post as I hope it encourages you as much as it did me, especially if you are struggling through a dry spell spiritually.

WHY CHURCH IS HARD…

Jesus is the main story of our faith.  The fact that He came from Heaven to Earth, to redeem man from their sin, because God’s love for us caused Him to provide a way back to Him. Therefore our story should be the same, Jesus saves, redeems, forgives, heals, loves, and provides redemption back to God.   At Fellowship Church, His story is our story, and we seek to tell others about Jesus.  It is all the more important for me to post this Value today as we approach Easter Sunday, the day we remember and revere Christ resurrection from the dead. Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:19-20, John 14:6, Romans 3:23, 5:8, 6:23, 10:9-10, 13

So, how do we share the story of Jesus?  There are several ways, but we teach at Fellowship Church to invest and invite.  Invest in the people God puts in your life, each one is an opportunity to share; and, then as the Holy Spirit leads, invite them into a relationship with Jesus.  You can do this in several ways, invite them to church (FC provides an environment for people to follow Jesus), you can simple tell your story about how Jesus has changed your life, or you can learn several approaches from scripture that will help you guide them to faith in Jesus.  I have found the most powerful way to share with someone is my story, the story of how Jesus changed me.  People may not believe in church, the Bible or even God, but when you tell them what has happened in your life and they see the change it is hard to refute.

Now to the timing of this post.  What better time to Tell the Story?  Easter Sunday is the most attended church service of the year.  More people who would never attend church do so on Easter.  Why not make this Easter special by investing and inviting someone to church with you and begin a long relationship of guiding them to Jesus.  Could it be the person you work with, your neighbor, a waitress, your banker, the parents from your little league team…who is God placing in your life right now that God is wanting you to Tell about Him?

This past Sunday was incredible at Fellowship.  The worship team lead us in celebrating Jesus and then I shared the message of Faith to conclude our series on Faith.  When I finished my talk, I felt an incredible sense that God was not through, and I invited people to follow Jesus.  Five people raised their hands for prayer and then I invited them to stand, they did!  Next I asked everyone to stand for prayer and invited the five to come forward to talk to someone about faith, all but one came forward and we shared with them and we will follow up with the one.  The only word I can used for what God did was, Blessed!  God showed up, and I for one was blessed beyond what I can express here.  God is faithful!!!!!!!

Just a reminder, Sunday we begin at 11:00 am.  Invite those God places on your heart to come and tell them to get here at 10:45 for a good seat.  I can promise this: the worship will be incredible and the message filled with Hope.  See you on Sunday.

1. Feast on the Word

2. Give Freely

Today, I will share another value as part of the Vision and Values blogs – Do Life Together:

In the beginning, God created the earth, day/night, animals, plants, stars, sun and moon.  He then created man in His own image.  Immediately, God saw that it was not good for man to be alone, so He created a woman.  You can read more about this in the first three chapters of Genesis.  Now, God could have just settled with one man and spent time with him everyday, however God saw that the man was alone.

Aloneness is still one of the biggest problems in our culture today.  We have more technology to connect us with one another, however we have found ways to avoid relationships, therefore loneliness still exist.   Talk to any single person and they will tell you that loneliness is not a good way of life.  Facebook in its original form was to connect people on a college campus, people who were confined by classes within a several square mile campus.  It has now grown into a mega meeting place for millions around the world.  One might think that it would fill the void of aloneness; however, a quick review of the average Facebook page, will find a lot of lonely people.  So, a tool for connections, has turned into more of a voyeur’s site for entertainment.

In the book of Acts, the first church was modeled for us.  Acts 2:42 says that as the church began, the people “committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers.”  I think this is important to point out for one simple fact, they didn’t just come together for teaching, they came together and did life together.  And for all the “small church” lovers out there, this church had 3,000+ members added on it’s first day!  This passage goes on to tell us that there was unity, commonality, benevolence, care, Bible study, meals (BBQ, yeah baby), and praise.  As this happened, the church continued to grow by the day.

Through the Bible, we read the importance of Doing Life Together.  In the OT, it tells us that “iron sharpens iron”, meaning that we need others in our life to help us grow spiritually.  Other places tell us not to be careful to not meet together for worship and fellowship, and still others that encourage us to support a fallen brother/sister in the faith and restore them.  In the NT alone, there are many places where you will find the term, “one another”, implying that we are to Do Life Together as followers of Jesus.

The hardest part of Doing Life Together in our culture, is we are so afraid of relationships, we aren’t willing to open up and allow others in.  I am fully convinced that until you and I allow others to Do Life with us, we will never fully see what the church could be in changing our world.

John 13:35 (MSG)
35 This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."

It was a good day.  The worship was great and you can find the set list in the post before this.  I really like how Mickey slipped in the old hymn Great Is Thy Faithfulness, the old hymns are still relevant today.  Let me take a minute to say how proud I am of our band.  They do a great job of leading us each Sunday and I appreciate their personal sacrifices to make Sunday happen.

The message was out of this world!  Just kidding, but I am so grateful for the fact that God challenged me on Saturday night to make some changes to the message.  I was reviewing the message at home on Saturday night like normal, getting ready for Sunday when I felt God giving me more to talk about.  So I began to work through the text and became so blessed that God opened several thoughts that completed the talk.   I pray God used it to challenge you.

Following service we held Class 101, Partners Class with 6 in attendance.  I always love sharing the vision and direction of Fellowship Church.  While we were hosting this lunch and class, we also had a large group of people doing some spring cleaning, getting us ready for Easter.  A big THANK YOU to all of those who stayed on Sunday to help with the Spring Cleaning.

The worship team did a great job of leading us in worship.  It was especially cool to hear Dustin Wade share in the vocals.  Another highlight was Johnny Holbrook playing the keys, these guys just keep growing and showing their talent.  Great job guys.

We completed the second message in the Faith series as we studied Hebrews 11.  In this chapter of the Bible, God points out people who had great faith from the OT and how we can learn from them.  The focus passage was Hebrew 11:4-12, in three of the verses we read these words, “By an act of faith…”  Hebrews 11 teaches us that Faith is belief + action, it is trusting God and being obedient.

Sometimes when I give my talks I come out with phrases that are not in my notes, but are filled with truth.  Two such statements rang loudly, so I want to share them with you here:

- Obedience is an outward expression of an inward transformation:  When it comes to faith, obedience is essential.  For each of us when we choose to act on our faith, it exhibits that we have truly been transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ.  Romans 12:2  We see that Abel, Enoch, Noah and Abraham all acted on their faith and it was credited to them.  They were obedient to the call of God in their lives and found that the promises of God come through trusting Him.

- Far to  many people have made an emotional decision without any transformation – At the core of being a Christ follower is transformation (Romans 12:2).  It is a spiritual process that the Holy Spirit does in you following coming to Christ.  As you grow closer to Jesus through obedience, you begin to become like Christ or you become transformed.  Literally, it means that you and I will act differently and as a result God is exalted in our lives.

Why are these two statements important?  God wants to change us to build up the Kingdom and use us to lead others to a knowledge of repentance and Salvation.  In doing so, you will live the life God created you to live.  So often, we try to act on our own and the results are not that pleasant.  An easy question to ask yourself is How is that working out for me?  Once we surrender and become obedient, a whole new life of possibilities and adventures lie ahead.

At the end of the talk, I gave an acrostic to help you remember how to exercise your faith:

R – Request God’s Plan

E – Evaluate your Response

S – Surrender your Will

T – Trust in Him

I can state with confidence that God is faithful, and I know that as you walk with Jesus you will come to know that as well.

See you on Sunday for week 3 of Faith, Hebrews 11

Does the color Pink Exist? Scientist Aren’t Sure

Seriously? Do we really have scientist who study stuff like this?  And we wonder what is happening in our world and why things seem so off center.  Other questions come to mind when I read stuff like this:  How does one get a job as a color scientist?  How much money do people spend on studying colors?  What kind of education would a Color Scientist require?  Can you imagine going up to the local college admissions office to apply for the Color Scientist Degree?

As with all things I like to extract truths that are important to  me as a Christ follower to help me be a better person so I thought about this article and came up with these observations…

1. Some things we will never know – Is it really important to determine if pink really exist.  Tell my daughter that pink was not a real color.  I remember painting and decorating her room in pink, you could never convince either of us that pink was not a real color.  In today’s world we want to prove everything, even the things we can see.  When it comes to God we must place our faith (trust) in what we cannot see, for some this will be most difficult if not impossible. Hebrews 11

2. Some things are just not important to pursue – So what happens if they determine that pink doesn’t exist?  I guess the new name for the color on many walls, cars (Mary Kay), clothing and such will be known as the “Color formerly known as Pink”.   Is it really important (life or death) to know if pink really does exist?  Satan will often use the small unimportant things to take us off task.  The Bible tells us to pursue God with all our hearts, minds, soul and strength, to take the time for silly pursuits will rob us of God’s best. Matthew 22:37  What unimportant thing are you pursuing that is taking you away from God?

3. Don’t let others determine what you believe, trust and know – The whole message of the story is about how our minds have created colors.  There will be times when your faith is challenged and it is even popular today for those who do not believe to tell you that your faith is shallow and void.   Here is what I know, when I painted the walls pink, the color that was on the wall represented a belief system in me and my little girl that was founded on truth.  The wall made us happy and completed our worlds, the exact color she desired to decorate her room.  Faith in God is the same, non-believers may choose to not trust, but I have and it have made a profound impact in my life, the evidence is in the life change.  I have painted my life with Jesus and the evidence is in what God sees and others see.   Satan believes in God, but refuses to trust in God, that does not make God real.  Faith in Jesus is true, do you know Him?  John 3:16, Romans 1

Pink, it doesn’t matter what the “experts” say, it does exist and is alive and well in the hearts of those who believe.  So too is Jesus, the Savior of the world.  Seriously!

At Fellowship Church we had a day to remember, we baptized 5 people, two adults and three teens.  I hope you will join us in celebrating these decisions to make public a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.  It should also be noted that during the time of invitation following the message we had several who expressed a desire to find out more about fellowing Christ and several who came forward to pray.

As I thought about all we got to see and experience, I could not help but reflect on the message on Faith.  These individuals exercised faith in God by crying out to Him for forgiveness of their sin.  I would suggest this is probably the easy part of being a Christ follower, it is the every day life that causes us to struggle.  Do we have faith that God can cover us in all the details of our life, not just eternity?  Faith says yes and releases control.  Like the five who shared their baptism with us, have you really taken the time to evaluate your personal walk with God?  Have you truly decided to exercise faith in God?

Here are somethings to help you answer those questions:

- Have you ever been lost…

Something cannot be found until it has been lost.  To often we equate salvation and redemption to a prayer prayed during an emotional time at church.  However, one cannot be found until they are lost.  God tells us that we are all lost, hopeless without Him.  Lost means sin filled and far from God.  As we talked in the message on Sunday, faith is not belief, even Satan and his demons believe, but they do not exercise the choice to trust or place faith in.  Faith in God says, “God I believe you are the eternal God who sent Jesus (your son) to die for me.  I trust you completely and for eternity.  (John 3:16, Romans 3:23, Romans 5:8)

- Have you ever been found…

Once you realize your need for God, there must be a time when you surrender and allow yourself to be found.  Every one of us will come to a point in our life when we will run head on into a Holy God and be confronted with a decision.  The decision will require each of us to either accept or reject God.  It is not enough just to acknowledge God as the solution, we must accept the solution into our lives.  To put it another way, we must fully take Jesus as Lord of our life, rejecting our way and accepting God’s way, a changed life.  This changed life will only be possible through the work of the Holy Spirit as you lean on Him for direction and correction.  In the modern church, we have a large group of people who know they are lost and think they are found.  They acknowledge God as the Redeemer, however they never allow themselves to be found, it is a form of Godliness but denying the power of that God.  Belief without faith is religion, religion does not lead to life change, but life adjustment.  God is not just interested in adjusting your life, He wants to change your life, create a new person with a new purpose.  Have you been found? (Romans 6:23, Romans 10:9-10, 13, 2 Tim 3:5)

- Has Jesus made a difference in your life…

No other person in this world can determine your Salvation.  It is a personal decision that is worked out between you and God.  Unfortunately, so many today have come to the point of realizing they are lost and even want to be found, however they never take the step of surrender, therefore nothing changes.  The only measure of one’s Salvation is life change, are you daily growing more to be  like Jesu?.  If you plant flowers or a garden you can understand this principle.  Plant something and it will grow, if there is not water, sun or food it will die.  Jesus came that we might have life, not death.  Does your life look more like Christ or death?  When a person comes to Christ, life is infused into them and there will be change.  Here is a quick question for you to use to evaluate yourself: Are you closer to Jesus today than you were yesterday, this year greater than last year, this decade over last decade?  Just as in planting there will be seasons, however there is always life.  When something die in a garden it can only be cut down and burned.  (2 Cor. 5:17, John 3:5)

As you evaluate your life and faith in God if you need to talk to someone about your faith you can email any of the staff to set up a time to talk.  There is nothing greater than allowing God to show you faith.  If you are confused, then I encourage you to pray one prayer, “God if I don’t have Salvation show me”.  I can promise you this is a prayer God answers.

I can’t wait for this Sunday as continue to see God do great things.  I hope you will be there with us!

The staff and I have been working very hard preparing for this Sunday’s worship. I hope you are making plans now to be here as we beg God to do something bigger than we could ever imagine or dream.

Here are a couple of things you need to know before Sunday gets here:

1. Time Change
Yep, it’s that time of year again, time to set our spring forward one hour. If you forget to do this, you will be one hour late for church and miss the blessings we are praying for. So sometime before you go to bed on Saturday, move the clock
one hour ahead and we will all be on the same time Sunday.

A special note to those who are normally late, you may want to set your clock one hour and fifteen minutes ahead so your can be on time until time changes in the fall, LOL!

2. Baptism
We will be celebrating baptism with 5 individuals who are expressing publicly their relationship with Jesus. Baptism at Fellowship has alway been a special part of our DNA so you will not want to miss it.

Finally, God has been doing some cool stuff in my time with Him. I have also enjoyed my study time for Sunday. I can tell you more than ever, God is faithful!

I can’t wait to see you on Sunday.

Craig

On Sunday we concluded the Love Wins series, a study of I Corinthians 13. In this chapter, Paul was writing to a church that was struggling with unity and love. As Christ followers, we are to put love above all else.

At the conclusion of the message on Sunday, I gave 5 Actions Steps to Loving, as a reminder and a quick reference I wanted to post them here. Practice them and watch how your world will change.

Actions Steps:

1. Make a point to tell those you love, I love you.
2. Act like you love them.
3. Love those who are your enemies.
4. Love Christ by practicing obedience.
5. Love people who are far from God enough that they see Jesus in you.

Today’s Value is Give Freely

The Bible has much to say about Giving, in fact the main truth of the Bible is giving.  God gave Jesus for our sin (John 3:16).  The earliest story of giving found in the BIble is that of Cain and Able, you can read that story in Gen. 4.  Then throughout the Old Testament giving was part of worship and support of the tabernacle. God instructed His people to give one tenth (1/10th) of everything they received back to Him for several reasons.

1. To show thanks for God’s blessing

2. To support priest and tabernacle (church)

3. To show trust in God for all there needs

Fast forward to today, some believe and teach that tithing ended in the OT and the New Testament does not support the idea of giving 10% to God and I would agree.  (Some may be tempted to stop reading here, don’t, the best is yet to come)  The New Testament teaches us not only to give 10%, but that everything we have belongs to God once we become a Christ follower.  We believe and teach at Fellowship Church that everything we have has been given to us by God and that we are only stewards of that blessing.  So, in essence, we own nothing and have nothing apart from what God gives us.  Therefore, giving God a 10% in tithe and then offerings as He leads us is appropriate and necessary for spiritual maturity.  We define this as Giving Freely.

Here is a quote that I came across that puts this into prospective, 90% of me + 10% GOD is alway better than 100% of me.  You and I will never be all God wants us to be until we learn to be generous.  Starting this Sunday we want to challenge everyone to give back to God.  We are inviting anyone who will to join us for a 90 Day Giving Challenge.  Here is how that works:

1. Pray – pray for God to teach you more about Him during this 90 days verses teaching you about money.

2. Make a commitment to give 10% of your income to God for 90 days.  Read Malachi 3:10 where God says “test me in this”.  This commitment will be private between you and God only.  Fellowship Church is not asking for you to sign a commitment or turn in your name, this is your walk of faith, you will keep your own records.

Here are a couple of tips to help make this work:

1. Sit down and determine what 10% of your monthly income is and how much your tithe should be.  Look at your budget and determine how you can fit tithing into your life, it may mean not eating out or buying a coke everyday, as small sacrifice for God’s promise of blessing.

2. Give the determined amount as soon as you get the income, if you wait you will spend it.  One great way to assure you being faithful is to set up your giving to be debited out of your account automatically.  We have several ways to help you do this at Fellowship Church, visit our website for more info.

3. When you give, celebrate God’s blessings and pray over your gift that God would use it to bring others into His Kingdom.

3. Give faithfully.  Through out this 90 day commitment be faithful, I promise there will be times when it will be easy to jump ship, don’t the enemy wants that, but God wants to bless you.  Here is something I have learned, blessing never come easy, but through suffering.

4. Celebrate the Blessings. We believe so much in the Value of Give Freely that we know God will use this time to bless you.  Keep your eyes open for how God does this.  Have you ever been riding down the road and see several cars along the way with flat tires?  I have and often I thank God that he allowed my tires to stay filled with air (I also pray for those who’s didn’t). But I can’t help but wonder maybe God protected and it all comes back to my giving and                       trusting Him.  Pastor you really believe that?  Absolutely, I believe my milk keeps past the spoil date because of God’s favor, and you can experience the same blessing as well.  A Word of Warning:  You will also find hardship when you make this commitment.  Satan the enemy will not be happy so expect the attack and celebrate that to.  Why did Job go through so much pain, because God counted him worthy.

Our Commitment as a Church:

It is simple we commit to share in this walk with you.  If in the 90 days you do not see God’s blessing in your life and you just don’t believe what we are teaching, we will sit down with you and figure how much you gave over the 90 days in tithe and we will write you a check for that amount.  We are offering you a money back guarantee so you have nothing to loose.  One rule: The refund will only be for tithes given to Fellowship Church.

I can’t wait to watch God work in your life.  If you want to talk more about tithing or help with your budget please don’t hesitate to call the office for an appointment.  Our goal at Fellowship Church is not to just have church, but to invest in your and your walk with Jesus.  See you on Sunday!