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Today Kristi took us through verse 2 of Psalm 23, “He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters”. In this verse, we find an invitation from God into a time of rest. A time where we relinquish striving and producing, achieving and consuming, and enter into a space where we are satiated and restored through nothing that comes of our effort. In our culture, this can seem an impossible task. There is a reluctance and for some even a fear of stopping. What is it that makes us reluctant? Kristi shared lies we may be telling ourselves that may be underneath this reluctance.The lie - I hold all things together. The truth - God holds all things together.The lie - My identity is in what I do. The truth - My identity is in Christ.The lie - Stopping prevents me from functioning how I need to. The truth - Stopping allows me to function in health and wholeness.When we buy into any of these lies, we trade the truth of God’s promised provision for the lies the enemy offers. God not only invites us to stop striving, He also offers us rest. The renewal and restoration we need, comes from something deeper than just stopping for a while. It’s not a day off that sustains our soul, it’s the type of rest God invites us into that does that, a true Sabbath rest.To enter into a true Sabbath rest requires preparation. So what does it look like to prepare? Kristi shared four steps to help prepare.* Choose a day to begin and schedule in some periods of rest. Start with an amount of time you can commit to, even if it's just a couple of hours and work your way up from there. * Once you know when you’re going to take a period of rest, schedule in a few smaller windows of time as you approach it, 10-15 minutes of time where you’re committed to eating and drinking from God and His word. * Be honest with yourself on what's likely to derail you and create a plan to move past those things, keeping the mindset that you aren’t saying no to whatever comes up, but instead saying yes to being at rest with God.* Come up with some ideas on how you want to spend this time of rest. You can spend time in prayer and scripture of course, but that’s not all it has to be. There's room for things that bring you pleasure and delight, for physical rest, for enjoying the beauty of creation. The rest God invites us into is so much less about how we should or should not use the time, and so much more about the posture of our heart. Sabbath rest should be focused on God’s goodness, His provisions, His gifts and His grandeur. It’s a rest, in which we calibrate our minds to intentionally look for His goodness and glory in everything and as we do so, experience His grace and love.We invite you to look at your calendar today and choose a day when you will begin the practice of sabbath rest.

This morning, Pastor Dale continued our new series in Psalm 23. The Psalm begins with the declaration, "The Lord is my Shepherd." We looked at two questions related to this declaration: * Why would I want the Lord to be my shepherd?* Am I willing to accept that I am a sheep?We know our life experience is one of growth and change; that the nature of the human soul is dynamic and not static. As these changes occur, we are being formed. The question is, "Who or what are we being formed into?"As John Mark Comer writes in his book, Practicing the Way: "We are being either transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin and death. “We become either agents of God’s healing and liberating grace, or carriers of the sickness of the world.” To believe otherwise is an illusion, and to give no thought to this is to come dangerously close to wasting your life."Being formed into the image of Jesus isn’t something we do as much as something that is done to us by God himself, but we are not off the hook. Godly transformation isn't something our Father will force on us. We have a responsibility, an action item. We are to cooperate with God’s transforming grace. To cooperate with God's transforming grace, we can begin with an honest assessment of where we are today. What word would you place in this blank?____________ is my shepherdAs we learned through our study through the gospel of Mark, we get to know what God the Father is really like through Jesus; what he said and what he did. As we look at Jesus' life we see Jesus is a shepherd who wants the role of Shepherd in our lives as he sees peace even in the midst of chaos. He is a shepherd who provides that peace, gives the peace, sends people out in peace. He is a shepherd like Psalm 23 who will be there “All the days of your life.”He not only is the Shepherd, Jesus also knows what it’s like to be a sheep. He was the most vulnerable of all the sheep, the lamb for sacrifice. He experienced being led by a shepherd and took on the role of the lamb, fully living Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing."The second question we asked ourselves, are we willing to accept that we are His sheep? Are there areas of our lives where we are trying to lead instead of being led by our Shepherd? Are we looking to our Shepherd to see where He is leading, trusting in His provision, aware of His presence? We invite you to sit with the Father and as you read and meditate on Psalm 23 and seek His input on these questions and what steps He's inviting you to take to be formed by Him this week.

Pastor Dale started our new series, "All the Days of My Life." The 7 weeks following Resurrection Sunday mark an important time in the Christian calendar known as Easter Tide. This is a season spanning 50 days, reflecting the time between Jesus' resurrection and the day of Pentecost when Jesus' promise of the Holy Spirit descended upon His followers. This is a season of new hope and growth, a season that celebrates: what Jesus said would happen, happened. As we navigate this season together, Pastor Dale will walk us through the 23rd Psalm.In the beginning of the Psalm, we are met with a striking phrase: I lack nothing. Often we use "lack" to give us an edge, to drive us forward, to motivate us. The motivating piece we get from lacking is to somehow have it fulfilled. What we "want" is to "not want" anymore, and we end up connecting that to "I have no need because I have it all."As Pastor Dale pointed out in Matthew 19:16-22, Jesus is calling us to so much more. Instead of pursuing stuff, status, or even religion to fill that lack, Jesus asks us to give up everything. He says, "I am enough, simply rely on me. With me, you never run out." A life without lack is rooted in our knowledge of God. What we place our minds on becomes the reality of our lives, so if we place our minds on God, the reality of God fills our lives. We cannot experience the riches of His glory however unless we leave Him the necessary space in which He can express Himself within us. "Give up everything, then come follow me."Pastor Dale invited us to make a commitment over the next 50 days: to set our minds on God and see what happens. He invited us to read the creed of Psalm 23 out loud every day, paying attention to what the Holy Spirit brings up in you, listening to what God is saying to you, and taking a posture of submission to Him as He shepherds you.

You're invited to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus with us!

Today is the final week of our fast together and our focus is aligning ourselves to and standing with the poor. Pastor Dale will highlight Scripture to guide us, offer prayers to pray in times of hunger and unite us as we fast together.

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week with Palm Sunday. It’s the day we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, where the streets were lined with people shouting hosanna, save us. Palm Sunday is a day we're reminded of the choice Jesus gives us; a choice to accept him as Lord and crown Him as King, or deny Him and reject Him all together. As Pastor Danny took us through Mark 14: 53-72, we see two things in this set of verses; Jesus is giving up his life and Peter is trying to save his life. Jesus is on trial and the high priest asks Jesus if he is the Messiah. Jesus responds "I am". Jesus, acknowledging he is the true Messiah and King, knows it will get him killed. Peter is watching from the outside. As Jesus is laying down his life, Peter denies knowing him in an effort to save his own life. Peter’s denial of Jesus is at its core breaking the connection of a relationship. Mark highlights the disappearance of Peter in his gospel but if we look at the other gospel writers we see in Peter a couple things that happen when we are the betrayer. * Peter is overcome with guilt and shame * Peter numbs the feelings by going back to work. He returns to his old way of life. And then hope breaks through. In John 21:4-7, we see Jesus on the beach where he meets with Peter and the other disciples and makes them breakfast. They share a meal together and three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Three times Peter confesses his love and in doing so, Peter is restored to new life. Palm Sunday is an invitation to all of us and in Peter, we see how the response to the invitation plays out. It’s an invitation to make a choice - a choice to accept Jesus as Lord and crown Him as King, or deny him and crucify him. Peter denied Jesus, faced the spiritual death marked by guilt and shame and the need to try and deal with it by covering it up or numbing it. But in his restoration through Jesus, in his acceptance of Jesus as King he experiences the hope that restoration brings. That hope is marked by full transformation, full of purpose, and full of peace.  Jesus offers everyone the same choice. No matter how you’ve betrayed him, he sits on the beach calling. That same restoration is available to anyone who chooses to receive it. Transformation, purpose, and peace are available in part now, and the beauty of Palm Sunday is it’s a promise that it will be complete when he returns again.