(Looking for Sunday’s audio announcement?   Keep reading…)

How do you respond to sad news?
Anger? Fear? Depression? Criticism? Anxiety?  All the above?

It’s easy and natural to respond this way…but, unfortunately, the Scriptures don’t give us a right to. Instead, the Scriptures (1 Thessalonians 5:11,  Hebrews 3:12-13,  Hebrews 10:23-25) call us up to something much different: encouragement.  We are to BE encouraged and we are to BE the encourager.  This isn’t the easy road, but it is the joyful one - and the road that will lead us out of the valley of negativity.

Choosing to be an ENCOURAGER is…well…a CHOICE.  Encouragement doesn’t just happen…it’s not a passive effect.  It is the result of proactivity and intentionality…aligning our attitudes with the attitude of God’s Spirit.  Every day…sometimes every minute…we have to choose the way of the Spirit.

Choose to see God at work.  Choose to be the voice of comfort.  Choose to be the voice of truth.  Choose to be the voice of courage.  Choose joy.

Choose…the way of the Spirit.  It’s what God wants FROM us - and it’s what God wants FOR us!

Hard?  Yes.  Rewarding?  Always.  Try it right now…take every discouraging fact you are wrestling with…and ask God to help you - by His Spirit - to see something ENCOURAGING about that situation.  Somewhere buried in the chaos is a little nugget of truth that is encouraging.   It’s there…you just have to look for it - you have to CHOOSE to look for it!

This week, Westport heard some challenging news about some changes on our team. Our prayer for us is that we could quickly give that sad news to the Lord, and begin encouraging ourselves and others as soon as possible! I urge you to become a ‘Joy Distributor’ through your encouraging words to others.

To get us started in the right direction…let me encourage you with God’s Word:   Philippians 4:8-9

Loving you guys for the sake of the Gospel,
Paul

*If you missed Sunday’s (1/10/10) announcement, we have included it here for you to listen to it in its entirety.  Click here to listen…

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This Sunday, January 17th - Kimberley Reception:

Please join us at 5 pm to hang out with Tim & Patty Kimberley and send them off in Westport style with love and appreciation!   Bring your cards, gifts and words of encouragement for all their impact in our lives!

Let me encourage you to come with this determination:  “I’m here to ENCOURAGE somebody else…”

Post your questions for the upcoming series:    Any Questions?

Many people asked us if they could share last week’s video message from Pastor Craig Groeschel…so here it is:

TRUISH by LifeChurch.tv (Week One)

Enjoy…see you next week for the conclusion of this series…

Are we there yet? We all like to know the skinny on where we are in relation to where we are going. It started the day they strapped us into the car seat and took us on our first drive home. And…we’ve never gotten over it. We are hard wired to look down the road, to yearn for our future.

This week we kicked off our annual Roadmap series to help us celebrate where we’ve been and look forward to where we are going. Imagine with me for a moment that God invited us on a Cosmic Roadtrip. I’m sure I’d be fighting for shotgun, how about you (hey..we’re human)? How would He describe the destination and all the milestones along the way? I was thinking it might look a lot like this - we’ll call it God’s Roadmap:

What does God's "Roadmap" look like...where is He taking us?

God’s ultimate destination is simple: making His glory known to all people, in all nations at all times. This is what God calls us to also…showing off His Roadmap - pointing people to the exotic destination of God’s Glory. It’s quite a view. Good thing we ALL got to ride shotgun!

This week, we talked about the fact that God loves to shine His favor down on people who are doing work that complements His work…(Psalm 90:16-17).  We mentioned that Westport cares deeply about the work of helping people see ‘God’s Roadmap’ - the beauty of His glory.  To accomplish this…we highlighted three ways our environment helps the cause:

We care most about:

Transformation not Information
Community not Isolation
Servanthood not Consumption

If you missed this week’s opener, make sure you check it out online - and then join us for Part Two on August 30th.

In the mean time…here’s what I’ve asked everyone to do in the next 7 days:
Take 30 minutes to evaluate your participation in Westport’s “4 Practices”

Participate in Worship
Find a Group
Serve on a Team
Invite your Friends

See you next week…

In the fourth sermon of our Etched series, we come across the 4th commandment:  Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy…

Of the 7 days we get each week, clearly, one of these days is not like the others.

We discovered that this commandment is rooted in God’s call on our lives for rich relationships - with Him and with others.  So, to fully love God and to fully love others, we MUST set aside some dedicated time for these relationships.   A sabbath day is meant to Provide Refreshment, Protect our Priorities and Point to our Redemption.  All of this helps us build relationships with God and others.

But a lingering question exists which didn’t get answered in the sermon.  I thought I would take a minute to address it.  Why do Christians not practice a sabbath on Saturday any more?  Did Jesus rewrite this commandment to be for Sunday?  Well…kinda, but not really.

By the time Jesus got on the scene, the Jewish people were scattered throughout the world, and weren’t following the 4th commandment properly anyway.  So, when Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday…the followers of Jesus found this to be a great time to reinstate the principles of Sabbath on the first day of the week.

Throughout the book of Acts, we see the church gathered for worship on Sunday.  The Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) was on a Sunday, which is also the day that Christ ‘launched’ his church.    (See also Acts 20:7 and 1 Corinthians 16:2)

But the point is not THE day.  Jesus said in Mark 2:27:  “The Sabbath was made for man…NOT man for the Sabbath”.  In other words, follow the spirit of the law, not the letter of the law.  Find the underlying reasons that God wrote this commandment, then chase after that with all your heart.

That’s why Paul urged the church at Colossae to be flexible:  “No one is to act as your judge in regard to…a Sabbath day” (Colossians 2:16).  Some religious systems have turned this commandment into legalism, and have forgotten the point.  I like the way scholar John Eadie says it:

“The new religion [Christianity] is too free and exuberant to be trained down to ‘times and seasons’ like its tame and rudimental predecessor [Judaism]. Its feast is daily, for every day is holy; its moon never wanes, and its serene tranquility is an unbroken Sabbath.”

The point of Sabbath is to celebrate and recalibrate.  We celebrate God for who He is and what He does.  And we recalibrate ourselves relationally, physically and spiritually.

Enjoy and practice the Sabbath - and do it with the people you love.  Rest.  Rejoice.  Play.  Worship.  Read.  Converse.  Feast.  Recreate.

Remember: One of these days is not like the other.

What's Written on Your Heart

This week we began our series “Etched”, which is a fresh look at the most well known social law system in history:  The Ten Commandments.

The 10 Commandments aren’t meant to break our backs with rules, but to break our hearts for relationships.    If we were to identify one ‘big idea’ for these set of commandments it would look like this:  “Together…let’s enjoy our REAL, RELATIONAL, REDEEMER.”

The 10 Commandments are designed to help us enjoy God…together, with other people.   So, the first 4 are vertical - they teach us how to fully enjoy (love) God.  The last 6 are horizontal - they teach us how to enjoy (love) others.

Remember…the Ten Commandments were written by a REAL God, who has loyally pursued a RELATIONSHIP with us, and has even gone to great extents to REDEEM us from our sins.  With that as a back drop, God has every right to demand from us these ten basic pinciples for life in community.

But, here’s the brutal truth:  if we don’t like God…we definitely won’t like His commandments.  We will never receive the message of the Ten Commandments until we first fall in love with the God who spoke them!

This week, I challenge you to put the Ten Commandments to memory.    ETCH THEM ON YOUR HEART and learn to ENJOY your REAL, RELATIONAL REDEEMER!

For further study of the Ten Commandments, here are some great books I encourage you to buy:

Hard Times are defining moments.    They will either make us trust God more, or they will make us trust God less.

That’s really all we have to know about Hard Times.  This is a moment that will change me.  No matter the outcome of this moment - I will either trust God more in the process, or I will trust Him less.

The question is:   How do I learn to trust Him more in Hard Times?

This week, we discovered that God takes great pleasure in watching us learn to trust Him more.  We learned from a mom in 2 Kings 4 who was facing a very hard time.   Using empty jars, God met her need in a UNIQUE way.  He COLLABORATED with a lot of people, and His miraculous provision was PROPORTIONATE to her faith.

Listen to this week’s message and then answer these questions for yourself:

1. What’s Your Jar Story?
2. Who will God collaborate with in your Jar Story ( OR  How will God use YOU in someone else’s Jar Story?)
3. How big will your jar story be?

Feel free to share your “Jar Story” below

Many requests have been made for the video teaching the last two weeks from Dave Ramsey.  Although we don’t have the rights to post the videos on our sites, Dave’s talks can be viewed online here:  Life.  Money.  Hope Videos

Find the “Upside” of the downside when you commit to learning new money behaviors…try it and see!

We were privileged to hear from Dave Ramsey this week at Westport.  Dave’s humor, mixed with truth, has encouraged and challenged many people to do something about their bondage to debt.
I wish you could read the comments I’ve been reading from you this week!  You have Gazelle Intensity - and I can’t wait to see the results.  I’ve been praying individually for EVERY single comment you made on your connection card this week - praying that God will give you courage and wisdom to find your UPSIDE in the middle of the downside - and learn a new money behavior!

You may be interested in learning more from Dave Ramsey on this subject, so here is a great place to find resources:

www.DaveRamsey.com

Let’s break the bondage of debt so we can be the generous people we really WANT to be!

Have you ever noticed how much we criticize power unless it’s ours? Usually we criticize what we really want. And what we really want is power. I want it, but I don’t want you to have it.

Power is intoxicating, isn’t it? We want it. We crave it. But we don’t know how to really get it. So, as with many of our other unmet desires, we resort to being chronically frustrated, angry, depressed or a myriad of other unhealthy emotions.
So, how do we break free – and still get what we want?

We need to redefine what power is. We think we know power…because we’ve been abused by it. But, do we really know much about SPIRITUAL power?

I’m intrigued by Jesus’ approach to power in Matthew 20. If you didn’t get a chance to hear the sermon on this, you can check it out here. I’m intrigued because Jesus didn’t come down on his disciples because they wanted power. He just came down on them for the KIND of power they wanted…worldly power.

As usual, Jesus provided an alternative. The alternative to our worldly desire for power is the spiritual practice of Servanthood.
Servanthood is like graduate school at Harvard. It won’t be experienced nonchalantly. It takes intentionality. It requires that we sit at the feet of Jesus as an apprentice and learn from him:
“The last will be first”
“The greatest among you will be your servants”
“Love your enemies”

The power that Jesus brandished was spiritual power.  Power that came through being a servant.  Being submitted to someone else’s mission.  That’s the kind of power God wants us all to experience.  That’s Kingdom power.

It’s time to go to school on the subject of Servanthood. If you want to get started right away, begin by reading the book of Mark and noting every time Jesus gave up power…enjoy.