Sunday, June 23 @ Zwick’s Island Pavilion

 This is a family event. Invite your friends and family to join us for an afternoon of fun.

 - Free Food - Live Music - Face Painting - Games for Kids -

 And of course, STRAWBERRIES!!!

 EVENT IS FROM: Noon – 4:00 pm

Bring a Lawn Chair, Sunscreen and an Appetite!

Although this verse has been used as a justification for church splits over doctrinal differences causing great division in the body of Christ, more commonly it is used to call believers to a segregated life, a life free from the entanglements of relationships with unbelievers. The application of this verse has led many a new convert and a seasoned saint to distance themselves from the very people Christ has called us to reach. If Paul was not calling us to relationally separate ourselves from our unbelieving neighbours, then what is he encouraging the believers in Corinth to do?

The key to understanding Paul’s injunction to the Corinthian Church is to read it in context. In chapter six, Paul begins by commending himself to the church in Corinth. He affirms his affection for them and recounts how, though he and the Apostles have never been a burden to the church in Corinth, they have sown much into the Corinthian’s hearts. He challenges them in verse 12, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections.”

That verse is the hinge upon which Paul’s further comments swing. Though Paul and the Apostles had held nothing back from the church, and had not restricted them in any way, Paul rebuffs them, pointing out, “you have been restricted by your own affections.”

The church in Corinth had not separated their hearts unto God. They were still affectionate for the things of their former life and religion. As people who had been purchased by the Love of God in Christ, their hearts belonged to no other.

It is interesting to note that in verse 17, Paul is actually quoting Isaiah 52:11, a call to the people of Zion to liberty from Babylon, including it’s pagan idols. I believe Paul’s call to the Corinthians was the same, a call to leave the idolatrous entanglements of their former religion and to walk affectionately after Christ. The separation Paul was encouraging, was a separation of the heart unto God and not a call to limit our exposure to non-believers, their lives and their activities.

The truth is that separated Christians quickly forget how to relate to non-believers. When we work and go to school with unbelievers, but only play sports with Christians, play music with other Christians, and have friendships only with Christians, we eliminate our opportunity to impact unbelievers in their world. It is not how Jesus operated.

Instead of separating Himself from non-believers, Jesus came to be known as a friend of sinners and He called them to be His followers.

This month, we answer the call to be a “Disciple Making Church.” Making disciples flows from a life of discipleship. Discipleship starts with telling people about Jesus, and the open door to tell people about Jesus happens when we have engaged them in relationships.

Join us on Tuesday, June 04 @ 7 pm for our Corporate Prayer service.

Everyone welcome. Come expecting for God to do great things!!

Few Televangelists fell from grace, landed with as great a thud, and did so as publicly as Jim Bakker. The founder of PTL (Praise The Lord) Club and Television ministry was not only caught in an affair and had a wife addicted to pharmaceuticals, but he was also indicted for mail fraud (a charge covering the use of any form of public communication from mail to TV to illicit funds for fraudulent means). After a swift trial, Jim was sent away to prison from where he was released after serving four years. Jim maintained throughout the trial that he was innocent, that he had done nothing wrong, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. The public wanted blood and Jim was their prey.

In prison, Jim experienced a transformation. He stopped denying culpability for the many things which led to his demise. He repented, thoroughly, like King David of old and he fell once again into the loving grace of God.

After his release from prison, Jim set about to chronicle his journey to restoration. The result of his efforts was an excellent book entitled simply, “I Was Wrong.” The book reveals the previously untold story of his journey from PTL, to prison, to restoration. The book also reveals the succinct three-fold process for what we call repentance, and clearly demonstrates how repentance is disingenuous whenever one of the three steps is missing.

Jim demonstrates through his own life that repentance is a process involving three steps, expressed in three simple statements: “I was wrong.” “I’m sorry.” “Please forgive me.” Repentance is incomplete and restoration virtually impossible, when one of the steps is bi-passed. For the record: Jim is correct!

True repentance must begin with an admission of guilt, and acceptance of responsibility for your actions. It must be followed with a heart of contrition, an expression of grief over the pain your sins have caused. Repentance is complete when a request for forgiveness is made, placing you as the offender, at the mercy of the one(s) you have offended.

Too often our efforts to be restored are void of one or more of the previous steps. In fact, the only step most commonly taken is the expression of sorrow, as if somehow your feeling badly about the situation is sufficient. It isn’t.

The call to repentance is the call to acknowledge your sin, to take ownership of your actions and how they have impacted your God and others, and then to ask forgiveness from God and the one(s) you have wronged. The next time you experience a fall, large or small, remember these simple steps; complete all three and be free!

Let’s Talk / Financial Course / Laugh Your Way Group

Special Speaker: Wayne Levy on May 25

For More information, contact Pastor Todd.

 Join us for the follow up course in a small group setting on Thursday evenings @ 7 pm at Desert Stream.

This Laugh Your Way curriculum will: Bring positive hope to your marriage; Help couples better understand each others needs; Rekindle romance in your marriage; Encourage digging deeper into the material presented at the Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage seminar.

For more information, please contact Pastor Mark.

There are three postures a believer can take regarding culture.

We can Confront Culture like Terry Jones, Pastor of the “Dove World Outreach Center” in Gainesville, Florida. Terry has publically burned the Koran. He blames the government for the attacks of 911. He and his congregation protest outside strip clubs. You get the picture. Terry believes God’s call on his life is to CONFRONT culture in everyway that it does not conform to the scripture.

We can abandon culture as the Monks of the Catholic Church, who removed themselves from the world and lived in isolation in monasteries. Many believers today in churches everywhere, practice this kind of Christianity in a subtler manner. They isolate themselves from culture, refusing to participate in “worldly activities” in an effort to protect themselves and their children from the damaging effects of the world.

We can also choose to transform culture. Christ clearly called us to transform our culture, to see it changed from a worldly culture to a Kingdom culture. As Handel wrote in the “Messiah,” we have been called to transform this world until the “Kingdoms of this world” become the “Kingdoms of our Lord.”

We cannot transform culture though antagonism or abandonment.

We must engage our culture (through love) to transform our culture.

I think most prayerful and passionate believers know that this is what we should do; yet the truth is we have plainly failed in recent years to have a transformational impact on our world as our forefathers did. Why?

I think one of the major contributors to our failure to transform our culture is FEAR. We end up abandoning our neighbours and co-workers, not because we believe we should live in isolation from them as the Monks of old (Today’s church likely looks as much like the world as any church in history), but because we are afraid of their reaction. We are concerned that we may get rejected or shunned and that is a difficult thing to live with, so we remain silent. I also believe we don’t step out and attempt great things like our forefathers who built universities and hospitals did, because we’re afraid of failing. The risks just seem too big.

However, I believe you cannot live your faith and avoid risk. Taking risks, putting your heart and your faith out there, is a vital part of transforming our culture. It is what we were made to do. In fact, I have concluded that life is about taking risks and death is about wishing you had taken more.

So as long as we have breath, let’s step up and step out, and witness the transformation of our world.

I was looking through a journal entry I made last year and discovered that I had a desire to get in shape then, just as I do this now. Here is what I wrote:

I went to the gym yesterday in the morning. I have been away from the gym on a regular basis for a couple of years but decided in February to return to it again and so far have been quite regular, even if I have not pushed myself very hard.  

So Friday I decided to let Mark McFaul put me through my paces, a kind of stepping it up if you will. Well he did just that, using simple exercises done back-to-back 30 seconds at a time with only 30 seconds in between. The first time through the five exercises I was OK, the second I was dying, the third well let’s say I was having an out of the body experience.  

Afterward I had a number of other tasks to complete around town and so I was quite surprised that I didn’t feel to bad after the work out. So I went to bed feeling pretty good, although tired.  

This morning was another matter all together. I am so stiff and sore I can hardly negotiate a set of stairs. That is what happens when you get out of shape. You pay for it when you try and return. 

Spiritually things are not much different. It is my experience that spiritual muscles get out of shape just as physical ones do. When you go through a season of spiritual inactivity, not praying as you should, not reading the word, you become soft and weak.

If you jump right back in hard it can take a while to adjust and you can find yourself reeling from the experience. It is much better to keep spiritual matters before you all the time, just as it is important to keep exercising all the time. If you do then you won’t find yourself feeling so rough the morning after.

Getting in shape can be hard work, but physically or spiritually, it’s worth it!