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E-Green
E-Prayer::
Do you ever wonder what God’s will for your life is? Well, here it is, all neatly wrapped into one sentence.
“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Actually, this is only one aspect of God’s will for us.
Make an effort today to pray often. Ask God to give you a joyful outlook and a thankful heart. Thank God for His blessings upon your life. Thank Him for the trials He gives you. They are for your good. Give thanks in all circumstances.
E-Thought:: “Spiritual Disciplines”
By Jeff Groen
Our Growth Group season will begin with sign-ups on the weekend of September 19th, only about 2 weeks away! I thought I’d pass on some encouraging thoughts about the development of personal spiritual disciplines within growth groups from pages 55-56 of a book entitled “Sticky Church” by Larry Osborne. Larry is the pastor of a multi-site church like ours in southern California called North Coast Church. (I’ve replaced their “small groups” with our “growth groups” throughout the following excerpt from his book.)
Still another powerful advantage that growth groups can bring is a marked increase in the practice of spiritual disciplines. That’s because a growth group takes our good intentions and puts them on our calendar.
Every church is full of people who feel they should do more when it comes to reading the Bible, prayer, fellowship, and reaching out to meet the needs of others. But busy schedules, procrastination, and a lack of commitment all conspire to keep these things from happening. Growth groups take these important but not particularly urgent spiritual disciplines and make them urgent by putting them on the schedule.
For instance, at North Coast [and Evergreen] we have an amazing prayer meeting that takes place virtually every week. Few people realize it’s happening, because it is stealth, spread out throughout our community in different locations on different days. But there are more people sharing intimate personal prayer requests and actually praying for one another than we could ever fit into our facility for a traditional prayer meeting.
Here’s the irony: If we cancelled our growth groups and filled our facility once a week for a prayer meeting with standing-room-only crowds, we’d probably get some great write-ups in the Christian press. But in reality, we’d have almost 70% fewer people praying than we already have in our weekly growth groups. Same with Bible study. Just the fact that group members have to prepare for the study and then go over it in their meeting causes lots of them to open a Bible that would otherwise be left on the nightstand.
The same goes for our service projects, fellowship, communion, and a host of spiritual disciplines that our growth groups move from the realm of “I should do it” to “I’ve done it” by simply putting them on the weekly [growth group] schedule.
Join a Growth Group this fall and grow your personal spiritual disciplines with us!
E-Story::
none this week
E-Grin::
One day an old German shepherd started chasing squirrels and before long discovered that he was lost. Wandering about, he noticed a panther heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.
The old German shepherd thought, "Oh, oh! I'm in deep doo-doo now!" Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settled down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat. Just as the panther was about to leap, the old German shepherd exclaimed loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious panther! I wonder if there are any more around here?"
Hearing this, the young panther halted his attack in mid-strike, a look of terror came over him and he slinked away into the trees. "Whew!" said the panther, "That was close! That old German Shepherd nearly had me!"
Meanwhile, a squirrel who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree, figured he could put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the panther. So, off he went.
The squirrel soon caught up with the panther, spilled the beans, and struck a deal for himself with the panther.
The young panther was furious at being made a fool of and said, "Here, squirrel, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"
Now, the old German shepherd saw the panther coming with the squirrel on his back and thought, "What am I going to do now?" But instead of running, the dog sat down with his back to his attackers, pretending he hadn't seen them yet, and just when they got close enough to hear, the old German shepherd said, "Where's that squirrel? I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another panther!"
Moral of this story:
Don't mess with the old dogs... Age and skill will always overcome youth and treachery!
Wisdom only comes with age and experience.
