Two seemingly random posts

So I thought since these were random in nature I would just combine them into one post

This is a pretty clever website.

This is a pretty interesting article.  I recently switched over to using more online apps.  I was driven to this decision because I don’t have a regular office and I need something that feels central.  That and Apple doesn’t have a good Excel type program and Google Docs and Spreadsheets is way better than appleworks.  I found a lot of folks don’t even really know about all that google offers.  Take a minute some time and look around it’s pretty incredible.

Sex God – Review

So I just finished Sex God by Rob Bell.  This is a very deep book.  I really didn’t know what to expect when I started reading it.  But Bell has a way of taking life and examining it from angles that I would never have thought of and saying that “This is really about that” and vice-versa.

In this book Bell tries to show that Sexuality and Spirituality are intrinsically linked together and that was God’s design. Sex brings wholeness to the marriage covenant, sex bring joy, sex brings hope for eternity.  Say what?!  Yeah, that’s part of it.

This is a great book.  Bell got in some trouble from different groups because of some statements from his last book Velvet Elvis, but this book is solid.  It would be a great read for marriage counseling and pre-marriage counseling.  Also for anyone trying to find wholeness and healing from sexual pain or addiction.  Bell goes over a wide variety of topics and always points back to Jesus.

As you are reading you will feel like you are talking to a trusted friend and not just a writer who has divorced himself from the real world to focus on his work.  Bell is real and he tells real stories of success, of hurt, of failure.

This book is a solid 4.5 out of 5.

Wisdom from Rob Bell

In Sex God, Rob Bell talks about heart break and suffering and the cross, and I thought this passage might be insightful in the midst of the VA Tech tragedy

Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, “God, you don’t know what it’s like!  You don’t understand!  You have no idea what I’m going through. You don’t have a clue how much this hurts.”

The Cross is God’s way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.

The Cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, “me too.”

Tragic

The shooting at VA Tech today is a tragic reminder of how broken our world really is.  There is so much pain, and so much anger, and so much sin.  This horrific event is heart breaking and it is bringing up feelings that I haven’t experienced since April 20, 1999 – the Columbine shooting.

All we can do in these situations is pray.  I can’t explain why these events happen but we need to go to the source of peace that passes all understanding.

  • Pray for the Family of the victims
  • Pray for the Family of the shooter
  • Pray for the School leaders
  • pray for the students at VA Tech
  • Pray for the hurting souls out there who have so much anger that this is all they know to do
  • Pray

Critical Passage in the New Testament

Man I am excited for this Wednesday night.  Transit has been going through the book of Acts which is just an amazing book full of all kinds of insights and encouragement for what it means to be on mission.

This week we are going to look at one of the most important and in my opinion one of the most powerful passages in the whole book, maybe even the New Testament.  This is one of those hinge passages where the entire course of History changes.  We are going to be talking about Circumcision.

Well not exactly about it, but it’s the reason for Acts 15.  People are trying force rules on people that have no religious tradition, and it’s not excatly the kind of thing that middle aged guys get really excited about.

Gentile:  You mean Jesus died to forgive me of my sins?

Jewish Christian:  You bet!

Gentile:  And because of Jesus I can know the true God and spend eternity in heaven?

Jewish Christian:  That’s right!

Gentile:  Wow that’s really amazing, what do I have to do to be save?

Jewish Christian:  Well there’s this little procedure that we are going to have to do . . . down south . . .

The conversation would kind of trail off from there.  That doesn’t really make a good tract or human video or Puppet Show or whatever they used to preach the gospel back then.

But God wasn’t so much concerned with the rules as much as he was with the heart.  Acts 15 is a powerful, powerful example of God’s love and grace for us, and it’s one of the things that was key to the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.

I’m excited.

Little Experiment – Squidoo

So I heard about this thing called Squidoo.  Basically you can start a page (or lense) Based on any subject you want to.  And you use that lense as a way to promote your subject, share resources, sell stuff.  Whatever.  It’s kind of like an organizational blog.  So i started two yesterday.

Here’s the Creekside Church Lense.  I got the idea to do this because we are recommending books for our current series, and all the profits go to a charity of our chosing. I selected Blood:Water Mission which helps create wells and fight aids in Africa.  But people can rank and contribute to the lense or start their own.  You don’t have to make the money go to a charity, you can also make it go to your own bank account.  Sounds like an intersting idea, and I would really love it if you took some time to check it out.

I also started a >>beyond>> lense.   So check them out, tell your friends.  If you see something on there that interests you follow the link. The proceeds for both are going to Blood:Water Mission.

Just thought I’d share, this could be a great way for you to make a little money on the side.  Check it Out.

This Beautiful Mess – Review

  I just finished reading This Beautiful Mess by Rick McKinley.  This is a great reminder that the Jesus said the Kingdom of God is at hand.  We really can make a difference in this world for the Kingdom.  Rick tells some incredible stories about how people have taken on the mission of building the Kingdom now instead of waiting for Jesus to return.  This is a great read and it’s a good reminder that we all have the ability to live the Gospel in front of others, and in so doing we can change the world around us.

I would highly recommend this book.

What we’ve been working on

For all you creeksiders who might be interested to know what we’ve been working working on, here’s the 411.

We have been developing ministry teams that are organized around our 6 purposes.  We are shifting from a program based model of ministry to a purpose based model.  If you were at vision day then you were introduced to the wheel.  Well this is the next level off of the wheel.

This team based model is great because it really helps to see who is connected to who and how each ministry fits into the model.

Here is an example of what we have been doing. This is a work in progress and we are still developing this but I just thought I would share so you can get an idea of where we are going.