Pathways Church Blog

Do you text message?  Do you like to receive text messages as opposed to email?  Need a quick reminder of something?  If so, then this is for you.

We’re thinking of trying out text messages as a form of relaying Pathways updates, events, info, encouragement, announcements, etc…
If you’d like to be included in our “texting trial” as we try out something new, comment to this post with your name and mobile number, and we’ll include you in this experiment.  Don’t worry, neither your name nor your number will show up on this post, and we will not pass on your information to anybody else.

“It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.

Know that by His divine law, nations, like individuals, are subject to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people?

We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.

But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at the sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863

Several of you have asked about the quote that I used in the message on Sunday, so I wanted to throw it up on the blog for everyone.

“His perfect holiness, by definition, assures us that our words cannot contain Him. Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?” – Francis Chan in his book, “Crazy Love“

Spend some time this week thinking about that…you cannot exaggerate the Grace of God! Blows my mind.

I really want to be a more consistent blogger here, as I believe it helps me to be a better communicator of my heart for this community, so I’m going to give something a shot. I’m going to call it Pathways: Rewind and use it as an opportunity to share some thoughts from the morning.

1) Talking about “Grace” gets my blood pumping. I think losing my voice today had to do partly with my passion for helping people to see “it”…as well as the 4 cups of coffee I drank before service.

2) Grace is the essence of God’s heart that is not duplicated in any other man-made religion. Every other religion asks you to earn gods favor – Scripture acknowledges that you cannot, but God gives it anyway.

3) I love the spirit of Pathways right now. There is a sense of unity, purpose and passion that is exuding from all of you. We are moving from a “place” to a “mission”. You are moving from “coming” to “giving”. That is exciting.

4) Pizza with the Pastors has a different flavor every time we get together. This week was casual, but deep. Awesome time to reflect on some stories of what God has done in people’s lives. If you don’t think that God moves actively in our lives, you should have sat in our lunch today. Sweet juicy goodness.

5) There were a whole passel of teenagers at my house this afternoon – on their way to our Student Minstry. Something pretty phenomenal is going on with our middle school and high schoolers. They are bringing friends. They are asking to go deeper. There is an excitement there that is outrageous. If you were at our baptism service on the last weekend of October, five of the seven people who came forward to give their life to Christ through baptism were students. We can learn a lot from our teens.

6) God is at work!

For those of you who want to follow along with the team of 11 that we have in Tacna, Peru over the next ten days, you can do so on my Dad’s blog. He will update it as much as he is able and give you a bit of insight into the work that is being done down there.

I love that our community is reaching out and making a difference, not only within our own cities, but around the world. Let this be our continued vision!

This week, the Men’s Bible Study that I am a part of on Wednesday mornings at 6:30am at the Spotted Cow (132nd and 35th – Yes, that is a shameless plug) was reading the book of Philemon. The whole book in one setting…because…well…the book is a whopping one chapter long.

Philemon is short letter from the Apostle Paul to the man by which the book derives it’s name, regarding another man – Onesimus. Onesimus was a servant of Philemon and there was a falling out. We don’t know the details completely, but it seems that Onesimus steals from Philemon and runs away – at the very minimum. He runs to Rome.

Paul is in prison in Rome. House arrest. Can’t leave prison. Somehow, again we don’t know how, Onesimus and Paul meet. Did Onesimus seek out Paul? Did Onesimus get thrown into prison as well? Did someone meet Onesimus and bring him to meet Paul? Don’t know, but I do know that it was not a chance meeting. God was in the center of it, because God had BIG plans for Onesimus. First, Onesimus becomes a follower of Jesus through his contact with Paul. Second, God has plans in which He would be glorified through a redeemed relationship that nobody would understand.

You see, the letter to Philemon is written because Onesimus is coming back to Philemon. Coming back as a follower of Jesus. Coming back as a repentant man. Under the law, Philemon has every right to beat and kill Onesimus. In fact, he would be considered a merciful man if he only beat Onesimus within an inch of his life. His neighbors would talk about what a good man he was. How kind. How he spared someone’s life who did not deserve it.

Paul’s encouragement – Ridiculous, Outrageous, Unexplainable, Exravagant Grace. He encourages Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother. A brother? The guy that wronged me? The guy that all my neighbors and co-workers have been talking about in conversations around the water cooler? That guy?

We don’t know what Philemon chose to do. We don’t get the rest of the story. But imagine the conversations that took place if and when ridiculous grace was shown to Onesimus. People would be asking why this Jesus had so infected Philemon’s life. They may not have understood it…you might not understand it…but deep inside…we all long for it.

This week, we are talking about God’s Ridiculously Extravagant Grace.

If your house is like mine, if you are expecting company, there is a good bet that by the time they arrive, the house is picked up, cleaned and smelling nice. If; however, someone were to simply “stop by”, they might get a more REAL look at your house. Some of us are more okay with that than others.

One thing that I deeply appreciate about Scripture is that it is filled with REAL stories. I mean that in the sense that the details are not cleaned up and dusted off and made to look pretty. They are what they are and we get the ugly details of real people struggling to follow a perfect God.

There are far too many examples of this in Scripture to be able to list, but this weekend we will look at one of them in a guy named Jonah. Jonah, a man chosen to do God’s work, but who chose to run from God. A man who preached God’s words, but hoped that nobody responded to them. Jonah had some bitterness issues.

I know that there is nobody among us who share Jonah’s issues (wink, wink) but let’s learn from him this weekend anyway. (:o)