Sunday Preview & Thought for the Week (3.20.14)

I hope you're having a great week and enjoying this first day of Spring.  I can't remember ever being this ready for Spring!  Can you believe Easter is one month from today?  I hope you're inviting friends and preparing your heart.  Easter is a great time to invite others, and our Worship Experience is going to be awesome.  If you've got friends and family that are skeptics, new to faith, exploring God, or unsure about Jesus, it's the perfect opportunity to invite them as I'll be teaching about the basics of the Easter story and why it matters 2,000 years later.

This Sunday, we're continuing our series "How It All Went Down" as we talk about Jesus' Trial Before the Sanhedrin.  If you don't know what the Sanhedrin is, we'll make it all make sense on Sunday.  There are some great lessons for our own lives in these stories.

Thought for the Week
"Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness."  Matthew 6:33

I was telling Emily the other day that I can't remember a season of our lives like this.  Well, there's never really been one.  We're in the thick of preparing for Easter and working on building plans for a permanent home.  I'm reading about a book a week in preparation for another couple of weeks of school in May.  And we're chasing around the four baseball teams that our boys play on.  We talked about how we're having to say no to a lot right now.  My focus has been baseball, church and school.  That's about all I have time for these couple of months.  It will be over in May, and we'll breathe, but it's a crazy season.  I'll bet you've had or are having seasons like that.  Family life, work life, and something else all ramps up at the same time.  There are a couple of important things to note in a life cycle like that:

• It's okay to give yourself permission to say 'no' for a season.  That doesn't mean it's a forever 'no.'  There are times you have to choose.  Know that you can always come back and choose differently when that period of life is over.  And let people know that.  Tell them, "I can't know, but talk to me about it this summer or in a year.  I'll be in a different place then."
• Keep the main things the main things.  Where frustration happens in relationships is when people feel like we're short-changing what is vitally important to them.  For me, school comes last of those three.  While I'm going to school to help me grow as a leader (which is important to our ministry), I can take classes over again.  I'll never get watching my boys play baseball back and I'll never get the opportunity back of preaching a message that someone needs to hear or leading our church through this important season.
• Don't say 'no' to God.  It's what I need most, and what I constantly remind myself of.  In the madness, we all need time to stop and exhale so that we can breathe in God's Spirit.  We need a moment in the Bible.  We need a time of prayer.  We need to connect with our Creator.  We need to seek Him first, not last, so that God my be moving and working in all our baseball watching, soccer mom-ing, school reading, client meeting, softball practicing, dance recital-ing, Bible studying, LIFE Group-ing, Volunteering, and family obligation-ing.  

May we seek Him first, even in the busiest seasons.

In Christ,

Carter