- Sign up by emailing Monica at monsaw@yahoo.com or at the back table on Sunday
- $25 includes Lock-In TShirt, Music CD, Jewelry Momento, Dinner and Breakfast
- Doors open at 6p.m. and 6:30p.m. officially start
- Worn Out Women Series Finale
- HUGE Giveaway at Midnight
- Other Door and Game Winning Prizes
- Guest Speakers and Testimonies
- Bunco and lots more games
- Worship time and Devotionals
- Movies
- A Special Guest Speaker live from the Dominican Republic
- LOTS of fun, fellowship and memories to be made
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
"What Are You Waiting For?"
2nd Annual Community Women's Lock-In
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Why Wait?
"Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD." Psalm 27:14
We all hate to wait. In traffic. Long lines. For the last family member to get in the car. Test results. Or an answer to our prayers. Even when things are going good in our lives we hate waiting for the next positive moment to happen.
And often we don’t even know why we are waiting. But God does. He is an all-knowing God. He knows when you sit and when you rise; He perceives your thoughts from afar. He discerns your going out and your lying down; He is familiar with all your ways (Psalm 139). He knows the purpose for any waiting in your life. You can either wait patiently and learn what you can in the process or wait impatiently and miss whatever refinement God intends for you.
Either way, waiting is part of God’s plan. He may have you wait:
• to gain more knowledge
• for more favorable circumstances to arise
• until you have the support of others
• until financial provision is available
• or you are emotionally prepared
Pray as you wait. As you do, you’ll discover the value of letting things come in God’s time. You’ll also find the beauty in waiting—the possibility that God’s dream for your life is just on the other side.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Community for Him
During my husband and I's recent trip, I had a lot of time to think about things while we were traveling but also was able to hear several great speakers and musicians while we were gone as well. There was one constant theme throughout and that was of living with an urgency for Christ. With the society that we and our children live in today I think a lot of times it's so easy for me to lose that urgency. Becoming overwhelmed by the thought of doing "one more thing." BUT what I forget is that putting off Christ as that "one more thing" is the worst possible choice I could make for me or my family. This could be as our individual relationships with our Father or sharing the gospel with the people known and unknown around us daily.
Several months before I left for our vacation I had been thinking about what it might look like to work towards a "community women's ministry." Coming together and serving as a community group with other individual women's ministry from the community of Hutto and the surrounding area. I know LifePointe Women's Ministry as struggled at times to build, serve and grow the way we'd really like and yearn to. I just feel that we could make a much bigger impact for our Father's Kingdom if we came together serving as one. We would have meetings together, planning events together, serving together, studies together, etc. We would be better able to fulfill the needs of women, children and their families from here, around our state and aboard as well. Now is the time to band together, working to reflect the love of our Father and build His kingdom. I would like to schedule our first meeting on Sunday August 29th at 7:30p.m. at LifePointe Fellowship. If you have any questions, ideas or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at monsaw@yahoo.com. Or if you can't make the first meeting but are interested in being apart of this journey of a Community 4 Him please feel free to email me and I'll make sure you get meeting notes. Please provide me your feedback on this idea...pros and cons. Please feel free to be honest with me on this. I can sometimes get ahead of myself on things which is why I've kind of ignored this all together until now. I just felt a new found hope or energy thinking about how many times I've failed to stop and make Christ my number one priority as an individual and as a disciple wanting to share the gospel. Thank you all for your opinions, time, encouragement and support. God bless my friends!!!
Several months before I left for our vacation I had been thinking about what it might look like to work towards a "community women's ministry." Coming together and serving as a community group with other individual women's ministry from the community of Hutto and the surrounding area. I know LifePointe Women's Ministry as struggled at times to build, serve and grow the way we'd really like and yearn to. I just feel that we could make a much bigger impact for our Father's Kingdom if we came together serving as one. We would have meetings together, planning events together, serving together, studies together, etc. We would be better able to fulfill the needs of women, children and their families from here, around our state and aboard as well. Now is the time to band together, working to reflect the love of our Father and build His kingdom. I would like to schedule our first meeting on Sunday August 29th at 7:30p.m. at LifePointe Fellowship. If you have any questions, ideas or suggestions, please do not hesitate to email me at monsaw@yahoo.com. Or if you can't make the first meeting but are interested in being apart of this journey of a Community 4 Him please feel free to email me and I'll make sure you get meeting notes. Please provide me your feedback on this idea...pros and cons. Please feel free to be honest with me on this. I can sometimes get ahead of myself on things which is why I've kind of ignored this all together until now. I just felt a new found hope or energy thinking about how many times I've failed to stop and make Christ my number one priority as an individual and as a disciple wanting to share the gospel. Thank you all for your opinions, time, encouragement and support. God bless my friends!!!
HOPE
by Max Lucado
It’s one of the most compelling narratives in all of Scripture. So fascinating is the scene, in fact, that Luke opted to record it in detail.
Two disciples are walking down the dusty road to the village of Emmaus. Their talk concerns the crucified Jesus. Their words come slowly, trudging in cadence with the dirge-like pace of their feet.
“I can hardly believe it. He’s gone.”
“What do we do now?”
“It’s Peter’s fault, he shouldn’t have … ”
Just then a stranger comes up from behind and says, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing you. Who are you discussing?”
They stop and turn. Other travelers make their way around them as the three stand in silence. Finally one of them asks, “Where have you been the last few days? Haven’t you heard about Jesus of Nazareth?” And he continues to tell what has happened. (Luke 24:13-24)
This scene fascinates me—two sincere disciples telling how the last nail has been driven in Israel’s coffin. God, in disguise, listens patiently, his wounded hands buried deeply in his robe. He must have been touched at the faithfulness of this pair. Yet he also must have been a bit chagrined. He had just gone to hell and back to give heaven to earth, and these two were worried about the political situation of Israel.
“But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
But we had hoped … How often have you heard a phrase like that?
“We were hoping the doctor would release him.”
“I had hoped to pass the exam.”
“We had hoped the surgery would get all the tumor.”
“I thought the job was in the bag.”
Words painted gray with disappointment. What we wanted didn’t come. What came, we didn’t want. The result? Shattered hope. The foundation of our world trembles.
We trudge up the road to Emmaus dragging our sandals in the dust, wondering what we did to deserve such a plight. “What kind of God would let me down like this?”
And yet, so tear-filled are our eyes and so limited is our perspective that God could be the fellow walking next to us and we wouldn’t know it.
You see, the problem with our two heavy-hearted friends was not a lack of faith, but a lack of vision. Their petitions were limited to what they could imagine—an earthly kingdom. Had God answered their prayer, had he granted their hope, the Seven-Day War would have started two thousand years earlier and Jesus would have spent the next forty years training his apostles to be cabinet members. You have to wonder if God’s most merciful act is his refusal to answer some of our prayers.
We are not much different than burdened travelers, are we? We roll in the mud of self-pity in the very shadow of the cross. We piously ask for his will and then have the audacity to pout if everything doesn’t go our way. If we would just remember the heavenly body that awaits us, we’d stop complaining that he hasn’t healed this earthly one.
Our problem is not so much that God doesn’t give us what we hope for as it is that we don’t know the right thing for which to hope. (You may want to read that sentence again.)
Hope is not what you expect; it is what you would never dream. It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I’m-dreaming ending. It’s Abraham adjusting his bifocals so he can see not his grandson, but his son. It’s Moses standing in the promised land not with Aaron or Miriam at his side, but with Elijah and the transfigured Christ. It’s Zechariah left speechless at the sight of his wife Elizabeth, gray-headed and pregnant. And it is the two Emmaus-bound pilgrims reaching out to take a piece of bread only to see that the hands from which it is offered are pierced.
Hope is not a granted wish or a favor performed; no, it is far greater than that. It is a zany, unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and be there in the flesh to see our reaction.
It’s one of the most compelling narratives in all of Scripture. So fascinating is the scene, in fact, that Luke opted to record it in detail.
Two disciples are walking down the dusty road to the village of Emmaus. Their talk concerns the crucified Jesus. Their words come slowly, trudging in cadence with the dirge-like pace of their feet.
“I can hardly believe it. He’s gone.”
“What do we do now?”
“It’s Peter’s fault, he shouldn’t have … ”
Just then a stranger comes up from behind and says, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing you. Who are you discussing?”
They stop and turn. Other travelers make their way around them as the three stand in silence. Finally one of them asks, “Where have you been the last few days? Haven’t you heard about Jesus of Nazareth?” And he continues to tell what has happened. (Luke 24:13-24)
This scene fascinates me—two sincere disciples telling how the last nail has been driven in Israel’s coffin. God, in disguise, listens patiently, his wounded hands buried deeply in his robe. He must have been touched at the faithfulness of this pair. Yet he also must have been a bit chagrined. He had just gone to hell and back to give heaven to earth, and these two were worried about the political situation of Israel.
“But we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
But we had hoped … How often have you heard a phrase like that?
“We were hoping the doctor would release him.”
“I had hoped to pass the exam.”
“We had hoped the surgery would get all the tumor.”
“I thought the job was in the bag.”
Words painted gray with disappointment. What we wanted didn’t come. What came, we didn’t want. The result? Shattered hope. The foundation of our world trembles.
We trudge up the road to Emmaus dragging our sandals in the dust, wondering what we did to deserve such a plight. “What kind of God would let me down like this?”
And yet, so tear-filled are our eyes and so limited is our perspective that God could be the fellow walking next to us and we wouldn’t know it.
You see, the problem with our two heavy-hearted friends was not a lack of faith, but a lack of vision. Their petitions were limited to what they could imagine—an earthly kingdom. Had God answered their prayer, had he granted their hope, the Seven-Day War would have started two thousand years earlier and Jesus would have spent the next forty years training his apostles to be cabinet members. You have to wonder if God’s most merciful act is his refusal to answer some of our prayers.
We are not much different than burdened travelers, are we? We roll in the mud of self-pity in the very shadow of the cross. We piously ask for his will and then have the audacity to pout if everything doesn’t go our way. If we would just remember the heavenly body that awaits us, we’d stop complaining that he hasn’t healed this earthly one.
Our problem is not so much that God doesn’t give us what we hope for as it is that we don’t know the right thing for which to hope. (You may want to read that sentence again.)
Hope is not what you expect; it is what you would never dream. It is a wild, improbable tale with a pinch-me-I’m-dreaming ending. It’s Abraham adjusting his bifocals so he can see not his grandson, but his son. It’s Moses standing in the promised land not with Aaron or Miriam at his side, but with Elijah and the transfigured Christ. It’s Zechariah left speechless at the sight of his wife Elizabeth, gray-headed and pregnant. And it is the two Emmaus-bound pilgrims reaching out to take a piece of bread only to see that the hands from which it is offered are pierced.
Hope is not a granted wish or a favor performed; no, it is far greater than that. It is a zany, unpredictable dependence on a God who loves to surprise us out of our socks and be there in the flesh to see our reaction.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
