Wow, it has been a busy few days for Cheryl and I. We left last Wednesday morning for a church leadership conference in South Carolina and it was, dare I say, life changing! Cheryl did a great post on her blog here:
CherylMoon.com
I will be sharing some personal things that happened in my life later this week, but first here are my Monday morning random thoughts from the weekend that was at Church of the Suncoast:
We started the service with a 9/11 countdown and video that was pretty emotional I think. I didn't want to really make a point so the opening time was more about letting yourself remember those emotions from 10-years ago. The only "point" I made when I came out was what Paul told the Corinthians, faith, hope and love. And, the greatest of these is love. That should be our response. We prayed for those still hurting and for our nation to seek Jesus like they did in the days after 9/11 ten years ago.
The band helped us get transitioned and then I came out to wrap up our "Life at the Redline" series. We talked about margin in our morals and the notes looked like this:
Will we let the culture push us to its moral redline, or will we step back from the line and create some moral margin?
1 Corinthians 6:18 - "Run from sexual sin! All other sins people commit are outside their bodies, but those who sin sexually sin against their own bodies."
There is a personal significance with sexual sin that is different than anything else.
For students, you need to pre-decide how far you are going to go sexually. You need some artificial boundaries to cover you in a moment of weakness. For singles, the more things you have experienced, the further from the redline you need to place your self-imposed limits. For married couples, 1) Don't have lengthy online conversations. 2) Don't eat alone with the opposite sex. 3) Don't ride alone with someone of the opposite sex. 4) Don't be alone in your office with the opposite sex. 5) Talk about questionable relationships. 6) Porn and strip clubs are not neutral entertainment. 7) Don't let the opposite sex confide in you.
The point being we need to take extreme measures to create some moral margin for those times of weakness in our lives because no one PLANS on blowing up their life!
If you missed any of the series check out the message videos on the player at the upper right of my blog. It is worth your time!!!
On the announcement front we talked about two things:
Volunteer Community for all volunteers THIS Saturday night, 7pm at the Warehouse. We will feed you some Carrabbas and celebrate the volunteer of the quarter! Don't miss it, bring the family. Help us plan with a RSVP to rita@canthisbechurch.com
NEXT Groups start THIS week! Our small groups run for the next 10-weeks and you can get all the info on the news page of our website:
http://www.canthisbechurch.com/news
And... that is the Sunday that was. Can't wait to share some of the personal stuff from the conference later this week, check back for that.
Love you guys and I love my church!!!
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