Some semi-random thoughts on “Meaning” to get our juices flowing.

Thought #1: When you ask the question, “What does life ‘mean’?”, you are obviously asking a HUGE question. I think it is safe to say that a vast majority of people would admit that life has some inherent meaning or purpose. We all may not be clear on what that might be, but there is something within us that cries out for life to make sense. Our desire for meaning is an implication that life does have meaning. It is a hunger that can be satisfied only by a purpose that is outside and beyond ourselves.

Thought #2: Meaning holds life together. Apart from it, there is chaos.

Thought #3: If we believe that God is the source of life, then He MUST be the source of meaning. If life happened by accident in a scientifically unexplainable explosion, then life is absent of meaning, because it’s beginning is lacking meaning and has no purpose. That means that the ONLY place that we will discover true meaning is through the pursuit of knowing God.

Scripture that applies:

“For in him we live and move and have our being.” - Acts 17:28 (The interesting thing about this quote is that Paul is quoting Eratus, a philosopher from around 300 B.C. - He was referring to Zeus, but it implies what is said above. Apart from the Creator, meaning is absent.)

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” - Hebrews 1:3

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” - Colossians 1:15-17

Can’t wait to read your thoughts and to process this as a community in our home groups. This is a deep well.

We had some great discussion on Struggle this past week. However, the concept of struggle is not a nice little package that any of us should have any final resolution about. I am certain we will revisit this idea on an ongoing basis.

For those of you who want to explore this topic further, here are some books you might find to be of interest:
Messy Spirituality, by Mike Yaconelli
Disappointment with God, by Philip Yancey

If you have any further thoughts after wrestling through Struggle this past week, please feel free to share them in the comments of this entry.

I know that a number of readers of this blog are fairly new to following blogs, so here’s some useful info for you. The easiest way to follow blogs (and many other websites these days) is not by visiting each site.

Many sites, and almost all blogs, produce something called an RSS feed. You can use an RSS reader to automatically give you updates when any of those sites are updated. Rather than visiting each site, you can go to your news reader, and it will consolidate the new posts of all of your subscribed feeds in one place.

There are some feed readers that you can download and install on your computer. My feed reader of choice, however, is a website called Bloglines. Because it is a website, I can follow all of the blogs I read by visiting Bloglines.com from any computer. Once you sign up for an account, you can add a bookmark to your favorites to easily subscribe to any site with an RSS feed.

Go sign up and give it a try. Here are some buttons to help you easily subscribe to the Pathways staff blog, the Pathways news feed, and all the blog comments:

- RSS feed for the staff blog

- RSS feed for Pathways news

- RSS feed for blog comments

If you’d like to wish Dean lots of love on his birthday, then today would be the day to do that. Happy Birthday Dean!

This week, we begin a five week trek through our core values. These values help shape and define how we operate and interact as a community. Our first value is struggle. That doesn’t sound like an appealing value, but the paragraph about struggle from our values explains why we find struggle so valuable:

Personal depth is developed by asking tough questions, by struggling. Those who abandon the struggle either come to believe that they have gained all of the answers or quit caring about those answers altogether. Life is not meant to be lived in either of these extremes. Life is a struggle. Following Jesus does not alleviate our struggle, give us the answer to every question, or enable us to conquer every difficulty of life. But it does make the struggle worth facing by tying it to something greater than ourselves. It is in this wrestling that we learn to trust and draw closer to the heart of God.

Where have you found this value to be true in the story of God (the Scriptures)?
How have you found this value to be true in your own life?
Why is it that we often ask God to protect us from difficulties, when in fact he may have the opposite in mind for us?
The above paragraph makes a pretty strong statement about those who “abandon the struggle.” Do you agree with this statement?

This weekend, we’ll be looking at our mission statement, “Worship One…Love All.” It’s simple. Nothing groundbreaking here, but so difficult to truly live. It comes from what is known as the Great Commandment. Jesus was asked what the most important of the Old Testament laws was, and our statement comes from His reply. So here are a few questions for us to consider as we stroll through our week. Don’t be afraid to post your comments.

What does worship mean?
What gets in the way of worship?
Can these two statements be seperated from one another, or is this one statement?
“Love All” is a big statement - what does that mean to you?
How should this be reflected (practically) within a community of those who follow Jesus?

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hey Everyone,

As we get closer to the beginning date of our Sunday services on October 23rd, I want to pour out my heart a bit for you. If you like that sort of thing, read on. If not, well, read on anyway.

It was a little over a year ago that Leslie and I left Mesa, Arizona because we strongly felt like God was leading us to plant Pathways Church. Never have we stepped out in faith without a net underneath us like this, but we are convinced that trusting God involves believing what we cannot see - and that means risk.

I could not be more thrilled that so many of you have chosen to walk this pathway with us. We live in an unhealthy culture and the words of Jesus lived out in your lives is a light that so many need to experience. Let’s set aside everything that holds us back (paraphrase of the words of Paul) and recklessly follow in the footsteps of Jesus together.

Check out our website for important upcoming dates. This weekend (Oct. 9th) we invite you to join us at Mill Creek Elementary School at 10am as we walk through our facility and pray over every aspect of our new church launch.

Can’t wait to see you at our place.

Dean

I have to relay to you something that John and I heard a few weeks ago and we still can’t believe we heard it. A pastor of a church in Seattle was telling us that his church was considering an offer on their property, which would mean that they would relocate - most likely, further away from Seattle. When we asked him about why he would move away, his response was (and this is not a quote, but close) that their Seattle neighborhood is made of 90% liberals and their congregation is 90% republican so they needed to move to a more conservative area. Yeah, you better get the Gospel outta that neighborhood. Wouldn’t want to be tellin’ liberals about Jesus. What blindness.

Why do we draw lines regarding political affiliation? Must I report my voting record to St. Peter upon death? I know some amazing Christians who fall on both sides of the political spectrum. In the words of the immortal Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Is this what women feel like when they are pregnant? You just want the event to take place so that you can move on with a new born child? That’s about where I am at right now. Let’s just all show up at Mill Creek Elementary this weekend and launch this baby (church)!