Keyes for the Kingdom

GREAT Christmas idea!!!!

Death and Dying...

I'd guess that one of my least favorite things to do is to be called upon when someone dies. It's so hard to know what to say, how to say it, and what to do in these very difficult circumstances. It's hard enough when you know the person or know the family.

It's harder still when you don't know the person at all - I got a call like this from a guy in our church - He works with a lady who had a husband drop dead from a heart attack - He was 47 years old. They are not "active" in a church and don't know who to call... I just got back from spending an hour with these people as they try to process their grief and sense of intense loss. I sat and did a lot of listening - listening to the family telling stories about "Scottie" - the man that passed away. It did, at least, give me a pretty good snapshot of the man, his life and the way he was.

I really hope the widow and her 13 year old daughter will come to CRCC and let us love on them - minister to them and let them know we are there FOR THEM - whatever it takes! Pray for the Kozeny family that God would comfort, care, and love on this family in the coming weeks and months.

BUSY Sunday...

We had a great day today at CRCC! I so enjoyed teaching on the book of Jonah - what a strange ending to the book - a QUESTION from God towards his prophet and people... Wow... We learned that the book would better be called, "Jonah and the CITY" - because the book STARTS with a city and ends with the same concept.

Mitch and Rebecca Ledhe shared with us today how they have a new ministry with the homeless. They simply go downtown, take some sandwiches and hang out with people who need love and care. AWESOME story - Carl Altizer shared how he started a ministry for Narcotics Anonymous that meets here at our church during the lunch hour 3 times a week. AWESOME to see our people have spiritual VELOCITY to see a need and MEET the need - not WAIT for us to have some "ministry"... but taking the initiative and going to do Kingdom work. 

After the service we did something we've never done before - we had loaned our church van to a group of Asian college students on a tour of the US doing Tae Kwon Do demonstrations. They all attended our service today, then put on a little "demonstration" at the end... 

Oh my.. I don't see how the human body can contort and MOVE the way these guys and gals do... Boards were being shattered - 8 feet in the air! Master Kim is a strong believer in Jesus and was so complimentary about our church. He said, (something like this - "Like water to fish, I sense the Holy Spirit very POWERFULLY here in this church!) Thanks Master Kim - that's what we cry out to the Lord to do each Sunday while we meet. We want to EXPERIENCE God, not just go through the motions. I'm glad we have a church where this is the NORM .... ahhhhhh...

THANKS CRCC Scouts!

 

WOW... about 25 of our CRCC Boy Scouts came out today to support Elliot Helms in his Eagle Scout project to totally remake our 9 year old retention pond. It was overgrown and in great need of maintenance. Elliot did research on the environment and the good that could be done by such a project.

So on behalf of our CRCC church family  - a GREAT BIG THANKS to Elliot and his amazing friends! I have so enjoyed watching Elliot grow in his faith as a fine young man in our youth group. He is passionate about worship and I can't wait to see what God does with him in his upcoming future! We love you Elliot!

Series ends on Sunday...

This is the LAST week in our series on JONAH - what a guy he was! Find out this week about one of the most amazing revivals in the history of the WORLD - led by guess who? One of the world's worst all time evangelists!

I hope during this series that is has affected you for GOOD - I find myself so much like Jonah in so many ways. Do you?

After our service this week we'll have something VERY unusual. There's an all star karate team that's been in town traveling around and doing shows - they had a big one over at Brookwood recently - We're letting the us our van. They plan to visit our service this Sunday, so this wild and crazy idea came to the minds of some of our church leaders...

How about we dismiss the service and ask those that would like to stay for 10-15 minutes to see these guys perform some of their act?

We'll give people time to go get kids if they'd like to see a short demonstration of some amazing acts! 

Should be WILD!!! Oh well, - we'll take a risk and go for it!!!

Kid's songs...

I grew up in Baptist Sunday School since my earliest days. We used to sing quite a few "Bible songs" - like "Zacheus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he" - I used to feel sorry for "Zac", but also felt kinship with him as I was rather short myself! Another song we sang was "The wise man built his house up on a rock... and the rain came tumbling down"...

The obvious question about THIS song, is this: What is the ROCK in this song/story?

I think when teachers asked our class this question, some brave soul would answer "Jesus - or God, or even The BIBLE!" - Though these answers all "sound good", they aren't even CLOSE to what Jesus is saying in this particular story at all!!!

Here's the verse in context - see what YOU think the ROCK represents now...

(Matthew 7:24-25)  "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (25) The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.

So what is the ROCK? The rock is OBEDIENCE - hearing God's word and THEN DOING IT - living it in day to day life situations. This is where so many "Christians" blow their lives all the time. They hear it over and over and over again in church, classes, radio, etc... but it never gets down into their..... LIVES!

I shudder to think how many people come to CRCC each week to "hear" me preach...then go to lunch, home to watch the NFL, snack around with family, go to bed and NEVER even THINK about doing anything differently in the week ahead based on what they "heard"... Wow... scary, huh?

Guess who's coming to town?

Tomorrow we'll be having Aaron and Megan's FOUR boys to come stay with us for a short visit! Aaron and Megan are in France, so we'll be watching the little munchkins until Sunday. I hope to take the boys to the new Children's museum - SO amazing!

As soon as they arrive, the boys NEXT door will appear in our house at the crack of dawn. Adam and Shanah will be coming over bringing their two, so before you know if, we'll have all TEN grandkids in our home - it will be chaos and fun at the same time. The last time we were all together was at Disneyworld.

I had a Loooooong day of flying yesterday, heading back from Denver, where I taught a Walk thru the New Testament seminar at Foothills Bible Church. I LOVE Colorado - saw a deer in the church parking lot and I love seeing the snow-capped Rocky Mountains surrounding the city. It was the first day of ski-season, but I've retired from this "sport" and don't plan to pick it back up anytime soon!

A night of Praise!!!

I went to an awesome NIGHT OF PRAISE tonight - right in my..... house! A friend at Walk thru the Bible, Genny Baxley, gave me a this DVD of an "old time" guy for sure: Michael W. Smith - he's come a LONG way since "Friends are friends forever" and "Go west young man"... This is a LIVE worship concert from Houston, Texas with over 12,000 people in attendance.

I was blown away - singing along, clapping, standing,... even DANCING - YEP... me, all by myself with my TV and sound system CRANKED - I mean AMPED UP! I bet the neighbors could hear my house shaking! What a wonderful night of praising God - with some old songs and lots of great new ones - wow... I'm still in the "presence".... THANKS God for a GREAT night with YOU and YOU alone!!!

Becky's at a conference in Columbia and will return very late tonight - tomorrow I fly to Denver to teach a Walk thru the Bible seminar in the Denver area. Lead pastor, Rich Butler, will be preaching here on Sunday - I KNOW what's coming and it will be awesome!!!

If you'd like to BORROW my DVD, just let me know and I'll hook you up with it! Why keep a great thing like this to yourself? I also heard Micheal is coming to the BiLo center doing this same worship event - if it is HALF as good as this one was, it will be worth attending!

H1N1 advice

The young lady in our church, Ivey, is doing MUCH better after battling the H1N1 virus for the last few weeks. She's featured in a great article today on the front page of the Greenville News. Ivey is now in rehab working hard on being able to come home soon! We are so grateful the Lord for sparing her and her parents, Maury and Kellie want to thank everyone in our church for their prayers, love, meals, and concern! Here' some great info I found out about today...

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist) having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital , Bombay Hospital , Saifee Hospital , Tata Memorial etc.. Presently, he is heading our Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W). Dr. Vinay says….

                
The only portals of entry are the nostrils and mouth/throat. In a global epidemic of this nature, it's almost impossible to avoid coming into contact with H1N1 in spite of all precautions. Contact with H1N1 is not so much of a problem as proliferation is. 
        
While you are still healthy and not showing any symptoms of H1N1 infection, in order to prevent proliferation, aggravation of symptoms and development of secondary infections, some very simple steps, not fully highlighted in most official communications, can be practiced (instead of focusing on how to stock N95 or Tamiflu): 
        
 1. Frequent hand-washing (well highlighted in all official communications). 
        
 2. "Hands-off-the-face" approach. Resist all temptations to touch any part of face (unless you want to eat or bathe) 
        
 3. *Gargle twice a day with warm salt water (use Listerine if you don't trust salt). *H1N1 takes 2-3 days after initial infection in the throat/ nasal cavity to proliferate and show characteristic symptoms. Simple gargling prevents proliferation. In a way, gargling with salt water has the same effect on a healthy individual that Tamiflu has on an infected one. Don't underestimate this simple, inexpensive and powerful preventative method. 
        
4. Similar to 3 above, *clean your nostrils at least once every day with warm salt water. Blowing the nose hard once a day and swabbing both nostrils with cotton buds dipped in warm salt water is very effective in bringing down viral population.* 
        

5. *Boost your natural immunity with foods that are rich in Vitamin C (Amla and other citrus fruits). *If you have to supplement with Vitamin C tablets, make sure that it also has Zinc to boost absorption. 
                 
6. *Drink as much of warm liquids (tea, coffee, etc) as you can. *Drinking warm liquids has the same effect as gargling, but in the reverse direction. They wash off proliferating viruses from the throat into the stomach where they cannot survive, proliferate or do any harm.
         

Amazing People!

We have some awesome people here at CRCC! During our VELOCITY series, we've highlighted some people who "do ministry" for God's Kingdom - NOT as an official part of our church, but JUST because they saw a need and felt led to step up and fill that need! We'll be doing some more testimonies over the next few weeks to highlight these people for you. I've always sensed that "stories" really motivate people. I saw this on Sunday after Jamie shared his story - people were standing in line to talk to him in the lobby after the service.

Speaking of "story" - that's what we're mulling over right now for our Christmas theme - "Story - the chronicles of Christmas". It's definitely a story that never grows old... an amazing story... worth repeating year after year...so pray for me and Rich as work on this exciting theme for the holiday season.

We're also making BIG PLANS for the new year ahead - new programs, new people, new budget - wow, I love Rich's heart in leading our church into the next new year. Can't wait to share it all with you soon!