Gen 4:3 "And it came to pass..."

So that's how I sign off on my emails now. You may ask, "why?" I borrowed the phrase from Mark Lowry . As he explained, as Christians we have the confidence to know that in life, this too shall pass. When things are feeling really bad and you are low, it will pass. When you are flying high and everything is right...it will pass.

We can't count on our emotions or life situations to always be great. We can put our confidence in nothing else than in Jesus Christ and Him crucified! And that resulted in His resurrection. We too have the confidence of the resurrection someday. We don't even have a promise that things will EVER be good in this life. All we can know is that God loves us and sent His son to die for us.

"Jesus loves me, this I know..." and that will NEVER pass!

No New Thoughts - or not...

If I really have something important to say, I will post to my BLOG. You should be thankful that I have not written anything because I don't have anything to say. So maybe it's important that I tell you that I don't have anything to say, which is really something after all.

I'm looking forward to blogging about worship in the future. I've been interested in putting some thoughts down about what it is to worship, what makes worship "Lutheran", and if there really is a distinction in God's eyes between Lutheran and non-Lutheran worship. There really should be only true-worship, right? Hopefully we believe that as Lutherans we are doing what is most faithful to scripture. So in that sense, we would also be worshipping in what we would believe to be "true-worship", so no real need to call it "Lutheran Worship".

See what just happened? I thought I had nothing to say and I couldn't help myself. Let that be a teaser for a future discussion on worship.

I'll let you know when I have nothing to say again...

The REAL World

Have you ever heard someone say the phrase "out in the REAL world"? Or maybe you've even said it yourself. It is usually spoken in reference to secular culture or the workplace, and often separated from the "church" world. Maybe you've heard it said like..."you don't know what it's like in the REAL world!" As if life within the church or a Christian family is somehow less than real, perhaps even fake, or at least sheltered.

Is it really the "REAL" world that people speak of? Who is the one to define the terms? We as Christians believe that the one who made the world also gets to define it. Is the phrase "the REAL world" talking about God's view of things? Usually not. So why do we settle for defining life by the standards of those outside of a relationship with God?

The "REAL" world is defined by God and HIS WORD. It is there that we see what the "REAL" world is, and it looks much different from what the secular culture would have you believe is real. We find what "REAL LIFE" is about no where else. What the standards and life of the world looks like outside of the church is FALSE and a poor imitation of how life should be.

The "REAL" world is what we experience in church and in worship. It is there that the Word of God is spoken, the TRUTH, and we respond back with those same words from His Word. If you want to experience the "REAL" world, spend some time in worship and in God's Word.

The next time you hear someone say "When they go back to the REAL world" or "I want my child to have some REAL world experience" remember where the REAL world exists. Don't settle for a cheap imitation!

How I Did It

People keep asking me how I lost weight. Okay, I'll give my secret, but promise to keep it to yourself, okay?......I've been eating less. I've been working out for the past 8 years pretty much every morning and that helped along the way. But there are only so many calories you can burn by working out. So I cut my food intake in half and starting loosing weight. A key was eating less at dinner and nothing after dinner until breakfast the next morning. It has been in connection to an overall discipline in my life that has grown. So as I become more obedient to God in other areas of life I can control things like eating as well. It's a win/win for me as God continues to mold me in many ways. Boy, do I need it!

Connersvine Concert - May 15

I met with Chris from Connersvine Thursday and I'm SO ready for the concert now. He was a great guy with a heart for ministry first. It was refreshing to talk with him about the band and their thoughts on music and playing. It should be a great night.

If you haven't bought tickets yet, please call the church office to let them know you want them. 317-814-4252 $5 for a professional Christian Concert!! ($7 at the door) This is a bargain for a concert. We want everyone to come. The Crossroad youth band will open from 6:15-6:45PM, and there is food being served from 5:30-6:30PM.

Giving at Church

Tithe? Heard of it? I'm sure you have, it's the principal of giving 10% of your income. It turns out that the biblical principal is to give 10% to your local church ministry (period). In our current age of individualism we have gotten away from the "general" giving and started going to "specific" giving to places or organizations that fit what I WANT to support. No problem there, just don't call it a "tithe" because by definition it is not. Specific giving would be considered "offerings" which are over and above tithe giving. Scripture clearly says that you first support God's work through local ministry. Look at Malachi 3:10Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the LORD Almighty, "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it."

This is the only commandment that God says that we should test Him in, because God is always faithful. Sounds like a challenge that we should all take, not to test, but to just trust God in.

Low Sunday?

So it's called "Low Sunday"!? Here's my BIG chance to preach for the weekend services and I find out it's called "Low Sunday"!

Looks like God is trying to make me humble from the start. I think He needs to work overtime on my humilty. As some cartoon character in a "Pond" video I saw said, "I'm really good at humble."

Good Friday?

Good? Was it really good? Is it a "good" Friday?

Without Friday, we are still lost. When Jesus died on the cross, He brought death face to face with God, and crushed it! To skip past Good Friday is to miss the power of what happened on Friday. There is no Sunday without Friday. We preach Christ and Him crucified! It was there that the battle was won. Don't pity Jesus. It was why He came, He submitted to the Father's will and died FOR US!

We are not like those who mourn without hope. We know what His death meant for us. And we now know what our death has in store for us. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

Is it GOOD Friday? Absolutely!

Spring Break

It's cold here for Spring Break, but I hear that even our Spring Breakers in Florida are wearing winter coats at Disneyland. It's not a sure thing anymore that you can go south for good weather over this break.

It's unfortunate that all the people who leave Carmel for Spring Break miss the best week of the year to be in Carmel. There's no traffic. You can park at church on Sunday. You can find a machine right away at the gym. You can zip right through O'Malia's without a wait. You can drive right through school zones without slowing down. I love Spring Break!

We're Full

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but the church is full (at least on Sunday AM during the "late" worship times). You would notice that if you could find a parking space to go inside during the late-service time slot. What a great problem to have, but it is a problem. I don't want to stop at "Wow! Isn't this great, we're full!" I want to move on from there and say, okay what do we do now?

One thing that research shows is that there is no such thing as being stagnant, you are either growing or declining. Are we content saying "We've reached 1300 worshipping on a weekend and we're satisfied"? I haven't found the bible verse yet that says "Go and make disciples till you reach x-number of people, then hunker down into maintenance mode."

It's going to take a church-wide effort to continue to grow the disciples at CLC. Here are some suggestions...

1. Go on Saturday to worship. There are over 100 people on each side (Sanctuary and Worship Center) that worship on Saturdays now. Imagine if those 200+ disciples were on campus for Sunday AM services!!
2. Get up earlier and go to the 8:00 or 8:30AM services. Families seem to have no trouble getting up early on Saturday for any number of child-related activities/sports. What makes Sunday different, especially when you consider the discipleship vs. membership aspect to what we do at Carmel Lutheran Church. Services are basically identical in both venues to what happens in their late-service counterpart.
3. Do either or both of the above suggestions 1 or 2 times a month, mix it up, meet new disciples.
4. If you do happen to attend early services, and then go to bible class, try to leave soon after class to give a parking space to someone just arriving.

If you can't go on a mission trip, or are afraid to talk to your neighbor about Christ, you CAN make a slight adjustment to your schedule to help as we seek to REACH OUT to our community.

ProTool Woes

So the Mac is back and working, but I can't get ProTools to run. This Tech thing is taking WAY too much time. That's something I'm short on. Come to think of it...

So It's Clunky...

Who ever thought it would be so hard to just say what was on my mind? I've never had that problem before. Maybe God is trying to tell me to just keep my thoughts to myself.

Oh, and it turned out the Apple people in Houston were geniuses after all. They got my laptop on the 27th, and shipped it back out on the 27th. Now that I think about it, maybe I should reserve final judgement 'till I get the computer back (hopefully tonight) and fire it up.

My first try

Apple does things right. So maybe I DID have to take the Powerbook in to get worked on, but I had to wait a whole 4 MINUTES until they could see me. The Apple Genius turned out to have just an ordinary level of Apple competance, so she decided to send it off to the REAL geniuses for Apple who live in Houston and fix them there. Hmm, Apple Geniuses in Texas. Go figure...

Did I ever tell you I was from Texas?

Max