Tag: wisdom

Even the rocks cry out

Nature astounds me.  The trees in autumn are so wonderful to watch, I can get lost in watching a single leaf fall to the ground.  And the fact that nature, from the earth, to animals, to nature as a whole, while not predictable, follows such a beautiful, harmonious pattern makes me understand, at least for a moment or two, those that worship nature.

Now we know to worship the Creator, not the created.  That God himself orchestrated the cosmos, the wind and waves, the leaf I follow to the ground.  but the bible clearly states that the heavens display His handiwork.  That if we don’t give God his full worship, that even the rocks will cry out.  I have often pondered this.  Many hours have thought and prayed, “Lord, let me worship you in your glory, and keep the rocks silent.”  But tonight, driving home, through the wonder that is the Pacific Northwest tonight, while listening to a sermon on God’s authority, I think I finally caught a glimpse of what this all means.

“And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed,  each according to it kind, on the earth.” and it was so.  The earth brought forth vegetation…(Gen. 1:11-12a)  The earth sings God’s glory and it’s God’s glory that people hear and worship.  They are enticed by what the earth does, but miss why the earth does so.  It is because it’s creator deemed it so.   The earth pronounces God’s glory because it is doing what it was commanded.  Because in doing what God commanded, it can show true obedience to the One who has ultimate control.  It can reflect the Master.  That is how nature has it’s power.  It’s in the obedience to the master that it’s true purpose is revealed.  And it’s that way with us.

 

Why does the blossoming apple tree hold our fascination?  How is it that even though we know that after harvest season come winter and snow, and yet we still find beauty in the flakes falling???  One could think that their very predictability would cause us to lose interest in the whole process. But it’s the very predictable pattern of God’s creation that sings His praise.  The wind and the waves, the snow and apple tree are subject to God, and do exactly what He commanded at the beginning of time, and that’s it.  They do what He wants, regardless of their own will.  Now the apple tree doesn’t have will, but we do.  When do we reflect the glory of our God?!?!  When we are subject to Him, and are doing the will of our loving father, regardless of our own will.  Instead of garnering favor for ourselves, like we try to from time to time, let’s think of the apple tree, the dandelion, the oak losing it’s leaves every year.  They don’t shout about the mighty acts they have accomplished, they simply show the world, all who see, what God instructed them of, and thereby give glory to their creator.

 

In every day, there are times when we feel the Spirit calling us to something.  How about we don’t fight it, but like the snowflake falling, or the rose blossoming, we follow the authority of our Creator, and do His will, giving Him the glory He deserves.  And keep those rocks silent one more day.

Hope Holencik

Busy Summer

It has been a very busy summer for the Fire Department in our area. I say this because of what Ive been told, not because I have any other summers to compare it to. This is a rural fire district that stretches down x number of miles along a windy mountain highway and one other major spur of about 5 miles of the same sort of road. We are approximately 1 hr from the Portland Vancouver metro area and about an 1 and ½ hours from population centers such as Beaverton, Hillsboro, Tigard, Wilsonville, etc. We have three lakes that people come to fish, swin, hang out, etc. Lots of camping and hiking. Lots of people not from here coming up for the day or the weekend or whatever.

Most of the calls for the Fire department are medical in nature, as first responders. Whether its some one who has a bad back or asthma or faints or falls and hits his head or has a car accident or boating accident, we are the first responders until the ambulance gets there. In July, we had 29 calls in the 31 days of the month. But two calls we dont get very often are actual fires and drownings in the lakes.

From what Ive been told, we get a drowning call, once every few years or so. The last structure fire they had was about 5 years ago, when Jack’s a local landmark of a restaurant burned down and was not rebuilt. This year we have had 2 fires and three drownings. Needless to say, that’s been super busy, higher than average.

The fires are unusual but no one was hurt in either one. They are, however, physically and emotionally draining. The drownings however, are another story. Two young men and a little kids lost there lives this summer in the lakes and it hits everybody very hard. The responders I work with are some of the hardest, toughest, “manliest” men I know and many of them would hold back tears when thinking back on them or when talking with the family.

Please pray for these men and women who put their lives on hold when someone in our district calls 911. They rush out of dinner, out of bed and out of church when they get the call. They need and deserve some prayers. Next time you see some one in your community who is a paramedic or a fire fighter, thank them for the work they do. They really do literally save lives.

 

Casey

1 Samuel 2:9-10

We are back

Hi guys! Wow! What a busy couple of weeks! Hope and I just got back this past weekend from two weeks out on the road.

 

First we went to Bible camp for a week. Our church partners with about 4 or 5 others and run a camp during the first week of August. I was the teacher there for this year and it was quite the experience. This was my first camp experience and it went great! We started with the kids ages 8 through 12. They went up Sunday after Church and came back Wednesday after noon. The camp is about three hours away from our church. Thursday morning the teenagers came up and stayed through Sunday, going home in the afternoon.

 

It was really neat to see the kids, some of whom I knew, most, I didnt. It was neat to see them learn and grow and mature through the week. We were able to see that especially with the teens. There was one especially that stepped up, was a leader when needed, lead devotions and ended up getting baptized at the end of the week.

 

Speaking of baptisms…… Finn decided to get baptized on the last day of camp! About two years ago, Finn decided to ask Jesus into his heart. Since then, he has grown and started praying very often, and I (mostly) joke that he is a better preacher than I am! He is definitely a gifted 4 ½ year old theologian. So he came to Hope and I that he wanted to get baptized on that Sunday and we asked him why, not wanting him to do it just cause others were. He replied that Jesus said it was time to get baptized. When we asked why he wanted to get baptized, he said because he wants to follow Jesus more and show people about Jesus.

 

So he and I waded out into the lake and I preformed my first baptism! I could not be more excited and honored that my first baptism was my son. I could not be more proud of him for making this decision. Our camera was not working at that moment, but I will be receiving pictures of camp as a while, and therefore of the baptisms, in the next few weeks and will update when we get them.

 

So that camp finished up and then Hope and I got the kids in the car and went, not home, but further east and north, to a Village Missions Pastors conference for a few days. The themes was preventing ministry failure and it really did a lot to encourage both Hope and I.

The worship at the conference was fantastic. It was originally just going to be one of the pastors and his guitar, but the first night he found out that one of the other pastors played the harmonica. With just a few minutes of talking, and no practice, they got up and played beautifully together. Te next day, they noticed one of the kids (10 or 12 maybe?) played drums on the table and some one found him a snare drum to play. Again, no rehearsal together, they just jammed and it came out wonderful.

 

 

It was a long two weeks, but it really was a lot of fun. I promise as we continue to get back into the grove of things that I will post more. Love you guys!

 

 

Casey

Ephesians 3:14-21

 

Busy week with the Youth Group

So its been an incredibly busy week and a very rewarding one, especially where the youth group is concerned.

Last Friday night we did our Youth Group church lock-in. We had the kids get to the church at 6pm Friday night and told the parents to pick them up around 10 AM Saturday morning. We had 12 kids there total, and despite the heat, they were insistent on playing lots of different variations of tag out in the church yard. We brought them in and had snacks and soda out for them and then had a good lesson time on idols (both theoretical and practical) and prayer. We sent them out to have a half hour of individual quiet prayer time. After that we had good group discussion about what place in our priority listing we have God.

Once that discussion ended we played Sardines and other indoor games tell 3 Am when they got the itch to go back outside and play some more tag games. We came in around 430 and things started to wind down. We have a foosball table and air hockey table and a really cheap broken down kids pool table and they just entertained themselves for awhile. Around 530 some kids started to get ready to go to sleep. The girls moved over to the house with Hope and the Boys stayed with me. Some of the Boys laid down in their sleeping bag and the rest of us started a game of monopoly.

By the time the game ended, just about everyone else had gone to sleep or was going to sleep and it was right around 630 or 7. Hope and I were going to make breakfast for the kids in the morning, ut they were all asleep at that point. They were so tired that there was no way that we were going to wake them up.

All the parents got there right around 10 AM or so, and we went around waking up these walking zombies. The kids had a ton of fun and so did Hope and I. We were able to get closer to the kids and learn more about them.

Hope and I always say that quality time comes from quantity time. You cant force quality, you can just be there when it happens. Thats what has been happening lately with these kids. A few weeks ago, they did the worship for the service on Sunday and you could really start to see them come out of their shell. It took 6 months for them to be willing to do it once and now they are excited to do it more often. Our plan is for them to play every month when I preach.

So after the Lock-in, we had Youth group Sunday night. One of the ideas Hope and I had for the morning of the lock in was to do a prayer walk in the neighborhood of the church. There are about 15 houses or so within a ½ mile or so radius. Since the kids were sleeping, we did it Sunday night instead.

Our goal was two-fold. First was to show the kids how to do this and give them the support, confidence and know how. It really is quite simple and you can do it in a variety of involvement levels.

First was just walking the street, stopping at a house and saying a quick prayer for them. Ext was to talk to someone if they were outside and ask them if they had any thing specific they would like us to pray about. Third was going up to the door and letting people know we were praying and asking what they would like prayer for. The kids did great! And, there are a number of non-church going families in the neighborhood and they were all open to being prayed for as well. We even got to meet the family moving in just that day up the hill, that we probably wouldnt have met yet otherwise.

The second goal of this was to just let the neighborhood know that we were doing this and we got wonderful responses. One of the last houses we went to is the home of a wonderful couple in the church. He is a Vietnam Vet and has a whole host of medical problem because of his service and she is a wonderful saint who spends her life taking care of him. They are high school sweethearts and you can see the love in their eyes when they look at each other. With his health issues, many times visiting there is standing in the doorway talking to her with a few “Hi’s” and words of encouragement shouted in to him. This night we were able to pray for her and then she asked us in to lay hands on him and pray for him.

It was extremely obvious the effect this had on the kids. They were amazed at the power of prayer and while some of them knew this couple, it was an experience for them to see someone open up there home, being both vulnerable with the kids as well as enormously grateful.

After we got home that night, we saw the wife had made a facebook post about the visit. She posted this…

There is no limit to the blessings that are coming our way.
Just answered a knock on our door to find the youth group from the church. They wanted us to know we were constantly in our prayers.
First they all gathered around me outside to pray for us…then I invited them (all 16 of them) to come in. They gathered around Gary’s hospital bed, joined hands and prayed for him. What a blessing…I will never forget the power of that moment and the impact it appeared to have on Gary. Thank you Jesus, for your continued blessings and caring for us.

Well, needless to say that got us a little choked up, and then a got a message on facebook as well. I didnt immediately recognize the name, but she said this:

You may not know me but you have touched me in ways that words can not express… See I am (Their) daughter & tonight you took the youth group over to visit my parents and pray with them… You don’t know how much this means to them…

Simple hellos and anyone that can stop by to check on them is welcome – as they don’t get out of the house much anymore with how sick Gary is…

Thank you so much!

Blessings!

We shared these with the kids last night and it was a perfect oppurtunity to both praise God how he works through the actions you would never even suspect, but also to reinforce to the kids, how powerful prayer is. This reaction happened with (at that time) no prayers that the kids prayed, being answered. It was their presence, their love, their willingness to step up and let them know that they were praying for this house and their willingness to share.

God is the only who knows which prayers will be answered and which wont. But he tells us to pray about everything and to pray always. By doing this, the kids in our youth group were able to have an enormous emotional effect and be an encouragement on this family struggling with health issues. They were able to show the neighborhood that people love them and people are praying for them.

The positive effect was had bith on the individuals and households that they prayed for but on the youth themselves as well. These kids are amazing. They are going to grow up and do amazing things. Please keep them in your prayers and Hope and I as well, that we dont screw them up. Thanks all!

Casey

1 Timothy 4:12

My future preacher

So this is a true conversation that Finn had with Hope the other day.

 

F: What are you doing?

H: Nothing…

F: Ok, I’m going to  sit down and talk to you about Jesus…

Who do you think he is?

 

H: Well, he is the Son of God, He is God,

F: (interrupting) and our savior!

H: Yes! and our savior!

 

 

They kept talking and I didn’t get a chance to hear the rest cause Caleb was hungry and needed to eat right then apparently, but suffice to say, that made my heart melt just a little …

 

 

Casey

John 3:16

 

 

Active Faith, and Holy Spirit convictions

So here is the follow up to my sermon on Genesis 13. This ism y sermon on Genesis 14! Its names you can never pronounce, more than you ever thought you would hear about Melchizedek and learning that people cant change before they meet Jesus, they need Jesus in order to change.

Thanks ahead of time for the feedback!

 

 

 

Casey

Proverbs 8:1-11

Godly wisdom vs Earthly Wisdom

So this past Sunday, February 23rd, I preached on Genesis 13, where Abram and Lot went there separate ways. Im pretty proud of the content, even though i can find many critiques about my delivery. What feedback do you all have?

 

Casey

Matthew 6:25-34