The Gift of a Second Chance - John's Story

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Everyone Deserves a Second Chance...

New Series starts on 1/06/2013 at Southside... Don't miss your chance!

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The Truth About America - In Statistical Form 2013

Resident population of the United States (est.): 315,067,051

In America there is:

-- One birth every: 8 seconds

-- One death every: 12 seconds

-- One abortion every: 26 seconds

-- One international migrant (net) every: 40 seconds

-- Net gain of one person every: 17 seconds

America's outstanding public debt (est.): $16,348,868,007,556.33

America's outstanding consumer debt (est.): $11,380,000,000,000

Average credit card debt per U.S. household: $15,418

Average mortgage debt per U.S. household: $149,782

Average student loan debt per U.S. household: $34,703

Median household income: $50,054

Number of Americans with income below the official poverty rate: 46,200,000

Number of abortions in America (est.): 1,200,000

Number of adoptions in America (est.): 136,000

Number of states that allow physician-assisted suicide: 3

Number of states that have legalized same-sex marriage: 9

Number of Christians that were persecuted for their faith around the world (est.): 200,000,000

Percentage of Americans who identify as Christian: 78.4

Percentage of Americans who identify as Evangelical: 26.3

Percent of American adults that self-identify as very or moderately religious: 69

Median salary of a mega-church pastor: $120,000

Percent of churchgoers that have not told another person about how to become a Christian in the previous six months: 61

Percent of churchgoers that say they rarely or never pray for the spiritual status of others: 21

Number of evangelical organizations that are challenging the Obama administration's contraceptive-antiabortion mandate: 8

Percentage of American adults who purchased one or more books: 71

Number of pornographic titles on Amazon's top-ten best selling book list: 4

Number of spiritual/religious titles on Amazon's top-ten best selling book list: 0

Number of languages spoken in the world (est.): 6,800

Number of languages without any of the Bible translated: under 2,000

Number of people living in an indigenous community without adequate numbers of Christians and resources to evangelize the group: 2,886,148,000

Number of predictions about the apocalypse that came true this year: 0

"Most Nights" by Central

I Think I Lost My Christmas Spirit... Now What?

Sooo... you think you lost your Christmas Spirit... what do you do now? Well if you are like me you open up Google and find out how to get it back! First you will notice an eHow article explaining how to get it back... some of those suggestions are actually good.

Perhaps the Christmas Spirit can only be found in the heart of a young child, you think... so to find out I asked my son Josh to tell me, how to get the Christmas Spirit back if you have lost it... here is what he said:

"Well... put up a Christmas Tree, and put a big snowflake at the top with star lights on there... put God into your heart, that will get you the spirit."

I think maybe Josh nailed it, but you still may not have the Christmas Spirit back... so you have wisely come here. Let's get to work fixing you...

The first thing we want to ponder is: what IS the "Christmas Spirit?" To find that out we have to go back to the beginning and remember what Christmas IS. 

First, let’s start with the word Christmas:  from Old English Crstes mæsse, Christ's festival. Literally it was a feast to celebrate the birth of Christ. It is not some random holiday to celebrate a fat man in a red suite... It was, "Christ' Festival." So to revive the "Spirit of Christmas" we must return to the original meaning of Christmas - a festival in Jesus' honor. 

Now we know what Christmas IS...and that's a lot different from how we celebrate it today. What is the Christmas Spirit? Well if you go back to Google you find this ridiculous article that tells us it was how people thought and acted in the 50's and 60's... HA! What a laugh!

No... the Spirit of Christmas is the Spirit of Christ. When we say we want to get the Christmas Spirit, we are saying that we want to get more of the Spirit of Christ. So, how do we do that?

I'm glad you asked! Josh once again, gives us this sage advice: 

"You pray to God, that is the first thing I know, and you just believe in Him and you will get all that stuff that you need with the Christmas Spirit."

Man my boys are smart... not to brag, but... DANG!

Here is my advice: 

#1 Rekindle your quite time with Jesus... start by reading the Bible, book of John if you don't know where to start - there you will get to know this Jesus and you will find out why he deserves his own special feast day! 

#2 Once you begin to know about Jesus and what He has done for you... how He has loved you and given so much to you, you'll want to do the same for others. So do it! Show some love this Christmas season. As you do, you will be filled anew with the Spirit of Christ and the Christmas Spirit will mean more to you than it ever has before.

Merry Christmas,

Pastor Willy 

5 Ways to Get Your Spiritual Fire Back!

This week at Southside we are half-way through our study of the Pastoral Epistles. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. This week we started 2 Timothy 1. In this chapter Paul tells Timothy in VS. 5 & 6:

5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. 

6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

This Sunday we talked about how our Christian faith has a tendency to lose its flame, lose its passion. It is so easy for that to happen to any of us. This letter was written by the Apostle Paul, in chains, under a death sentence, to Timothy a fellow pastor. If it is possible for a pastor, who was a follower of the Apostle Paul to lose his flame, how much more so for us?

Here are 5 Ways to "Fan into Flame" your love and passion for God:

1. Personal worship times.

Don't wait for Sunday morning to roll around! Don't look to a church worship service to be your only time of worship during the week. Turn on some worship songs and worship along... just you and Jesus. Not because you have to, because you want to!

2. Read and Memorize the Bible.

This is a no-brainer. If you want to get close to Jesus, read the letter He sent you! As you meditate, think about, study, read and ingest God's letter to mankind, you will find the fires of your faith stoked!

3. Offer to pray for friends and family. 

Nothing helps fan embers into a roaring fire like being pushed out of our comfort zone. You know you should do it... so do it! You will find the more you make this a lifestyle the more spiritual fire you have. 

4. Give something away.

Kicking greed out of your life and putting your focus on others helps us see others the way that Jesus sees them. Once you start to view the world through those eyes of compassion, you will never be the same.

5. Serve the needy.

One of the biggest ways we can fan the spiritual flames is by serving those who have need. When we get the focus of off ourselves and onto others, then we can realize our own need. Each one of us is broken and needs to be healed by Jesus. Serving others not only demonstrates the goodness of God, but it also is part of our own spiritual healing and stokes the spiritual fire in our souls.

Fan the Flame!

Pastor Willy

Holloween... Spooky Fun or Satanic Ritual

Every year at the onset of Halloween we are once again bombarded by emails, sermons, podcasts, televangelists and radio preachers all telling us how Pagan Halloween is and as Christians we should steer clear.

Really I don’t know that I have the perfect answer to this debate, honestly, I don’t know if anyone does.

Churches try their best to “Christianize” this most wicked of holidays, but even the best attempts really fall short.

For years I grew up in the same church, every October the pastor would preach at least one sermon on Halloween and give out many materials explaining the Pagan roots to this Satanic night. I could probably recite to you in pretty good detail the origins, practices and history of this black day... but I will let you read another blog for that!

The fact is, even though I know all of that information and history, this holiday is still hard to know how to handle, exactly. For instance, at Southside, we would do a “harvest party” every year and just bless the community with a fun carnival, on the other end of the spectrum, there is a Christian church here in Newberg that has a “trunk-or-treat” in their parking lot, costumes encouraged...

Now the church I grew up in literally taught that if you celebrated Halloween at all, you were giving worship to Satan, intentional or not. The problem with that kind of thinking is, if you do ANYTHING on Halloween then you are giving worship to Satan, and that same church would have a “Harvest Party” every year, costumes not welcome... only thing was, inevitably someone would show up in a costume and we would carry on as if they were not. Now we never treated those folks different, we never acted as if a “persona non grata,” were amongst us, we were nice to everyone who came, fake blood and all. And, I think this seemed like a reasonable alternative.

Problem was, like it or not, we were having a party on Oct. 31. We could say that it was a Christian alternative, but as mentioned before, if you followed the logic, Satan would have been glad that we were having a Christian party on, “his day.” As a matter of fact, if you think it through, he would have been ecstatic that he got the church... THE CHURCH... to celebrate his BIG day.

So, I don’t know how much we should buy into this kind of black and white, all or nothing kind of theology. These are the kind of problems you get into when you have such thinking. Clearly, Halloween is an evil holiday that celebrates Satan, Death and the Occult. Not exactly the kind of thing we Christians want to be a part of celebrating.

For me, my ideas about Halloween began to change about 5 years ago when I took my first church over on the coast in Newport, Or.

My family and I were not going to celebrate Halloween... not until, that is, one of the single women in the neighborhood that we had been talking to about Jesus came by with her kid and asked if we would go along with them... we did. We walked the neighborhood with this single mom and shared LIFE with her. This was part of the bridge building and relationship building that lead to conversations about Jesus. This lady was into New Age Mysticism already... what she needed was to encounter Jesus and have her life changed. Now I am not certain, but I doubt the devil took much pleasure in THOSE activities.

Bottom line, as Christians we should NOT be celebrating the evil side of Halloween, as a matter of fact the scriptures tell us that all who hate God, love death. Prov. 8:36. What we need to focus on is, how can we:

1. Be relevant to culture.
2. Use this as an opportunity to show the goodness of God (Rom. 2:4)

This year we are looking at joining with some other Christians who will be giving away glow bracelets downtown during the annual trunk-or-treat on main street. The point is not to join in and look the same as everyone else, the point is to shine the light where the people are, not from behind the safe walls of a building, but out amongst the crowd. Jesus told us to be in the world but not of the world... it may be cliche but... “What WOULD Jesus Do?” What will you do? How will YOU light up the darkness in your little neighborhood?

Pastor Willy

Why I don't need a Small Group or Community Group.

The Amazing Race - Southside Edition: Official Rules:)

Vlog / Blog Update!

Free Methodist Church of North America Live Vision Cast

Live Vision Cast

Sit down with the bishops here at fmcusa.org/live at 7 p.m. EDT Sunday, Aug. 26, for our next Vision Cast. The bishops will help us see where we’re going as a church and how we’re going to get there.

To watch live click HERE. 

Chick-Fil-A is not Anti-Gay, they are Pro-Marriage!

Well, it has been one heck of a Summer. I don't know about you but I am about sick of peoples life choices being jammed down my throat. Everything from the political scene of pin the blame on the donkey to the cultural reality of alternative lifestyles being thrust upon the populous along with a corresponding expectation that what was once considered alternative, be recognized as mainstream, and if you don't agree, well, you better be strapped in and ready to be slammed... hard. 

If you have taken in any movies this summer you have been inundated with Hollywood's efforts to mainstream the homosexual lifestyle. It seems every movie or music video that comes out nowadays HAS to have a token gay couple in it and yes, they must kiss onscreen at least once. This makes it so difficult to watch TV with my 9 year old and 7 year old boys... last week, "Dad, why did those girls kiss?" ... uhh, well boys, I think they are sisters or something, uhhhh... 

What has become so evident to me recently is the fact that the homosexuals (and those who support that lifestyle choice) are NOT interested in is equality, what they really crave is validation for their choices.

How do I know this to be true? Well, they insist on gay marriage for one. Although they have been offered domestic partnerships that will allow them all the same rights as a heterosexual couple, healthcare benefits, the right to will properties and inherit assets, the homosexuals have stated that this is not good enough for them. Why, what will marriage do, nothing more than add legitimacy to there lifestyle choice. 

Here is a just one great reason why offering marriages to gays is a bad idea. If we validate this lifestyle then what is to stop a man from marrying his sister... or both his sisters. Well, they could have a baby that would be inbred you say, well ok, what if he wanted to marry his brother or his dog or his horse for that matter... after all who are we to define love?

This is not about love, you are free to love anyone you want. This is not about rights, you have all the same rights as heterosexual couples. This IS about validation. 

There has been a major push lately in our society to offer the validation that these people crave, Oreos, Barack Obama, Target, and the Main Stream Media have all jumped on the bandwagon to legitimize this group. 

What is sad is that when you look at this group you know that they just see dollar signs or votes, not people. The issue is irrelevant. The people irrelevant. 

The only little snag is that as much as some may want to say this is OK, we know that God has told us that this is not OK. 

Romans 1:26-27

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Plus many more scriptures that we will not take the time to look up...

If we see these people through God's eyes we should be filled with compassion that our brother or sister has been deceived by the enemy. All too often though, the church has been guilty of showing anger instead of love and compassion. You can take a look at many  "Christian Blogs" that spew nothing but hate... that is clearly not working and not the answer. 

What is the answer... love. We have got to return to love. Love wins. Love covers a multitude of sins and offences. When we show the love of God to those who are broken, hurting and lost it will be like a beacon of light drawing, restoring those lost brothers and sisters back to the Father. 

Romans 2:4

Amplified Bible 

⁴ Or are you [so blind as to] trifle with and presume upon and despise and underestimate the wealth of His kindness and forbearance and long-suffering patience? Are you unmindful or actually ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repent (to change your mind and inner man to accept God’s will)?

It is not about our frustration from our values being hijacked and trampled on, it's about love. Its not about getting the right guy elected, (although that is important), it's about restoring love. It's all about showing the kindness of God to a generation who have lost sight of a Father that cares deeply for them.

Once this happens, we wont have to worry about legalizing gay marriage, or marijuana, we wont have to worry about making abortion illegal and making sure we don't have to pay for someone else's contraceptives. Once love is restored in our communities all those problems take care of themselves and we win back our brother or sister that was lost. 

Oh, and if you have some time, go out and have a chicken sandwich!

Pastor Willy

Steve Sjogren visits Southside

Don't miss out this Sunday at Southside we will have a VERY special guest: Steve Sjogren. Steve will be sharing a special message about what it means to be a servant. Read on to learn more about Steve.

Steve Sjogren launched the Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1985 with 37 people. Under his leadership, the dynamic congregation grew to more than 6000 in average attendance. From the onset VCC had a strong emphasis on servant evangelism, small groups, church planting and caring for the needy. Following a medical accident in 1997 and during his recovery, Steve became the Launching Pastor. Through the years the church planting internship program and Steve’s coaching efforts have produced several dozen successful church plants. Steve is currently focused on writing, speaking and mentoring church planters. Steve’s passion for evangelism, church planting and leadership development is reflected in his writing.

In 2007 Steve and his wife, Janie, began the launch of their fifth church planting adventure in the greater Tampa, Florida area. Steve’s first book, Conspiracy of Kindness (Vine Books, 1993), has gained attention across a broad base of church leaders as an effective and creative approach to sharing the love of Christ. 101 Ways to Reach Your Community is a “cookbook” of projects and practical guide to getting started with Servant Evangelism.

Other books include:Irresistible Evangelism: Natural Ways to Open Others to Jesus, (Group Publishing Inc., 2004), Community of Kindness, A Refreshing New Approach to Planting and Growing a Church (with Rob Lewin, Regal Books, 2003), Perfectly Imperfect Church: Redefining the “Ideal” Church, (Group Publishing Inc., 2002), 101 Ways to Reach People in Need (NavPress, 2002), and Seeing Beyond Church Walls: Action Plans For Touching Your Community (Editor, Group Publishing Inc, 2001). His articles on evangelism, church planting and leadership have appeared in a variety of magazines including Outreach Magazine, REV, Charisma, Decision, Ministries Today, New Man, Christian Reader, Leadership Journal, Discipleship Journal, and Current Thoughts and Trends.

www.stevesjogren.com

Brother Lawrence, a Quote

I have to admit that I consider myself the most wretched person. I am full of sores and corruption, and I know that I have committed all kinds of offenses against my king. I truly feel bad about this and openly confess to him my wickedness and ask for his forgiveness. 

Then I simply place myself in his hands so that he may do whatever he wants with me. And here is the amazing thing that I find: this king is full of mercy and goodness.

He does not chastise or condemn me as he might. But it is as if he comes and hugs me, full of love and has me eat at his table.

He even serves me with his own hands and gives me the key to his treasures. He loves to talk with me and take pleasure in my company. He makes me feel as if I am truly his favorite. -Brother Lawrence

Southside is on FIRE!

Hey everybody! Check out the update to the Southside website, new sermon series is online now, update to the summer schedule...

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The Ultimate Servant Series at Southside

I wanted to give you a little taste from Pastor Greg Knox, the special speaker that will be joining us this Sunday to kick off our new series on Servant Evangelism.

Here is a blog post of his from a while back, I hope you enjoy!

Pastor Willy 

I suppose we could avoid the hostility of unbelieving family and friends if we just kept quiet about Jesus.  I suppose the devil wouldn't be focusing on us if we threw our lot in with him.  I'm sure there isn't that battle between good and evil when only evil dominates a person.  Jesus has called us to a life different from that.  It’s like salmon making their epic runs in the spring.  Every inch they are going to be going is against the flow.  Only the dead ones go with the flow.  Only those who are no longer Christians will go with the flow of this wicked, wicked world.

“Rather, be afraid of the One Who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?  Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.  And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.  Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before My Father in heaven.  But whoever disowns Me before men, I will disown him before My Father in heaven (28b-33).”

Look at the sparrows, He says.  Those birds which are almost worth nothing according to our estimation, God is so concerned with His creation, sustaining it and upholding it by His mighty hand, that not one of those sparrows ends its short life apart from His will.  Well, let’s take something even worth less than a sparrow!  And something a lot closer to home!That head of hair most of you have!  God is so interested in us that He knows how many hairs we have left on our head.

It’s not idle curiosity on His part.  It’s because He loves us.  That’s God’s attitude towards us.  “I will never forget you,” He says, “I have written you on the palm of My hand.”  He comforts us like a mother comforts her newborn infant in her arms, cooing and oohing, blowing kisses and watching the face of her child so intently that her love for that child grows by the minute and she is comforted as much as she comforts her child.  That’s the picture of God’s loving knowledge of us.  It’s Jesus, after His resurrection, taking Peter aside and asking him, “Peter, do you love Me,” three times and then three times telling Peter to “Feed My sheep/lambs,” so that Peter knows that his denying Jesus three times is all is forgiven.  And the best part of it?  Peter doesn’t rely on himself at all.  “Yes, Lord.  You know all things.  You know that I'm Your friend. (John 21.17).”

How do I know I am loved by God?  How do you know you are loved by God?  We don’t look at ourselves, our wonderful lives, our good intentions, the potential we have.  We look to our God.  We are loved by Him because He says He loves us and He shows He loves us.  “You are worth more than many sparrows.”

Sit at Jesus’ feet and we will be transformed.  We will reflect Him more and more in our lives and that’s a good thing.  Not only can we put His teachings into practice every day of our lives, the circumstances we find ourselves in will demand it.

-Pastor Greg Knox
Phil. 1:6

Summer Update!

Relationships Trump Experiences

Recently I have been complaining to my wife about this nagging feeling that some of the people we give money to, so that they can go on short term missions trips feels a lot like we are funding a vacation for said people. Now don't get me wrong, I believe in short-term missions trips, I really do, it's just when you see those people sightseeing, with pictures of them eating ice cream in the public square posted on Facebook and you wonder, what are they doing there? Reaching the lost or buying trinkets in the tourist market? Well this short article by Bishop Matt Thomas sums up very well how I feel about short term missions... check it out. 

As a Free Methodist bishop, I travel a lot. I just returned from a trip that included California, Asia, Indianapolis and back to Washington State. I depart in a few days for Hong Kong and Taiwan.

This issue of LLM is about the church around the world. I have seen the church on all six populated continents, and I have learned the impact Americans have on the church outside the United States.

From the global church’s perspective, there are two kinds of Christian brothers and sisters who visit.

One group includes those seeking an experience. The other group includes those seeking a long-term relationship.

The ones seeking an experience cannot get enough of the travel and the exposure. They want to see the world and experience other cultures. Wanderlust draws them to do a little here and a little there for people scattered around the world. You can hardly mention a place or culture without their eyes lighting up and their mouths prepping to tell their stories. They often have big hearts and always have curious minds.

Those seeking relationship may not have been to many places. If they have, it was to find a place and a people where a love relationship might develop. These relationships include heart, head and hands — commitment for the long haul.

When I travel to Cambodia, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Mexico, Burundi or Ethiopia, I quickly learn who is in that second group. The eyes of the international brothers and sisters light up when they mention members of the relationship-seeking group. I am often inundated with stories, pictures, smiles and sometimes tears of gratitude as they speak intimately about that man, woman or couple who have been like a father, mother, parents, brother or sister to them.

Both groups might be mentioned, but when speaking about the second group, people respond as though I had asked them about family members.

No one can commit to everyone everywhere. No one can know everyone everywhere in a meaningful way. The church around the world will always have and appreciate drop-ins, but drop-ins are seldom remembered.

The church around the world longs for stay-withs. The stay-withs are always remembered. Choose to be in that group.

Tina Turner... Dead!?!

Well today there was a hoax on Twitter that Tina Turner had died! So many famous/iconic people have died over the last two years it was a pretty easy hoax to get going.

You know, this got me thinking about the story of Alfred Nobel who as the story goes, woke up to read in the paper his own obituary. He was recognized as someone who profited from selling bomb making materials and was not recognized for much else, motivated by a rare insight, he dedicated his fortune to bettering the world, most notably with the formation of the Nobel Peace Prize.

What would it be like if you didn't wake up tomorrow? What would you be remembered for? Who would remember you, how would they remember you? It is not too late to start thinking about what will happen after you are gone, (this is starting to sound like a pitch for life insurance... ha!)

Seriously though, how are you making a difference?