The Sunday That Was (October 16)

Yesterday we opened up our new series called, "Prayer" with what else but Bon Jovi's 80's hit, "Livin' on a Prayer". We even gave the band some 80's rocker hair to jam with... they had just a little fun with it! This was my view from off stage looking at Josh, Meredith and Rayzor. You never know what might happen next at the Suncoast.

Here are some random thoughts from the first talk in this 3-week series:

Prayer is an interesting, confusing, even at times offensive subject. It is also powerful, many people rely on it for a sense of peace, and studies have even shown it has many health benefits. It is at least a topic we are interested in and curious about no matter where you are on the spiritual spectrum.

A lot of people don't pray more because they just don't know how!

We also don't pray more because we get bored or distracted when we pray. The office next to ours at the Warehouse has a guy that cusses like a sailor almost every day when I pray... it is a little distracting!

Many of us don't pray more because we think our request are too small to bother God with.

Others of us don't because we are not sure our prayers make a difference!

The bottom line is prayer is simply communication with God. David asked God in Psalm 5 to consider his SIGHING! David felt like he was so close to God that even a sign could be a prayer. It is a lot different than we think!

IF you let yourself break out of your preconceived ideas of what prayer is you can find a lot more creativity and effectiveness and meaning!

Try: Talking to God with gut level honesty, about everything that matters to you, continually (don’t pray for long periods of time, but never go long periods of time without praying) and finally we must learn how to listen for God's response.

Five years from now, your life should look radically different because God wants to say something to you TODAY that could change the course of your life, the life of your family, maybe the course of generations to come. Will you learn to listen for His response?

This Sunday we will dive into the mystery of unanswered prayer. I hope if you are reading this then you will be there this Sunday. I hope you will pray about someone to bring too!!!

I wanted to let you know two vision pieces of what is going on right now at our church. One is THIS SATURDAY at 9am a bunch of people will be showing up at the West Pasco Pregnancy Center for our NEXT Serves project. We want to make Pasco County a better place! We want to serve our community. Service is a big part of the Suncoast from Sunday mornings to service opportunities like this. This Saturday we will help do some landscaping and building maintenance so wear some old stuff and meet at the center at 9am. Marge is leading the event and her e-mail is margie7444@aol.com Everyone is welcome to help make a difference and here is the address and map:

West Pasco Pregnancy Center

***NOTE: There are no NEXT Groups this week so we can serve on Saturday!

The second vision piece I want to mention is this week our church is giving back thousands of dollars to local ministries that help people in need from Land O' Lakes to Ybor City. We are also setting aside some money to help those in need at our own church! As a church we believe the Bible teaches to live on 90% of what God has blessed us with and give back to Him 10% called the tithe. From day one of the Suncoast we also believed if God asks us as Christ-Followers to follow this command then we as a church, as an organization, need to follow it as well. So we "give back" 10% of everything that comes in each year. To date we have given back over $75,000 in the past 5 years!!! As this money goes out this week pray that God blesses and multiplies it and that it is used to bring even more people to Jesus. Stay tuned for updates.

Don't miss part two of "Prayer" this Sunday guys... it will be good stuff and I will try to have my "A" game back. Felt like I only brought a "B-" this week.

:-)