Church

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.  Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven." (Matthew 9:1-2). Friends.  Good friends.  New friends.  Friends who take you to a ballgame.  Friends who give you straight advice.  Life-long friends who share with you the ebb and flow of life. Friends who carry you to Jesus when you cannot get there by yourself. That's what I love about this story.  Jesus heals the paralytic not because of his faith -- but because of the faith of his friends.  They believed.  They had hope.  If only we can get our friend to Jesus ...What a blessing to have a few friends who don't mind taking a corner of your mat whenever you need a lift! What a blessing…

We're in the planning and production stage for a fall outreach series on marriage.  It's called "Making Love Last" and it will begin in mid-October (October 16 and 17, to be exact). Over the last week or so, I've had a chance to dust off my web skills and have put together a working blog for the new series.  You can find it at www.makinglovelast.org.  It's still a work in progress, so be kind.  The idea is to push online avenues of advertising that are essentially free. Brendan, our IT/missions/outreach guy, has coded a slick app that allows users to send a free singing telegram to any phone number.  It's in beta but you can check it out here.  Right now it's just using the standard Microsoft voice recognition software but eventually it will have a Barry White imitation voice.  If you like it, pass it along to your friends.

Seeing Life From God’s Perspective The decision to follow Jesus puts us at odds with the prevailing values of our culture. It has always been that way. It was that way for Jesus and his first disciples. It was that way during the Roman Empire. It’s still that way today. The upside down way of God … Redefines success Offers true freedom Turns weakness into strength Encourages generosity Calls for courage Join us for this new series at Mountainview starting August 14 and 15.

BrandFreak.com has an interesting post about how The Village People reacted to YMCA's recent decision to shorten their brand name to "The Y."  For year's I've heard people refer to working out at "the Y."  It's an interesting article, not just for the Village People connection, but from a branding and social media perspective.

"There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more.  The other is to desire less."  -- G.K. Chesterton