Pathways Church Blog

This past Sunday, I mentioned how much I like this Scripture in Psalm 147:11 that says, “the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.” It is amazing to think of God “delighting” in me.

After my message on Sunday, my Dad came up to me to tell me that for an article he is writing, he did a word study on the Hebrew word for “delight”. It means, literally, “to dance in a circle around you.” Now, how stinkin’ cool is that to imagine God loving you so much that he dances circles around you?

Let that make your day as you think about it often!

Tomorrow morning I get on a plane to Arizona. I’m excited to get to speak at a Youth Retreat for Chandler Christian Church. The part that makes it really sweet is that the Junior High Pastor is a kid that grew up in our student ministry. He was one of those guys that you never thought would grow up…but low and behold…God has done awesome things in and through him. Now I get to meet and be a part of the lives of the kids that he is investing in.

I’ve thought a great deal about the idea of seeing the lives that we pour ourselves into as a family tree so in a sense I feel like a grandparent going to see the grandkids that he has never met. Mull that one over for a while.

Pray continually.

These two simple words come from 1 Thessalonians 5:17. In fact, they are the whole verse! It might be the easiest verse in the Bible to memorize, but certainly not the easiest one to put into practice.

In the 17th century, there lived a monk known as Brother Lawrence. He became famous by trying to live every moment with an awareness that he was in the presence of God. Of course, Brother Lawrence spent most of his life working in the kitchen of a monastery. I’ve never been in a monastery’s kitchen, but I bet it’s a little more peaceful than what most of us face each day.

The reality of our day to day lives seems like it is almost too difficult to pray continually. In an average day, how many minutes do you think you might actually have an awareness of the presence of God?
If the idea of “praying continually” seems so difficult, do you think maybe our understanding of what prayer is might need to be revisited?

This question which we will be exploring this weekend is loaded. It floods my mind with questions like these…
What does it mean to “change” God?
Isn’t God unchanging?
Why would a perfect and holy God have any need to change?
Why would words (prayer) spoken from a person like me have any effect on God?
Doesn’t God just give the appearance of changing His mind rather than actually “changing” it?
If God were to change His mind what would it take to make that happen?
If God never changes His mind, why do we pray?
Is prayer only for my emotional benefit?

…Is anyone else uncomfortable? Good. I’ll look forward to seeing you this weekend.

I want to encourage all of you to pick up your free copy of the Mill Creek/Lynnwood Journal. If you live in the Mill Creek/Lynnwood area, this is mailed directly to your home once a month. If you don’t receive it, there are free copies at coffee shops and other retail stores in the Mill Creek Town Center.

The January 2008 edition has an article on page 10 featuring the Pathways students who took part in the Hoops of Hope. Cathy Herholdt was there to take pictures and write the story. I get stoked when I see our students catching a vision for what it means to impact the world!

A HUGE thank you to Bree Andrist and her team for putting this together. In the end, we raised an additional $3500 (to the $5000 raised at the Mill Creek Town Festival) toward the AIDS Clinic being built in Zambia.

If you want to see an incredible video of Austin Gutwein’s trip to Africa to see the school that we helped raise the money to build last year, click on this NBC Nightly News Report.

You all know that I love the show LOST (coming back to ABC on January 31st with a two hour season premiere – but that is beside the point). I don’t have TIVO or a DVR to record the show, so if I miss an episode, I will often watch it on my computer the following week. I really enjoy settling in and taking in the mystery that is about to unfold. On one particular viewing; however, I could not get the connection for my computer to work properly. Over and over again, I had the video playing, but no sound coming out. I rebooted. Didn’t work. Frustration was oozing out of me. Why does this not work? Who runs this website? Who needs to be fired? Then I caught in the corner of my eye, the symbol at the bottom right corner of my computer. It was on mute.

God gets a lot of the blame when we don’t “hear” from him. What does it mean when God is silent? How can we hear Him when He is talking? Does He still talk?

These are some of the questions we want to explore this week as we continue our study on prayer.

For those who were at Reach Sunday night (and even for those who weren’t!), below is a link the Bible Reading Highlights sheet that Paul showed us an example of. This is an excellent tool to use for those wishing to spend time in the Scriptures every day.

Bible Reading Highlights study sheet

Have you ever been around someone who inspires you to think about what it means to follow Jesus? Or around someone who stirs something deep within you to want to pray? Paul Covert is one of those people for me and I am excited that he and his wife Ann will be with us this weekend. Paul is not a flashy guy. He’s not going to WOW you with his over-the-top communication skills or his cultural adeptness. He’s a regular guy who’s heart is fully given to God. That’s what makes him so inspiring to me. When you meet some big-wig speaker, you automatically think, “I could never be like him.” When you meet Paul, you think, “I want to be like him.”

I’ve had the incredible privilege of walking alongside Paul as a friend and staff member. He has taken a congregation of 6000+ that could not get 15 people at a prayer meeting to one that now has teams of people praying for the church and it’s pastors and missionaries 24/7. Can I tell you something else? You, Pathways Church, are on that list. You are being prayed for as a part of the 24/7 UpTeam.

Come this Sunday to be inspired by what Paul Covert has to teach us about prayer.

It seems that every cell phone commercial on TV these days plays upon our fear of somehow becoming disconnected from the person on the other end of our call. Could it be that this fear is inherent in our being – fear of disconnection.

How many of us feel this way in regards to God? We give prayer a try – when we need it, but it doesn’t “work” quite like we had expected. Is God listening? What is the purpose? Am I disconnected?

This Sunday we begin a new series at Pathways as we explore the mystery of prayer. Will there be some specific steps to enhance your prayer life? Sure. Will there be some general principles given to give your prayer life direction? You bet. However, we must remember that the essence of prayer is relationship and relationships aren’t developed in steps, they are developed out of desire and a passion to know. This is what must drive prayer in our lives. It is my prayer that this community will “spur one another on” into the mystery of prayer.