Kids Clubs this weekend

Dear Parents,

I’m excited for this weekend’s Kids Clubs activities.  After several days of rain, the sun is shining and it is HOT outside.  It is so hot, I just saw a dog chasing a cat, and they were both walking <cue laugher>.

This weekend in Kids Clubs we are going to have a rocking good time.  Our rainbows (pre-school age kids) will have an awesome lesson in their classroom, and super fun activities that they will enjoy.

The preschooler don’t have a corner on the market for fun though… The elementary age kids will be out in the sun at the newly rebuilt Pioneer Park having the Kids Place first ever “WATER WARS.”  Yes, it is going to be as fun as it sounds.  Be sure your kids come ready to get wet.  If they have a favorite water toy they want to bring, it will be most welcomed.  We will have some squirt guns, lots of water balloons and as much fun as one can have.

Parents are invited to drop their kids off at 5:45 at pioneer park (that should give you enough time to get to church on time), and we are requesting that you return to pick your kids up by 7:45.  Any parents who want to participate or watch are also welcome.

Sometimes, we forget things, it happens to the best of us.  If that should happen to you this weekend, and your kids show up at church, do not worry.  With your permission, we will take them to pioneer park so they don’t miss out on all the fun.  This also works if you lead a group, or otherwise serve the church in a capacity that does not allow you to bring your children to the park at this time.

If the weather turns bad on us, please check the webpage (www.pendletonfirst.com/kidsplace) for updates.

One last thing:  Attached to this email is the Kids Club Activity from.  If you have not already filled one out, please print and fill it out and drop it off with your child.  We’ll have extras too if you forget.

See you Sunday at Pioneer Park at around 5:45!

 

Pastor Brad

Kids Camp Prayer this week

Thanks for praying along with me for kids camp.  Here is the weeks prayer focus:

Here is the next group of 7 prayers for our camps this year. Please join us and continue to pray for God’s move in this next generation.

1. Pray for children in 3rd grade
2. Pray for children in 4th grade
3. Pray for children in 5th grade
4. Pray for children entering the 6th grade
5. Pray for follow up partners after camp
6. Pray for all materials to distributed smoothly after camp (DVD’s, lost items, etc.)
7. Pray for excitement to remain high

Thanks!  I’m excited to see how God moves through our kids lives and the lives of everyone involved!

Prayer This Week Kids Camp

Thanks for praying with me for Kids Camps!  As all the prep work is getting done, I’m getting more and more excited watching God work out the details.  Please join with me in praying for these things this week:

1.  Pray for the witness of volunteers at home and work
2.  Pray for parents that are not involved in their kids’ lives
3.  Pray for those without a church home
4.  Pray for church members to reach out to those without church homes
5.  Pray for the witness of all youth involved at home and school/work
6.  Pray for the families of all of our pastors
7.  Pray for children in 2^nd grade

Thanks Friends!

Kids Camp Prayer Week

We are another week closer to Kids Camp 2013!  Thanks for all who are praying with me for the kids, staff and speakers.  Here is the prayer focus for this week:

1.Pray for our Activity, Décor, and Chapel time coordinator; Pastor Harvey Walls

2.Pray for our Prayer Coordinator; Pastor Isaiah McGarry

3.Pray for fun, organized, and safe activities for all

4.Pray for all of our prayer partners

5.Pray for operation of all equipment to be flawless

6.Pray for consistent prayer among all our prayer partners

7.Pray for kids with difficult home situations

Thanks for praying!

Camp Prayer This week

Thanks for joining so many others in praying for Oregon Kids Camps this year.  These are the prayer focuses for this week:

1. Pray for our network leaders assistant; Amber Greer
2. Pray for a spirit of fun and joy among all the campers and leaders
3. Pray for the counselors as they share devotional time with the campers
4. Pray for preparation of hearts to receive the gospel
5. Pray safe travel for the camp coordinators to and from meetings
6. Pray for the opportunity to invite non Christian kids and parents to church prior to and after camp
7. Pray for our Games Coordinators; Pastor Sheryl McLean and Pastor Jeff Stallings

Kids Camp Prayer

Sorry, I have been preoccupied with life to get the camp prayer items out.  Thank you for praying with me!

Here are the prayer items for this week:

1. Pray for Non Christian parents to send their kids to camp
2. Pray for the maintenance team, that all things would work properly
3. Pray for the safety of everyone helping at or attending a camp
4. Pray for all volunteers to experience spiritual growth before, during, and after camp
5. Pray for pray for all kids to experience spiritual growth before, during, and after camp
6. Pray our Camp Coordinators; Western Camp, Pastor St. John Eyre and Eastern Camp, Pastor Brad Shimomura
7. Pray for our network leader; Pastor Brian Eno

Successful camps are the result of praying the price.  Kids are going to have a great encounter with God this year at camp!

An open letter to pastors {A non-mom speaks about Mother’s Day}

Great thoughts on Mother’s Day… My wife and I have been in many of these categories.

The Messy Middle

PLEASE see the updated version of this post at  An open letter to pastors {a non-mom speaks on Mother’s Day} at The Messy Middle. This one is closed for comments, but that one is open and I’d love to hear from you.

It also includes resources for pastors and a chance to sign up for my quarterly newsletter. Please do not subscribe on this page but at The Messy Middle. I didn’t realize this page was still active 🙂 … but with over 40,000 hits today, I’m glad to be wrong!

I’ve also written 10 ideas for pastor’s on Mother’s Day and you can get The Wide Spectrum on Mothering in PDF.

Thanks for stopping by. Amy

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Dear Pastor,

Tone can be tricky in writing. Picture me popping my head in your office door, smiling and asking if we could talk for five minutes. I’m…

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Kids Camp!!!

I’m more excited this year for kids camp than I think I’ve ever been!  There are so many reasons for excitement: We have an amazing speaker in Missionary Phil Malcolm!  We are going to be trying some new things that will be really fun for the kids and engaging in the worship experiences!  We have an amazing team that will make the camp the best camp our kids have ever been to!  And last but most important, I know God is going to change kids’ lives at Camp Elkanah!

There are so many things that we do for our kids camps in Oregon that I love, but this might be my favorite: We have 100 days of prayer leading up to our camps, and we try to get 100 people to pray along with us.  Would you consider joining in the 100 Days of prayer?  Each week, I’ll post the prayer topics for each day of prayer for that week.  Our Prayer coordinator takes great care in this task to strategically plan certain prayer items on certain days according how things are planned.  If you have 1 minute, 1 hour, or 3 hours to pray over these needs, it is greatly appreciated

If you would like to join in the 100 days of prayer, would you please let me know in the comments below? Thanks!

Here are the prayer needs for the first week of the 100 days of Prayer:

1. Pray great team meetings
2. Pray for enough volunteer staff
3. Pray for favor among vendors that donate to camps
4. Pray for all upcoming camps within the network (Summer Camp, Royal Rangers, Missionettes, Royal Family Kids Camps, etc.)
5. Pray for a wonderful spirit among all involved
6. Pray for scholarships for those cannot afford to attend a camp
7. Pray for enough camp staff

Thanks again!

Sunday is Coming

I can’t even begin to imagine how the disciples felt on Friday.  Their friend, leader, SAVIOR, was killed.  They thought that He was going to set their people free!  They thought He was going to overturn the cruel rule of the Romans!  They thought that He was going to change history forever!  They were right; they just didn’t know it yet.  But its Friday, and here He laid, dead.  Crucified. They were disappointed.  Sad. Upset.  Unsure.  Angry.  Confused.. I could go on.

Maybe you are in the same situation.  I mean, not exactly… I’m pretty sure you don’t know anyone who was crucified, and I’m fairly sure that your Savior does not lie dead.  But maybe you had high hopes for something, and it now disappointingly lays at your feet.  Maybe you were looking to someone who turned out not to be who you thought they were.  Or maybe a job didn’t work out the way you were hoping (I’ve been there).  Or maybe, you wanted something so badly, and you came so close to getting it, and now you are disappointed… sad… unsure… or something worse.

I’ve got good news for you… Sunday is coming.

The disciples felt all these things and more when they laid the body of Jesus to rest in a borrowed tomb.  However, they did not see the big picture.  Jesus HAD TO die on that cross.  He had to pay the price for sin of all people.  He had die, so that we might live.  Then, Jesus would rise again.  What the disciples did not know is that in the next couple of days, they would realize Jesus power.  In order to defeat death, Jesus had to succumb to death.

I don’t know what your circumstance is, what disappointed you, or what breaks your heart.  I do know this one thing: Very few people can see the big picture as they are walking through disappointment.  We can have faith in the bigger picture, and trust that God knows what He is doing, but very rarely do people know everything what is going on.

Here is my story:  A couple of years ago, I left Portland, Oregon with my wife, and son who was less than a year old.  We had lived in Portland for 4 years.  We loved Portland.  We loved our home.  We loved my job.  But it was not God’s plan for us.  What was ahead of us? Uncertainty.  What was our emotional state? Broken, upset, sad, angry… I had no job to go to, no home to call my own.  Just my parents’ basement, some cash stored up and faith.

God provided.  When we needed money, God provided in various ways.  When I needed a job, God provided.  What my family and I did not see was a much better opportunity that God had in store for us… Yes, that time was very difficult for us.  It was our Friday.  But like the disciples, we did not know that Sunday was coming.

Eventually, at just the right time, God provided the right opportunity for us.  A pastor called me and was interested in hiring me as the children’s pastor in a rural town in Eastern Oregon (Pendleton).  It was out of curiosity that we went, because we heard so many great things about the church.  I’ve never lived in a rural area before, and I wasn’t sure if I’d like it (turns out, small towns are awesome).  At just the right time, God showed up and reminded me that though we all have Fridays like the disciples had, Sunday is coming.

No matter what situation you are facing, Sunday is coming.  Your Sunday may not look like the disciple’s Sunday, when they found Jesus to be alive again.  It may not be that dramatic.  It may not be exactly what you were hoping for, but Sunday is coming.  Jesus is still in the business of working miracles.

It might be Friday, but Sunday is coming!

Sabbath

Exodus 20:8 “Remember the Sabbath, by keeping it holy.”

Can you say the 10 commandments by heart?  I’ll be honest, I can only do it because of a silly pneumonic device my Children’s Pastor taught when I was a kid.  We had a 10 week series on the 10 commandments, and though I can’t remember any of the lessons, I do remember the poster they made and the phrase that we used to remember them: GIVeS F/M show me your MASLE (we said ma-sa-lee), but it was supposed to be like muscle.  Each capital letter was the key word for the commandment.  In order they are:

1. God’s (Have no other gods)
2. Idols (Don’t bow down to other idols)
3. Vain (Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain)
4. Sabbath (Honor it)
5. Father/Mother (Honor them)
6. Murder (Again, Don’t do it)
7. Adultery (Don’t go there)
8. Stealing (If it is not yours, don’t take it)
9. Lying (Just don’t)
10. Envy (Be content with what you have)

When we look at this list of do’s and don’ts, some are really easy for most people who call themselves Christians to follow (like murder, stealing, bowing down to idols), and others are more difficult.  There are a lot of discussions that we can have about what the 10 commandments mean for us today, but that’s another discussion for another day…

In case you missed it, today, I want to pose a question about the 4th commandment.  Of course, before the question I have a rather lengthy preamble: We are lousy at following the 4th commandment.  Starting from Monday, we spend 5 days at school and/or work.  The 6th day is often spent doing housework, catching up on laundry, yard work, running errands you didn’t have time for during the week, taking the kids to practice or games, or… you can fill in your own blank.  Then Sunday we wake up early and go to church, where many of us serve in some capacity or another.  In some churches, you can spend your whole weekend in church serving the Body of Christ.  In no way am I saying that is bad, but we fail to take a day off and “Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy.”

So here is my question: “What does it mean to Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy?”  I think that we have the wrong idea here.  When I think of the Sabbath, and I suspect you as well, I think of a day off, relaxing.  Not going to the office, spending time with my family, some time enjoying one of my few hobbies, watching some tv and/or a movie.  That is my default idea of the Sabbath.

Yes, the idea of the Sabbath is rest.  The idea is that we need to recharge our batteries, less we burn ourselves out.  That is a human need that God created in each one of us.  However, our method, I believe is all wrong.  Take a look what scripture says about rest and strength:

Exodus 34:14 “The LORD replied, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Psalm 46:1 “The Lord is my refuge and my strength.  A very present help in time of need.”.”

Psalm 62:5 “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.”

Isaiah 40:31 “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles;they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Matthew 11:28-29 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

If the purpose of the Sabbath is to rest and renew our strength, and our strength is found in God, I wonder if it is not a coincidence that the 4th commandment says, “Remember the Sabbath by keeping it holy.”  Is a true Sabbath resting and looking for strength the human way, or is a true Sabbath time spent with the Lord and finding our strength and rest in Him?

To be fair, in our world today, I don’t think that it is realistic to think that one could set aside one day every week just to spend time with God.  In fact I would say that very few could do that.  But could you set aside more time one day a week to spend with God?  Or could you find a way to keep one day a week a “more holy” than other days.  For example, on this one day, could you spend more time with God and be more careful what you allow in your mind through our various avenues of media (music, tv and movies specifically)?