Thoughts on Tuesday

I am almost a week into not eating sugar for lent, and boy, it's been a wake up call. The first few days my body was in total withdrawal and was telling me I was hungry when really I think it was just craving sugar, I ate about 6 meals on Wednesday and Thursday. Things have evened out a little but I almost inhaled a bunch of grapes the other day when the sweetness hit my taste buds! I have survived one party so far, a baby shower for my friend Tami. There were pretty cupcakes and pink and white m&m's which normally I would have eaten without a thought.
It has been a good thing for me to go without sugar because I am very conscious of what I eat now and am reminded many times a day that I am not eating sweet things, and then I remember the reason behind it all. Jesus.

We had our first service in our new church building this weekend and it really was a time of celebration. It felt bigger (it is bigger) but it still felt like family. The two bands, which play alternate weeks for the services combined, and the evening choir performed. There was such a sense of community and coming together to celebrate this awesome gift. Of course it will take some time to get used to and a 3-hour long meeting yesterday showed us all that there are some kinks to iron out, but all in all it was a success.

Combining the two previous evening services meant that there were about 500 people at the 5pm service this week. Richard preached on 'soul furniture.' A reminder that the new building is great, and certainly a gift from God but that we must make sure that this space becomes a place of prayer, the word of God, confession and hospitality. We want this new building to be an invitation to people to come broken and be met in love. It is vital that we infuse the space with the character of God. During the final songs we were invited to spread out in groups around the sanctuary, on the stage, in the prayer room etc and pray together that this would be the case for our new building. That it could be a place where people feel safe to come as a broken person and know forgiveness. This time of worship and prayer was really powerful.

On another note, I have a prayer request. As you know I am planning a trip to Mississippi in March, and (praise the Lord) our team has come together. However, we still need to find someone who can be our cook/shopper for the week. It is getting pretty last minute to find someone, and be able to raise their money to come, as well as booking tickets on fights etc. Please pray that God will provide the perfect person to join our team.

It's raining in Seattle today - shocker!

Celebration of Remembrance

It's been a busy few weeks here in Seattle, at Bethany Community Church we are moving into a very exciting new season. Sunday Feb 3rd was our last Sunday in our old church building. It has taken lots of time, prayer, planning and money, but the new building is finally ready, and this means we had to say a sad final amen in the old sanctuary.

We have out grown our present building, and at present have 5 services, in the new building we will only have 3, 9am, 10.45am and 5pm. I normally went to the 6.45pm service, and so it really was the last, last service. It will be sad as the evening service congregations mix into one. The last sermon was on remembrance, and reading from Deuteronomy we looked at how memory is important because it places us in a larger story, how it sustains relationship and how it provides faith for the future. It was a really fitting farewell and at the same time propelled us into this new season with vision and purpose.
Bethany is 92 years old, and it was cool to think of the many, many people who have gone before us and allowed us to be a part of Bethany today. We collectively carry the baton for those who have gone before us. This was a pretty inspirational part of the message for me, I want to continue to grow in my faith and support the ministry of this church to follow God's desire but also in recognition of those before me.
I know as a church we may be in for some rocky times as we try and transition a church body of about 1200 people into the new facility, new services times, some new policies, and possibly (hopefully) new members joining too. However, we don't just know God in this time of uncertainty and apprehension, we know him also as the God who gave us the vision for this new building, and who has provided the finances so far. We can trust him to continue to provide in every way we need.
So looking to the future I am excited to see where God is leading us as a community.

Deut 1:6 The LORD our God said to us at Horeb, "You have stayed long enough at this mountain"

What a wonderful example from history of God moving his people out of their comfort zone. The Israelites had been out of Egypt for over forty years, many of them would have been born in the wilderness. They had food every morning, water to drink, protection from their enemies - they were pretty comfortable, but God had something better. Pastor Richard used this as an illustration of where we are as a community; it was especially poignant as he preached at the 6.45pm service. I am sure he felt the strong emotions, sadness about this being that last service and anxiety about what would happen to us as a church family in the new building. I really connected to what he was saying. God has new things in store for us. We can trust him and have faith to move out of our comfortable Sunday experience into something new, knowing he is and forever will be a good God.
Please pray for our church family in this time. If you would like to see some more of the story of this new building, please feel free to check out this website www.bccsharelife.org

Here are a couple of pictures of the old sanctuary, including one of our stained glass windows.





As a part of our 'moving in' and as away to dedicate the new building, we had a 90 hour reading of the Bible. People signed up for half hour slots to come to the church and read the Bible out loud. Everyone signed in and out where they started and stopped reading, and we will keep this Bible in the prayer room in the new building. I read at 12.30pm on Tuesday and felt really honoured. I felt like I was a becoming a part of the history of this church and that felt good (and God bless those who got us all through the night to come and read!) By the time I read we were in Hosea, so I read the second half of that book and then the first couple of chapters in Joel.

I am so excited for this Sunday's celebration services!