blog.arrowheadchurch.com

The simple truth of Romans 8:28-29 is so true. Whether good or bad, whatever happens to me is to make me like Jesus. Bad things should cause me to trust Him more. Good things should make me thankful. He is transforming us. His purpose isn’t to make life easy for us, and we get tripped up on that often. Wouldn’t it be great if we could see with the perspective that God sees with? He knows that the end result if we will trust Him is that we will have greater faith and greater character.

There are times when I overcomplicate faith and what it’s all about. So I want to post a few thoughts God keeps bringing me back to over the last few weeks. Rather than turning this into a series of posts, I’m going to start a category called It’s Simple. There are lots of simple thoughts in my brain! So, I’ll just write about them at different times. Having a lot of posts called “It’s Simple” is kind of complicated, I guess, but oh well…

Let’s start with this one: The Gospel is the Foundation.

What is the gospel? The gospel is the good news that God sent Jesus to take the punishment for the sins of all mankind so that we could know Him on earth and spend eternity in heaven. We receive that eternal life by faith - trust that this good news is true.

When we understand this, it clears up so many of our questions.

• Why do bad things happen? Because there is sin in the world and it has consequences.
• Why do I feel empty? Because I was born with a void in my heart that only God can fill.
• What is my purpose? To spread the gospel by everything I do and say.

It doesn’t make life easy, but it does give us perspective.

If you use a Macbook you are no doubt aware that the things get ridiculously hot. Now appartently the iPod Touch has a similar problem, only worse.

http://tech.msn.com/news/articlepcw.aspx?cp-documentid=18578892&GT1=40000

(Thanks to Hux for the link)

This post isn’t an assumption about whether or not you care if I like the new Facebook. Personally I like it. This post is just more of a rant. I may sound bitter, but I’m not =). If you’re not a Facebook user, it won’t make any sense to you, but if you are you can’t possibly have missed what I’m talking about.

You may love casting your vote for the “One Million Strong Against the New Facebook” or “Stop Screwing Around with Facebook”, or “I’m In Love With You Facebook but I Think It’s Cool To Be a Rebel So I’ll “Join the Cause”". If so, more power to you. But, obviously the geniuses at the company who can get us all to continue to visit a website 3-4 times a day when we supposedly hate it sure don’t care if you join the group or not.

Good leadership doesn’t keep its head in the sand. It also doesn’t sit around waiting on popular opinion before it makes its next move. Nobody makes progress in business, church, or life by listening to everything everybody says and then trying to make them all happy.

Another fun day today.

• It’s great to see people sticking at Arrowhead. It feels like we’re becoming a group and not just a crowd. And we continue to see new faces all the time.
• Carson Newman spring break hurt attendance today. Pretty cool to have students who are with us every week who are all over the world on mission trips though.
• Week 3 of Why Worry. Focused on how Elijah’s fear caused him to run from God.
• Final week of the series next week. We’re gonna take a look all over Scripture at what God might say to us as individuals during this economic crisis.
• Thought Tyler and the band were awesome this morning. If you’re reading this from Morristown hopefully you’re getting used to some of the songs we keep repeating.
• Thanks to everybody who started the candy stocking for the Egg Drop today. Keep bringing chocolate! I promise I won’t eat it during the week!
• New faces again for setup and teardown this week, and lots of new faces for ArrowheadKids. Thanks to everybody who’s stepping up!

Have a great week!

Just in case you haven’t seen this on Facebook…this guy speaks for me.

I hear a lot of people complaining about time change. They say, why can’t we pick a time and stick to it? I was one of them on Sunday when our 10:00 service felt like a 9:00 service. But, we survived.

Now Monday and Tuesday I’m loving DST. It feels like one of those times God uses throughout the year to breathe a little energy into me. As I’ve shared many times here, I’m a little strange. As a kid, I loved shopping for new school supplies. I still love the fall. I love a new calendar and a new notebook and a new pencil. I love new year’s because it feels like a blank slate. I’m adding DST to the list now.

You may not be a resolution maker and you may not get excited about a new pen, but let the rest of us enjoy it! Here’s a short letter from me:

Dear whoever gets to decide what time it is,

I like Daylight Savings Time. If you want me to vote for you again, keep it.

Ben

I can’t tell you how excited I am about the Easter Egg Drop. I believe if we get the word out it can be one big party! Point friends to the website for now and we’ll have invite cards on Sunday.

Today was an all around fun day. Lots of great time to connect. Announced the Morristown Easter Egg Drop today! It’s gonna be a blast! April 11 at the Greene Farm around Jefferson Federal Bank on the west end. 10,000 eggs will fall from the sky!

• New volunteers for setup and teardown for the first time. They did great! Volunteer of the year so far awards go to the ladies and guys who got to Rose Center at 6:30 body time today.
• Great crowd in spite of time change and some spring break travelers.
• Music went great. The band did Reign in Us for the first time today and I was lovin’ it. Also It is Well is an awesome prayer for us to sing as a part of this series.
• Message was a fun one to teach. If you listen to the podcast, we somehow missed the first two minutes or so. Oops. You didn’t miss anything good =)
• Lots of new folks beginning to give as well.
• My computer got dropped somehow after the service today. It stinks. Still works but it’s all jacked up on the corner. Not sure if I can live without it for a few days to get it fixed!

Have a great week!

Just a friendly reminder that this week is time change. Don’t forget to set your clock forward when you go to bed Saturday night!