Our Blog
 Most really important goals aren’t accomplished by accident, they demand intentional planning. For the most part to achieve something significant, you need both a goal and a plan to reach that goal. Sometimes we have a blueprint for key areas of our lives… health & fitness, education & career, but give little or no attention to our spiritual life and/or our objective of following Jesus. In our 10am Worship Services beginning January 9th we are going to spend some time evaluating our personal spiritual lives, setting some goals and devising plan to reach those goals.
Here’s some of the details:
10am Sunday, January 9 – Keeping Score
10am Sunday, January 16 – Investing Your Resources 9am
Saturday, January 22 – $$ Workshop
10am Sunday, January 23 – Communication With God
6pm Sunday, January 23 – Church Prayer Time
10am Sunday, January 30 – Pursuing the Truth
6pm Sunday, January 30 – Bible Study Workshop
10am Sunday, February 6 – Recommending Your Faith
9am Saturday, February 12 – Recommending Your Faith Workshop
10am Sunday, February 13 – The Power of Us
9am Saturday, February 19 – Church Membership Workshop
10am Sunday, February 20 – Lifestyles of the Rich & Faithful
10am Sunday, February 27 – Living Beyond Myself
11:30am Sunday, February 27 – Volunteer Tour
There are consequences for everything. Sometimes the consequences are good sometimes they are bad, but there are always consequences. Every action prompts a reaction. For every input, there is an outcome. Bible reminds us to “consider the outcome” as we plan and evaluate our lives. “Consider the outcome” is great advice for us as we start a new year… what will be the outcomes of our decisions, our habits, our actions.
The thought in Hebrews 13:7 takes it one step further. We are instructed to not just consider the outcome, but to imitate those people and those actions that tend to produce the outcomes that we desire. Seems simple enough… but its often really hard to do. In the next couple of 10am Worship Services (December 26 & January 2) we will be spending some time considering the outcomes and designing our thoughts, attitudes and actions that tend to produce the things we really want to produce in 2011.
You will want to be a part of this!
 Over the years, Christmas has become lots of things… “lots of things” to do, “lots of things” to buy, “lots of things” put up with. Eliminate and simplify are concepts that we strive for this time of the year, but seldom attain. Focusing on the most important, the real essence of Christmas seems like the best way to stay out of the “lots of things” trap.
One of the simple, core and unique truths of Christianity is the concept of forgiveness. Jesus came to earth on that first Christmas to provide, teach and extend forgiveness. Forgiveness was the central reason He came. We can celebrate Christmas is all sorts of ways, with “lots of things’, but if we don’t learn to receive and grant forgiveness we miss the main thing.
This December in our 10am Sunday Worship Services at Cherry Creek Wesleyan Church we will be focusing on the real heart of Christmas… that Christmas is For-Giving. Together we will study (and hopefully experience) the magic and wonder of forgiveness during this magical and wonderful time of the year.
Here’s our schedule:
10am December 5th – “Forgiving God”
10am December 12th – “Forgiving Others”
10am December 19th – “Forgiving Ourselves”
Our Annual Christmas Eve Candlelight Service:
6pm December 24th – “Accepting God’s Forgiveness”
Posted in test
|
Tagged Christmas at CCWC
|
I was challenged by this article and thought you might be too. It’s not our job to solve every problem but we are to accept responsibility for problems under our leadership. –Reid
Leaders don’t make excuses
By Rick Warren
One of the most basic job descriptions of leaders is that they accept responsibility for the problems of others — problems they didn’t cause. Leaders don’t make excuses. They don’t look at their churches and say, “Those people got themselves into this mess, let’s see them get out of it”.
If you see a problem in your church and say, “It’s not my business,” you’re not a leader.
If you see someone with a problem and you say, “It’s not my responsibility,” you’re not a leader.
If you see a problem but you say, “I don’t have the talent or the funds to do something about it,” you’re not a leader.
Leaders don’t make excuses. They take what they have and do the best they can to help others. The Bible says in Proverbs 22:13, “The lazy person is full of excuses.” (NLT) Leaders aren’t lazy.
Leadership isn’t about you. It’s not about your problems, your needs, or your prestige. It’s not about you; it’s about helping other people with their problems and how those problems can be solved.
Moses did this. Hebrews 11:25 says, “Moses chose to be mistreated along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” (NIV) Moses was raised in Pharaoh’s palace, the ultimate place of luxury in his world. Out his window were one million crying, dying slaves.
Moses could have easily turned a deaf ear to them and said, “I’m sorry but I don’t have time to get involved in that. It’s none of my business. It’s not my responsibility. Would somebody please peel me another grape?”
But he didn’t. He was a leader, and leaders accept the problems of other people and make them their responsibility.
Pastor, that means you can’t blame others for problems in your church. The problems may have been at the church when you arrived. But you’re the pastor now. When sheep have problems, the shepherd has problems.
This is not just limited to your church. Take a look at your community. Is there a need you can meet? It’s easy to say it’s not the church’s job. It’s easy to say let the government fix it. If you want your church to take the lead in your community, the church has to take on the community’s problems as its own.
Is unemployment high in your community? Is illiteracy climbing where you’re church is located? Are the children growing up without fathers? Instead of passing the buck, challenge your people to be a part of the solution.
It’s what Jesus did. He didn’t have a sin problem. He was perfect. He could have stayed up in heaven and enjoyed his perfect relationship with the Father. But, as Paul tells us in Philippians 2, Jesus didn’t take advantage of his divine nature. Instead, he took on the responsibility for our sin.
That’s Jesus. That’s leadership.
Marshall Goldsmith in “Your Leadership Mojo”, says…
Imagine that you are 95 years old and you’re just getting ready to die. You’re on your deathbed, but before you take that last breath, you’re given a wonderful gift, a beautiful gift — the ability to go back in time and talk to the very person you are right now. What advice would come from the wise 95-year-old you, who knows what is really important in life and what isn’t, what matters, what doesn’t, what counts and what does not count? What advice would that wise old person have for the you that is here right now? And I ask people to answer two questions. No. 1 involves professional advice. That old person wants you to be a great professional. And No. 2 involves personal advice. Then I tell people, “Whatever you are thinking now, do that.”
Reid Hettich in his own fumbling ways says…
While Goldsmith’s exercise is interesting and is good for all of us to think through, it doesn’t go far enough… it doesn’t go far enough into the future. How about just after you take your last breath here on earth… after you spend a little time in the presence of the Creator — then you have the ability to go back and talk to the very person you are now. What would that conversation sound like? What kinds of changes in life-style and priorities would be suggested by other-side-of-eternity-you? Maybe you should “do that”.
It was about two years ago that God cemented in our minds that His mission for us as a church was all about “helping people connect with God”. It was this personalization of Jesus’ “great commission” (Matthew 28:19,20) that has helped me to focus in on what I (and the church, together) should be doing.
I’m pleased that God has called us to “help people”. Churches have been accused of manipulating or coercing people into doing or believing things… we aren’t called to that. We are called to help people do what they really want to do – make a life changing connection with their Creator. People are built with the innate desire to connect with something… someone bigger. They are naturally drawn to the big questions of life:
- Where did we come from?
- What is the meaning of life?
- What happens after we die?
Helping people connect with the God who has the answers to these questions is a great privilege.
One of the interesting aspects to our mission is that as we help others connect with God, we develop a closer, a stronger personal connection with God, ourselves. In fact that is often the very best way for us to strengthen our connection with God. I don’t know for sure where this will lead us personally or as a church… but I can’t wait to find out.
On page 127 on Andy Stanley’s book “Visioneering”he writes: “There is always risk. There is always sacrifice. But it is an individual’s willingness to break through the barriers imposed by risk and sacrifice that positions him or her to see what could become a reality. He who shrinks back from the challenge spends his life wondering.”
That last line “He who shrinks back from the challenge spends his life wondering” is a haunting thought. Spending life “wondering” seems like a miserable existence. We all have “what if” moments in our lives… that’s probably normal and natural, but if our life is characterized by “wondering, what if” we are in trouble.
It occurs to me that the trick is to get a sense of what is really important – important enough to risk and sacrifice. There is nothing heroic in risking and sacrificing for the trivial things (money, “toys”, hobbies, etc.). But when we figure out the one or two things that are of most importance to us, challenges should not keep us from attempting “to see what could become a reality”. The alternative is to spend our lives unfulfilled and constantly “wondering, what if”.
 It’s finally baseball season again (technically it’s the preseason, but I’m excited anyway).
It’s great how life comes and goes in seasons. I’m finding myself in an exciting season of life and ministry. For some time at Cherry Creek Wesleyan Church we’ve talked and dreamed about launching other ministries and churches from our church… most of that has been very random and theoretical. Then in a miraculous way, pieces have come together in a remarkably quick timeframe. We have actually begun the process of “becoming a network of neighborhood churches” when Marty Reiswig came on staff at the church with the clear job description of launching a new church in the coming months.
This season is really exciting and remarkably scary. I can’t wait to see how God blesses and uses our efforts.
Ahh, springtime.
 We are always growing and changing. We often grow and change for the better – but not always. Our personal spiritual lives are growing, changing and evolving, but not always as much or in the direction they should. The Bible has a lot of great advice and information about proper personal spiritual growth. God’s Word urges us to grow up… to become mature… to have the foundations that we need to cope with life and to be a positive influence on the people around us… and then gives us the tools to make it happen.
Together in the next few Sunday Worship Services at CCWC we going to study Ephesians 4 to better understand God’s plan for our personal spiritual growth. Don’t miss it!
|
Most really important goals aren’t accomplished by accident, they demand intentional planning. For the most part to achieve something significant, you need both a goal and a plan to reach that goal. Sometimes we have a blueprint for key areas of our lives… health & fitness, education & career, but give little or no attention to our spiritual life and/or our objective of following Jesus. In our 10am Worship Services beginning January 9th we are going to spend some time evaluating our personal spiritual lives, setting some goals and devising plan to reach those goals.
