JasonDeuman.com

33Fear-of-GOD is a school in skilled living–

first you learn humility, then you experience glory.

I have really been enjoying reading the Paraphrase the Message. It really simplifies all the language. It’s quite nice.

but I was reading this passage today and I don’t know why it jumped out at me so strongly. I guess it might have something to do with the progression from learning humility and then experiencing Glory. You have to get low to look up I guess. I don’t know, just thought I would share this.

I am very privileged to be able to speak quite regularly on Sunday mornings here at tNC. I really enjoy these opportunities to grow in my giftings and the freedom that I have to experiment with different ideas.

This week I am talking about Exodus 19, where God Comes and talks to the nation of Israel, and he comes in this terrifying cloud and fire on the mountain and the Israelites are terrified. And the LORD announces his presence with a Shofar. It’s really pretty cool.

I had to go looking for a shofar though, which is a ram’s horn. The Church I grew up in had some really cool traditions and every year at the feast of trumpets Pastor Joe would blow his shofar. I thought it would be cool to introduce this to our church. I’m excited to see how this turns out. I think it will be really cool.

I love this video. I still haven’t seen the movie yet but I need to

Well My Birthday is this week and I love Jesus and everything, but I wanted to give you some guidelines on what not to give me.
This Shirt

Any of These

Or this

I don’t want to sound ungrateful, But just do us both a favor. Hope you have a great week.

For the next two weeks in Transit we are going to be talking about worship through suffering. It’s a pretty interesting topic becuase suffering usually has two effects on people’s faith, suffering can strengthen it, or suffering and destroy it. Unfortunately I have no cure for suffering, and I have no answers for why bad things happen to good people. But Bad things don’t have to turn us into weak people. Bad things don’t have to make us doubt.

The Thoughtoponder (one word this time) is How can you worship through suffering?

I’m looking forward to hearing from people on this. Stories are welcome, I won’t share any of them without permission. I think our stories can bring great healing to others though so if you have gone through a really hard time and found God on the other end of it then I would love to hear about it.

Have a great day!

“God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in Him.” –John Piper Desiring God

I have been reflecting a lot on this passage last week. In our college group we are doing a series on worship. The cool thing about this series is that there is no end date right now. We are just going to talk about worship for a while. It’s really going to be pretty fun for me. Last week we talked about the Joy of Worship, and we pondered the Westminster catechism which stated, “Man’s chief purpose is to Worship God and enjoy him forever.” It was really quite fun talking about enjoying God and how worship helps us to do that.

This week if anyone reads this blog and has anything to add, then I would love to hear from you. I am going to be writing the bulk of my notes tonight and do a little tweaking tomorrow. But I would love to hear what you think it means to be satisfied in God.

Well today I am doing something that I have been hoping not to have to do. I am going to an interview for a part time job at starbucks. Kathy and I are trying to prepare for the birth of Judah in June, and we keep having these crazy unexpected bills and situations come up that we gotta pay for so we have been unable to effectively save for this baby.

So to help out with this I am going to be taking up a part time job. Which kind of sucks because it’s going to eat up my schedule, but it’s cool because I would get to work around Coffee, which is one of the top five loves in my life. And it’s going to get me out of the Christian Bubble.

It’s so easy as a pastor to get stuck in your own little church world, and when I tell people to bring their friends it’s really hard because I don’t have any non-Christian friends. So I’m hoping to build some friendships where I can share Jesus and be an encouragement.

Also the starbucks I am applying for is in Mountlake Terrace where our church is going to be moving so this will give me a chance to get to know the people in the area and saturate myself in the MLT culture.

I’m pretty excited and I hope I can get this job. Will I be tired? Yeah, will I be busy, yeah, will I see Kathy less, probably. Is it temporary? Yes. So this should work out pretty good. Maybe after the baby is born I can keep working there and try to pay down some of our debt. Who knows. We will see though.

I was told by several people that I needed to read the Open Secret by Leslie Newbigin. So with elevate 06 concluded, I am finding that I have a little bit more time to focus on some reading and studying. Which is a good thing. I’m only done with the second chapter of this book, and I was already challenged.

Newbigin is talking about the authority of mission. Who’s authority are we acting under? Of course the answer to that should be Jesus. If it isn’t Jesus then you should really go back and check your priorities. But with our answer comes another question — “Well, who is Jesus?”

Newbigin states –“The answering of the question is the work of Christian witness through all the centuries and all the cultures until the day comes when all nations confess him Lord.”

I think some times we get off track when we are talking about mission and purpose and vision of a ministry or church or even individuals. We have these great lofty statements that sound churchy. But really we are living in a world that knows less and less about Jesus. Our primary mission should be answering that question, “Who is Jesus?”

I think more than giving sermons on annointing, or worship, or family, or work, etc. we should spend more time answering the question, “Who is Jesus?” Who is this guy and why is he so important?

If we know who Jesus is in our own lives, then we need to be sure that we are telling others what we know about him. People ask me all the time about my wife, and I have no problem talking about her. But whate about the people who are going to ask who is this Jesus? Can you answer? That’s our mission, that’s the mission of the church, to answer that one question. All the other stuff is secondary.

Man, all the stress, busy-ness, and detail checking was totally worth it. This past weekend at Elevate was a blast, and most importantly I believe God really began a work in some of our hardest kids, and encouraged our core, and reminded our youth leaders that it’s all worth it.

Our times of worship were authentic and raw. We had a great band, but they didn’t just want to leave it as a great band, they really left room for the Spirit to move.

Our Speaker Brandon Cameron, was the perfect speaker for our group, laid back, personable, fun, and he spoke the truth. I get annoyed by camp speakers who say things like the Bible supports it but in reality it’s just their neat idea. Brandon was so right on track with the Word that I wasn’t worried at all about what he was going to say.

We came back from camp and had a wrap up service during our usually sunday Night gathering, and it was great, a ton of people who knew brandon were there, parents came out, and our Senior Pastor was there as well. It rocked.

The Mountain rocked, sledding and snowboarding were both big hits.

One of the things that I learned this weekend was that when we plan these events and retreats, we need to always leave room for relationships. It’s great to have a schedule, but you don’t have to fill every minute of every day with an organized activity. Sometimes it’s just good to chill and let kids be kids, and hangout and have a good time. I think it was those times when there was nothing really scheduled that we had some of the best relationship building.

I’ll post some pictures when I upload from my camera. Elevate rocked, and I am excited for next years already. :o)

Elevate came so quickly. I can’t believe it. This is the week that I have been preparing for and stressing over. and it’s finally here. I can’t believe it. I really don’t have much to write other than if any one reads this that they would pray for our retreat this friday saturday and sunday.