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Age of Kings

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July 5, 2013
Ministry, Series
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AgeOfKings_XL-835x425I am so looking forward to July at North Creek!  This Sunday we kick off a sermon series called Age of Kings.  Because I am one of the preachers this month, I’ve been diving into various stories of kings throughout the Bible, and have been fascinated by their lives!  It is amazing how you can read through a story in the Bible after reading it a dozen times and see something you have never seen before.  I can’t wait to see our preachers pull out life lessons from these characters and apply it to our lives.

Most of the kings we are focusing on are from the Old Testament.  The nation of Israel cried out for a human leader like other nations had, despite the fact that they had the opportunity to identify with God Himself as their leader.  God heard their prayers and gave both Israel and Judah a succession of about 20 Kings each.  Long story short, these mere men left a trail of interesting decisions behind them that had centuries of ramifications for the nation.  Some kings served the Lord, and we see that their stories are ultimately successful.  Some kings turned from the Lord, and their stories are tragic tales of misguided hearts.

When I read the tale of the Kings, one thing holds true…Obedience to the principles of God should remain of supreme importance in our lives if we intend to be successful.  It is a foundational principle that we all fall short on at times, but nonetheless, we should keep the goal in our sites and our hearts steeped in the Word of God.

Brace yourself for a wonderful journey through the Bible this summer!  I am positive of one thing: God has something to say to us!

June 30 Coffee Church Highlights

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July 2, 2013
Inspiration, Ministry
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Baptism North CreekWHOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  That’s how I felt about Sunday!  We had our Annual Baptisms and Brunch at the park where we celebrated with seven people who were being baptized.  There is just nothing better than stories of changed lives!

Congrats to Kari, Bradley, Daniel, Grace, Garrett, Britney, and Madyson on your commitment to follow Jesus!  We are so excited for you and can’t wait to watch all that God unfolds in your life.  Serving Jesus is the best adventure ever!  Not always easy, but always worth it.

I also love the atmosphere of the park and having all of our campuses together once a year.  It is great to hang out and meet new people!

Our upcoming series is one of my favorites!  It’s called Age of Kings and we do a round-robin of preachers all month.  We’ll be pulling out some of our staff to share with you about different Kings in the Bible.  They are truly some epic, life-altering stories about leaders throughout the Bible.  You will enjoy July at North Creek Church!

Did you know we grow during the summer months?  We have some of our highest number of visitors in our summer months.  It’s a great time to invite a friend!  You can also help us by coming 15 minutes earlier than you normally do and meeting some people.  That would be one of the best gifts you could give to your church!  It is our agenda to create a church culture that looks a lot like how Jesus welcomed people into His life.

Wcoffee church youthe are neck deep in conversations and interviews for our Battle Ground youth pastor.  Two things you can do to help this along:  Pray for the teenagers of Battle Ground and give money to birth this vision.  Youth ministries are expensive all the way around.  That being said, they are equally worth every penny in the changed lives that come from that ministry.

Speaking of teenagers, our youth just got back from camp (see mud-filled picture!) and had a truly incredible time.  God spoke to their hearts and lives all week.  Some learned to read their Bibles, some heard from God about their futures, and all built relationships that are important.  THANK YOU to all of you who gave to scholarships to help us get all of those teens there.  We will see the fruit of that for decades to come!

I hope you are inspired to give.  As I sit in our staff meetings, I am flooded with the reality that we have more vision than provision.  We are so excited to go after the future and the only thing that limits us is finances.  Isn’t that an earth shattering reality for the Kingdom of God?  More people would experience our ministries and the life-changing move of God if we gave as we are instructed to.  Let’s do it!

Be blessed this week!  God has great plans for your life.  Hold on to that!

 

Submersion = Submission: Why You Should Get Baptized

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June 27, 2013
Ministry
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With our Baptisms and Brunch celebration in just a few days, I’ve had the pleasure of many conversations with people in our church about why they haven’t gotten baptized yet.  Often people respond to the question by saying that know they want to follow Jesus, but they just aren’t sure that they are “ready” for baptism.

The model we see in Scripture is so amazing because it’s just not about arriving anywhere but at the feet of Jesus.  (If you aren’t sure about Jesus yet, keep coming to church, learn about Him, and decide if you want to follow Him…no pressure to be baptized at all!)  However, if you’ve gotten past that point of confessing your sins and submitting to Jesus, you are “ready” to be baptized.

Mark 1:4-6 is a great example as John is travelling around telling people about Jesus:

4 And so John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

This is an awesome picture of a group of people hearing about a Savior, choosing to confess their sin and follow Him, and obeying His first request to be baptized.  They didn’t take time to get their sins in order, study the Bible from cover to cover, or even consult their families of this life-changing decision.  They just did it!  I think it’s the perfect model because it so clearly says, “Following Me is not about arriving at some line of ‘good enough’.  You won’t get there on your own, that’s why you need a Savior.”

Baptism is about people admitting their dependence on Jesus, not jumping through religious hoops or attaining perfection.  It’s about submission.  Baptism in the Bible is always about sinners accepting their plight and relinquishing control of that sin to God.  You can do it!

If you’d like to be baptized on Sunday, you can sign up HERE.  We look forward to celebrating with you!

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June 23 Coffee Church Highlights

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June 25, 2013
Inspiration, Ministry
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What a great and busy weekend we had!  June is packed full of grad parties, birthday parties, and BBQ’s.  My girls were so tired from a weekend full of adventure that they begged me to go to bed on Sunday night.  That’s how I like it!

My oldest daughter turns 9 this week…oh.my.word.  I know that all parents say it, but it goes SO fast!  It is almost unbelievable how quickly you blink and years have flooded by.  I am so proud of the young lady that she is becoming!  Such a sweet, kind, and considerate person who looks out for the underdogs in life!

Sunday our staff took personalities profiles and learned a little about how we each tick.  I laughed myself silly to see how everybody rated and how they all fit together!  We have a VERY interesting mix of personalities, which is probably why we can have intense conversations followed by rolling laughter within minutes of each other.  Above all else, we let our strengths shine and try to cover each other’s weaknesses, which is the best part of being a healthy team!

Baptism Sunday is on June 30th!!!!  That’s just 5 days away, so if you are ready to be baptized, please register HERE.  Also, please take note that all of our regular services move to the park this weekend, so plan ahead.  Bring a dish to share, a chair to sit on, and swim gear for the kids!

The Kid’s Camp forms were due on Sunday, but a little birdy just told me that she has room for a couple more if you are still on the fence.  Email kim@coffeechurch.com if you still need to get your kid on the list.  Camp is an opportunity for life change…grab a hold of it!

Our youth are currently at camp, so please be praying for all 35 people that are at Silver Lake.  I happen to know that both the Boy’s Cabin and the Girl’s Cabin won clean cabin this morning.  I am sure there are plenty of parents of teens out there wondering how they can motivate their teenager to take that prize-winning habit home with them….

I highly recommend our youth ministry if you’ve got a teenager…except don’t go this week because there isn’t one due to camp.  On a similar note, we are on our way to having a youth ministry at Battle Ground.  We are neck deep in the interview/planning process.  We’re excited to see a thriving youth ministry in a community we love!  More info to come soon.

So many great things going on and more around the corner!  It’s fun to serve Jesus!  Hope you are blessed as well!

June 9 Coffee Church Highlights

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June 11, 2013
Inspiration, Ministry
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It was graduate Sunday!  What a great group of 13 grads we have this year!  This is the graduating class that includes the very first sixth graders in our church.  I am so proud of each one of them and their confidence in their relationship with Jesus.

Get your kids in church.  As parents, it’s our job to lead our kids and establish a framework for being a part of the body of Christ.  Thank you to Vanessa and Kim who pour their lives into growing our kids.

I am loving the sermons in the Protect and Serve series.  Bottom line: our lives are to be an example of Jesus – both in leading and serving.  It is a monumental challenge for all of us, but exactly what we should be striving for.  Do you want to be well known or worth knowing?

The other part of this series that I think is profound is to be aware and careful WHO you follow.  People put spiritual and emotional trust in others who are not healthy.  We are responsible to find people to follow who are following Christ.

Do you need to be baptized?  If you have decided to follow Christ and haven’t done that yet, it’s time.  The Bible doesn’t reserve baptism for people who are perfect, but rather it is one of the INITIAL symbols of change.  Messy people need to get baptized, so don’t wait until you have it all together.  (P.S.  You’ll never have it all together…)  Sign up HERE for our next baptism on June 30.

How’s your Bible reading going?  Here’s my challenge for you:  Read a chapter a day for the next month.  You can find some great reading plans at www.youversion.com if you don’t know where to start reading.  And don’t worry about it if you don’t understand what you are reading.  You might not at first, but if you keep reading, it will get clearer and clearer.  That is the beauty of the Bible…God reveals Himself to you at the time and rate that He needs to grow your life.  Give Him the opportunity to do just that.

Jesus changes lives.  Invite someone to church so they can learn about Him and have their lives changed as well.

Congrats to the Ericson Family on the birth of Aubree!  We love all of the new life at North Creek!  We also got to have baby Emilia in church for the first time this weekend as well.  So beautiful!

I love God’s Church.  It’s not timid.  It’s not lazy.  It’s not irrelevant.  It’s a force to be reckoned with and it changes the landscape of both our country and the world.  Be weary of allowing yourself to believe anything but that.  God’s Word says His Church cannot be stopped.  Period.

On that note…YOU can’t be stopped either if you are in line with God’s plan.  Be obedient.  Be humble.  Be unstoppable.