We're back.

Thanks to everyone for all the prayers and support our Honduran mission team received over the past week.  We all arrived arrived home safely last night.  It's good to be home to be with all our family.  It will be great for all our church family to be together this coming Sunday.  We'll be starting our new series on growing with Christ:  RAISE Redux.  We hope you can be with us. 

As for Honduras, we are simply catching our break.  It was an amazing time.  I'm only fully realizing how powerful everything was now after returning.  You'll probably be hearing stories from individuals for months (if not years) and we'll be putting together a video of the many great photos we have.  For now, here's a few things you can know about the trip: 

God spoke to everyone in unique and different ways.

People from our church family were healed from personal and emotional burdens.  

We built 3 houses for families who have nothing.  Literally, the walls of their present homes were sheets & tin.  Their floors were dirt.  

Over 700 patients received medical treatment.  

We worshipped together with our Honduras brothers and sisters.  

We led a Vacation Bible School where hundreds of children received blessings. 

We saw 4 personally invite Jesus Christ into their hearts.

We were honored to be part of two baptisms on the spot of our construction site.

Those are the few of the things we witnessed God do.  I believe there are countless other ways the Holy Spirit worked:  on us at Bellwether, and to the people of Honduras.  

I'm so thankful, blessed, and amazed at our Lord and Savior.  He heals.  He forgives.  He transforms.  He literally saves lives.  

And this is only the beginning.  Hope to see you Sunday.  God bless you.   

Alternative Community

What do you comes to mind when you think of Church?

It could be many different things:  music, worship, dressing in Sunday best, something you have to do, an hour to snooze, rigid, fake, peaceful, family, hypocrisy, money, prayer, Christ, celebration, inspiring, growing, fulfilling, buildings, and we could go on and on.  You may have positive or negative thoughts about the Church.

Do you ever think of it as an alternative community?  

When we say alternative community, we mean a place that is different from the rest of the world.  A group of people who are very much in this world, yet very much not of it.  Many groups have tried to form alternative communities throughout history, the majority of them not as Christians.  These would be what we'd call communes or the hippie movement.  You get the picture.  

However, the Church was always designed to be an alternative community.  When it is being true to Jesus's Call for it on earth, it is living as an alternative community by the power of the Holy Spirit.  A place that is different from this world, that functions as the family of Christ, leads people to Christ, and goes out into all the world for Christ.  Now, the question is:  is the Church living out this mission?  Are we as the people of Bellwether?  

Sunday, we'll conclude the series:  Alternate Reality, life by the Spirit.  Last week we talked about how that reality affected relationships.  This Sunday we'll talk about how it affects the Church.  The message will be:  Church as an "alternative community":  what this looks like and how to be one.  We hope you'll be with us to see what Jesus is calling us to as His people.  We hope you'll be part of His alternative community on earth - one that can change your life, the lives of people you know, and the world for Him.  

Destiny or Chance?

Have you ever wondered whether your life was influenced more by destiny and fate or by random chance? 

In our culture and world today, many people believe their lives are orchestrated by destiny and a higher power.  You see this with idealists who think fate has a hand in who they meet, form relationships with, marry, and even where they are born, live, and what they do with their lives.  We also see this in many films, books, and TV shows.

Others in our world believe there is no such thing as destiny or fate.  Everything more or less happens by chance.  There is no "luck."  People make their own luck.  Where you're born is simply random.  Who you meet and marry is totally by chance.  It could be someone else - you were simply there at the right time and place.  

To which of these do you lean more to:  destiny or chance?  Fate or randomness?  

What if there is a third way?  That our lives are neither orchestrated by chance or by destiny through some type of higher power.  What if a real, living, God is directing each and every step of our lives?  What if there are "no chance encounters."  That there is a reason for each and every person in our lives - good and bad.  Do you believe that?  

This summer, we're doing a series on "Alternate Reality - life by the Spirit."  It is looking at living in and through the Holy Spirit.  Tomorrow at church the message will be called "No Chance Encounters."  Why?  Because in this alternate reality, in a life led by the Holy Spirit, there really are no chance encounters.  

We hope you can be with us Sunday morning to see how God leaves nothing to chance.  Perhaps you'll see your life and relationships in a whole new life.  We hope so. 

Have a great weekend and God bless you!   

Scripture for Sunday

We'll begin sending Scripture used for Sunday's message before so you have an opportunity to be reading them before our worship.

For this Sunday, July 3rd, we'll be preaching out of:

Matthew 22: 15-22

Matthew 4: 8-10

Genesis 1: 26-27

Isaiah 55: 8-9

Ephesians 2: 18-22

1 Peter 2: 11-14

Hope you can read before and see you Sunday!

Citizenship

4th of July is upon us.  Time for fireworks, cookouts, and honoring the greatest nation in the world, our home on earth, America.  

All of us at one time or another have taken the pledge of allegiance - whether it's at school, boy scouts, girl scouts, or in a local civic club.  We should all know it by heart.  It goes:  "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God....."  One nation under God.  It clearly states, we are UNDER God. He is our authority.  

So I ask all of us:  we recite the pledge of allegiance, yet where is our primary allegiance?  Is it to God, our Heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ our Lord?  Or is to our country?  Is it to political power or a political party?  Where does your primary allegiance lie?  

I'm thankful I'm a citizen of this country.  I hope you are too.  Yet do you have citizenship in heaven?  Do you realize you are here for a season of your eternal life and will one day depart for (hopefully) your home country.  We can easily fall into the trap of this time, place, and country being our true home.  It is not.  Heaven is.  

Our preaching series right now is:  "Alternate Reality - life by the Spirit."  Believing and living like heaven is your true home is living in an alternate reality to many here and now.  Yet it is to this that we are called.  We can only live in this reality through Jesus Christ, "in Him we have our access in one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens , but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household" Ephesians 2: 18-19.  In Christ, you gain a new citizenship, a new home, and begin living in a new, BETTER reality - life in the Holy Spirit.

This Sunday, 4th of July weekend, we'll talk about where our true citizenship lies, if we have it, and how to get it.  I hope you'll be able to worship with us and invite someone who needs to see the love of Christ and the power of His Holy Spirit.  

May God bless you and this great nation we're blessed to live in, until we journey to our true home.  

Alternate Reality

One of my favorite all time TV shows is LOST.  I really miss the creativity, mystery, and character development that show had.  Nothing has matched it since.  In its last season, one of the plots (not giving anything away) was there was a potential "alternate reality" the main characters were living in.  As they got glimpses of this different reality, they soon realized the world they thought they lived in might not be the real world.  

It's also interesting to me that there are now many "popular" books by people who study physics and astronomy that purport the possibility of alternate realities in the universe.  Now, I was never good at science or math, and I probably would not even be able to read these book, yet the very idea is fascinating.

I say all this because:  if we believe in the resurrection of Jesus, what that means for our eternal lives, and have the Holy Spirit living in us, then I believe we live in an alternate reality in the here and now.  It's what Christians mean when we say - "we are in the world, yet not of it."  If the Holy Spirit lives in us, we are part of a different world, an alternate reality.  How?  

As Paul writes in Galatians 5:  19-21, the world we live in is:  "the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."  

Then, Paul goes on about the alternate reality, the life of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5: 22-24 - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.  Not those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." 

The more I grow in Christ, the more I realize the real world, the real life, is the life in and of the Holy Spirit.  And the world we think is the real world, really isn't.  At Bellwether we want everyone to know this different world, this alternate reality, and live in it.  

For the next month, we'll be preaching about the real world.  The sermon series is:  "Alternate Reality - Life by the Spirit."  We hope you can be there to see this alternate reality, this different world.  Even more, we hope you will make a decision to live in it.  

Have a great day, and hope to see you Sunday.  

If you died tonight, where would you go?

Many of us have heard this question.  Some so much so we've gotten tired of it, or it's lost it's impact for us.  I mean really, how many people take such a question seriously?  You know you won't die tonight....right?  You know your spiritual house is in order....right?  Is it?  

The fact is, this is an honest, serious, and needed question.  Unfortunately, some Christians and churches have communicated it the wrong way - a way that has led to fear and rejection of the Church.  

It's a question we all need to ask ourselves.  Is our spiritual house in order?  Do we believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior?  Is the Holy Spirit alive in our hearts?  Are we trying to grow in our walk with Christ?  Are we....are you....truly saved?  

We will ask this question of us all Sunday morning.  We do so as we continue the series:  GRACE - what is It?  The sermon Sunday is "the Grace that Saves us."  It is the grace of Jesus Christ that saves us, and only that alone.  Have we received it into our lives?  If you haven't, this Sunday, as every Sunday, you will have an opportunity to know where you will be for eternity.  I hope you can join us for worship on this special Sunday.  Even more, we hope you'll invite someone who needs to hear the message of life saving grace in Jesus.

Sunday will be special and different for two reasons:  

1) We are moving our regular 10:30am worship service back to 11am.   This is because we will be leading worship at 9:30am at the United Methodist Mississippi Annual Conference at the Jackson Convention Center.  We'd love for you to also worship with us there if you are able!

2) It is Pentecost Sunday.  This is the Sunday in the Church calendar 40 days after Easter.  It is the day which we remember Jesus' Ascension to heaven and the Holy Spirit coming down to earth.  As the Holy descended onto the disciples, we hope and pray you will allow the Holy Spirit to invade and live in your hearts - this Sunday and always.

Have a great day, and hope to see you at church!