Thanksgiving'08... a sad day for us all.

Thoughts about Thanksgiving: 

We just aren't all that thankful....  This was my conclusion the more I thought about it over the holiday.  I mean, I'd like to think that I'm a thankful person and that when I'm not being thankful it's only because I'm a "realist" or just "feeling a little cranky". The truth is that often I find myself complaining when things don't go my way instead of  "being thankful in all circumstances" like the scripture says in 1 Thess. 5:18.   

How can you be thankful in "all circumstances"?  

What about when you lose a loved one, or are diagnosed with a disease, or if your marriage is falling apart and you're going through a divorce?  What is there to be thankful for in those situations?  

Notice the scripture says to be thankful "in" all circumstances not thankful "for" all circumstances.  God's promise to us is that in our darkest day, at our most difficult moment, when we feel most abandoned, He is there.  His promise is His presence.... And for that we can be thankful. 

Anyways.... there's so much more to share but then I wouldn't be giving anyone else a chance to share their thoughts.  Feel free to chime in. 

30 Days To Live

"Teach us to number our days and recognize how few they are, help us to spend them as we should." Psalm 90:12

This scripture makes a couple of things clear.

1. Life is short.

I don't know about you but often times I forget that life is short. I feel like I've got all the time in the world but the truth is that I don't. A scripture in James compares our life to a mist or a vapor that appears for a moment then vanishes away. Life goes by so very fast. It seems like just yesterday I was a teenager, turned around and was married, turned around again and I now we have a child. At this point I'm scared to blink because if I do I'm sure I'll find myself retired, living in Florida, wearing my pants too high showing off my black socks and white orthopedic tennis shoes while I drive around town as slowly as possible with my turn signal on.

The other thing this scripture makes clear is that...

2. There IS a way that we should spend our lives.

This is interesting because it also implies that there is a way that we should NOT spend our lives. Make no mistake about it, we are all spending our lives whether we like it or not. Both you and I will exchange the next 24 hours of our lives for something. I don't know about you but something in me wants to make sure that I've spent it well. I want to be able to stand at the end of my days knowing that my life was more than just a list of good intentions, but that I lived a life that was intentional. That I "spent it as I should" ... not just in my own eyes, but in the eyes of the one who matters most... God's.

Because (1.) life is short and (2.) there is a way that we should spend it, I've challenged our church to ask themselves this one clarifying question. "What would you do if you had just 30 days to live?" I love the sense of urgency that this concept creates. It causes us to clear away the clutter our overcrowded lives and reduce things down to whats really important. It also forces us to do today what we would have put off until tomorrow.

When you realize that your days are counting down it makes you want to make your days count.

So, this is what we've challenged those in our church to do : live the next 30 days as if they were their last. Not because they will die in a month but because life is short and it's just seems silly to wait until you know you have 30 days to left to do the things that are most important. For some people that will mean making a long overdue phone call. Others will need to write a letter of gratitude to someone that made a difference in their life. Others will have to give forgiveness to or ask forgiveness from someone. Some will need to make some sort of spiritual decision. For some it will mean a change in lifestyle altogether. Whatever it is, my hope is that some of you will share what happens here in the comments section of this blog as we do this experiment together. I truly believe that at the end of these 30 days we all will be a little more focused, a little more intentional, and a little more alive than we ever were before.

...this one will.

The single most significant thing you can do with your one and only life is give it away...  I believe that, I've tried to live my life in response to that, and I'm passionate about making sure the people at Epic Church discover that.  We decided early on that Epic would be a church that makes a difference in the community.  To set the tone, one of the very first events we held was a BBQ for families that live at a shelter in the city.  We grilled up some hotdogs and burgers, had balloons, face-painting, and our own little version of the "olympics" for the kids, and just spent the afternoon loving on people.  No sermon, no "altar call", just the church being the church by showing a few people going through a rough patch that they matter and that someone cares about them.  Recently I received a letter from the shelter thanking us for coming and letting us know that because of a donation we left them the residence now have access to the internet for homework and job searches.  Loving others is part of what God intended for His church to do... this one will.   

Check out the video : (for those of you on facebook you can see the video at www.epicwired.blogspot.com)

I'm back!

Sorry for my little hiatus from the blogosphere.  I'm back and there is so much to catch you up on.  The new church is really doing well.  Since my last blog we've had a service project (I'll blog about it soon), had two more monthly services (they were awesome!) , and had another picnic. (We owned Jordannas team in volleyball.)  Anyways, check back over the next couple of weeks and I'll try and get caught up.  In the meantime if you're looking for a quick laugh check out this video we showed at the service this past Sunday of the "Top 5 ways NOT to invite people to church." 

Dinner and a Movie

There's not much in this world I enjoy more than dinner and a good movie. This past Sunday night a bunch of us from the church got together at the Manayunk Brewery (amazing Belgium waffles) for a meal and then headed over to the theater to watch the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight. It was nice getting to know some of the people that are new to the church... (I guess we're all new to the church at this point.) and the movie was fantastic. It was the second time I went to see it except this time I didn't have an unhappy baby with me. It's amazing the difference that makes! Anyways, I came across this parody of the movie on youtube and thought it was pretty funny. If you've seen the movie you'll laugh. (For those of you reading this on facebook you can see the video at www.epicwired.blogspot.com)

"Best service we've ever had!"

This past weekend was HANDS DOWN THE BEST CHURCH SERVICE WE HAVE EVER HAD! Sure, we've only had TWO so far but don't let that fool you. Our first service in June went really really well, but as a leadership team I think we all left feeling and knowing that it could have been even better. Through the summer we are only having services monthly until the launch of weekly services in October. What was tough was waiting a whole month to see if we were right about the potential for the service to be better. Well, to put it short... We were! Everything just "clicked" and every part of the service went really really well. We used the movie Hancock as a bridge to discuss the idea that God has a plan for each of our lives...whether we like that idea or not! lol ( More on that topic in a future blog. ) Not only did people leave challenged and encouraged, but they had fun too! For the first time Epic is starting to feel like the community I've envisioned it being. Here are a couple of pictures from the service and one of our video announcements that will make you laugh.... we hope!

Gotta love that screen!


That's me underneath that ginormous Will Smith.

And now for your viewing pleasure and without any further adu... here's a funny video announcement we showed this weekend. ( we can't take credit for the idea. We stole it from another church which probably did the same. lol )

"Healer"

A friend of mine sent me this video, which got me thinking....
Do I believe that God can heal? Yes
Do I believe that God wants to heal? Yes
Does everyone always get healed? No
Do I understand why? No

My father passed away from Cancer last year. I don't know why God didn't just heal him. I don't have all the answers... no one except God does. The scripture tells us that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts simply meaning He's smarter than we are. He's God and we're not. I just have to believe from everything else I know about God, that when something breaks our heart, it breaks His as well. First John tells us to "cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us. " God cares, I have no doubt about that.

I do know that there is another kind of healing.... not of our body, but of our soul. When we die if we've made the decision to step over the line of faith and follow Jesus then we'll be with Him forever in heaven. A place where there are no more tears, no more sickness... no more cancer.

"I believe that You're my healer, I believe You're more than enough for me... Jesus You're all I need."

Viva La Rocky Balboa.

Tiff and I just spent our Saturday evening watching Rocky I and II. I love those movies! Over the years I've probably seen them 3 times each , but until now never noticed how much of a starring role the city of Philadelphia plays in the films. I'm not a native Philadelphian but I've lived here for 8 years, am a HUGE Birds fan, and have a special place in my heart for all things "Philly." I'm also a big fan of the cheesesteak (provolone not whiz) and I've got the love-handles to prove it. Sure, I wasn't born here, but Philadelphia really has become our home. So, to the natives... thanks for adopting us. Viva La Rocky Balboa and much love for the city from which he hails.

Changing tags...

Tonight we had our very first Launch Team meeting. We met in the upstairs part of the Manayunk Diner. It was so good to get together to discuss and pray about what God has called us to be a part of in the city. I shared a story with them that I wanted to share on the blog as well.

In the past during times of war medical personnel have found themselves overwhelmed by the number of wounded they were asked to care for. That forced them to come up with a system of prioritizing which wounded soldiers would receive medical attention first, second, an so on. This system is known today as advanced triage.

Advanced Triage is a process of prioritizing patients based on the severity of their condition so as to treat as many as possible when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb "trier", meaning to sort, sift or select.

Medical personnel would literally sort through or sift through the wounded as they came in, making assessments as to how quickly they needed to be attended to.
To do so they used a system of colored tags:

Soldiers were given WHITE tags if their injuries did not require the attention of a doctor.

Soldiers were given GREEN tags if care could be delayed for days without threat of the patient losing their life.

Soldiers were given YELLOW tags if they were seriously injured but care could be delayed for a few hours.

Soldiers were given RED tags if they were seriously injured and in need of immediate medical attention in order to save their life.

Soldiers were given BLACK tags if the patient was deceased OR if they were so severely wounded that it is very likely that they would die from their injuries regardless of treatment.

And so the story is told about a young man named Lou who was wounded and had a black tag placed on him. His leg had been so severely blown up and he had lost so much blood that it was determined that he would most likely die.

A nurse that was close by overheard the doctors, noticed the tag, and saw that the young man hadn’t loss consciousness. She couldn’t bare the thought of him dying without having someone there to talk to so she sat by he bed and spoke to him. One hour passed followed by another and another.... finally, the nurse did the unthinkable. She changed the color of his tag. She changed the Black tag to a Red one.

So of course you’re ahead of me in the story.
They air-lifted him out and amputated what was left of his leg.
Though he spent the rest of his days as an amputee, He did however live a full life. Interestingly enough the young woman that saved his life went on to marry him. (Awe)

For me, starting this church is really just about changing peoples tags. It's about looking at people that others consider too hard to reach and doing everything we can to change their forevers. In our case those people are the young adults/ young professionals/ and young families here in the city.

Who decided that these people are not important enough for there to be any churches for them? Who gave them a black tag? Who made that call? Not us…… not us.

I think that God is trying to change the tag on this city... and we're just trying to do our part.

Epic BBQ

This past Sunday we packed up a couple of grills, grabbed the volleyball net, and set out for a little BBQ action at Pretzel Park in Manayunk. It was the very first social event for the new church. The weather was great and the people we were able to meet couldn't have been nicer. One couple I really enjoyed meeting was Jake and Allison who have three kids. There desire to "do whatever it is God wants them to do." really impressed me. We need more people like that in this world. Dawn and J.R. were a lot of fun to talk to as well, but they were up-staged by the smile of their little boy Ben. I've never seen anything like it. It was absolutely captivating. Another person I met was a guy named Dan who cracked me up with stories about his Italian Greyhound named "Dolce". lol Anyways we ended the afternoon with a little volleyball. My performance was sub par but I vowed to redeem myself at our next event. Jordanna, you're going down. Just for fun, here's the video we used to announce the event.