EVENT: GFYR

This just in. Check it out...pretty swanky, am I right?
Let's start the sign up and payment early so we can save you guys some money.

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EVENT: The Soulhouse That Just Happened

For those not able to be there live I just wanted to share some paparazzi shots for you to get a look at the new stage/set design. This creation came to you from SMoA and specific recognition needs to go to Kali Hillier and Dave Malerenko. Nice job guys. If you haven't seen the Jen & Dr. Chan skit yet, what are you waiting for? Checking it out, cuz it is funny stuff.



It just gets better and better. What a great night we had together, singing, laughing, learning and praying. The Spirit came for a visit...no doubt.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: GFYR Event Info Just Arrived

For those of you who have been waiting...this just arrived minutes ago. No digital images so far but hopefully something pretty will arrive soon and then I will share it with you.
Here is what I know:

GFYR: "NEW"

When?
Friday April 10th, 2009
Registration starts at 4PM
Event runs from 5-9:30

Where?
Bayview Glen Alliance Church
300 Steeles Ave E. (@ Bayview)
Thornhill, ON

Cost?
register on or before April 3: $12
After April 3: $18
At the door: $20

We will begin collecting money immediately. Decide now and save cashola.

Details will be given as they arrive.

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QUOTE: A Piece of Your Heart?

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
--Aleksander Solzhenitsyn

ANNOUNCEMENT: New Series on the horizon

What would be a better tribute to our new series than U2 releasing their new album? Hey thanks guys what a sweet tribute to Soulhouse. Bono you are just always thinking. So in honour of our new Soulhouse series being on the horizon U2 is releasing their new album No Line On The Horizon.

Check Your Head: New Series!
Living in joy, living in freedom, walking in the light, walking with the Spirit are all different ways of saying the same thing. We are going to be studying the book of Philippians for guidelines on how to do those things and battle the things that steal your joy. How do you do it? Well the first thing to do is "Check Your Head."

Join us and check it out starting March 08 09.

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THOUGHT: A New Understanding

I like to learn. There are sometimes I don't even mind learning that I just did not get it before; which is good, cuz it happens frequently. That has happened to me, again. I learned something. Well maybe it is just a new understanding, but I'm going to call it an enlightenment.

For years I have heard about missionaries, heck, I even like some of them. And as I looked at them there was always this sense of martyrdom. These people are ready and willing to suffer and perhaps even die for their beliefs. I thought that they believed more than I did. My new understanding? My enlightenment? I never thought about the role that God played and plays in their story.

I never thought that God might actually transform them and change them for their call. Looking back now I just feel kind of stupid. It seems so obvious. Of course the Spirit equips and empowers. He will give us whatever we need to do whatever He has called us to do. Just never thought it through though.

Here is the part that really hit me. I looked at missionaries as people with a higher than average tolerance for suffering. Why did I do this? Well, it is obvious isn't it? They left here to go there. And there is never as good as here, right? I used to understand missionary furlough as a break, kind of like a vacation. They get to come back here and leave there. How nice for them. I never ever thought that God worked in them, changing their hearts and bonding them together with the people and country that they ministered in. Why did I never see this? I have worked at multiple churches and I know that God has always brought my heart to love the people where I am. Why did that seem so impossible for missionaries? I don't know. Spiritual blindness? Fear? Selfishness? All of them?

Whatever the reason I have Derek & Bonnie Burnett & family to thank for my recent enlightenment. They actually like living and working in Thailand! Can you believe it? They are eager to go back "home." God works to transform us in ways that we would like and in ways that we need to live in freedom and in joy wherever we are as long as we are within His plan for us. How freeing is that? So even if you are nervous now or repulsed now or whatever you feel...all of those things can change as we simply remain obedient to the One who calls us forward. That is good news because I certainly know that I have made some of my own choices that I did not like. I stayed not liking them. But with God and the submission of our free will to His perfect will those things that deter may very well be wonderfully removed or transformed into things that compel! Who knew?

Oh, all of you? You all knew that? Oh. Well I am slow to catch up, but I am glad I have arrived this far now.

Who knows what tomorrow holds? And now I can be reminded, yet again, that I need not fear it. I can walk in it boldly with my eyes fixed on my transformer.

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THOUGHT: Ain't No Room For Hermits

What would God really like? A good old-fashioned hermit, right? They look religious and full of suffering and asceticism. Fer sure God would be into that right? Living alone in a cave with a nice scratchy, burlap robe that is ripped and too small would certainly bring me closer to God, right? I mean how could it not?

The emphasis that we see in the Bible repeatedly is not on ritual, tradition or asceticism. (yeah go ahead, look it up). The focus is placed on practical, other-centered behaviour. We should be constructive rather than destructive in our words, compassionate in practical ways toward people in distress, counter-cultural in our daily life, refusing to simply follow the accepted norms of the majority (the "world") when those norms do not lead to a loving lifestyle.

God wants us to experience an intimate relationship with Himself and then express that through a holistic lifestyle of compassion for others. Galatians 5:6 helps us here: "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love."

Jesus does not call us to a privatized spirituality, but to an experience of spiritual family.

"God's purpose is not just to save isolated individuals, and so perpetuate our loneliness, but rather to build a new society, a new family, even a new human race, that lives a new life and a new lifestyle."
--John Stott

Don't live for the Empire, live for the Kingdom and then IMAGINE what can be, IMAGINE it into existence.

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