86400 Second Every Day... Use It Or Lose It!

About a year ago I listened to a talk the Rick Warren gave on time management. I thought It was very good so I wanted to share my notes with you from that talk... enjoy!

If we live an average life of 70 years that will mean that each one of us will spend:

A. 23 Years asleep
B. 17 Years Working
C. 11 Years Watching TV / Playing
D. 6 Years Traveling
E. 2 Years Getting Ready
F. 1 Year in Church

Ephesians 5 tells us to live life with responsibility. What does that mean?

1. First we have to understand that time management is life management. When we are just killing time we are in essence committing suicide! We all have 168 hrs. per week... how do we use them?

2. Ephesians 5:17 Don't live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.

We need to understand what our purpose is, (that's why we are doing the Purpose Driven Life this fall as a church).

       1. Know God / Worship
       2. Grow Like Jesus / Discipleship
       3. Over Flow with Love / Fellowship
       4. Show your gifts / Ministry
       5. Go tell others / Evangelism

Every person needs 2 things:
1. Ministry (if you are not involved in serving, you should be)
2. Mission

You are not accountable to the expectations of others, only God, you cannot please everyone! We have just enough time in this life to do God's will.

Here are some tips on how to prioritize your life:

1. Keep a journal of how you are using your time for a couple of days, look back over it and ask the question, is this how I want to use my time? " An unexamined life is not one worth living" -Socrates
       a. Just because something is prior does not make it a priority... something more important may come up!

2. Say NO to a lot of stuff.

3. Group similar tasks together: phone calls, meetings, errands...

4. Plan your week in 21 segments: 7 Morning / Noon / Evening segments.

5. Use all of your "free time". Loose change time, redeem your time. Cary a book or audio resource to help you grow when you are "stuck waiting" somewhere.

6. Maintain a "relaxed attitude". Proverbs 14:30 A sound mind makes for a robust body, but runaway emotions corrode the bones.

7. Put God first by scheduling time for Him first every day.

8. Utilize the present... there is no time like the present, don't waste your days.

5 things to do EVERY day:

1. Use today to worship God
2. Use today to fellowship
3. Use today to  Grow
4. Use today to serve others
5. Use today to share your faith

Given all of this advice... what would be some next steps that you could take to help you improve how you use your time?

Be blessed and make the most of your days!

Pastor Willy

Running Like Your Pants are on Fire

This is going to be a busy fall. We have so many exciting opportunities comming up:

1. C.S. Lewis Work Days: This Sat. the 26th & Oct. 10th - 9am

2. Leadership Summit Oct. 2nd - 4th

3. Community Groups Begin the week of Oct. 4th – week of Dec. 13th

4. Prayer Service – Oct. 10th @ C.S. Lewis

5. First Service @ C.S. Lewis Oct. 11th - 10am

6. The Harvest Outreach – Oct. 24th - 10:30-2:30

7. Grand Re-Opening @ C.S. Lewis – Oct. 25th – 10am

And that is just October!

If you love to serve than this October is going to be packed with a ton of opportunities for you to reach out with love.

There are a lot of changes taking place at Southside and you might feel like your head is spinning... I want to encourage you to hold on and dig in with me. We are going to work for the Lord with all of our hearts and at times it may feel like we are running with our pants on fire, but the call has never been greater. We live in a time when people’s needs are the greatest and we have to get mobilized to help meet some of those needs.

This October we are going to meet some of those needs by having a Harvest Outreach. While this summer we got busy sowing the seeds of love, this fall we are going to reap a harvest!

We are going to spend the day feeding our neighbors, loving our neighbors and inviting them to hear the gospel and be a part of a ministry where they can plug into a community group and begin the journey of learning who God is..

This is going to be so exciting! Are you catching the vision? God is going to do a miracle in some people’s lives this fall and we get to be a part of it.

All of this hard work, all of this labor is to prepare US to be ready to receive all who God brings us. I know that if we are faithful to do what God has called us to, then He will be faithful with the increase.

Jesus said that He would build His church, and what a partner to have!
Southside... Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up! (Gal. 6:9)


Looking forward to the harvest with you,

Pastor Willy

Community Groups

Well August has come to a close and so has our summer term. I know that it was a great time for me to get to know families in the church better, as I am sure, you did too!

September there will be no groups going on. It is a busy time, getting back into the swing of school and work. Nick (my son) starts his first day of 1st grade today! Angel is home schooling, so it has been a little crazy around here. Yesterday we went to a school supply store and picked up last minute stuff for this year of school. There is something about the way freshly sharpened pencils smell that I really like. Probably just another case of “grandma’s cookies”.
This fall (October) we will start our new community groups. They will last only 10 weeks ending the second week of December and not meet at all during the week of Thanksgiving. We are going to be doing a church wide study this term of the Purpose Driven Life and serving once together, probably at the Burnside Shelter.

WHY!!!

Let me give you 5 good reasons:

1. People live a far more satisfying, contented life when they know what their purpose is. The book, teaches us about our 5 purposes in life. Although many of us may have gone through this before, it is probably time to do it again! After all, most likely none of us can list all five of the purposes... or even one!

To further illustrate the point let me show you something:

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve. Ebbinghaus studied forgetting in the late 1800s. He found that retention and forgetting occur over time and plotted his data: the famous forgetting curve. Look at the diagram, after just 9 hours we have forgotten 70% of the data!

Sooooo, if it has been more than 9 hours since you read the book, you have most likely fogotten 70% of the content. By the way, that is why we keep on preaching out of the Bible every week... we need it because we forget it!!!

2. We already have all of the books and teaching DVDs. The book retails for $14.95 and you get one FREE when you join a community group this fall!

3. You will grow spiritually when you go through this study in a group, and the entire church will grow when we are all learning the same truths at the same time!

4. Even Jesus was in a group! You should be too!!

5. Groups are an opportunity to let God speak into your life, you don't want to miss THAT opportunity!

Group sign-ups will start next week; if you are interested in being in a group you can sign up online: www.southsidenewberg.org OR sign up at church Sunday mornings.

Be blessed,

Pastor Willy

P.S. this is going to be a great study to invite a friend to. Now is the time to start asking your friends if they would like to attend with you, remember, most people never come because they are never asked!