My mom taught me about Jesus. She cares about me so much that she punishes me.

My mom is a loving machine. She hardly ever lets me cross the street, or go in the back alley.

She is awesome. She loves me like sushi.

My mom gives me a blessing before bed every night it helps me go to bed. My mom is the best mom in the world because I love her and she loves me.

My mom is the best mom ever and she deserves a trip to the spa because she is kind, caring, loving and likes to have fun. She dserves it also because she loves to relax and she is AWESOME!

I don't think there are good enough words to describe my mom. She loves me no matter how much I complain. In my eyes she could win the best mom award 10,000 times.

Sounds like we have great moms at Soul!

Check back later this week for a peek at what we have planned for the long weekend.  In the meantime, have a great week!

Caitlin

There are days that hurt. I am not talking about those days after having a workout at your favorite fitness club, or those days after that hockey tournament, or those days when your body simply says…ouch.

Then there days that I am talking about are those that are lodged in our memory that we can’t shake. Days like September 11, 2001 or maybe that day when someone close to you died or something tragic happened.

Then there are days that hurt depending upon your own life circumstances. Valentine’s Day is one of those. If you are in love…retail makes a profit off you and you don’t care! If not, or if you are alone on Valentine’s Day then usually you hate the day for how it makes one feel. Even days like Christmas, Easter and even Thanksgiving…which are recognized as times of family and feasting…but what if you don’t have family or you do but they suck to be with? What if you don’t have money for feasting, never mind for gifting!?

Then there are two major days in our calendar year that hurt for many: Mothers Day and Fathers Day. I have to admit that I do have issues in the way that these days inadvertently make all the non-mothers and non-fathers, not to mention the sons and the daughters of dead mothers and fathers, not to mention all the fathers and mothers of dead or disabled children, feel severe grief and at times even that they may have failed. I must admit that I am ever aware of the non-mothers and non-fathers who attend our community even know of some who pretend to feel good about the day, yet they are excluded from a “holiday” and it was not their choice. They long for a child to call their own and their hunger will never be satisfied.

Both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day hurt for many folks, especially those who have or are currently growing up in abusive situations or who watched those so called mothers and fathers turn a blind eye to the abuse that is right underneath their nose? There are those who are only mothers and fathers in name, as well as those who are overlooked and under appreciated.

This is the dark side of special days, the hurt of being left out of the cards and the flowers and the praise. At Soul Sanctuary I must admit that we are always aware of these days that hurt, and that we always celebrate these times as recognizing all the women or men in our community as special, because they are! This year will not be any different at Soul, however I do want you to know that this Mother’s Day…Sharon Michalski will be discussing her journey of Marriage, Ministry, Motherhood and More and I would highly encourage you all to be present and prepared to hear what GOD has laid on her heart for ALL (yes guys too) to experience. Consider it a follow up from last week’s message on Power!

I’ve found myself stretching and yawning a bit more this morning after my visit to The Mix last night.  Becki and I had the special privilege of being special guests last night for “Old Lady Night”.  Our special activity?  Crocheting.  I’m pretty sure that after last night, we all have a new appreciation for old ladies.  I should give a shout out to Dylan, Tadgh, and Nic, who were deemed “natural old ladies” for their talent!  Great work, all of you!

Moving on, let’s look ahead to Sunday.  I think we all know that its a special day, and we’ll spend it celebrating the most special person in our lives: our mothers!

Let me tell you a little about my mom.

Her name is Jeannie, and she’s the greatest!  Why, you ask?

1.  My mom has the greatest laugh.  Its nice and loud, and usually has some snorting involved.  She laughs all the time, even when she’s supposed to be quiet.

2.  My mom makes the greatest Thanksgiving dinners.  Seriously, you’ve never had turkey that good.  And she makes Thanksgiving dinner at least five times a year, for no reason at all.  It could be any plain old weekday, and I’d come home after school to “Turkey-For-Fun Day”.

3.  My mom is thoughtful and generous.   She thinks about me everyday, and prays for me all the time.  She always calls to see how things are going, and remembers details about my life from past conversations.  When I visit her, she has already planned all the things she knows I’ll want to do, and she’s thought of all the little details to help me feel as comfortable and happy as possible.  She knows me so well, its scary!

4.  My mom is incredibly strong.  No matter what hard times she’s faced, she has relied on God’s strength to get her through, and that has taught me a lot.  Also, she’s physically strong…much stronger than me, and any of my siblings.  We all still run from her in fear when she chases us.

So here’s a challenge to all of you Soul Kids.  Do you think that your mom is the best?  This week at church on Sunday, you’ll have a chance to fill out a paper with TWO SENTENCES saying why you think you have the greatest mom on earth.  The winning mom is going to get a FANTASTIC prize: a spa gift certificate!  If you think your mom deserves some special treatment, put your thinking caps on and come up with two sentences that tell us why.

Can’t wait to see what you come up with this Sunday!

Caitlin

…you know it means GO!

Or, if you see this…

…you know your parents didn’t have time to make you dinner tonight.

What about this one?

You probably think of Jesus.  I know I do.  In fact, the cross is probably the world’s most recognizable religious symbols.  Isn’t it cool how two pieces of wood stuck together makes people think of Jesus?  Anytime people see a cross, whether they choose to believe in Jesus or not, they will think of Him and the incredible sacrifice He made to save us from our sins!

This week in Soul Kids we’re talking about the peak of The Big God Story!  All through the Bible, everything has been pointing to Jesus’s death on the cross and His resurrection, and as we continue after this Sunday, we’ll see how everything following the cross points back to it.  But this Sunday, we will focus on, celebrate and soak in the moment where Jesus gave up His life for us!  It should be an exciting week!

In the meantime, who can tell me about the following symbol?

Whoever is first to leave a comment with the right info will get a prize on Sunday morning!

See you all Sunday!

Caitlin

Imagine if your family car looked like those!  It would probably be a bit of a bumpy ride, don’t you think?  Not a lot of shock absorbtion in those wheels!  It makes me think of the Israelites, travelling across the wilderness on donkeys, in wooden carts or on foot.  Now THAT sounds like a bumpy ride!  When the Israelites left Egypt, they knew they were in for a long journey.  Nobody even knew where they would end up!  They were blindly trusting God that He would bring them safely to…who knows where?  A land where they would be safe, and where they would grow healthy and strong.  A Promised Land.  But in the meantime, they were on the road for who knows how long. Picture yourself, bouncing along in a cart pulled by a donkey over uneven ground, chowing down on some flatbread that your mom made super quick before you left the only home you’d ever known!  How many times would you have asked, “are we there yet?”  What if your parents didn’t even know where “there” was?  That takes some faith!

Anyway, the reason for all this rambling is that this week in Soul Kids K-5 we’re going to be talking about the Last Supper, and why we take communion.  The Last Supper (when Jesus ate with the disciples right before being captured and going to the cross) was a Passover meal.  Passover is a traditional meal that the Jews would have every year to remember how God led them out of Egypt.  We’ll talk more about the all of this on Sunday, but if you want to brush up on your Passover knowledge, take a look at Exodus 28:1-36 before you come to church.

Looking forward to seeing you all this weekend!

Caitlin

I’m loving the idea of having a library or a reading corner in our new room.  And I also think it would be cool to set aside a corner for our worship stations, so we have a quiet place to go and pray, draw or worship in other ways.  One of my favourite things to see on Sunday is people making use of the worship stations!

Here are a couple more floor plans:

Based on those last two images, which would you prefer as a neighbour to your office: a Starbucks, or a smurf machine?  I’m thinking I’d probably prefer a machine that pumps out delicious coffee to a machine that pumps out little blue creatures with high pitched voices.  But really, I don’t know!  If I had an army of smurfs, one of them could run and get me Starbucks while the rest of them did other things for me.  Also, you can’t deny how catchy that little tune is.  Starbucks has no little tune.  Maybe I’ll just have to ask for both! (Is anybody taking notes?)

Well, that’s all from me for now.  It’s time to start getting things ready for the Mix tonight.  The Rubbish Rally Grand Prix is taking place this evening, and there are a number of inspired vehicle designs that will be taking a turn on the track!  Here’s hoping they make it down in one piece!

Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Caitlin

 

 So rather than focusing on all the boring start up stuff, let’s just dive in, shall we?  Last week at The Mix, our usual crown of about twentyish kids, and 6ish leaders participated in the first phase of our Rubbish Rally: Trash My Ride.  After collecting a bunch of recyclable materials (basically, their trash), the kids grouped up to design and build cars out of water bottles, cereal boxes and old CDs.  Stay tuned for pictures soon to come!

 The Rubbish Rally will continue next week with the Grand Prix, where Mixers will race their vehicles for the title of Rubbish Rally Champion.  I’m in the process of getting the prizes ready, and so far guys, they are looking pretty awesome!  By the way, if you want to check out The Mix, tell your parents that you can try it out a couple of times before you make your decision!  We have tons of fun, and we’d love to have everyone be part of it.

 But seeing as it is Friday, I should likely focus a bit more on what’s happening Sunday.  Kids, I need you to come to church with two things: your nose and your thinking cap!  We’ll be starting off by putting our sniffers to the test by trying to identify some mystery items only by scent.  (Just a heads up, most of the mystery items have been sitting in Pastor Gerry’s fridge for about two or three months, so get ready for that! J) 

 After that, we’ll explore the story of Jesus and Mary, the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with the most expensive perfume in the world!  Does anybody know what it was called?  I’ll give you a hint: it sounds like “nerd”.

 You’ll need your thinking caps after worship time, once you’re back in your small groups, because I NEED YOUR HELP!  Becki and I have been given the task of designing the new Soul Kids room for our new church building, and we have so many ideas, we don’t know where to start!  So in small group time, we’re going to ask you to help us out by designing floor plans of the best Soul Kids room you could think of.  Unfortunately, Pastor Gerry and the Steering Committee have said we cannot have a petting zoo or a waterslide, so you can forget about that!  But more creative ideas are welcome!

 I can’t wait to see you all on Sunday!

Bless you!

Caitlin

We live in a consumeristic culture. How many times have you heard me say that? I, too, am a product of consumerism. I can choose to have my food or coffee exactly how I want it when I want it. I can customize my music playlist to my exact taste and take it with me where ever I go and the list goes on. The fact is we are addicted to consumption, and we expect what we consume to be perfectly tailored to meet our every need and desire. This concept has affected every area of our life, including the church. George Barna reported that people demand “highly personalized church experiences” and in our society we have granted the request. The fact is that we treat the church like we treat everything else, and expect it how we want it, when we want it.

Someone once compared going to church with a salad bar. The idea that people go to church A for worship, church B for the pastor, church C for the small group, church D for the outreach, church E because of the guest speaker and then church F for the trendy worship leader….

Is it wrong to go to more than one church according to the scriptures? There is nothing wrong in principle with attending more than one church; in fact, it may be evidence of unity between Christians. AS believers we ARE THE CHURCH! However, allow me to extrapolate on a few things. The model for the local church is seen in Acts 2:41-47

⁴¹ Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. ⁴² They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. ⁴³ Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All the believers were together and had everything in common. ⁴⁵ They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. ⁴⁶ Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. In addition to this believers came together to minister to one another and build each other up. (Ephesians 4:7-13)

Upon first read, the writers of the New Testament could never have imagined someone going to more than one church. In the New Testament there was, on average, one “church” in each city. Remember that the church is a body of people and not a building or denomination that we simply associate it with today. So, conceptually the local believers hung out together, met together and had relationship with each other, accountability and looked after each other. They may have gathered at different times to accommodate their work schedule or may have been limited in gathering space, but they would have identified themselves as one community.

When we read Corinthians, it begins with “To the church of God in Corinth” indicating that there was one church body in the city. However, the book of Galatians begins with “to the churches in Galatia” indicating that there was more than one church body, because Galatia was a region/province and not a specific church in the a specific city. In any case, people didn’t attend more than one community or the issue did not need Paul’s attention.

Today, with multiple local communities and easy transportation the question of whether to attend more than one church on a regular basis does arise. Some stats lead us to believe that there is a growing number of people who are involved in more than 2 churches. It is believed that they split their time because they like different programs at each church…

The first thing we need to consider is what we mean by church and belonging to. In the first century, Christians already used the word church in several ways: individual house churches (Rom 16:1, 5); all the churches in one town (Acts 11:22, Rev 2:1), and all Christians everywhere (Acts 9:31, Col 1:18). The most important meaning is the last one: all Christians are “baptized by one Spirit into one body” (1 Cor 12:13). So all true Christians, regardless of location or denomination, belong to the one true church. In the first century, Christians were “members” of one house church, but sometimes several house churches met together, and sometimes people (especially leaders) would visit other house churches.

One question is whether we can effectively pray, ‘fellowship’, sit under teaching and use our spiritual gifts with two or more groups of Christians at the same time. Because the Bible is silent on this issue we cannot be dogmatic about it. But, I would like to address the issues of motivation or what prompts people to feel led to spread their church attendance around to multiple churches and what are the effects and implications of doing so…

Asking the question “is the New Testament against going to more than one church?” is like asking “is the New Testament against porn or the internet?” The New Testament doesn’t talk specifically about porn or the internet, or attending multiple churches. However, when we take the things that the New Testament does talk about, we can extrapolate and do our best to figure out how we can apply the ethics of the scriptures to the present day. So, it seems clear that the writers of the New Testament wouldn’t be opposed to the internet as a whole, but would be opposed to porn.

Sadly, in my opinion, too often people hop to more than one local body with the intention of picking and choosing something from each church because they feel they cannot find one church that “meets their needs.” The problem with this line of thinking is that Christians are to align themselves with a group in order to give (serve) and not get (enough said). We are to be actively serving and ministering to one another with the spiritual gifts we have received and when we spend minimal time in each group, we cannot do that effectively. Also, we give the impression that we are not committed to the believers or leadership in any one church…

This leads to the question of what does it mean to belong to a church? If we walk through the pages of the New Testament, we see a whole list of “one anothers” that should define our churches: love one another, value one another in humility, serve one another, build up one another, forgive one another, be united with one another, and show affection to one another. There is about 60 passages describing how Christians should treat one another and that’s only a start. With that in mind, we need to ask a question about motive: am I attending so that I can be part of the “one anothers” at both churches? Or am I only church two-timing – trying to get what I want from each church? It’s possible to bless and be blessed by two churches – or it’s possible to just take from each church and give nothing. Whether we attend one or two churches, we need to fully participate, giving and receiving.

I’ve seen this happen time and again when people attend multiple congregations: some are into the fun community focused parts of church (lock ins, potlucks, concerts, bonfires, camps, etc.) then each week they go to whichever church is throwing the best party. There are those who are into the intellectual parts of church, and each week they go to whichever church has the best discussion, best teaching, best speaker, etc. Those who are into the social justice and helping the poor aspect of church, go to whichever church is helping at the soup kitchen that week, or going down to the homeless shelter. Here is the problem. All of these, the fun community events, the intellectual learning events, the social justice serving events, are essential parts of going to church. Church is supposed to be all of those: it’s supposed to provide great community and fellowship (Hebrews 10:23-24), it is supposed to dig deep into theology (Ephesians 4:14), and it’s supposed to serve the less fortunate (Galatians 6:10). Yet is supposed to do ALL those things and when we just pick and choose what we want, we end up missing out on the fullness of what church is supposed to be. We get an imbalanced diet.

Church is not about taking in information. It’s about participating in a community. What is so powerful and countercultural about church is that it brings together people who would never otherwise come together! It takes diverse people of different races, different ages, different interests, different backgrounds, different social classes, and says you are one body. You are united! The Bible says we should be training younger people in our church (Titus 2:4),  helping and honoring the neediest members of our church (James 2:1-4), having one mind with the members of our church (Philippians 2:2), submitting to the elder/pastors of the church (1 Peter 5:5) {BTW many people have an issue with this and that is why they float from church to church #justsaying} and much more. If you go to multiple churches these things aren’t possible. Which elders do you submit to? How can you be of “one mind” with different churches with different visions? Which church will you be disciple people at?

Perhaps the most fundamental problem with going to multiple churches is that it misses what the church fundamentally is. The church isn’t something you go to, it’s something you are a part of. And the Bible teaches that you are an indispensable part of the church. Every one of us has something to give to the church. So that means if you aren’t attending your church but are off somewhere else, then something essential is lacking in your church! You have a role to play. Some of us need to be teaching, some need to be encouraging, some need to be helping, some need to be organizing, and all of us need to be discipling.

1 Corinthians 12:12-21 compares the church to a body. If you are moving from church to church, you aren’t an integral part of the body anywhere! The bible doesn’t say you should be an essential part of a church, it says you ARE an essential part of the body. That means that if you aren’t committed to a local church then somewhere there is a church-body missing an arm, or a leg, or an eye. You are so important to what God wants to accomplish!

Finally, where do you go when you need pastoral care? Weddings, funerals, counseling, visitation and the list goes on. I have asked on a few times when a request comes in “Do they attend Soul? Why don’t they ask the pastor of the church they attend to…”

So don’t cheat the church and don’t cheat yourself. Being a committed part of a church is an amazing experience. The church is the bride of Christ and the hope of the world, and for some reason God has chosen us to be a part. God has chosen you to be part of what he is doing in this world. If your involvement at multiple churches blesses other Christians and blesses you, then it may be a good thing. But if you are just a consumer at both churches, then you should work on engaging in the “one anothers” at just one church.