This last Sunday our church celebrated Social Outreach Sunday.  The goal of this service is to remind our church that we are called to be a light to our community.  Social Outreach is in my opinion one of the best ways to do that.  You are not only sharing Christ but bread, clothing, shelter, and love to the community.  The combination of the two are crucial.  I am very proud of the work our church does and look forward to thinking through ways we can better serve our community.   Check out the video to see some of the stuff our church does.

Some of ideas to better serve include:

Starting a community garden that instead of charging money as for 10% of the first fruits to give back to our communities’ needs.  We would find people (green thumbs) in our church to help people that have never grown a garden before so they can learn something new.  One of the goals is to make a difference in our community and develop deeper ways to show people that they can make a difference.  Another goal would be to help people connect with the Christ followers in a meaningful way.  I feel the more that we can connect with people in these types of ways the easier it is to invite them to follow after Christ.

Another need we see in our commnunity is a transitional center for families who are in need and want help.  This would allow for us to connect with the needy in our area who don’t really have a place to go to.  If you are a woman there is a place but for a whole family there is not many options.  We want to help meet that need.  It’s a big project so I believe that we’ll have to continually bring this before the Father and ask for guidance. 

What are some ways that you have reached out to your community?  What has that experience been like? 

Peace and love,

Lance

I recently wrote an article for our Church Newsletter that I think might be cool for some of you to think about:
To end this newsletter, I would like to share with you a story from this last month that is still impacting me. Last month, I took two of our youth to Los Angeles so that I could get some intense mentoring time with them. During the trip, I took them to hear my mentor share at two of his Bible Studies. We also went to Skid Row and fed the homeless. I was also blessed to have many of my friends from seminary reach out to encourage the guys. Of course, while we were down there I taught them how to surf as well. We actually were able to go four times in between the other stuff on our five day trip. On the last day, we decided that we should go one more time for a dawn patrol (early morning surf session). It was awesome! A good portion of my friends in LA made the trip with us. We had so many people that we were running slim on surfboards leaving us with what we call a beater board (beat up crummy board) for me. As we arrived at Topanga Beach the morning marine layer (smog) was not too bad. The waves were smaller but still had a pretty good shape. We pulled the sleepies out of our eyes after waking up at 4:30 am and waited for the team to show up. One of my dear friends showed up and had brought an extra surfboard with him. It was like the clouds had opened up as he told me I could use his board. The downside was that his board was missing a leash (used for retrieving your board after being hit by a wave also help to protect you and your board from having to swim all the way onto the beach to pick your board up). I knew I could surf this board still but was apprehensive about having to retrieve it if I messed up as well as if I were to do damage to it. But as we were walking out my buddy looked at me and said “Just because it doesn’t have a leash… pause… doesn’t mean you should hold back.”
It was in that moment that I felt like I was hearing a lot more than my buddy’s voice. I felt like there was some spiritual significance to what my buddy was saying. While I was out surfing I felt freedom to go for the waves and that I had the ability to save my board from being lost. The spiritual significance is this: Christ has given us not only freedom but a purpose. As we go out and live our lives we don’t have to hold on tight, we can feel God’s call to be “unleashed” to serve and make a difference. I feel like sometimes as Christians we can get caught or stuck in many ways, but in 2 Corinthians 3:17 it says “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” If we live by the Spirit through continued prayer and seeking to grow and understand Scripture, then we can walk in this freedom.
While I was surfing I caught some amazing waves and on a couple I lost my board. I was able to swim in and carefully climb over the rocks to grab the board, and then paddle back out. The same is true in our walks, if you ever loose it make sure you swim in and grab your truth or whatever it is you lost and paddle back out there. I pray the Lord will bless and teach you that he has called you to be “unleashed” on Farmington to spread the good news that there is freedom in Christ.
Oceans of love,
Lance

I went home today for lunch and discovered our adorable little puppy, Kensie, was up to no good!  She ate all the laces out of my shoes!  This, only a few days since she chewed up Lance’s socks!  She’s still a puppy, but I thought we moved out of the chewing phase a few months ago.  And now it seems to be back… 

She's so cute

 

            Well, we’ve learned from our friend the Dog Whisperer (aka Cesar Millan) that dogs will get into mischief when they’re not getting enough exercise.  Cooped up in the house all day with no one to play with, a dog will get into things it knows it shouldn’t.  This sounds like Kensie.  If we exercise her more, she’d burn her energy in healthy (non-destructive!) ways. 

I think that, sometimes, when we don’t get enough exercise, we get into mischief, too.  I’m not talking about just physical exercise, but spiritual exercise.  It seems that when we’re engaged in spiritual exercise – reading our Bibles regularly, stretching ourselves in service to others, holding ourselves accountable to spiritual trainers, and such, we are much healthier.  We grow, we learn, and we stay focused on living lives that glorify God. 

But when we aren’t getting enough spiritual exercise… when we aren’t pushing ourselves to discover new layers of who God is and who we are in Him, when we coop ourselves up into ministry areas that we don’t have a heart for anymore, when we aren’t stretching our hearts and souls by serving others and caring for people beyond ourselves, we can get bored, restless, and can find ourselves getting into mischief.  We start thinking of ourselves before thinking of glorifying God.  Our flabby spiritual muscles allow us to give in to temptations that provide immediate satisfaction but long term destruction.  I’m sure Kensie quite enjoyed those shoelaces at the time!  But the pleasure was short lived, as it often is when we lose focus of living for our Lord. 

We’ve got to make some changes at home so that Kensie will put her energy into healthy activities that will enrich her days instead of get her into trouble.  And maybe we humans should check our routines, too.  Are you getting the spiritual exercise that you need to grow and enrich your days?   If you’re ever feeling stuck, we’ve got plenty of Spiritual Personal Trainers available to help you get in shape! 

If you see me walking Kensie around the neighborhood, be sure to wave! 

 

                                                            Blessings,

   Jennifer

Well this summer was my first experience of trying to grow my own food.  It was a ton of fun to watch our vegetables grow.  It was even more fun picking them from the vine.  Unfortunately, the first frost has come and has wiped out our vegetables.  We were able to pick some zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers before the first frost.  So we’ll have some more zucchini bread and salads to look forward to.  I feel that through my first attempts of gardening I have excelled in my spiritual life.  I started with soil that needed crap/fertilizer to fill it with crucial nutrients.  Next I picked out plenty of vegetables some of them did great and others not so much.  I learned that I had to water my garden everyday and watch it.  It took over a month for our first tomato to come up but with that came the joy of being a farmer.

I feel like a lot of the people I have been mentoring have come with just that.  I helped them in thier lives to see how the crap inside them can be used to create fruit.  We tried many different things and some worked.  One thing that was really important was to continually keep in touch and help them along the way.  Nothing compares to the fruit that comes from their ministry.  I feel God is doing an amazing thing and am very thankful for where he has placed us. 

As we step into this next season I pray that I might learn of the beauty of the changing of leaves and seeing how important warmth is when it gets cold.  How have the seasons been impactful to your spiritual walk?

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_10594719?IADID=Search-www.daily-times.com-www.daily-times.com

I was so encouraged this last week because the Daily Times our local paper for the Four Corners wrote a whole page on our new service.  They called me early in the week to ask if they could do an article on us and I felt like that was a good idea.  The best part was they did an excellent job with the article.

I felt a little concerned because I have been misquoted before and that is never fun.  My favorite misquote has to be “I think hate crimes are bad.”   Someone called me and spoke to me for a half hour and that was the most they could get out of our conversation.  What a joke.  Anyways, this one went really well so excellente and thank Daily times.

Have you ever been misquoted?

Cheers,

la

I just watched this and also am a fan of NT Wright and his works Surprised by Hope is on my bookshelf.  Once, I read more and more about the after after life I became a lot more excited about why we need wholistic ministries.

What do you think?

Cheers,

la

Now that we have gone public with our new service it is really exciting.  We’re having people come in from all over the place.  I feel more and more blessed to be in the position I am in and feel a deep desire to make a difference in Farmington.  The series that we’re doing now is called The Exchange with God, community, and the rest of the world.  For these services, we have tried to help people connect with all of the above. 

For the first two service we shared about the promises of God and tried to make them more tactile.  This was fun.  We made stations all around our sanctuary.  Some of the examples were:

• for sight we used big styrofoam balls cut in half to spell out sight in braile
• we also created a big lightswitch for darkness to light
• for truth we used a blacklight and painted truth on a canvas and covered it with a black cloth when we turn on the light you could see truth illuminate through.
• We took a bunch of ashes and put them in a bowl and then we placed a flower on top to exemplify beauty for ashes.
• For running and not growing weary we took a sports bottle and changed the label to Godade “the living water”
• for patience we lined up chairs and put magazines on them to show long suffering
• For Redemption we created redemption tickets like at a carnival
• For healing we broke a vase and put it back together using different things including bandaids, etc.
• and many more

These services were a blast and helped people to think through the wholeness that is offered in Christ.  Next week, Jenn is going to speak about eXchanging with the world.  So we’re having a tailgate party outside of the church to make people think about the people outside of their Christian bubbles.  I am really excited to see what God is going to do.  I ask for your continued prayers and if you have any fun ideas to communicate the message in a thoughtful experiential way please let me know.

Cheers,
la

After a really long process of planning and growing as a team we have finally begun our eXchange services on a weekly basis.  The eXchange seeks to help people with their eXchanges with God, one another, and the world.  We are delighted to have this new service that allows for a lot of creativity and gives people the opportunity to have an eXperience every time they come.  I would like to invite all of you in the Four Corners area to come and join us here in Farmington, NM. 

One of our biggest focuses is on leave a mark.  We believe that God has left a mark on us and that it is our job to leave a mark on others for the kingdom.  We are so dedicated to this vision that our website is www.leaveamark.us I recommend checking it out if you have time.  We building and developing the site more and more. 

Cheers,

la

I have recently heard a bunch of different testimonies from people.  Sometimes I feel very blessed to hear about what God has done other times I’m disgusted to because of some of the things I hear.  I have decided to write this blog on Top 5 testimony do’s and don’ts

Do share your personal story of what has happened pre and post coming to faith

me sharing on a recent trip to the wilderness

Don’t focus on how bad and horrible you were.  This includes going into details about how this one drug deal went down or how many men or women you slept with.  Saying you were bad and dealt with addictions or that you did not treat men or women with the respect they deserve is usually good enough.

Do include what Jesus meant to you at that moment or during that process of change.

Don’t use weird Christian lingo.  “I realized I needed the blood of the lamb” just doesn’t make sense to many people.  I recommend thinking through what you’re saying and talk it out with a friend if you have to.  Otherwise, people are going to be freaked out.

Do interact with people and seek clarification as you speak. 

Don’t take forever sharing your story.  It doesn’t take long before people stop paying attention to you/get really annoyed with the soundbite.

Do pray for the person.  Before, during, and after the interaction.

Don’t waste time getting into conversations about hypocrites or have to pull out your evidence that demand a verdict book.  Apologetics obviously has a place but I am not sure that your story is the place. 

Do personalize your message and seek an authentic exchange with the person you’re talking to. 

Don’t miss an opportunity to share with someone because of fear of what they’ll think of you.  Even though you may have been a horrible witness it doesn’t mean that you can apologize and tell the person that you are making a change. 

So that’s my Top 5.  What would you add or subtract?