Last year, my favorite football team made it to the Super Bowl and WON! This team of course, would be the Green Bay Packers. The Super Bowl Championship was such a fun game to watch and the victory was sweet. But the celebration was SO much sweeter for those of us who had followed the entire regular season, for those of us who knew the whole “back story” if you will.

The Packers finished 10-6 in the regular season, entering the playoffs as the sixth seed. Despite many injuries, the team rose from the ashes, landing the wildcard at the last second, defeating their number one rivals for the NFC Championship, and finally beating the Steelers to become World Champions! (just thinking about it gets me excited again!)

In reading the New Testament we can celebrate in the victory that we have in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but what about the back story? What about the story of Israel, God’s chosen people, who chose over and over again to reject God? Maybe this is cheesy, but the way I see it, celebrating Jesus without knowing anything about the story of Israel is like cheering for a final score without watching any of the game. The more we understand the back story, the more we understand how amazing God’s grace truly is! Could it be that God’s story is bigger than we thought it was? Could it be that our journey forward with God, is dependent on our willingness to journey back with God…  

“He who has not felt what sin is in the Old Testament knows little what grace is in the New. He who has not trembled in Moses, and wept in David, and wondered in Isaiah will rejoice little in Matthew or rest little in John. He who has not suffered under the Law will scarcely hear the glad sound of the gospel.” —R. W. Barbour

We just found out about this so sorry for the late notice.  If you have heard anything about Passion 2012 happening January 2-5 in Atlanta, Georgia, then you most likely know that it is going to be an event that you don’t want to miss if you are college age at this time.  Tonight, Wednesday, November, 30 at 8PM CST, Passion will be putting on a live podcast to gather students together prior to the event.  You won’t want to miss it as we here from Louie, Tomlin and Crowder about what God is laying on their hearts as we draw closer to January.  Tonight, go to livepodcast.268generation.com in order to connect in with students form all around the globe.  Don’t miss out!

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I’ve begun to think about ALL of the things I am thankful for. It’s overwhelming.

But if I had to, I would sum it all up with this JJ Heller song. Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNbbeIJtWZo

Thank You

For painted purple skies
For never telling lies
For giving all you had away
For crying when I cry
Ooh thank you…

For changing autumn leaves
The salty ocean breeze
For coming down from heaven to save a wretch like me
Ooh thank you…

I can’t understand why you left your throne
But I know that you came and you saved my soul…

Amazing grace
How sweet the sound
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Ooh, thank you

It was so great having a chance to speak at CAM again this past Tuesday!  To all of you who were there and were wondering about the resources, here are the passages of scripture that I used as well as a link to the youtube clip for the “Choose Your Own Adventure” journey with Chad, Matt and Rob. Could be a great way to spend the evening…

Gen 12:1 – 3

¹The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.

² “I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.^[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”^[b]

Jeremiah 17:7-9

⁷ “But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

⁹ The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?

Proverbs 13:20

²⁰ Walk with the wise and become wise,
for a companion of fools suffers harm.

The story of Rehoboam is found in 1 Kings 12 & 13.  It’s good to read both chapters to get a little bit more of a perspective as to what is taking place int he big picture of the story.

And don’t forget the cheesy line of the night that I picked up from another pastor years ago.  “The relationships that I will choose will affect life’s “D’s” & “Q’s”.  D = direction and Q = quality.

Lastly, her is the link for the youtube clip.  Enjoy….and let me know how the story ends.  Enjoy choosing your own adventure with Chad, Matt & Rob!

Okay, I’ll admit it… I’m one of those people that start listening to Christmas music the first chance I get! And I know there is one Madison station that is already playing ‘All Christmas Music, All The Time’. (Thank you 94.9)!

I know it drives most people crazy to hear Christmas music before Thanksgiving. My husband’s aunt posted on her facebook wall a photo from a sign in Nordstrom’s that said, “We won’t be decking our halls until Friday, November 27th. Why? Well, we like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time”. I think that’s neat that a store is willing to wait extra time to put out the Christmas decor. Most places started on Halloween day or before! In my mind they are all about revenue… And that DOES make me sad.

But I look forward to Christmas music all year! Some of the cheesier songs can definitely wait until Christmas (or never), but those Christmas hymns remind me about the wonderful time of year of being close with family and the best gift the world has ever received (hopefully you know what I’m talking about).

And I will leave you with this stanza from my favorite Christmas song that puts a tear in my eye ever time:

O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary soul rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

Last week we kicked off a new Series on Prayer. Near the end of the night, I mentioned a source that provides some really practical ideas about prayer that I thought you might find helpful. Well here it is! Take what you find helpful and leave the rest… this is just one person’s view of prayer, why we should be devoted to it, and how to go about doing that.

http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/be-devoted-to-prayer

[excerpt] “…God’s word to us today is “Be devoted to prayer.” Be constant in it. Be faithful in it. Why? God commands us to; the needs are great and eternity hangs in the balance; and God hears and does more in five seconds that we can do in five years.

Let your prayer be…

F – Free and Formed
A – Alone and Assembled
D – Desperate and Delighted
E – Explosive and Extended
S – Spontaneous and scheduled

…without these things, prayer F A D E S”

- John Piper

Join us for week two and three of the Prayer Series as we continue to explore the “why, what, how” questions surrounding prayer!

This past Sunday, we kicked off a new series at Blackhawk called, “Here is Your God.”  I think it is going to be a pretty amazing series that will help all of us wrap our minds more around this God whom we serve.  I know that we had a great conversation last night at the life group that my wife, Rachel and I lead for college students on Sunday night.

Pastor Chris talked some about ways that we view God that are not really what God is like.  It reminded me of a book that I read not too long ago that was given to me by my good friend Adam Penning from Campus Crusade.  It’s titled, “Imaginary Jesus” and is written by a pretty humorous author named Matt Mikalatos.  This is a fun book.  It’s a story rather that is pretty out there.  Don’t pick it up thinking you are going to get a deep conversation into theology but it does make you stop and think in many ways about how we have created views of Jesus that are not really Jesus at all.  Take a look and let me know what you think….

Just got this email from my friend, Greg Ruhland on campus who work for YWAM.  Sounds like a great opportunity we wanted you to be aware of.

Hey friends – our ywam student organization on campus is hosting a documentary film showing about child sex trafficking in the USA this coming Monday night.  The film was made by a talented team of ywammers out of Kona.  It’s a pretty eye opening film.  We would love for you to join us for a viewing of the film.

Greg

What:  Documentary film – “Sex and Money: a National Search for Human Worth”

When: Monday 9/19 – 7pm.

Where: 3650 Humanities Buildings – UW Madison

I had a blast last night at CAM!  Hope the rest of you did as well.  In case you’ve missed the 1st 2 weeks, we are in a 3 week series right now called 101 where we are looking at the basics of what a relationship with Jesus looks like.  We’ve actually stolen the idea from a series of Andy Stanley’s at Northpoint community church called Simple.  So, if you want to catch up, you can listen to some of Andy’s talks which are WAY better than mine anyways.

Week one’s details are in my last post.  Last night in week 2, we talked about the idea of moving from a place of following Jesus to a place of believing that he truly was who he said he was….the son of God.

The passages that we looked at together were Matthew 16:13-16, John 6:65-68 & Romans 3:21-26.

Also, just for fun, if you want to see the clip I used from the movie K-PAX, here it is…….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUxQLlN7rnc&feature=related

For those of you interested in seeing more photos from the day I went surfing, here is the link to a guy’s facebook page.  He was there taking shots of a few friends.  Maybe you should even say that you “like” his photos! Great Lakes Surfing is alive.  Enjoy!  See you next week at CAM for part 2 of our series, “101.”

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.285543314796288.95695.100000218641556&type=1