What If Marriage Was Not Designed To Make Your Happy...

But instead designed to make you holy. So many people enter marriage and family life thinking that happiness will soon follow. But the statistics don't lie...the majority of new marriages end in divorce and of those marriages that do survive only a small percentage rate their marriage as "happy." What if God's primary purpose for your marriage and family life was not to make you happy? I know in our culture that sounds like blaspheme since everyone "deserves" to be happy. But maybe part of our problem is the perspective we carry into marriage, home, and parenting life.
My wife and I will starting a new series this Sunday that tackles this subject head on. Over our 11+ years of marriage we have not been exempt from struggles, problems, and difficulties that have tested our commitment to each other [most of the time I'm the primary source of testing instead of the one being tested :)]. Over those years we have been on a journey of spiritual growth and have been forced to look at things from a different perspective. A number of books by Gary Thomas (Sacred Marriage, Sacred Parenting, Sacred Influence) have been really beneficial for us on this journey. During this five week series we will be talking about the truths that have changed our way of looking at home and marriage. I hope you will join us.

Another Awesome Baptism Celebration

This past Sunday was a great way to end the summer! We had our summer ending Baptism and BBQ in the church courtyard. What made this baptism extra special is that Andrew (our youth pastor) was able to baptize two of the teens from the CORE program. I remember it was just about 3 years ago that a few of our church families stepped up their financial giving to allow us to hire Andrew full-time. This was a big stretch for our small church at the time but God has really blessed. These baptisms as well as previous ones were a direct result of time and energy that Andrew and all the volunteers in CORE have invested!

Incredible week of MEGA Sports Camp

I just got finished with a busy, hectic week of sports camp. I'm tired...but it is a good tired. We had an incredible time each night. We averaged about 55 kids a night. Our coaches taught then basketball, soccer, baseball, and cheerleading. We learned awesome stuff about Jesus, sang and danced, and celebrated together. I've included a video that captures the excitement of the week. To all our volunteers that made this week happen...THANK YOU!

Community Back To School BBQ

Tomorrow is our annual outreach BBQ at Newark Community Park. It's from 11:00am to 2:00pm. If you are local I'll hope you'll come join us. Last night we had about 20 volunteers come to the church and fill 155 backpacks with school supplies! This is our largest total ever. I'm so grateful for those who have given sacrificially and volunteered to make this event a success! Our church family really cares about the community and building God's Kingdom and I am grateful to be the pastor. See you tomorrow!

Why I love what I do

As many of you know I've been pastoring Morning Star since I was 22 years old (8+ years has gone by very fast). Over these years there have been some great moments and plenty of low moments. When Cecil and I made the decision to start MSC and invest our life in building God's Kingdom, we had a genuine desire to help others encounter God and assist them in the process of being transformed to look like Jesus. I was counting up the number of baptisms over the past 8 years (my memory is not as good as it used to be) and came up with at least 42 names! Jesus Christ commanded His followers to be baptized to symbolize the new life that begins when one surrenders control and makes Jesus the Lord. On June 5th I had the honor of baptizing four adults. It is really exciting to be part of a church community that values life transformation and seriously following Jesus!

The End of the World

Just this morning I turned on the radio to KGO 810 (it's the most listened too talk/news station in the Bay Area and one of the most popular in the world). What was the topic of Ronn Owen's first hour...you guessed it: The End of the World. As many are aware (I've received numerous inquiries and questions from those in my congregation and even those who aren't believers in Jesus but are just curious) Harold Camping founder of Family Radio, which is a world-wide network of radio stations, has predicted this Saturday, May 21st as Judgement Day (http://www.familyradio.com/). Of course this claim is completely bogus and ludicrous. He has made this claim twice before so hopefully the third time will completely discredit him and his ministry. Although if I was a betting man, which I can be from time to time:), I would bet Harold has already come up with a response that will spin why he really wasn't wrong again. If it wasn't for the fact that Family Radio has a net worth of over 75 million dollars this claim would be completely ignored but when you have money you can buy publicity. I want to mention two things that all of this has brought to my mind:
1) This is the slippery slope where those with fundamentalist views of Scripture can find themselves. When everything in the Bible is taken literally and everything in their faith is black and white, you will find all types of dogmatic views on fringe elements of Scripture like when and how Jesus is going to return,which particular translation of Scripture is perfect, and even going as far as to define what styles of music are acceptable. I don't mean to paint all fundamentalists with a broad brush but their approach to Scripture makes them vulnerable to extreme theological positions based on just one or two verses that they take literally (and usually out of context).
2) The Bible is exceptionally unclear on when and how Jesus is going to return. Over the centuries Christians have held numerous views on this issue (pre-trib, post-trib, amill, premill, postmill, historical amill, etc...). My job is not to be on the planning committee but to be on the welcoming committee. If you want more perspective here are two good articles on this subject that probably say it better than I can:

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/6396/9/

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/6296/9/

Track Meet Day

This past Saturday was a blast! Alanna participated in the Bay Area Lutheran Schools Track Meet. Her school, Prince of Peace, hosts the event and about 13 other schools from around the Bay Area compete in various events. There are about 500 competitors from kindergarten through 8th grade. We were especially proud since Alanna represented her age group for girls in four different events. She came in 2nd in the long jump, 3rd in the 50meter, 4th in both baseball throw and 50meter relay. I've attached some pictures so you can see how determined she looks while she competes.