Thoughts on Celebration

We just wrapped up an amazing church-wide campaign called Faith in Action with an exciting celebration Sunday. It was an energizing Sunday that began with a drum-line--in the Church service!--and ended with a quiet vespers service by the water.

The day generated some thoughts about celebration.

How we celebrate says a lot about us.

On our birthdays we set food on fire, spank the birthday boy or girl, pin a tail on a donkey, tear up beautiful paper, and smash piñatas shaped like small, smiling, multi-colored animals that have been gutted and stuffed with candy, confetti, and cheap toys which will—once the animal is popped open with a baseball bat—tumble out of the opened carcass onto the ground below to be devoured by crazed children, unless you’re my friends Terry and Tammy who didn’t realize that you had to fill the piñata with candy yourself, so when the poor kids at their daughter’s birthday party finally cracked the paper mache shell of that smiling multi-colored donkey the only thing that fell to the ground were a few pieces of confetti and the shattered dreams of a dozen preschoolers. And that’s just the destruction we routinely dish out in our birthday celebrations!

For Christmas we celebrate by killing a tree, bringing it home, covering it in lights, surrounding it with presents wrapped in paper made from other dead trees, forcing it to stand there and watch as we tear the paper—made from other dead trees—to shreds, and then—when we’re done with him—we take him to the side of the road to be thrown away with the weeds on yard-trash day.

A victory over a heavily-favored rival in football may result in the goalposts being pulled down.

When we win a championship basketball game we cut down perfectly good nets.

To give thanks we kill and eat a turkey making gravy out of his guts!

On the Fourth of July we celebrate by blowing things up.

I’ve wondered how cool it would be if we celebrated other holidays like we celebrate the 4th of July—Wouldn’t it be fun to blow up the turkey on Thanksgiving? Aren’t there some gifts (from your mother-in-law) that you’d just love to blow up on Christmas afternoon? And wouldn’t ground hog day be much more exciting if he blew up after seeing his shadow?

But I digress.

What we celebrate says a lot about us.

Celebrating after a wedding reveals that we love, love.

Celebrating a touchdown reveals that we love sports . . . and that we’re not Cleveland Browns fans!

Celebrating a birth reveals that we love life.

Celebrating an anniversary reveals that we love marriage.

Celebrating an election reveals that we love politics.

Celebrating Independence Day reveals that we love freedom.

Celebrating a winning lottery ticket reveals that we love money.

Celebrating a grand opening at Wal-Mart reveals that we love bargains—and that you’re my wife.

Celebrating the death of Darth Vader reveals that we love revenge.

Celebrating an “A” on our child’s test reveals that we love learning and celebrating Ground Hog Day reveals that we have no life!

When we celebrate also says a lot about us.

In Corinthians 15:57,58 Paul writes:
But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

As Christians we need to celebrate at the appropriate times--worship service, at baptisms, during communion, when sending out and receiving missionaries, during offering, ground-breakings for new facilities, and at the end of church-wide campaigns--all the while never forgetting that there are still many victories yet to win.

We aren't done.

We still have so much to do.

We must fight the urge to sit back and savor the victories prematurely.

Amy Beatrice Carmichael was a missionary in India who served for fifty-five years without furlough and authored many books about the missionary work there.

Amy Carmichael said this:
"We have all eternity to celebrate the victories but only a few hours before sunset to win them."

I agree, so--as I celebrate the impact Faith in Action had on Christ's Church and our community--I will fight the urge to store the noise-makers and confetti safely away and I will track down the contact information for the drum-line, because there are still more celebrations to come.

Check this out

God is the Creator and we are made in his image, so, is it any wonder that--when we have holy intentions--we have the ability to create beautiful expressions of our love for Him?

I love the crowd's spontaneous applause early in the presentation. That's called "worship" . . . and it's what we were designed to do and it's what should happen when we see something that reminds us of who God is, who we are, and of how good he is.

Enjoy.

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News Report on Faith in Action Blitz Day

Here's a link to a video report the local newspaper did on Blitz Day: Report on Faith in Action.

And I agree with the little girl at the end of the video. It was "Awesome!"

Pictures and Comments from Faith in Action Blitz Day

One of the reasons that I love being a part of Christ's Church is because this church is made up of some amazing people.

We are starting to collect pictures from our Blitz Day of service last Sunday and I can't stop smiling as I see the faces of so many of my fellow church members as they share their sweat, smiles, and sincere love (had to use three "S's" because I'm a preacher!) with people all around Jacksonville.

Here are some pictures from this great event: Picasa Web Album: Christ's Church Faith in Action Blitz Day

Here are some comments we've received from some of the people we served:

Hi Mr. Newland . . . I'm the CFO for Hubbard House. I wanted to personally call you, yesterday I was out at the facility where your people came and helped out. There was approx. close to 80 people & I can't begin to tell you the job those people did. They are amazing. Hubbard House would never have been able to accomplish what you all did for us. I have been at Hubbard House a very long time and we have many many volunteers who help us who always do a fine job, but we were truly blown away by the people that came out and the amount of work that they did. I really and truly cannot thank you enough. I was brought to tears no less than 4 or 5 times yesterday regarding the amount of work and just mission driven that they were. They were thanking me for allowing them to come and help us. Wonderful wonderful people and I just wanted you to know and hear it directly from one of the non profit agencies here in town directly what it meant to us. Our utmost of thanks and appreciation!

__________

Words can not adequately describe my feelings for you and all the members of your church for what they did for us yesterday. I was truly in awe and had tears in my eyes to many times to mention. Our property was in a state of disarray. The amount of work needed to make it look presentable was way beyond our scope in terms of staff or money to hire a company to do the massive clean up. Your volunteers arrived ready to go. Everyone brought the proper tools and a can do attitude. They accomplished even more than we thought possible. Never once despite the extremely hard work did I see one person look frustrated or disheartened. As a matter of fact, they kept on thanking me for allowing them to do this for us!!! Absolutely amazing. The Project Leaders were wonderful. They were so pleasant and organized. Amber is a gem. Our future Outreach Center looks beautiful and a place we can be proud of. I can not thank you enough. Clearly, your ministry is doing something so right. It was an honor for me to be around all of these beautiful families who only wanted to help others. Please accept my deep gratitude on behalf of all of us who work for or who are served by Hubbard House. This experience will stay with me forever.

_________

Thanks for the pictures! I cannot tell you how much we appreciate Christ’s Church Mandarin and Fleming Island coming out to work yesterday. What a blessing! Your photos reflect what a successful day it was for Seamark. The lawn at the ACE building looks wonderful and the clearing in front of the building was an extra special blessing. You have such a wonderful, caring and compassionate church. It was wonderful to see the article in today's Times Union about your efforts and impact on the community. Thanks you so much for organizing the volunteers and for coming out.

_________

There aren't words to describe how special the faith in action blitz day was to me and my family.

Book Signing this Saturday

I just finished recording an interview for the local Christian station 88.1 The Promise.

They are going to play the interview tomorrow (10/25) between 1-1:30 p.m. The DJ told me it is supposed to air at 1:20 p.m., but you never know. Here's a link if you'd like to listen in: 88.1 The Promise.

They were interviewing me to promote a book signing I'm doing in here in Jacksonville this Saturday (October 27th) at LifeWay Christian Store from 11-1 pm. If you live in the area and you're interested in picking up a copy of my latest book (signed books are great Christmas presents :)) please come by. I'd love the chance to meet you.

Can I be honest with you?

This (book promotion) still feels a little weird to me.

I write books as an extension of my ministry and because I want to help people, but in order to help people we have to give them opportunities to hear about and pick up a copy of the book for themselves, so we have to talk about it. It's obvious, but I don't write books for myself. I write books to (hopefully) bless the lives of other people, so I'm committed to making sure that as many people as possible are made aware that my book exists.

Link to Interview with Spirit 105.3 in Seattle

Recently I was interviewed by Scott and Sam from Spirit 105.3 in Seattle, WA. We discussed Remember Who You Are.

In the week since the interview I've had the chance to correspond with Scott and Sam and it was a sincere blessing.

They are totally committed to Christ and his calling for their lives.

If you're interested in hearing the interview, here's a link: My Interview on Spirit 105.3

A Great Day

Yesterday almost 2,500 people from Christ's Church met for a 30 minute worship service and then dispersed across Jacksonville to serve our community in the name of Jesus. We called this effort Blitz Day.

Our motto for the day was: Don't Just Go To Church . . . Be The Church.

The reports I'm hearing from the work projects are so encouraging.

Here's a report on Blitz Day from the local paper: Congregants show faith with volunteer Blitz Day.

My small group went to a local assisted living facility. Our plan was to bless them, but they blessed us. We took our children and found that they were one of the best blessings of the day. The response of the residents to our children was overwhelming and the impact of the residents on our children was just as remarkable.

Last night, as my wife and I were preparing to pray with our children, my five-year-old son Sylas shared both a confession and a wonderful admission when he announced, "Levi (his brother-age 7) told me that today was going to be boring . . . but he was wrong. It was so much fun!" All of my kids (Levi included!) are begging us to go again, so we're making plans to go back as soon as possible.

Our church-wide program Faith in Action ends this week. And, although I'm sad that it's over, I'm excited about what it started.

Book Review

A Dumb American in a Strange Country

By John Murphy

I’ve never written a book review before, but John sent me a copy of his book and I agreed.

In 2004, John Murphy and his wife, Iryna, started Kind Road Mission in Odessa, Ukraine. A Dumb American in a Strange Country chronicles John’s physical and spiritual journey as he followed God’s leading to the Ukraine.

This book is a collection of interesting stories, lessons, and insights. John’s witty writing style is refreshing and his spiritual insights are encouraging. This book is full of practical, inspirational, funny, and beneficial lessons and stories. As John describes what he learned as he overcame the unique challenges of serving God on the mission field he teaches the reader important lessons that can help us to overcome the challenges we face in our daily faith walk.

John draws lessons from a lot of different personal experiences providing a variety of powerful illustrations. Sometimes, though, I felt distracted by the myriad of experiences and lessons that John loads into each chapter. It sometimes just felt like too much of a good thing causing me to lose focus on the simple lesson John was trying to communicate. At times this book felt more like a collection of short stories rather than one book with one central story. With that in mind, I’d definitely recommend this book for use as a devotional—especially for anyone feeling God’s call to cross-cultural evangelism.

In this book John also effectively communicates both the real challenges and real blessings of mission work, so I’d also recommend this book for young people feeling called to missions, mission teams preparing for an upcoming trip, or anyone else with a heart for world evangelism and a desire to find God where you least expect him.

Transcript of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture

I struggled to remember and write down some of the best quotes from Randy Pausch's last lecture, so I was excited to find a Transcript of Randy Pausch's Last Lecture online.

Here's a link to Randy Pausch's Home Page.

Randy's Last Lecture

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who is dying from pancreatic cancer, gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving talk, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

A month ago Randy was told that he has 3-6 months of "good life" left.

I was so inspired as I watched this lecture yesterday. I love Randy's energy, passion for life, and his love for his family.

He and I share a common dream: Being an Imagineer for Disney. I have more ideas than one human being should be allowed to have.

Before you watch it I want you to know three things.

First, this video is long. You can find shorter versions of it on the Internet. Just Google "Randy Pausch" and you'll find the shorter versions of his lecture.

Second, this lecture contains some curse words. No "F-bombs", but he does say some other curse words, so I wanted to warn you. In other words: don't send me hate mail.

Third, Randy's presentation is full of a lot of great life and leadership advice.

I don't know Randy, but I like him.

He's a dreamer. A visionary. A man who is committed to helping others to fulfill their dreams. A man who loves life.

And a man whom I'm now praying for on a daily basis and with whom I'd love to eat dinner.

Here's One More Video

This is the video we showed during our services last weekend to give the congregation an overview our renovation project. Did I already tell you how much I love these people?

Faith in Action Videos

Christ's Church is in the middle of a church-wide campaign called Faith in Action.

It's a program that leads up to a Sunday--October 21st--on which the church is dismissed to go out and serve.

This is going to be the highlight of the program. We will meet at the building for a short--very short--program and then we'll be dismissed to serve around our community. Our project team has collected a list of 131 projects for our people to do. Some are for as few as 4 people with our largest job providing 800 people a chance to serve.

Here are videos we prepared to let people know about a couple of the ministries with which we'll be partnering.

City Rescue Mission

Baptist Children's Home

Also, our staff had the incredible opportunity to do our own version of "Extreme Home Makeover" last week. We are asking everybody in the church to put their faith into action, so we were excited for a chance to lead the way.

Here's some footage from the project:

I'm so grateful to be serving with these incredible people.

Radio Interview

I'm going to be on a call-in show tomorrow on AM980 KKMS in Minneapolis from 12:30-1:45 EST (11:30-12:45 CT) a.m. I'm going to be interviewed and answer questions about my book, Remember Who You Are.

The show is called The Pastor's Study Live.

The show will re-air tomorrow (Sunday) at 4 pm EST.

Please Pray for Judah

My heart is aching for my friend Judah.

He and his family are faithfully serving the Lord in Myanmar in a village just outside of Yangon. Yangon has become the latest target in a government crackdown on a pro-democracy movement.

This morning FOXNews.com reports:

Soldiers announced they were hunting pro-democracy protesters in Myanmar's largest city Wednesday and the top U.S. diplomat in the country said that military police were pulling people out of their homes during the night. Military vehicles patrolled the streets before dawn with loudspeakers blaring, "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!" Shari Villarosa, the acting U.S. ambassador in Myanmar, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in Bangkok that people in Yangon were terrified. "From what we understand, military police ... are traveling around the city in the middle of the night, going into homes and picking up people," she said.

Judah stayed with me and my family for a weekend last March. My wife and I have known Judah for many years, so we were excited to introduce him to our children. He is a humble, soft-spoke, and gentle man, but he is also a mighty warrior for the Lord.

Judah sent an email to a mutual friend a couple of days before the government shut down the internet. Judah writes, As you hear from the world news, our country is in unrest situation and we are afraid a lot. But God protects us in His care and love and we are saved. Please pray for our country that the problem would be solved peacefully.

Let's honor his request and pray for Judah and his family.

Please share this request with as many people as possible.

(btw: Forgive my paranoia, but, in light of the work that Judah is doing and the violent steps his government is taking to control this uprising, I'm not using his full name.)

Andrew Peterson in Space

I've been friends with Andrew Peterson for a long time. His wife was a student in my first youth ministry. I helped perform their wedding ceremony. They lived in our extra bed-room for a while. His first band (Planet X) practiced in our garage. We almost came to blows over a game of Monopoly. . . you get the point.

I love Andrew and I'm so pleased to see how God is blessing his ministry. He and Jamie are good, talented, and humble people, so I thought it was extra special to see the following picture on Andrew's blog:

This is a picture taken by Pat Forrester, mission specialist on shuttle mission STS-117 to the International Space Station.

Andrew says that Pat is a Christian and a faithful attendee at every one of his Houston concerts.

How cool is that?!?