Today was just a GREAT day at North Creek Church. Here are the highlights:

Kas Anderson did a testimony video about an accident four years ago that killed her husband. The teen driver was texting and caused a head on collision. Kas’ story is one of faith and forgiveness. She is a remarkable person.

Three teenage men talked to me about getting baptized today. So proud of that generation! Come on! You can change the world by becoming men that honor God and your families.

A couple of people told us today that they are interested in Starting Point. That’s an opportunity for them to explore about the basics of faith. What an incredible journey to begin!

We took our second largest offering today at about $9,200 in one shot. That’s about $8000 above our normal weekly giving, so you can imagine the shock! Here’s the best part: We’ve been behind the last couple of months and now we aren’t. Want to know what North Creek does with extra money? We dream about ways to change lives and then we DO it.

Two incredible men showed up in the nasty weather this week to weed the property and then they put new barkdust down. And they didn’t even tell us they were going to do it…I like those kind of surprises! Thanks Greg and Gregory!

We have our first missions trip informational meeting next Sunday night. I had a lot of people ask me about it today.

One of my favorite people told me that she is pregnant today! That’s a great way to grow our church!

Pastor Kim passed on to me that the kids had a lot of really remarkable things happening in their lives. God moves in the young and the old! I love that!

Someone donated 9 lbs. of Starbucks beans today. YES!

Pastor Chris spoke today. I love it when he preaches. He’s really different than Mark, but yet they have the same heart and agenda. They compliment each other well and I’m glad he’s on the team.

We have a very generous church that gives money, meals, time, energy, and emotional resources to people who need it most. I’m proud to be a part of what God is doing in the hearts and lives of His people.

I hope your week is blessed!

In our old house we had a cat door that backed up to a field. One night we woke up to find 4 raccoons checking out our master bedroom upstairs while we slept. When we discovered them in the middle of the night, Mark got some food, let them curl up the foot of our bed, and scratched their bellies until they fell fast asleep. OR…he tore out of bed as fast as he could and started beating their butts with a pillow until they scampered away as fast as their paws could carry them. Probably you believe the second ending because you realize that a raccoon in your house is dangerous and disgusting.

There’s a quote that says, “You give a raccoon cat food and pretty soon he’ll be back for the whole cat!”

I think that feeding a raccoon is a lot like harboring bitterness in our hearts. Bitterness is dangerous and disgusting to our souls. If we allow the seed of bitterness to grow in our hearts, soon it will destroy everything about us. What started as something simple like feeding a racoon, will come back to take what is valuable to us…our character, our integrity, and our passions. Bitterness is insatiable. It doesn’t settle, but will continue to feed on whatever it can get. It’s not something that can co-habitate with the things of God. It will eat them away from you. Literally.

I’ve never met anyone that aimed to be a bitter, angry person, and yet, even as you read this, you can think of someone in your life that you would describe this way. How did they get that way? Why did they allow that awfulness to take hold?

It all begins in the little things. The way that we think about someone, and then slowly, what we speak about them. And then we begin to allow a piece of bitterness to get a hold of something in our heart. It’s about one brick of unforgiveness being stacked on the next until there is a wall that is coming between us and EVERYTHING.

Bitterness ruins the whole being. It’s the whole cat being destroyed and devoured. It’s got to be dealt with quickly because just as a racoon is a thief, so is the devil. He wants to destroy and devour your soul, so whatever it takes, don’t feed the raccoon.

This weekend Chris Harold will be preaching on pivotal circumstances. As a pastor, I have the privilege of knowing a lot of stories and the history behind the people in our church. I encourage you to ask people this question, “Tell me a pivotal circumstance in your life?” You will be amazed.

On Sunday you’ll see a video story of a woman in our church, Kas Anderson. I had the privilege of being on the other side of the camera as she told me the journey that God has brought her on in the last five years. What a beautiful person with a remarkable story. And she is one of many in our church…some healed of cancer, set free from addictions, saved from abuse…God is at work in our midst!

Sometimes we don’t think we’re living in the epic miracles of the Bible, but it is just because we are altogether too short-sighted. God’s hand continues to use the circumstances of the world to grow our faith and in the midst of that, miracles happen everyday.

So, ask someone this week what their story is. And if you have a story of God’s redeeming love for you, tell it.

Yesterday was an ironic day! Two years ago New Life at Renton gave us $11,000 as an offering. That one offering bailed us out of a tight financial pinch and launched us into a new season of giving and growth as a church. We probably wouldn’t have made it through that season without their timely blessing. Yesterday, on the same weekend that they came through for us two years ago, North Creek took an offering for them. November 1 was their Miracle Offering Day to take more than $500,000 for their building campaign. Together we raised $1200 to help make that possible.

I’m really proud of North Creek. Honestly, our own bank account continues to be on shaky ground, at best, in the financial realm. We are still a young church and we walk a fine balance between our giving and our financial obligations. Every month we weigh out the same question…is EVERY check we write honoring to God? Can we cut out any waste? Should we add a financial commitment because God wants His money somewhere else? We certainly don’t have storehouses of cash to hand out to mega-churches. But that’s the point…it’s not about who has more and who is in need all of the time. It’s about our own hearts and BELIEVING that we serve a God who rewards us for doing the RIGHT thing…not the practical thing.

We need to give for our own growth. We, as a church, need to stretch those giving muscles and watch God do the miraculous. And that’s exactly what we did yesterday! It’s an exciting time for us and I look forward to future!

Sometimes I think that we miss the miracles in life because we don’t stick around long enough or dive deep enough into people’s lives to see them. This week I was a bystander to literally one of the most amazing miracles that I have ever experienced in ministry. It’s someone else’s personal story, so it’s not my place to share the details, but I feel the need to say that GOD IS AT WORK in the lives of people. We serve a God who performs the miraculous. He heals lives, hearts, bodies. He restores relationships and He redeems the unredeemable. He is ABLE.

Sometimes we look at the middle of the circumstance and frame our view of God. Our human flesh is SO short-sighted. God always shows His awesome power in the end, so if you don’t see the awesomeness of God, it’s only because you’re in the middle. He just isn’t finished yet, so don’t get discouraged in the journey. Live your life with the confidence that God always has the last word.

You may have seen in the news lately about the horrific story of a 15 year old girl who was brutually raped at her homecoming dance by multiple men while 20 others watched, took pictures, laughed, and…most horrificly…didn’t help her. It is truly the worst of humanity on display.

If I could look into the eyes of that young woman, I would tell her a parable about two thieves who broke into a jewelry store, but instead of stealing the jewels they simply switched the price tags. They put high-priced tags on cheap jewelry and low-priced tags on valuable gems. For several weeks no one noticed. People bought cheap jewelry for exorbitant prices and rare jewels for spare change. The point is pretty obvious: sometimes we have difficulty discerning between what is valuable and what is worthless when the price tag says a specific thing.

We especially have difficulty when we look at the price that the world has put on us and it’s of little worth. What happens in your life does not define your worth! Just as the thief didn’t truly change the value of the jewelry, the horror of your past doesn’t change your value. God made you a valuable gem! The good news is this: you have the power to switch the tags back! Reclaim your original value. God never changed His mind about His redeeming love for your life.

Delaney is going through the process of having her hearing tested. She’s failed three tests and basically has severe hearing loss in both ears. Thankfully it seems as though this problem is temporary and there’s a solution. That’s the good news!

It’s been interesting to watch how this has played out. She probably has just a tiny bit of fluid in each ear, but the result has been that she can’t hear her teacher, is struggling to follow directions, was temporarily placed in a special reading group because she couldn’t answer the questions correctly (now we know she just couldn’t hear the instructions!), and is generally considered to be “spacey” because she always seems to be in a world of her own. My intelligent daughter was on the path to learning problems because of a microscopic problem deep in her eardrum.

There’s an interesting similarity in our walk with Christ. The smallest sin can have massive repercussions. What we consider to be insignificant can actually be keeping us from our full potential. We may just be letting something slide, like gossip or complaining, but God doesn’t let that slide. He wants the problem dealt with and progress is put on hold until that is done.

We need to be SERIOUS about quickly solving problems in our spiritual life. I’m not willing to wait one day to get Delaney’s problem fixed. She’s my daughter and I’ll do WHATEVER it takes to get her healthy. What area of your life do you need to take seriously? Don’t wait. Remedy the situation, get your tongue under control, get some dicscipline in your life, whatever it is, but don’t think for a minute that it doesn’t matter.

One broken system can impact an entire body of working systems.

Mark Batterson preached at his church this weekend on tithing. Here is what His blog said yesterday:

Continued our Ritual series this weekend. Talked about a 4000 year-old ritual called tithing that traces all the way back to Abraham. Honestly, I used to hate talking about money. Thought people would think it was a money grab so I was almost defensive about it. But the longer I tithe the more I love talking about it.

We need a paradigm shift. So many people perceive the tithe as an obligation. It’s an opportunity! Yes, Malachi 3 says you are “under a curse” if you are not giving a tenth. But what a promise! God wants to open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing on you that you cannot contain.

Here are a few principles I shared this weekend:

1) God can do more with 90% than I can do with 100%
2) U cannot out give God
3) 2 be blessed beyond your ability u need to give beyond your ability
4) When u start tithing, your financial problems become God’s problem
5) The tithe keeps money from becoming your master
6) Tithing positions u 4 blessing
7) Tithing = Trusting

In my personal experience, tithing makes finances fun. It infuses me with economic optimism because I’m walking in obedience. I live in holy anticipation to see the way God is going to provide!

All of this is second nature to me. Mark and I have given 10% of every paycheck, birthday gift, honorarium, or blessing we’ve ever received in 12 years of marriage. Tithing is just easy these days, even in the midst of being really tight in the last couple of years.

That being said, recently God pushed me in the area of giving. Giving is any money above the 10%. During the winter I work a couple of nights a week at a homeless shelter. It gives our tight pocketbook a little extra breathing room, which is a welcome change. That change didn’t last long. During some of my prayer time I felt God tell me to give a certain amount more in the offering every week. I literally said outloud, “You’re kidding me.” Here is the litany of excuses that went through my brain:

What about the family vacation I want to take?
Wouldn’t it be more responsible to save that money, just in case?
I give plenty of my time to the church for free, doesn’t that count?
The economy is really rough right now, God. Ten percent is fine, isn’t it?
We get paid marginally, God! Can’t you ask someone who is a little more blessed than me?

And then I was reminded that I can’t outgive God. My worries are just flesh, because I BELIEVE the Bible. And therefore, for the last two weeks, I have written the check knowing that God will take care of me and my family. I look forward with great anticipation to what God will do in our lives and in the lives of others. The new bumper sticker on my life is this, “I can’t outgive God, but I’m sure going to try.”

So, my challenge to you is this…just pray about what God would have you give and then do it. No worries!

Church highlights!

I walked into the Great Adventurer’s class today to count, since our beloved usher, Ivan, was out of town. I stopped in my tracks and started crying when I saw my 5 year old helping to lead worship. She’s really shy, so to see her up there was awesome. Thank God for a church that lets my little girl experience serving and leading RIGHT now. I want her to “own” her church, ministry, and her relationship with Jesus.

Rachel Torres was in the highlight video this week talking about her private disciplines. I love that woman. Her discipline of reading her Bible daily has given her a peaceful spirit, wisdom, and a voice in my life. A habit of being in the Word really makes a difference when you look cummulatively at one’s life.

Marcus did an excellent job with worship today. I love his heart and his loyalty to our church family. He is a partner in ministry and in each of our journeys with Jesus.

Helen was back at church this week after surgery. She was in a wheelchair, but she wanted to be with her church family so bad that she went above and beyond the call of duty. We all need to get that spirit in our hearts!

Last week I verbally filed a complaint with Kris while we were at church. I did it out of frustration and have now apologized. Why am I including this in my highlights? Because I was reminded that our unspoken rule at North Creek is not to complain or dive into issues on Sunday mornings. We all get to come and not walk around in fear that the bomb will be dropped in our lives at any minute. It’s been my favorite part of our church and I treasure it. So, no complaining at church. If you see something that needs to be addressed, email or call the appropriate person on another day. Sunday is about loving our church family and Jesus. Back off! Every church should have that rule.

Go on the journey of faith with someone. Sometimes we write people off too quickly when they struggle. If their marriage is going through a rough patch, if they experience a death, if they are questioning or doubting, go through it with them. The reward of seeing God work in their lives is a great one.

Board meeeting tonight. Great people who love Jesus putting their heads together to make sure this ship sails smoothly. Gotta love ‘em!

Ahhhh…another week ahead of us to make a little dent in the world. Grab ahold of life with great excitement!

I read a great quote today: It’s impossible to listen to a song and sing another one. What destructive thoughts are you holding that keep you from hearing words of life?

What an amazing picture! Whatever is playing over and over again in your head is the only song that you can “play” in your life. Some of us forget what God says about us and the song that plays is one of pity, failure, and our short-comings. I serve a God who bestows power and goes before us in our struggles. That’s quite a different song to be heard!

In this day and age changing the literal song is as simple as pushing a button on the ipod. However, in the spiritual realm, changing your song is done by filling your heart with the Word of God. Open the Bible daily and watch the song in your head begin to change from what the world fills it with to something much more victorious and Christ-like.

Enjoy the journey.