Thought for the day...

Getting people to like you is merely the otherside of liking them!

Now on FB....

Community of Joy Church now has a Facebook wall! Follow events and pics there too! If you have a Facebook account... become a fan of CoJ!

And they are off....

Our youth group left this morning for their work camp in Brooklyn. They wanted to leave by 9, but it was more like 9:25 when they got on the road. I have been texting two of the youth... every hour or so... asking... "are you there yet?"

They should be there this afternnon... and then should have a great week being the hands and feet of Jesus... experiencing many new things and enjoying making connections in Brooklyn.

A BIG thanks to Miss Tami Brown for making the connection and planning the trip. And a BIG thanks to Sara Potvin and Belinda White for driving and working with the youth!

A weird experience....

Friday, I had a really weird experience!

I needed to call tech support on our Easy Worship software. I have really loved this software and still do! It just wouldn't open last Sunday, so, I had to download a new version and rename my data files. That got us through the Sunday potential challenge... but then I couldn't figure out how to get my songs back from the previous version.

So, I called Tech Support and that is when the weird experience started....

The guy from Tech Support asked if I had internet connected to the computer... yes! Then he asked if he could connect to my computer from his location.... ummm.... well.... I guess so. And he told me the steps to go through to allow him access... then the weird part... I sat infront of my computer here in Salisbury and watched him open the files and transfer the data in my files... all from his location in Texas! WOW!

Made me think... I am sure glad that God gave us free will and doesn't control us like that! That would make us robots, not humans!

Comming Soon....

Coming soon to Community of Joy... a LONG awaited Dream of mine! A Saturday Night Worship Gathering. August 29 @ 5:35!

My prayer is that this gathering will allow us to connect with people in our community who are seeking a deeper God connection and a place to be encouraged to make a difference in our community! I pray specifically that we will be able to connect with the University population that are our neighbors. Can't wait to see how God will use this time!

Sermons once again on Itunes and podcast on our web...

YEAH! after a long time being absent, our sermons are now podcast on our website.

Real Faith...

Tony Morgan writes in his book "Killing Cockroaches", "Real faith is dynamic. It's controversial. It's dangerous. It's constantly growing. It asks challenging questions. It involves mystery. You can't put it in a box. You can't keep it quiet. You can't outgrow it. You can't out-dream it. It's more focused on others than it is on itself. Real faith gives me peace but make me discontent to let things stay the same."

I agree!

Living the Dash....

Some thoughts on life and death...

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives." Alan Sachs

"I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending, that haunts our sleep so much as the fear ... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived." Harold Kushner

"I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well." Diane Ackerman

"Guard well your spare moments. they are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Focus....

Was reminded last night by a friend and yesterday afternoon in another conversation with a friend, that focus is an important part of how we feel!

We can either choose to see the struggles and challenges or we can choose to see the opportunities brought on by the challenges. And which we focus on will determine how we navigate the waters.

Talked about this a bit on Sunday -- when I was encouraging us to see God in the midst of the struggle. In Psalm 27, David has a confidence that is unreal when the enemies armies are encamped around him. He can have that confidence because he is focusing on God and where God is in the midst of the struggle.

It is real easy to accuse God of abandoning us when he doesn't beam us out of the trouble we are in.... but the greater challenge is to look for where God is in the midst of the struggle.

Instead of praying... God get me out of here or God where are you or God why are you letting this terrible thing or things happen to me; why not pray... God help me to see where you are in the midst of this pain, struggle, challenge. Help me to lean on you and trust that you can make something good of this struggle.

When life comes at you fast, where are you looking? What are you focusing on?

The weekend...

Had a fun weekend, begining with the Picnic at Stacy's with Community of Joy on Friday night with Fireworks!

Then spent part of the day Saturday and the whole night at the beach with our friends from PA. Got home from the fireworks at 1:30... left Ocean City at 11:145! Had a guy in front of us fall asleep at the wheel and nothing would wake him... finally after laying on my horn for a while, the car next to him got him awake by yelling at him and then he went his merry way! Interesting!

Putting together a Pictorial Directory

We are putting together a pictorial directory and relationship building help at Community of Joy. Working hard to get everyone to be part of it. We want this end product to be a help in encouraging folks to get to know one another better. It will be a three ringed binder with one page dedicated per family unit. (that way it can be changed without scraping the whole book) Information on the page will be more than names, address, and phone numbers...

Many thanks to Photographer Aaron Johnston for the MANY hours he has given to the project taking photos and editing photos and posting photos. Here is a sample of Aaron's work. He is available for all kinds of occassions, high school senior, family, individual portraits; weddings, special events. As you see, he does GREAT work! This photo was taken in the new lawn area of the Ministry Center property.

Ordering the photos is easy... through Aaron's website, you decide which ones you want, crop them as you like, and pay for them through paypal or credit card and in a few days they arrive in your mail box, well packaged. I am quite impressed with this part of the service as well!

When Life Comes At You Fast....

That is the topic for Sunday... What do you do, when life comes at you fast?

It's all about the soil....

Earlier this spring, I preached on what I call the parable of the soils.... others call the parable of the sower.... and in that sermon, I shared my love for gardening and my inability to garden in this sandy soil. Aftward, I was challenged by two people to build up the soil. So, I took the challenge when I was on vacation the end of May. I got some good compost from Pete Layfield - a whole pickup truck load of it. Spread it out over the garden and then worked it in. Then I planted some seeds and plants. And the above picture is what it looks like today. Need to run the rototiller in it tonight, but it is looking really good! Amazing what a little time and energy invstment in building up the soil can do!

Whose Story Is It?

Here is a quote from the book I am reading... "Christianity has become primarily a strategy for "victory", but it is an individual victory over debt, obesity, or low self-esteem, not a collective victory over injustice, poverty, war, or environmental degradation. Faith has become essentially an individual transaction and the image of God is that of a personal trainer. Much preaching today is framed as an invitation to God to come into our story, but the biblical invitation is radically different. We are being invited into God's story."

Think about that for a while...



Whose story is it? And who is invited into that story?



I firmly believe that it is God's story that God invites us into! And when we understand our faith relationship with God that way, it changes our view of God! and of ourselves for that matter!

Thanks to Jim Replogle for the design and hard work on laying out the shed as well as building the trusses! And then thanks to Frank Potvin, Aaron Johnston, Robert Smith, and Dick Todd for the hard work today to get the shed under roof! Also thanks for Ronnie Foreman for allowing me to use his truck and trailer so that we could get the materials yesterday and transport them to the site today. (We didn't want to chance leaving the lumber on site over night!)

With the addition of doors and a lock, the shed will be able to begin housing things like the lawn mower and snow blower! YEAH!