weekly email to LCC – Mission Trip

This is my weekly email to Life Connection Church in Euless, Tx

Dear Friends,

Just a short note as you begin your Holiday Weekend.  The LCC Mission Trip group is on the road to Chicago as I am writing this note.  There are 20 riding in two 15 passenger vans.  They will be stopping to spend the night in Kansas City tonight, be in Chicago tomorrow, and will be returning late next Saturday evening.  There was a definite excitement as they were loading up this morning.  Please try to remember to pray for them daily.  It is truly a working no frills mission trip.  They will be working all day and sleeping on classroom floors. They will have a teaching and worship time every night and will be guests in different Chicago churches on Sunday.  They will also have a free afternoon.  It has not been decided as of yet where they will go or what sites they will see during their free time.  It will be an awesome life changing experience for all involved, teens and adults.  They will be with a group project of World Changers.

A special thanks to Brent for putting our first LCC mission trip together.  Another thanks to Angie Repass for all the work she did putting together the fundraiser.  Angie got 16 different restaurants to donate a meal for two so that two different individuals could win dinner out for a week.  Angie can get it done.  Thanks also to those of you who donated cash to help fund the trip.  It is truly a team effort.

Please have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day Weekend.  If you are part of the LCC family or live in our area and are looking for a church home, I hope you will join us Sunday at LCC. 

I will be teaching a message on Sunday called, “Freedom of the Heart.”  As we all know, you can live in a free country and not experience freedom.  Many of us are trapped by many anxieties of the heart that take away our joy and keep us feeling depressed and oppressed.  You can have true freedom if you live in a free country or not.

Bring a neighbor….

 

Your brotha from anotha motha….

Royal

weekly email to LCC – Don’t Be Jealous of Mercy

This is my weekly e-note to friends and family of Life Connection Church in Euless, TX

Dear Friends,

I hope this day finds you well.  We are really busy at LCC.  Next week we have some adults and kids going to Kid’s Camp at Mount Lebanon and on  July 4 we have adults and teens going to Chicago on a working mission trip.  Please keep these two groups in your prayers when you think of them.  They will all be blessed by the experience.  Pray that all goes well and they are protected from injury and kept healthy.  Pray for the great relationships that will be built as they serve and worship God together in heart and action.  And pray for the strengthening of the people God relationships.  That strengthening always happens when we are serving God together and my prayer is that they all come back with a renewed enthusiasm for serving God here at home and in all areas of their lives.

Tomorrow, Saturday, will be our third Clubhouse for Kids.  This is a summer apartment ministry to an apartment complex with less than 10% of its residence who attend a local church.  We get a chance to show and teach the love of Jesus to these kids.  Every week we feed them snacks, teach them worship songs, and teach them how to live according to Bible Stories that are applied in ways that kids can understand and can tell their parents.  What a great opportunity.  Please pray that we can be God’s love with skin for these kids and we get to meet some of their parents and minister to them also.

This week I get to teach the bible study time.  I will be teaching about Jonah.  You know, the guy that got swallowed by a fish because he was jealous that God was letting some bad people off the hook.  Jonah was mad that he was always obedient to God and the disobedient people were being just as blessed as him.  Do you ever feel that way?

Do you ever get a little miffed with God because you are doing the right things and others are not?  Well Jonah wanted God to bless him and punish the ones in the wrong.  The bad people of Nineveh heard they were doing wrong so they repented.  They told God they were sorry and started being who God wanted them to be, and God let them off the hook. 

God wanted Jonah to know that God was in charge–not Jonah.  God was going to discipline the whole town of Nineveh, but instead He showed them mercy.  They got another chance.  God is a God of second chances.  And thanks to the grace we have through Jesus, God is a God of infinite chances. 

The moral of the story…God is a God of mercy and we should be people who offer mercy.  We should be glad that others get extra chances and are forgiven because we get the same chances and receive the same mercy through the grace of Jesus Christ.

The kids have a memory verse to learn tomorrow that addresses how we are to behave even when others are not. 

 O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you:  to do what is right, to love mercy,  and to walk humbly with your God.  Micah 6:8

God tells us that no matter what others are doing we are to do what is right, be thankful that God gives us mercy and we are to give it to others, and to let God be God and handle dishing out discipline when He feels it is right.  After all, he is God and we are not.

Please pray for me that I can keep the teaching at the kids level so they can learn the most about God’s love from our time together.  I am really excited for the opportunity.  I am also very thankful for the adults who are giving up their Saturday morning to minister to these kids.

If you are part of the LCC family or live in our area and are looking for a church home, I hope you will join us Sunday at LCC.  If you are part of another church family I hope you will go and worship, serve, and give at your church home.

Serving you for Christ

Royal

Number of Skeptics on Climate Change Swelling

I posted an article in October last year on an MIT study in which they believe from the data that Global warming is not caused by humans.  It has had more hits than any other post on this blog.  The link to that post is here….

I believe there are two sides to every story and I have struggled with the fact that the side for Human cause has had a huge bully platform and has given no credibility to the scientists and others who believe the other way.  The discenters group is growing and whether it is politically, economically, or the sky is falling driven, I still believe there needs to be an open and global discussion of the data.

There is a new article today in the WSJ by KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, The Climate Change Climate Change - The Number of Skeptics is swelling everywhere.  Here are some quotes from the article.

If you haven’t heard of this politician, it’s because he’s a member of the Australian Senate. As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as “deniers.” The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. — 13 times the number who authored the U.N.’s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world’s first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak “frankly” of her nonbelief.

Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming “the worst scientific scandal in history.”

The collapse of the “consensus” has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth’s temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02.

if the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for sure: They won’t be alone.

It is worth reading.  You can check out Strassel’s article here…..

Video: Amazing Basketball Shots

Pretty amazing Basketball Shots.  Shaq had this posted on his twitter account…..  https://twitter.com/THE_REAL_SHAQ

weekly e-mail to LCC – Unexplainable Peace

This is my weekly enote to friends and family of Life Connection Church in Euless, TX

Dear Friends,

I hope this note finds you well.  I know it already feels like summer outside, but the real first day of summer is not till this Sunday.  That’s right.  So click your heels together three times, turn around, and say over and over, “It’s not really hot outside.  It’s not really hot outside.  It’s not really hot outside.”  I know you are feeling better already.  Now, when you wake up on Sunday morning, and as you are piling your family in the car to go to church on Father’s day, you can say with confidence; “Man its hot outside.  I am glad the church is Air conditioned.”

One of the things I love about Christians coming together to serve or to go to church is that people who are hanging out with Jesus,  and obeying God have such a sweet peaceful spirit.  Last night we had our monthly “Thirsty Thursday” prayer night at LCC and what I probably enjoyed the most was the awesome and encouraging conversations I had with people after they had been meeting with God and were heading out of the building.

Hey..The Bible calls it the peace that passes all understanding…Unexplainable peace to someone who does not know Jesus…Now wouldn’t it be cool…If we practiced being in God’s presence all the time.   Yes, all the time, not just during church or at special “God occasions”. but if we practiced being in God’s presence all the time.

Guess what would happen?  Peace.  Peace as an employee or employer, peace as a parent, peace towards enemies, peace in all situations.   A peace that can only be understood because you are hanging out with God.  Someone would surely ask, “How come you are so peaceful in a situation like this.”  And you could answer truthfully, as in full of truth, “I love Jesus and the result is a peace that I really can not explain.”

Jesus said, ““I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.  John 14:27

I hope you will be in church practicing peace this Sunday for Father’s Day.  If you are part of the LCC family, or are looking for a church to call home, I hope you will join us.  I will be teaching from the Gospel of Luke and we will be looking at what Jesus calls “A Real Man.”  Actually I am calling it that because it is Father’s Day.  It is really Jesus teaching on what a real Christ-follower is.  Yes……It is for everybody.

Bring a neighbor….

See you Sunday

Royal

weekly e-mail to LCC – Sent

weekly e-note to Life Connection Church

Dear Friends,

I am really excited about what is going on tomorrow away from the LCC church building.  We will be doing church tomorrow for Kids in the clubhouse of an apartment complex in Euless.  Thanks to 6 Stone Ministries , Beach Club Children’s Ministries and Apartment Life Ministries we have been given an incredible opportunity.  This is a great chance to serve the kids of these apartments, teach them about Jesus in a very fun way, and minister to their parents who are a part of the 95% in the apartments that do not attend church.

Before I became a pastor I was a counselor.  God lead me toward pastoring by showing me that when people hurt, they leave the church.  People who hurt disconnect from God and others.  I felt lead to lead a church where people felt welcome and could be healed from the inside out no matter what life journey they had lived to get there.  I found, as a counselor, that healing came when I could get people connected with God and the fruit of that would be reconnecting with people.  That’s why LCC is called Life Connection Church…..  We connect people with God and each other by Loving God, Loving People, Serving, and Telling people about Jesus.  So when people come to LCC, our goal is to help them connect and then to grow into fully devoted followers of Christ. 

But what about the people who don’t come to church looking for God?  What about the people that need God but don’t know Jesus is what they need?  We, God’s church, have to take God to the people.  LCC’s main conduit for taking God to the people is our Deeds of Kindness ministry.  We go into the community and invest God’s love in others and then we may get a chance to share our hope in Christ.

Jesus taught that Christianity is about sending and telling and not waiting.  His commission to us Christ-followers as He was leaving earth was to “go and make disciples”.  Christianity is meant to be an aggressive, going forward, reaching out with love and truth faith.  I don’t know how the church that Jesus started while He was still on earth and empowered with His Spirit when he left became what it is today.  For the most part, the Christian church has become a passive sit and join us if you like club.  Oh, the church is full of good people.  But it is so easy, cause it is in our nature, to sit and be comfortable.  It takes sacrifice to go out among those who don’t believe the way we do, and love them.

I know what some of you may be thinking, that’s for missionaries or evangelists.  I am not called to go to Africa.  We are not all called to go to Africa and I believe that there are special missionary callings for some of us just like not all of us are called to pastor a church.  But we are all commanded to go and tell.  We are all commanded to go and love.  We are all commanded to live our lives among the pre-Christian in a way that we show the hope, grace, love, and forgiveness in such away that the unbeliever becomes curious and wants to know more.

But even if you suffer for doing what is right, God will reward you for it. So don’t worry or be afraid of their threats.  Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.  But do this in a gentle and respectful way.  Keep your conscience clear. Then if people speak against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ. 1 Pet 3:14-16

We have to get out of our comfort zone and get among the people.  Jesus said I am sending you out and sometimes it will be like sending lambs out to be with wolves.

Jesus said,  “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields. Luke 10:2

LCC is obediently going out to bring in the harvest.  We are also praying form more to go out into the harvest with us. 

Tomorrow is going to be awesome at some apartments in Euless.  Please pray for that ministry and the people who are participating.

Sunday is going to be great too….We will come together at LCC and worship and learn from the teaching of God’s Word.  This Sunday I will continue our unpacking of the Gospel of Luke as we learn from Jesus Himself, how to be a Christ-follower.  Sunday’s teaching is called “Sent”.  If you are part of the LCC family or do not have a church to call home, please join us.  You will be glad you did and we will be blessed by your presence.

We also have as special guests in Kid Connection….Topper and Twinkle the clowns.  Kids have a blast in Kid Connection and we teach them about Jesus.

Serving along side you for Him

Your brotha from anotha motha….

Royal

Get Blessings in a To Go Box

We are taught that to please God we must have faith. 

And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.  Heb 11:6

And real faith is not just believing in something, but believing and acting on it.  You may believe that an airplane will get you from point A to point B, but the act of faith comes when you act on that belief, buy a ticket, and let that plane take you somewhere.

Most people surveyed in America, (>90%)  believe in God.  A high percentage say they pray most every day, and a large majority believe in Jesus and that He is the Son of God.   The writer of Hebrews tells us that faith  is about sincerely seeking out God.  James writes that faith without works is not faith at all.  You do faith by being obedient and allowing God to work in your life and use you to bless others. 

God does amazing God things through regular full of faith Christians who bring their life and needs to him to allow Him to control and provide.  One of the most popular miracle stories of the New Testament was the feeding of the 5,000.  (This was just the head count of the men.  Counting the women and children there were probably well over 20,000.) 

Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread and fish to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers!  Luke 9:16-17

I love this story.  The disciples had a problem.  Thousands of people had spent all day in the wilderness, listening to Jesus teach.  The sun was going down and the disciples knew the people would be hungry and they had nothing or no way to feed them.  They suggested to Jesus it was time to send them home so they could eat and Jesus said, “You feed them.”  They immediately went into their “people without God” routine and panicked because there was no way.  No grocery store or Chik-filet was near, and even if there was, there was not enough money between them to pick up the tab.

So what do you do when you want to obey Jesus but there is no way you can humanly do so?  You give it to Jesus.  The God stuff did not happen until the diciples put it in God’s hands.  They had a little fish and bread and they turned it over to Jesus and He provided.  

I talk to Christians every day trying to handle the problems in their lives with a “people without God” mentality.  Unfortunately, people without God are selfish.  How do I take care of myself?  They are so busy worrying about me, myself, and I, they turn in and take an every man for himself position.  Wrong move. 

Jesus says, “You feed them.”  We say, “But Lord, I am having a hard time taking care of my own needs right now.” 

Jesus says, “You feed them.  Be obedient, give me your problems, and work at blessing and taking care of others.”

And when you do…..

They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers!

People get blessed by Christians who are representing Jesus’ love.  That makes you obedient.  That makes you a person of faith.  That pleases God.  And He gives you a to go box full of blessings to take home.  

An Act of Kindness Can Change a Life

I found this story in Jim Tressel’s The Winners Manual.  It is in the chapter on love.  We go about our lives being too busy to pay much attention to what is going on in the lives of others.  Sometimes, just going out of our way a little bit to show you care can change someone’s life or at least brighten up their day.  The simple gesture written about below, literally turned around the life of someone with no hope.

A Simple Gesture by John W. Schlatter

Mark was walking home from school one day when he noticed that the boy ahead of him had tripped and dropped all the books he was carrying, along with two sweaters, a baseball bat, a glove, and a small tape recorder.  Mark bent down and helped the boy pick up the scattered articles.  Since they were going the same way, he helped to carry part of the burden.  As they walked, Mark discovered the boy’s name was Bill, that he loved video games, baseball, and history, that he was having a lot of trouble with his other subjects, and that he had just broken up with his girlfriend.

Mark went home after dropping Bill at his house.  They continued to see each other around school, had lunch together once or twice, then both graduated from junior high school.  They ended up in the same high school, where they had brief contacts over the years.  Finally, the long awaited senior year came.  Three weeks before graduation, Bill asked Mark if they could talk.

Bill reminded him of the day years ago when they had first met.  “Do you ever wonder whay I was carrying so many things home that day?”  asked Bill.  “You see, I cleaned out my locker because I didn’t want to leave a mess for anyone else.  I had stored away some of my mother’s sleeping pills, and I was going home to commit suicide.  But after we spent some time together talking and laughing, I realized that if I killed myself, I would have missed that time and so many others that might follow.  So you see Mark, when you picked up my books that day, you did a lot more.  You saved my life.”

Find someone to be kind to today.  It could mean way more than you think.

weekly email to LCC – Unity and Competition

This is my weekly enote to Friends and Family at Life Connection Church in Euless, TX

Dear Friends,

I hope all is well.  This Texas spring or summer or spring in the summer for the past few days have been absolutely incredible.  I write and study on my back porch on Thursdays and Fridays and I thank God for awesome weather and Wi-Fi.  I remember working for years in a cubicle in a building with no windows.   So I feel for those of you who wait for your break, lunch, or a reason to leave your desk to get a look at outside on days like this.  I hope when you get off work you can forget about business and enjoy everything, including  the weather, that God has blessed you with.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but I get more and more excited about LCCers and their love for God and others.  There are many churches across the country that kind of slow down a little ministry wise in the summer.  It is easy to understand why, people are traveling, they have their mind on vacations, they are dealing with kids out of school, it costs more to air-condition buildings, and there are many other reasons.  At LCC we have definitely slowed down during past summers.  But not this summer.

Summer is happening at LCC this year.  Since we try to keep things simple, we don’t have a lot of ministries, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have a lot of ministry going on.  We started the new Beth Moore Women’s Bible Study, Esther, this last Tuesday night and we had 40 women full of energy and ready to study God’s Word.  We had 15 people at a training last Sunday night for the new Clubhouse for Kids apartment ministry we will be doing all summer and another 10 adults sign up to minister to the adults in the apartments.  We have 25 adults and teens going to Chicago on July 4 on a serving mission trip and a group of children along with adult shepherds going to children’s camp in June.  We already have several lined up to be baptized at the end of the month.

People at LCC are excited about loving God and loving people by being God’s love with skin.  We have close to 70 LCCers signed up to serve by working on houses on June 19-20 as part of the Euless Revitalization (ER) program.  Last Summer, LCC and two other churches went into partnership with the city of Euless to help people who needed some sprucing up of their houses.  FBC Euless and Restoration Church did major remodels on a couple of houses.  We had 50 volunteers from LCC which is incredible for a church of our current size.  This year, with two weeks left till the project, we have close to 70 registered to serve. 

The City of Euless set a goal of 500 volunteers from churches across the area to serve in the ER project.  It is exciting to see churches across city and denomination lines come together to serve those in need. 

We learned in last weeks teaching that unity is a part of God’s planto make His mission on earth work.  Brent got a call this week from the Euless fireman in the code department and he said our church was leading in the number of volunteers for the program.  He said this Sunday he has set a goal to inlist enough volunteers at his church to pass us in numbers.  How cool is that?  Churches in unity also competing with each other to show God’s love.  Way better than fighting about something.

I am really pumped.  And I am excited about what I will be teaching this week.  This week we will be finishing up chapter nine in the Gospel of Luke.  This week Jesus challenges us to know “The Cost of Following” Him.  Jesus teaches that if we are going to be a Christ-follower there will be some challenges and we will sometimes be out of our comfort zone. 

If you are part of the LCC family or are looking for a church family and live in our area,  I hope you will join us for an incredible day Sunday.

Serving along side you for Him

Royal

Practice is the Secret to Greatness

If you have not read it yet, Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers – The Story of Success is a good read and I think very interesting.  Outliers, according to Gladwell are men and women that do things out of or above the ordinary.  This includes, geniuses, business tycoons, rock stars, software programmers, athletes, and whoever goes above and beyond the ordinary to great or success.

Chapter two, “The 10,000 – Hour Rule” is probably my favorite chapter.  It definitely is an encouragement to work on your craft and practice, practice, practice.  Below are some quotes from this chapter.

• the closer psychologists look at careers of the gifted, the smaller the role innate talent seems to play and the bigger the role preparation seems to play.
• the students (in a violin class) who would end up the best in their class began to practice more than everyone else: six hours a week by age nine, eight hours a week by age twelve, sixteen hours a week by age fourteen, and up and up, until by the age of twenty they were practicing–that is purposefully and single-mindedly playing their instruments with the intent to get better–well over thirty hours a week.
• by age twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice.  By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.
• study could not find any “naturals”, musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did.
• nor could they find any “grinds”, people who worked harder than anyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks.
• the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works.
• The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert–in anything.
• no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.  It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
• practice isn’t the thing you do once you are good.  It’s the thing you do that makes you good.

He goes on to give several examples of successful people who had practiced for 10,000 hours or more before reaching the elite level.  One group included is the “Beatles“.

Practice, Practice, Practice…..

“Up” – Good School’s Out Movie

I have been hearing parents talk about it and seeing them write on Facebook about school being out and wondering what to do with kids.  Well from what I have heard from kids, teens, and adults, the new Disney/Pixar movie “Up” is a good flick for all.  Lisa and I may go see it this weekend if we don’t go to see Angels and Demons.  The trailer on the “Up” website is good and Carolyn Arends of Christianity Today gave it four out of a possible four stars.

“Up” is also showing in 3D or regular. 

In The Family Corner of Ms. Arends’ review she writes that  “Up is rated PG for mild peril and action. The action scenes are roughly as frightening for young children as those in Finding Nemo or Monsters, Inc., although, different from those movies, the death of one person and several dogs is implied (they are seen falling, but their landing is not shown). The adult situations Carl faces (losing his wife and being forced to move to a retirement home) may be disturbing for some children, but the material is handled subtly enough that it’s likely to go over the heads of the very young.”

Here are a few lines from Arends:

Up, the tenth feature film from Pixar Animation Studios, is a swashbuckling, continent-hopping adventure and an under-stated, nuanced psychodrama. It’s an outlandish, wildly creative fantasy and an almost devastatingly poignant piece of realism. It’s laugh-out-loud funny and try-to-hide-your-sobs moving.

…Director Pete Docter (Monsters, Inc.) and screenplay writer and co-director Bob Peterson (Finding Nemo) manage to mine great depths of emotion from the lives and needs of their two heroes without falling into maudlin or saccharine territory. A five-minute, wordless montage near the beginning of the film (reminiscent of the head-turning extended dialogue-free portion of Pixar’s previous film, Wall-E) tells the story of Carl and Ellie’s life together simply and exquisitely. It’s a jaw-dropping piece of filmmaking, and Up only gets deeper, funnier, more exciting and more moving from there.

While most movies aimed at kids and families beat the “Go for your dreams!” mantra to death, Up dares to suggest that the dreams we defer—and the reasons we defer them—might matter more in the end.

The film bursts with vivid color and fluid action, but it’s the subtle things—the way Carl’s stubble grows in or what we learn about his character through the creases around his eyes—that help make Uparguably the most elegant of all the Pixar films. The filmmakers use 3-D technology to render the movie visually richer and deeper, but they avoid the “make-’em-duck” gimmickry that has made other 3D offerings wearisome. As a result, the 3-D option is enjoyable but not essential, and some film aficionados are arguing that the brighter bulbs used in 2-D projection are more important to appreciating Up’s beauty.

Ultimately, though, it’s the story, as in all of Pixar’s offerings, that makes Up a masterpiece. The characters are indelible, the humor organic, the adventure original, and the theme profound. Funny thing is, it’s the details you’ll remember the most.

It sure sounds like a good movie.  You can see the rest of the review by clicking here…..

New Business Grads Promise to be Ethical

It’s a start.  About 20% of of students graduating from Harvard Business School with an MBA have signed a voluntary student lead oath to commit to doing business as a manager to “serve the greater good”.   ”It promises that Harvard M.B.A.’s will act responsibly, ethically and refrain from advancing their “own narrow ambitions” at the expense of others.”

In a world were commitment to anything but personal gain seems to have been thrown out the window, this is big news.  And I think it is sad that its big news because a commitment to moral and ethical behavior is a rarity.   It would be nice if we did not live in a mostly look out for number one world.  But we do.

Leslie Wayne asks in a NY Times article, “What happened to making money?”

Below are some excerpts from the article.  You can link to the piece in the Times here…..

“We want to stand up and recite something out loud with our class,” said Teal Carlock, who is graduating from Harvard and has accepted a job at Genentech. “Fingers are now pointed at M.B.A.’s and we, as a class, have a real opportunity to come together and set a standard as business leaders.”

At Columbia Business School, all students must pledge to an honor code: “As a lifelong member of the Columbia Business School community, I adhere to the principles of truth, integrity, and respect. I will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” The code has been in place for about three years and came about after discussions between students and faculty.

Business school professors…are seeing a generational shift away from viewing an M.B.A. as simply an on-ramp to the road to riches.

A decade ago, Wharton had one or two professors who taught a required ethics class. Today there are seven teaching an array of ethics classes that Ms. Robertson said were among the most popular at the school.

There is the feeling that we want our lives to mean something more and to run organizations for the greater good,” said Max Anderson, one of the pledge’s organizers who is about to leave Harvard and take a job at Bridgewater Associates, a money management firm.

Dalia Rahman, who is about to leave Harvard for a job with Goldman Sachs in London, said she signed the pledge because “it takes what we learned in class and makes it more concrete. When you have to make a public vow, it’s a way to commit to uphold principles.”

weekly email to LCC – You Got to Go to Grow

This is my weekly enote to friends and family of Life Connection Church.

Dear Friends,

I am writing today under the influence of cold medicine.  It does not enhance creativity at all.  I have found it is very hard to be creative when you have to read the same sentence over and over again.  I think the best thing to do while taking cold medicine is sleep, but it is hard to sleep when you are drowning.  Sorry if that line was TMI, but many of you this week know exactly what I am talking about.  I am just praying I have a voice Sunday, because my most favorite thing in the world is teaching the relevant and life changing Word of God from His Holy Scriptures.  I am thankful and blessed that I am not sick very often ’cause I am not very good at it.  Ask Lisa…

You have often heard that the church is not the building but the people.  So I won’t tell you that.  What I will tell you, is that the awesomeness of the people being the church, is that the church is not confined by a building.  The church has the freedom to go into all the world with the incredible unselfish love of Jesus Christ.  As a matter of fact, we are not only free and privileged to be able to go outside the church walls, we are commanded by Jesus himself to do so.

“Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19 Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  Matt 28:18-20

We are commanded to take the church of Jesus outside the facilities of the church.  And what is the best way to go and make?  Show  and tell.  We are to go out into the world and show God’s love and tell of our hope and salvation.  The best way to grow is to go.

I am so excited to pastor a church that is made up of show and tell disciples.  LCC people love going outside the building of the church to serve and be God’s love with skin in our community and anywhere else we can find to do so.

Through our Deeds of Kindness (DOK) ministry we have a lot of “go and make” service going on and we are taking more on as we grow and have the opportunity.  Christ following is by no means easy, we are to take up our cross and live a life of sacrifice.  But Jesus made it simple.  Love God and Love People….And we do.

We have a group of men at LCC, that have made a one year commitment to being discipled in leadership, we call “Iron Men”.

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.  Prov 27:17

Some of the men in the group are on their second year of commitment.  In the group we develop as spiritual leaders through reading and discussing  books, studying the Word of God, meeting and serving together. 

This month we read,  Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together   by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.  It is an incredible story that takes place mostly at the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County.    This is not a book review but I will tell you it is a life changing book.  Our group, after serving and feeding the homeless at the Mission last night, sat at a local restaurant and shared our experience of reading the book and then serving in the mission.   

I think the three things I heard most as we gathered were:

1. Serving those who need serving is perspective and life changing.
2. Serving makes us more thankful for our many blessings.
3. Taking service outside of the church is a major catalyst to spiritual growth.

Jesus is our role model.  For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  Matt 20:28

We have had several groups go and serve at the mission and LCC has made it a part of our DNA to serve where we can.

This Summer at LCC is a service summer.  Brent has lined up many opportunities to “Go and Grow”.  This will be a life changing summer for the servants of LCC and the people they will be serving.

I am looking forward to teaching this Sunday.  We will be in the Gospel of Luke learning to be like Jesus.  This weeks talk is called, “Greatness Misunderstood.”  Jesus’ ideas and commands on greatness are much different than the world’s ways.  This Sunday we will see how and you will see that being great, in Jesus’ eyes, is more simple than you think.  (I did say simple and not easy)

If you are part of the LCC family or if you are looking for a church home please join us Sunday.   If you want to check the teaching at LCC you can listen to the audio at http://www.lifeconnectionchurch.org/Pages/downloads.cfm

God Bless and have a great weekend

Yo Brotha from anotha motha

Royal

Thanks for the Tribute to War Heroes Ms. Noonan

I really like Peggy Noonans article this week “Those who make us say Oh!”  It is a tribute to war heroes.

I have a hard time understanding why some people are made heroes today.  Athletes, Musicians, and movie stars are worshiped because they are doing something they love and making bizillions of dollars…..

A hero by definition is a person of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.  Who best to recognize as heroes than our countries warriors…..I don’t understand why they don’t stop prime time viewing and give us a chance to be proud of our hero warriors…….They should have a break in the TV action and show there picture, a little about their background, and we should get to cheer for their heroic deed……

Below is a link to Ms. Noonan’s article…….I am sure you will enjoy it and I thank her for writing it…..

Those who make us say Oh!…by peggy Noonan

The category of military hero—warrior—fell off a bit, in part because of the bad reputation of war. Some emerged of heroic size—Gens. Pershing and Patton, Eisenhower and Marshall. But somewhere in the 1960s I think we decided, or the makers of our culture decided, that to celebrate great warriors was to encourage war. And we always have too much of that. So they made a lot of movies depicting soldiers as victims and officers as brutish. This was especially true in the Vietnam era and the years that followed. Maybe a correction was in order: It’s good to remember war is hell. But when we removed the warrior, we removed something intensely human, something ancestral and stirring, something celebrated naturally throughout the long history of man. Also it was ungrateful: They put themselves in harm’s way for us.

weekly email to LCC – Summer God’s Love with Skin

This is my weekly e-note to family and friends of Life Connection Church in Euless, TX

Dear Friends,

WoW……It is cool when God’s people pray.  Maybe cool is not the word.  Maybe it’s awesome.  Maybe special.  Thanks to all of you who left whatever you do on a Thursday night and came to LCC last night for Thirsty Thursday and prayed.  It was a sweet night for all involved and I know, God was our happy Father that his children came and sought him out in a family prayer time.   We prayed last night for all kinds of individual and church needs and that we bless God with our lives and our desires.  We thanked Him for His blessings…..

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need.God is pleased when we seek him out and he answers prayers.  Luke 12:31 

We try to keep things simple at LCC.  We know that ministry is about loving God and loving people and we pray about opportunites to Grow individually, as a church, and for more opportunites to be God’s love with skin. 

We have a lot of ministry going on outside of the church walls this summer and God has just presented us with another opportunity and we are going for it.  LCC will be teaming up with; 6 Stones Missions Network, Kids Beach Club, and Apartment Life Ministries to take the Good News of Jesus to our community and be God’s Love with Skin.  This summer we will be a pilot test for Kids Beach Club in a couple of Euless apartment complexes.  Every Saturday we will provide a Christian Club for Elementary aged kids that will meet in the apartments club house.  We will also be working with the cares team of Apartment Life, a couple living there to do ministry and build community, to build relationships and minister to the apartment families. (More skin)

Why is this such a big deal you ask?  Cause more than 95% of apartment communities do not go to church.  What a great opportunity to take the love of God outside the walls of LCC and love others.  We already have 20 adults signed up to help with the Kids Clubhouse.

Along with this opportunity we will be participating in Euless Revitalization again this summer by fixing up houses for people in need and we have a group of teens and adults going to Chicago on a service (God’s love with skin) mission trip in July.

There is no excuse to be sitting on the bench and not being in the game at LCC.  I mean the Kingdom Game.  The game that changes people’s lives for eternity.  I hope you will jump in and serve.  You can sign up on Sunday mornings or you can email Brent brent@lifeconnectionchurch.org and he will get you plugged in.

And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” Rom 10:15

Last Sunday we got back into teaching in the Gospel of Luke.  We looked at the amazing story of Jesus’ transfiguration in “A Peek at Heaven.”  It was an awesome time unpacking God’s Word.  You can hear the teaching by going here….  

This Sunday’s talk is, “The Mundane Effect.”  It is more sick than the swine flu but there is an incredible life changing cure…..

Join us Sunday and bring a friend

Yo brotha from anotha motha

Royal

Gallup Poll: First Time More Americans Pro-Life than Pro-Choice

Here is an interesting poll from Gallup.  I wonder how much technology that now shows the baby/fetus is not just a viable tissue but a baby has effected the numbers?  It is possible also that the aggressiveness at going at abortion by the media and liberal politicians has moved people who were kind of on the fence toward life.

PRINCETON, NJ — A new Gallup Poll, conducted May 7-10, finds 51% of Americans calling themselves “pro-life” on the issue of abortion and 42% “pro-choice.” This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995.

Click here for the numbers and the info…..

A Peek at Heaven..It looks like Pure Pleasure

The Audio to the entire teaching can be found here…..

Last Sunday I was teaching about the transfiguration of Jesus.  Besides the resurrection of Christ this is by far the most incredible thing that Jesus did to show that he was not just another teacher, prophet, or a religious revolutionary.  He showed He is God.  Jesus had just told his disciples that “some standing here right now will not die before they see the Kingdom of God.”  Lk 9:27    Of course no one had a clue what he was talking about. 

About a week later, Jesus took his inner-circle, Peter, James, and John up on a mountain to pray.  And then it happened;

…As Jesus was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white.  Luke 9:29

Jesus showed these guys just a peek of heaven.  Jesus dropped his human skin and showed his heavenly body in all of his heavenly glory.  Now we don’t know much from the Holy Scriptures about what it  will be like in heaven.  We do know we will have new bodies, we do know there will be no sin, no crying, no pain.  We have been taught that it will be centered around worshiping God and our relationship to him.  The Scriptures teach us we will be with the Father in Heaven for eternity if we believe and make Jesus lord of our lives.  But we really don’t know what that eternal experience will be.  And neither did the disciples…or did they.

I noticed as I was studying that passage that there seemed to be something missing on the part of the disciples when Jesus “Whited Out”.  How do you think you would have reacted if Jesus pulled this in front of you?  My first thought is fear.  My thinking is that it would have scared the “you know what out of me” to have the mentor I had been following around for the last three years drop his skin and blind me with his glorious majesty.  But that’s not what happened. 

Check this out….. Peter, not even knowing what he was saying, blurted out, “Master, it’s wonderful for us to be here! vs. 33

Where is the fear? 

There is none…..Peter went on to say I will build a place for you and we can stay here.

No fear, just pure pleasure…better than any drug….not even knowing what he was saying….If you have ever thought it might be boring hanging out in heaven worshiping God for eternity, think again.  Peter was ready to leave everything and stay on that mountain with Jesus and his glory forever……Pure Pleasure…The thing we seek through everything in life bad and good is in the presence of the heavenly Jesus like you could never imagine….

Heaven…It is that awesome feeling you get when you are in the presence of God here on earth…You know what I am talking about….Times a bizillion.

Thank you Jesus for a peek at Heaven.

LCC Thirsty Thursday Tomorrow Night

Thirsty Thursday:  7:00-9:00pm  Come and go……      http://www.lifeconnectionchurch.org/ 

So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.  Heb 4:16

  

Last month we had a call to prayer we called Thirsty Thursday.  We had about 40 adults come to spend time with God together and pray.  It was a very special evening.  The response we received from those who came and prayed was an attitude of gratitude and was very moving.

 

Mother Teresa wrote:  “Prayer is not asking.  Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at his disposition, and listening to His voice in the depths of our hearts.”

 

We have many prayer requests from LCCers.  We have them on a prayer list that all participants will receive and they will be prayed for.  And we are going to get close to God and listen.  We are going to pray that we put ourselves as a church and individuals in God’s hands for we know he knows best and wants what is best for us. 

 

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Phil 4:6

 

When we focus on or worry about the problems in our lives, the problems get huge and God gets small.  So what do we do?  We refocus.  If we can focus on God instead of worrying about our problems, God will get BIG…  We need more God!!! 

 

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.   2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.  When can I go and meet with God? Ps 42:1-2

 

We are thirsty…. We are thirsty for God…And unless we set aside time for Him, it is easy to put Him on the back burner…and it is easy to keep worrying about life instead of living the full life for which Jesus sacrificed his life.

 

This Thursday night, tomorrow night, is Thirsty Thursday at LCC.  Our worship center will be open, and the room will be designated as a place to pray and to seek God.

 

When:  7:00-9:00pm

This will be a time of silent prayer as a community of faith looking for nourishment and guidance from our Father in Heaven.  It is come and go.  We will have a list of needs for our country, community, church, and individuals for which to pray.  We will have someone available to pray for you and your needs specifically if you wish. 

 

Please come and join us.  We will be focusing on vertical communication with our Father.   

 

Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. ¹⁴ Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. James 5:13-15

weekly email to LCC – Misguided Faith

This is my weekly e-note to friends and family of Life Connection Church in Euless, TX…..

Dear Friends,

I hope this note finds you well.  I was studying this morning and I came across….

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.  Ecc 11:5

Ecclesiastes was written by King Solomon.  The Bible says that King Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived.  Not just smart.  He had Wisdom.  …Not just regular I have lived and learned wisdom…  He had divine wisdom from God, because when asked what he wanted from God, as the newly anointed king, Solomon responded:

Give me an understanding heart so that I can govern your people well and know the difference between right and wrong. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”   ¹⁰ The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for wisdom. ¹¹ So God replied, “Because you have asked for wisdom in governing my people with justice and have not asked for a long life or wealth or the death of your enemies—¹² I will give you what you asked for! I will give you a wise and understanding heart such as no one else has had or ever will have!  1 Kings 3:9-12

Now it sounds to me that Solomon was already pretty wise.  Instead of asking for the wishes of most people (vs. 11), that are about me,  Solomon asked for God’s wishes that he would know through God’s wisdom.

Solomon realized that following God is about God, not self.  And here is the deal…..Because Solomon focused on God, instead of self, God blessed Solomon in more ways than he ever could have imagined.   And, as a side note, Solomon still, with all of the wisdom, made some bad choices that messed up a big portion of his life.  And gained wisdom through his bad choices….(That is how we got Ecclesiastes)

Back to the first verse in this post.  I talk to people all the time who are upset because they have made attempts to be faithful, and because life is not working like they planned, they are upset because they have not, in their mind, received the “perks” they expect for being faithful. Some actually pull away from God.  Like there is somewhere else to go better than the God of the Universe who loved us so much He sent his only Son to die for us.

James wrote, …when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.  James 4:3

Believe me, I know how painful it is to cry out to God and feel He is not answering or that I am not benefiting from the effort of my faith.  But, I cannot understand the activity of God….So instead of seeking pleasure, I need to be seeking wisdom…Not “been there done that wisdom”, but divine wisdom from Wisdom Himself.  As Christ-followers, we need to be seeking out the wisdom that pleases God rather than the pleasure that comes from what we believe to be answered prayer. 

What is your motive for being faithful?  If it is to receive pleasure, then it is not faith.  Jesus said, “Seek God First”.  and then…..Matt 6:33

What are you doing this Sunday?  If you are a part of the LCC family or you are looking for a church family to be a part of, please join us.  I have finished the “Majoring in Butology” series.  It was an awesome five weeks of looking at the changes that come in our lives from following  Jesus.  You can hear those messages at http://www.lifeconnectionchurch.org/Pages/downloads.cfm.

This week I am excited to be back in the Gospel of Luke.  And this weeks talk is called, “A Peek of Heaven.”  It is awesome teaching from the Word of God.

Also, we will be introducing to LCC a great opportunity to be God’s love with skin to a very unchurched group of people who live in our area.  We will be partnering with three other local ministries and have a great chance to Love God and Love People even more than LCC has already been loving.

See ya Sunday…Yo brotha from anotha motha

Royal

Truth About Angels, Demons, and God

The new Ron Howard movie, Angels and Demons is out today.   I posted a review on it here…

Although the movie is not really a movie about angels and demons, spirituality and spiritual beings are topics of much interest.  Where do you get your information about spiritual beings?  There are many theories or beliefs.  I believe there is only one source of the truth.

Last October I read Dan Brown’s, Angels and Demons and decided to do a Sunday morning talk on what the Bible teaches about Angels, Demons, and God.

The teaching series is “The Truth About Angels, Demons, and God.”   

Below are the MP3 links for this three part series.  You can download the MP3 by right clicking and selecting “save target as”. 

or You can stream the teaching by left clicking and listening on your Microsoft Widows Media player.  You can down load the latest version here…..   http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/default.mspx

The Truth About Angels

The Truth About Demons

The Truth About God