Sunday Snapshot

Our God is so good.

Everything happens for a reason and this weekend was the perfect example of that! Let me give you a little bit of my weekend before I dive into my notes for the final sermon in the

Grapes & Giants series.

Saturday night, I did not attend service, I filled in for a greeter that was out of town and distributed Easter tickets, so I did not get the full sermon experience.

This morning, I assisted with First Experience and had to go to work after that so I missed both the 9:30 & 11:15 services.

Tonight, I was supposed to lead a greeter team, but some things happened and I ended up experiencing one of the worst days of my life, received devastating news and walked through the doors a crying, sobbing, snotty mess. I was quite the site for eyes to see :) After explaining everything to one of the Associate Campus Pastors, I decided I would help where I could and then go into service. BEST DECISION EVER!

Y'all, I LOVE my church but man oh man. Everything happens for a reason! I missed Saturday night and this morning because God knew i needed to her Pastor Steven's sermon at 6:00 Sunday night. He knew i needed to watch those baptisms and cry my eyes out while watching/singing and cry through that sermon. I've said it before that "this sermon is my favorite" or "that sermon hit the nail on the head" but nothing compares to tonight's experience!

So, Grapes & Giants, week 4 of 4!

Deuteronomy 7:12-24 and Ephesians 6:10-20 were the verses the sermon was based off of and they are AWESOME!

The Promise of God's Protection

Get Dressed! Put on the full armor of God!

God made provisions for your protection

You can't defeat your enemy if you don't discern your enemy.

Thieves don't break into empty houses

The enemy wants me because there's something awesome there that he wants. (hello!)

STAND YOUR GROUND. When all else fails, just STAND! (side note, I LOVE the Superchic(k) song about stand your ground)

Guardian angel-can't protect you if you're not entering the fire. Live your life so your guardian angel slaps you and says "Do you have any idea what you put me through?" :)

God can only give you strength for your struggle, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood.

He gives strength for those willing to struggle

I'm not STRUGGLING, I'm getting STRONGER!

The enemy hates me but God will protect me, I'm his investment.

Never underestimate what a father will do to get back to His child.

Soapbox.

You know what REALLY bothers me? Customers that come into a retail establishment and are chatting away on their cellular device and attempt to place an order and ask questions while still talking. It really bugs me when said person continues to talk while paying for their order. I also don't like it when I'm talking to someone about their order or they are at the register and we're discussing the next steps and their phone rings and they answer it. I think it is rude and disrespectful. If your conversation is that important, finish it in the car. If someone is calling you, wait the 30 seconds it's going to take for me to finish and call them back. I'm certain all phones have voicemail and they'll leave one or if someone is calling you, in 30 seconds they are still going to be near the phone to answer when you call them back. I had a customer this morning come in, we were discussing her order and her phone rang. She rudely answered it and proceeded to have a long conversation. So, I helped the next customer who happened to be waiting in line properly and was not carrying on a conversation for the whole world to hear. I was in the middle of helping the nice, no phone customer when cell phone lady shouts "excuse me, I'm ready" I politely looked at her and told her I was with a customer and she'd have to wait. REALLY?!?!?! You're going to say that to me after in the middle of a sentence you answered your phone! People these days! No manners. Emily Post would be sad! What are your thoughts regarding cell phone etiquette?

in the midst of the darkness...

Last night. Oh last night we had a crazy storm....rain, thunder, lightening and hail. I was at work until 10pm. I live close to where I work and everything was fine. My apartment complex however, did not survive the storm and was pitch black and powerless. I didn't really want to pretend to be Amish and I left my window open and I'm petrified of the pitch black darkness and my flashlight was in my room and ......you get the point. It wasn't a good combo. So, I went to Target to buy a flashlight. Well, buying a flashlight when half of the town is out of power is like buying milk or bread when they're forecasting snow. I had the option of a heavy duty (literally) flashlight or Toy Story. I went with the heavy duty can last forever and hit someone over the head if they try to attack you in the darkness flashlight. I know, you probably think I'm crazy by now but I really did watch too much Rescue 911 when I was little and followed that with CSI until high school when it just got too freaky and I had to stop watching. Yes, I do love NCIS and that doesn't bother me. Anyway, I hung out in Target testing the lawn furniture until 10:45ish since they closed at 11. I went home with my flashlight and could not figure it out. I know that sound crazy but the flashlight didn't come with instructions and I tried every battery combo and nothing worked. So, I called my AWESOME friends Adrienne and Jeff. They had power so we decided I should just spent the night at their house (because they are awesome like that) and Jeff fixed my flashlight. Apparently it does matter what way you put the spring in. Who knew! They came over with their flashlights and walked through my apartment so I could grab some pjs and off we went. This whole thing made me realize how blessed we really are to rely on something so simple as a light switch. These poor people in our own cities that are homeless or in other countries make it work and I freaked. I hate the darkness. But I do love the song that we sing in church...

"in the midst of the darkness You're the light that guides me through..."

Sunday Snapshot

Today was the 3rd week of 4 for the Grapes and Giants Sermon Series. We had Pastor James Macdonald as the guest speaker. The cool thing is, he delivered 3 different sermons for each service. That's awesome! Though I do feel sad that I missed out on 2 sermons but they are available online so I'll take it! Instead of preaching from Ephesians, the sermon I attended was based on James 1:1-8 and "Why Trials?" Consider your trials joy-joy is a supernatural power What happened to me? Why am I here on Earth? How can this advance that purpose? Do you believe that God is in control? Do you believe that God is good? Will you wait by faith until you see it? hupo-mene=under remain when the pressures on, remain under complain-bail-criticise-fold the longer you remain under the harder it gets

even the donkey knows the palm and blankets he's carrying aren't for him

Sunday Snapshot

Have I mentioned how much I am LOVING the Grapes and Giants Sermon Series????

Purpose: The Prequel to Power

Ephesians 1:3-14

God has made the promise and given the blessing but I must take possession. 1. Before God made the world He made a plan for me. Ephesians 1:4 It's not fake, it's fixed. The outcome is decided and we won! 2. Before God called me to do something special He chose me to be something special. Ephesians 1:4 Ephesians 1:5 We obsess over direction but neglect character. When you know who you are, you will know what to do. 3. Before I can find my purpose I must lose myself in Gods passion. Ephesians 1:6 Ephesians 1:12 4. Before it all fell apart God has a plan to put ot back together Ephesians 1:7-10 5. Before I chose to live for God He chose to live in me. Ephesians 1:11 6. Before God can give you the land as your possession you've got to give Him your LIFE as His possession. Ephesians 1:14

You have every spiritual blessing if you believe!

Show Us Your Church/Churches

I think in order for one to fully understand how much I LOVE my current church, you have to know where I've been.

I grew up Catholic.

We sat in the front pew every Saturday night for an hour. It was up, down, up, down as Catholic churches go with all of the kneeling and singing. I went through the sacraments of communion, confession, confirmation and whatever else the Catholic church had you do. I attended Sunday School classes each year (on Sunday nights) and was even an Altar Server. But, I never really got it. It could be because the church had 1 person play the guitar and sing and she happened to be my elementary school PE teacher so I envisioned a lot of "head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes and eyes and ears and mouth and nose, head, shoulders, knees and toes" songs while she stood up there. Or maybe I didn't get it because it was so complicated and so much to remember and even though I sat through the entire hour long mass each week, it just didn't click. It was way over my head and very Biblical. It wasn't a warm church. As soon as you walked in the cat got your tongue and you didn't talk unless spoken to by a higher up. So, you walked in, blessed yourself and knelt, walked to your pew, listened, interacted when it was communion time and walked out. You had to reach the sidewalk to the car before you talked again. That's rough! But, I do miss the flower displays at each holiday. That church knew how to decorate with flowers!

Then I was Presbyterian.

We made a little transition and attended the Presbyterian Church. We never joined as a family but I attended the BEST Sunday School class ever and oversaw the nursery. I think for the time I was in charge of the nursery, I watched maybe 2 babies...it was an "older" church so the only way I'd have something to do would be if people had family in town! I did end up one weekend watching my Sunday School teachers 1st grandson....who, 9 years later, I babysat for when I moved to NC! I adored my Sunday School teachers and it was just a joy to be in their class and learn from them. The Presbyterian Church was much more welcoming. I remember one Christmas Eve after the service everyone just hung out outside on the church stairs singing Christmas Carols....that would NEVER happen at the Catholic church. Our Sunday School class was heavily involved in Operation Christmas Child and we collected items and filled shoe boxes and then travelled as a class to the distribution center that was about 2 hours away and helped all day Sunday. Our teachers were in their 60s and were awesome. They invited us to their home and made us a great breakfast and we all watched Left Behind. We didn't stay at that church very long as during my senior year of high school our teachers left to return to NC and the church was kind of "old" so the members were declining.

So, we became Methodist.

The church had just gotten a new Youth Pastor and it was all the buzz in town. We checked it out and eventually we joined the Methodist church as a family. I don't really remember when we first started attending the church but it was a great fit for us. It was very contemporary and met in the Fellowship Hall of the church building. We eventually outgrew Fellowship Hall and overtook "big church" and worshipped there....drums, guitars and all. The lyrics were displayed on a screen and it was pretty awesome. Everyone was happy and welcoming and it was like one big family. After I graduated from college and moved home for a bit, I became a Youth Leader for the High School Youth Group. We had a lot of fun with the kids and the other leaders were my YoungLife leaders so we had a great time bringing back the old lessons and games and craziness! That church has undergone some staff changes and it's in a bit of a "dark" place as I call it at the moment. The Youth Pastor left, the Associate Pastor (who was the counseling Pastor) has left so the main Pastor is alone with some new people, and well, the new people aren't adapting well. However, when I go home, this is the church my mom still attends.

College Church

I attended the campus Chapel Services each Wednesday night and it was nice. The sermons were different and rotated between the Dean of the Chapel and the Bishop in Residence. Occasionally there would be a guest speaker from an area church. It was a short and sweet service. The chapel choirs sang and they always had a nice fellowship spread afterwards. Some of my favorite Chapel Services ended with a group of us going to Tex and Shirley's for $2.00 all you could eat pancake dinners! I attended a "big" church on the weekends that my college apartment neighbors Dad oversaw. It was fun to go there because it was a (what I thought) huge church and they had an awesome contemporary service.

Now Church!

And now I attend what I think is the best church I've ever walked into! I am proud to say that I attend one of the four campuses of Elevation Church. Not only do I attend, but I joined an awesome small group that has since ended but I met some amazing people and I became a greeter! It truly is a phenomenal church where for once, I GET IT! It all makes sense! I actually understand the sermons and know how to apply them. Going to church is seriously the highlight of my week! I know Elevation isn't for everyone, but it's right for me. You can check it out at www.elevationchurch.org

I hope you attend a church that's right for you! It's hard to find one sometimes, but once you do, it's the greatest thing ever!!!