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Prayer Corner
Parkway Christian Church is finishing up Phase 2 of
their building project. They have a thriving youth group that takes time and
makes and effort to invite youth into their meetings and Parkway takes care to
give youth their best. Pastor Trent Renner has a passion for people and he
teaches salvation by faith alone, in Christ alone. We are excited to pray and
support Parkway because they are part of God's team, along with us, to reach
the 80,000 unchurched people in Surprise. Take a minute and pray for Parkway
Christian Church right now...
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Vision
We are passionate about
everyone flourishing in the gifts that God has given them. We want to help
everyone find what spiritual (and physical) gifts God has given them and
provide support, encouragement and opportunity for you to use those gifts. This
isn't a "leadership does it all" church. Watching people with the gift of
hospitality serve over 400 free hot dogs at our last outreach was a thrill.
Hearing about people with the gift of evangelism leading people in the sinner's
pray in the park was awesome. If you have given your heart to Jesus then He has
given you gifts - pray to discover them and then let us know what you believe
those gifts are so that we can help you put them into practice.
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This Coming Sunday, April 11, 2010
 Most people will stay the
same until the discomfort of making a change is LESS than the discomfort
required to make a change. This is a long way of saying "we don't like change."
This isn't necessarily a bad thing but when God begins to do something new in
our lives we need to be willing and able to accept it. Relationships that are
healthy will deal with change - just ask any married couple who goes from zero
children to twins - something's going to change. The trick is being able to deal
with that change in a positive way. Come on out this Sunday as we continue
learning from the book of Mark with a message called "A Real connection - Real
power for the challenges in your life." See ya Sunday.
Coming up....
April 18
Mark 2: 23 - 27, "A Real Confidence"
Real wisdom for the tough questions in your life.
April 25
Mark 3: 1 - 6, "A Real Contrast"
Real action for finding purpose in your life.
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A Word of Encouragement
Leviticus 16: 31
(NKJV)
It is a Sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall
afflict your souls...
Yom Kippur - the day of
atonement. The most important day in the Jewish calendar. I found it
interesting that of all the sacrifices mentioned in the book of Leviticus, this
was the only one telling the Jewish people to "afflict their souls." The Jewish
people were selected by God to be the vessel through which God would speak to
the world. It was important for them not to allow the rituals of the
sacrificial system to dull their thinking. It was crucial that they realize how
awesome a thing it was for God to cover the penalty of their sins through
sacrifice because it would be too easy to just take the whole thing for
granted. We are in a similar condition. Going to church week in and week out,
hearing the message "Jesus died for you sins" over again, singing the sam e
songs and putting on the same smile - it can dull our sense of awe that God
allows us to seek Him in intimate relationship at all. But when we take care to
seriously contemplate what God has done for us, to block everything else out
and focus in on utter amazement it changes our thinking. For a moment,
contemplate this: The cosmological constant
(the energy density of space) is so perfectly balanced there is no natural way to explain it - it had to be
perfectly designed for life to
exist at all. This fine-tuning has conservatively been estimated to be at least one part
in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion. That would be a
ten followed by fifty-three zeros. That's inconceivably precise, as
precise as tossing a dart from Pluto to Earth and hitting a target
the size of an atom on the first throw. The same mighty God who created that is
willing to put up with me. Sit and meditate on this, afflict your soul with the
reality of how awesome it is that God is mindful of us at all and it will give
you goose bumps. With we should "afflict our souls" with this sort of
meditation (not on science but on His word) on a regular basis so that
freshness remains in our effort to seek God.
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Thank You
Thank you to all the
wonderful volunteers who made our outreach in the park such a fantastic
success. 5 PEOPLE PRAYED THE SINNER'S PRAYER. More than 400 hot dogs were given
away for free. Seeds were planted, growth was watered, souls were harvested -
and we all had a ball too. Thank you to all our movers, cooks, cleaners, hot
dog giver-outers, evangelists and musicians. You all did a magnificent job.
Thank you everyone.
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Special Announcements
Men's
Power Breakfast: Saturday April 10, 7 a.m. Desert Palms restaurant.
Ladies
ministry:
still collecting pasta, pasta sauces and baskets for their outreach.
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