Seems like that would be pretty good information to have, Right?  It would be useful to know “what not to do” to anger God so much that he decides destroying the whole world is the only option. 

So what did the people in Noahs time do?  The account in Genesis 6 just says that mankind had become  “greatly wicked- and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time”

Jesus said the following about the people of Noahs time when speaking about their judgment…and the final judgment of all people on earth when he returns.

³⁷ “When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. ³⁸ In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat. ³⁹ People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.   Mathew 24:37-39

So what made the people of Noah’s time so distasteful to God?  Was it the parties?  (yeah I’ve heard preachers say that.)  Was it the weddings and banquets?  (wedding planners beware   What made God so very angry?

It may never be clear what the great “sins” of the people of Noah’s time were.   I’m pretty sure they weren’t markedly different from the sins of today.  It is however, very clear that the combination of being completely self-absorbed in our own “life” -while living in a completely corrupt and wicked society is definitely on the “do not do” list!  Concentrating on entertaining ourselves…seeking pleasure for ourselves while ignoring the rest of the world is definitely on the “do not do” list.

So does that mean we shouldn’t enjoy a party?  …a banquet?  A wedding?  Should we stand around holding  “Judgement is coming” signs?   What should we do?

Your thoughts?

More of mine tomorrow.

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Garrett…for best original photography.  (all the lyric backgrounds and 99% of the photos on this blog.  And of Course Josiah for best original keynote…and putting up with my “duck and cover” 1950’s intro. :-)   We seriously have a lot of talented people that make sundays at actionchurch special!

While I’m giving out “oscars” the actionkidz crew definitely deserve an armful for putting on the “Indiana Jones and the search for love in action” this weekend.  These guys had SOOOO many kidz this week…and every one of them experienced such a great lesson about what love in action is.  The best part of actionchurch is what happens behind the “garage door” in actionkidz!

In the month of March during the “Disaster” series we’ll be talking about the life of Noah.  We all THINK we know about Noah, but mostly we know about toy Noah, Sunday School story Noah, or Evan Almighty Noah.  The real Noah experienced one of the darkest moments in history…the greatest natural disaster of all time even though he lived a blameless life that pleased God.  “Walking with God” like Noah did does NOT mean we will never experience disaster.  Everyone faces disaster. 

Most of us prepare for disaster like one of the three little pigs.  “Straw pig” people don’t prepare at all…they rely on others.  “Stick pig” people prepare but focus more on the “now” than the “what if”.  “Brick pig” people spend their whole life preparing for “what if” disasters.  The problem with all of our “three little pig” preparations in life, is that Disaster comes in many forms.  We may be able to “wolf proof” our lives in one are,a but trouble still can (and will) come to us in another.  The most important thing we can do in life to be ready for hard times…to be ready for loss and disaster…is to “Find Favor” with God like Noah did.  What we do to please God is the ONLY thing that will matter when disaster comes, and we need to “ask God for a favor” to get us through.  God’s plan was to wipe out EVERYTHING on the earth.  Because one man (Noah) found favor with God- we are still here today.

My morning was filled with lots of “little disasters” including attempting (and failing) to fix our ailing cog gobo light… and LOCKING MYSELF in the basement.  Seriously:-)

I really enjoyed having Divebomber with us this week.  I love the fact that (except for the Drummer) the band consists of a Dad, Mom, Son and daughter.  The family that rocks together…   Really great people to work with and their cover of  the classic “I’ll fly away” was hot.  Looking forward to having them back.

As always Thanks to everyone who works so hard to make actionchurch happen…   More “Disaster” next week..

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It was a dumb moment on a dumb show (I’ve already made all my disclaimers about watching American Idol here) but its Friday so who cares. 

   On Tuesday, one of the male contestants a self proclaimed “church singer” made me cringe more than usual by countering Simons predictions that his bad performance would send him home to once again sing at his church  , by saying that he would NOT be eliminated because- (and I quote)  ”I know God”.   

Last night, as you’ve probably guessed already, Mr. ”I know God” was eliminated and promptly thanked God because “In God there is no failure”.  Hmmm. 

Can we STOP with the “God told me-Jesus is My Homeboy-I am blessed-I know God” name-dropping, verbal-good-luck-charm ”God” stuff?  How about just quietly and humbly going about our business as last years winner (also a professing Christian) Kris Allen did? 

I don’t speak for God.  After years of following Jesus I’m not sure I can presume to say I “know” God.  I do wonder; though, if he cringes and sinks deeper into his giant heavenly couch cushions whenever one of us invoke his name “in vain”.   I know I do…

So what do you think?  When is it OK to play the “God Card”?  When is it not?  Should I get a life and stop watching American Idol like a ten year old girl?   Place your votes now

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When I saw this slide on the screens Sunday morning it made me laugh.  I guess you could pretty much display it every week with a question mark at actionchurch.    Next Week:  Disaster?

Hopefully this week will not BE a disaster, but we will be talking about disasters.

Disaster Noun

a calamitous event, esp. one occurring suddenly and causing great loss of life, damage, or hardship, as a flood, airplane crash, or business failure. A disaster may be caused by carelessness, negligence, bad judgment, or the like, or by natural forces, as a hurricane or flood: a railroad disaster.

Unfortunately all of us will encounter disasters in our lives.  Whether disasters are “our fault” or “naturally occuring”, their results are the same.  Disasters Bring loss and pain.

This month we’ll be talking about what the Bible teaches about disaster.  This week we’ll talk about “preparing” for disasters, and something you can do NOW that just may be the most important key to surviving any disaster.

Our musical guest will be Divebomber who call themselves a “punk rock partridge family”.   You can check them out here.

So plan to attend Sunday, bring a friend, and get prepared for disaster. 

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This Sunday we announced that “Love God. Love People. Take action.”  would be our new creed/motto/tag line for actionchurch.   Obviously, the “Love God. People.” part comes from these verses that we talked about every Sunday in the month of February. 

 ³⁷ Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  ⁴⁰ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37

So where did the “Take action.” part come from?  Is it just a clever tie-in to our church name?   Not exactly.   The name “actionchurch” started out as a joke…a reference to a heated rant about church that I once delivered to my wife after a particularly frustrating elders meeting.  Long before I even considered starting a church or being a pastor, I said “if I ever ran a church it would be called action church, and we would actually DO THINGS instead of just having meetings about them.”   My wife reminded me of those words when we were thinking about what to call our new church start up.  Be careful what you say in anger, because to this day whenever I am tempted to just “talk” about what the Bible says instead of doing something, the word actionchurch reminds me of my words.  

  More importantly though, Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan  that being religious, knowing the scriptures, even being a religious leader like the priest and the temple assistant is NOT ENOUGH to fulfill Gods commands to “love God with all your heart-and your neighbor as yourself.”  The only person in the parable who actually pleased God was the hated Samaritan.  He was the one who took action…the one who stopped to help the injured man…the one who took it upon himself to insert himself into a “messy”  situation. 

If we Love God and Love people…Jesus taught that the only way to PROVE IT is by taking action.   

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Sunday I announced that our new “tag line” for actionchurch was changing from “church for people who don’t like church” to “Love God. Love People. Take action.”.  All future advertising, invitation cards, wearables, etc will be tagged with the new line.

How it all started:  Two years ago when actionchurch launched at Fat Daddys Nightclub, I struggled to find ways to describe what our little “church in a bar/nightclub” would be like.  Some of our early taglines were original (re-think happy hour, No cover charge-no dress code-no joke,) and were funny and/or lame attempts to describe what was going to happen at Fat Daddys on Sunday morning.   “Church for people who do not like church” was not original (numerous other churches have used it) and not part of our initial launch.  After moving from Fat Daddys to Club 19  in October 2008 we begin to us the “church for people…” tag line exclusively because none of our “bar-related” tag lines seemed relevant to our currently non-alcoholic venue.

Why make the change?:  Several months ago our creative team (currently Jerry, Josiah, and myself) met to talk about how we could let more people know that a place like actionchurch exists here in York, PA.  Since then we have been working on finding new ways to “explain” and remind people both inside and outside of actionchurch why we exist.  Being a “church for people who don’t like church” may describe some elements of our Sunday morning “style/flavor” but it simply does not describe who we are as a church.  We needed a new descriptive tag line.

Is this a new direction?:  Nope.   actionchurch began because we Love God, Love people, and took action when we realized that there was not a place where some of our friends would be accepted, loved, and pointed to Jesus in our area. Because a place like actionchurch didn’t exist we took action.   It’s why our great volunteer crew work so hard to prepare for Sunday mornings.  Because we Love God and Love People we take action when students in our schools need coats, a family needs a fresh start, people suffering with cancer need our help, etc. etc.  Loving God, Loving People, and taking action are in our DNA, in our history, in our name…and in our future.  I can’t think of a better way to discribe what we do, who we are, and where we want to “go” as a church!

Tommorow:  The ”scoop” about how the name actionchurch came to be. 

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This Sunday at actionchurch we finished our look at how the people who made up the first Church in the book of Acts loved God, Loved People, and turned the world upside down.  People often ask the questions “Why do I need to be part of a church to Love God and Love people?”  “Why should I make myself vulnerable?”  “Why should I commit myself to others who because they are messed up and sinful like me, will invariably disappoint me in some way?”  The answer is that just like the first church in acts, the evidence of God’s grace is found in sinful people loving God and each other enough to be willing to forgive and accept each other…   The power of love is not seen in the lack of imperfections and conflict…but in the ability to change the world IN SPITE OF our sinful and corrupt nature as humans.  The Book of acts is full of conflict, problems, persecution, sinful behavior, forgiveness, repentence, and most of all LOVE…exactly what our church should be like today if we want to continue to be the evidence of God’s grace and love. 

A few Quick thoughts about Sunday on Monday NIGHT:

This Series has probably influenced me as a leader…and inspired me with a vision of what actionchurch can become in the future more than any other sermon series we have done in the last two years.  I am really excited about what we have to “say” to our community as a church in the coming years.  (More about that tommorrow.)

It was really great to have our son Chris with us Sunday. Really cool to get to share what you all have made possible with him.

I think this Sunday illustrated the principles of the book of acts very clearly.  Everywhere you looked it was OBVIOUS that ordinary folks can do EXTRAORDINARY things when they Love God, Love People, and Take action!!!  Thru me on stage, great visuals, great photos from Garrett, actionchurch ladies IN the background photos, actionchurch crew providing SUCH a great experience in every way.  Church is not something that “professionals” should put on for “ordinary people”.  Church is something that people who love others should gather and provide for their neighbors because they LOVE them.

On that note, I know Josiah already thanked you all…but thanks for sharing the Love with Josiah and Rachel by blessing them with housewarming/wedding gifts.  Let me just say this though…DON’T stop there.  If you appreciate what actionchurch has meant to you over the last two years, let someone with a crew tag know.  Thank them.  Let them know you appreciate what they do.  Spoil them   We have SO MANY great folks that make actionchurch happen each week.

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Love Rachel & Josiah

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This week @ actionchurch we’ll be concluding the “With all My Heart Series” by asking some very difficult questions. Since Jesus said the most important things that we could do was love God and Love people, why do we need Church?  So many people have been hurt by “church”…should we just scrap the whole thing and just try to love God and love people on our own? 

Full disclosure here:  Even though we often call actionchurch a “church for people who don’t like church”…we like church just fine and want it to continue   If we didn’t, our crowd and crew would obviously  NOT  work so hard and sacrifice so much to make sure “it” happens each week at Club 19.   The reasons WHY we think church is still important in 2010 just might surprise you…

This Sunday our good friends Thru-me will be back on stage.   Show up for some  rock-n-roll, coffee, a donut or seven, and some hard hitting questions that you probably thought you’d never hear in church…

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Have you ever heard someone say “Don’t sweat the small stuff”?  It sounds like good advice.  Don’t get upset over the “little” annoyances and troubles of life.  Don’t “major on the minors”. Concentrate on the “big” things.

Here’s the problem; It’s easy to be confused about what the “big stuff” is, and what the “small stuff” isn’t.   It’s easy to become religious and think that the “big stuff” of Christianity is church attendance, Bible study, personal growth, etc. and think that not loving your neighbor as yourself is a relatively unimportant oversight.  In fact, sometimes the “busier” we become being “Christians”, the easier it is to ignore and neglect others…

Loving God and Loving people is the “Big stuff”.  In fact, Jesus said it’s the BIGGEST stuff…the single most important thing that you can do in life.  EVERYTHING ELSE is the “small stuff”.  …not sure why that is so hard for us (me especially) to remember.

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