January 25, 2012

There are a number of reasons I love being in school…and a few I’m not.  It’s a little bit like backpacking.  Some of it is simply one foot in front of the other, slugging up some long dusty grade with 45 pounds on your back.  But there are times – catching native trout from rippling brook, beautiful vistas, and silence that speaks loudly to the heart.  Sometimes you have to dig to find diamonds.  I’ve been digging – enjoy the diamond!

Letter to Diognetus:

“For Christians are not distinct from other men in terms either of their territories, their language, or their way of life… They live in the cities of the Greeks or the barbarians, as the lot has fallen to each one, and they adapt to the customs of the place in their clothing and food and in the rest of their way of living, offering the example of their marvelous form of social life, which all admit has something incredible about it.  They live each in his own native land, but as if they were foreigners.  They take their share in all the burdens, as citizens, and they put up with everything, as strangers.  Every foreign land is a native land for them, and every native land is a foreign land.  They get married like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose their newborn children.  They share their table, but not their bed.  They live in the flesh, but not according to the flesh.  They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.  They obey the laws that have been laid down, but with their manner of life they rise above the laws.  They love all and are persecuted by all…  To put it in a word, Christians are in the world what the soul is in the body…  The soul loves the flesh that hates it and loves its limbs:  Christians, too, love those who hate them.  The soul is shut up within the body, but it is the soul that sustains the body:  Christians, too, are held in the world as in a prison, but it is they who sustain the world…  God has assigned them such a high position, and they are not allowed to abandon it.” 

December 7, 2011

Change…

Sunday marked the first official meeting of the new search team.  So we are actively searching now.  I, for one, am very excited to see what God does in the coming months.  I hope that we as a church are learning to ask the right questions, the hard questions, the questions that we know we need answers to but don’t have in the present.  Questions we are willing to live with and walk into.

Here is a very incomplete list of the questions in my head and heart…

• Just what are we searching for?
  • Change is happening…its happening in our world all around us and…it’s going to happen at SBC – that’s a good thing, is it a good time to rethink the what.
  • Are we searching for a ‘who’ that will lead us to a ‘what’ or is it the other way around?
    • How should our current struggles shape our future decisions?
    • Is our picture of church as close to what Jesus desires as we can envision it?
    • Do we already have the what and just need a who?
      • Are we simply looking to replace Senior Pastor Mark so that in five years we have 1000 people coming to a church that thinks and acts very closely to the church we currently attend and enjoy?
      • What should the church look like in 5 years?  10 years?  20 years?
      • How will the church in 10 years need to be different than the church today?

I’m so excited to see what Jesus has in mind for this church in 5, 10 and 20 years.  May we be quick to remember that we are His church, in need of His Power, living in His Grace!

Pastor Nate

November 30, 2011

When I hear people remembering the ‘good ol’ days,’ I often wonder.  Were they really that good?  In the middle of those moments, was life really all that different than it is right in this moment?  Imagine for a minute what it might be like to live without memories.  Occasionally, I will hear someone say how much they loved junior high – now I know they are delirious!  I work with JHers, and I know that this is one awkward time of life!  Sometimes, I think I can remember vacations or sporting events or gifts as far more treasured than they really were…why is that?  Sometimes, I think life is better remembered and looked forward to than actually lived…why is that?  What is so wrong with the moment we are in right now?

I remember Jesus’ words in John 10, ‘I came so that you could have life, and life to the full.’  Hmmm…life to the full.  Is there more fullness than we are often aware of?  Is there more favor than I usually look for?  Sometimes I think…

Pastor Nate

November 23, 2011

Give Thanks

It has been fun to try to get my mind around the command of God through Paul that I will be teaching this coming Sunday.  ‘Give thanks ALWAYS.’  I Thessalonians 5:18  Fitting thought for this week as well.  What does he mean?  Sounds at first like we need to eat more turkey!!  Seems to me there might be something more.

I don’t know about you, but there are times when I look at my life and find it hard to be too thankful always.  I’m sure you can watch what is happening in our world and find it tough to be thankful always.  Paul is inviting us into a new perspective.  If, as a believer and follower of Jesus, you cannot be happy, you are looking in the wrong place.  There is something more!

Paul wraps up his thoughts in verse 24 with these beautiful words that point us to a much greater reality, a something more.   ‘The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.’ 

Pastor Nate

November 16, 2011

This past weekend, we brought a group of students to the Tenderloin for the huge pre-Thanksgiving blessing in the Tenderloin.

• We sorted food, prepped turkeys, cleaned, prayed and helped set up.
• We served over 3,000 hot meals to those living in SRO’s in the Tenderloin.
• We helped host a dinner and program in honor of Veteran’s Day for over 85 hungry.
• We came alongside what God is doing through City Impact to encourage, love and serve…

and we had a great time doing it!

As we headed back across the bay bridge and headed for home, there was a strange sense in the bus that we were the ones blessed – and then everyone fell asleep exhausted!

Pastor Nate

October 26, 2011

Mission…

I had recently written in my journal, ‘Are you the ultimate authority in your life?’  I often talk as if I am giving up control to Jesus.  I utter prayers with a sort of ‘I surrender all’ attitude, but I also wonder.  Have I just settled into what I think is best for my life, my days, my time and my energy…or am I actively giving these things to Jesus?

Mission.  Mission is the one thing that breaks me out of what I fear is a lifestyle consumed with making good and discerning decisions to further my ends rather than God’s.  Mission is the one thing that doesn’t make sense.  Mission is me saying, OK, I’ll go.  Mission is me under God’s authority, and the only good answer I have to the previously asked question.

Nate

October 19, 2011

Excuses, excuses, excuses…

We are walking, or jumping, through the Old Testament with our students.  Tonight, we find ourselves in Exodus 3.  You can’t help finding your own story wrapped in the story of Moses here.  God says, ‘I’d like you to do this.’  We are too busy, undereducated, overqualified, lazy, scared, loud to hear is his voice, doing other good things, distracted…  You name it.  In some ways, it seems normal to respond this way because we often respond this way to the needs of those around us.  It seems normal until we realize who we are responding to.  It is odd, isn’t it?  We are willing to tell a bush that is burning and not burning how things are going to go – because we know things.  We are willing to tell the Creator of heaven and earth that the plan probably won’t work – because we know how things work.

God knows there are obstacles.  He will even listen to your excuses.  He wants us to go…and He will be with us.

Nate

October 12, 2011

Peace…

Breathe.  Slow down.  Listen.  Quiet.  Wait.  No.  Play.  Be.  Back roads.  Sit.  Walk.  Stop.  Breathe.  Matthew 6:25 – 34

Pastor Nate

October 5, 2011

Transformation…

Here is one of my favorite quotes about being transformed and transforming our culture.  I find it to be some great rainy day thinking.

“We are to become people in and through whom God’s grace overflows to the world around, producing a new integrity, a new truth and truthfulness, at every level from politics to university study to sexual morality to ecology, and reaching out into human hearts and lives and imaginations with the news that there is such a thing as truth, because there is such a thing as grace, because there is such a person as Jesus, and because in him we see and know God’s living word made living flesh and are summoned to become living words in living flesh ourselves.” – NT Wright

Nate

September 21, 2011

Turning from Idols -

“You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything…” Exodus 20:3–4

I once heard a beautiful sermon on the simple reality of this commandment.  If, and it’s a big if, we could get this verse right, we wouldn’t even need the next nine commandments.  May have been a bit of a letdown for the Israelites in the dessert, but maybe we could do with just the one…if we knew how to live it out.  It’s not unlike saying that Jesus was right (surprise) when he said that all of the law and prophets hinges on the commandment to Love God and Love our Neighbor.

So why do we need more?  Why nine more?  Why lists of do’s and don’ts?  It must be because you are a lot like me.  You get it wrong sometimes, and you need a mirror.  You get distracted sometimes, and you need a filter.  Life around you gets loud, and you need some clarity.

If we are going to turn from Idols, we need the fresh Power of God’s Spirit and the honest perspective of His Word.  Let’s take a turn together.  Maybe just one step…at a time.

Pastor Nate

Next Page »