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OUR SUNDAY SCHOOL MINISTRY

Highland Laker Kids are discovering this summer all the fun involved with being one of "God's Secret Agents". Please join us as we discover interesting people from the bible, learn some great, positive values and enjoy making creative crafts. Most of all -- the kids just have a lot of fun and get to hang out with other kids!

Summer Sermon Series
ON HOLY GROUNDS:
Examining Controversial Issues Biblically
Starting Sunday, July 4


PASTOR'S VACATION

Pastor Ron and his family will be away July 26 to August 10. Pastor Ron is a native of Nova Scotia and will be visiting there for the first time in 20 years. Please keep the Mahlers in prayer as they travel, and that the family would have a great time seeing all the sights (and eating lots of fish!)

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

A message from our pastor

God, the Gospel and Starbucks

In Leonard Sweet’s book “The Gospel According to Starbucks,” the author claims that one of the reasons why the juggernaut coffee company has been so successful, is due to how the company provides the atmosphere which envelopes their product: coffee. Sweet claims that we don’t really “stand in line” for “a cup” of coffee, but that we “stop” to take in the “experience” surrounding that coffee. Sweet goes on relate that experience to how we approach God sometimes, explaining, “Too many of us line up for God out of duty or guilt. We completely miss out on the warmth and richness of the experience of living with God.” I wonder if the original, twelve disciples ever felt they were missing something in their association with Jesus. He called them; they followed, and kept going with the Lord, all the way to the ascension. However, is it possible that even though the Lord Himself was with them, that at different points the disciples’ experience of God became a bit mechanical and abstract? They stood next to the Truth, but often the Gospel accounts show us – the followers of Jesus didn’t comprehend the truth of that experience. They didn’t always get the fact that Jesus was transcendent – and that a total experience of His presence and ministry couldn’t be encapsulated in one spot. Peter found that out at the event of the “Transfiguration.”

Going to church can be like that as well. Many of us go to worship service every Sunday because it is the thing we always do (The Lord’s day). And in a real sense, every Sunday, as if going out for coffee, we too take our place in the “line up,” wait to come to “the counter” as it were, in order to receive the product we came for. And the truth is, sometimes, like sitting down with our coffees and friends we can look for a total package of what it means to experience God – in our weekend services. And we should look for God at work, and indeed experience Him in our corporate worship services, because the Bible says - God “inhabits” the praises of His people. Yet what about when we don’t “feel” the all-inspiring, all-encompassing presence of the Holy Spirit in our seats or pews? What about when we don’t feel like we are “getting” all we should in a service? What about the times when the sermon is just mediocre, and we can’t wait to leave? A point to make here is that perhaps we are not meant to experience all we would like to on a Sunday morning. What is really obtrusive here is that we may feel that we should be experiencing the total package of what it means to worship God in our “church” atmosphere. Starbucks gives us an experience that compliments the product it sells, right where we are. We don’t need to go anywhere else. It’s all there for us. And yet, God, and the reality of the Gospel, cannot be packaged as such.

We definitely cannot experience all that is God, and all we want from Him - in any given Sunday service. The worship service is a microcosm of what it means to live out the Gospel every day. In our church experience - we praise, we give, we read, we listen, we serve, we pray. However, God is not limited to that one-day experience. If we want to be blessed in addition to the Sunday service, we need to keep in mind that we can experience Him just as much, the minute we step a toe outside the front door of the building. I like how Sweet puts it: We need to “...learn to pay attention...to identify where God is already in business right in your neighbourhood.” And so, if we are looking to drink a great cup of coffee, in an atmosphere that enables and completes a great experience – nothing else needed but a good book or conversation – go to Starbucks. If we want to experience a relationship with a great God, and observe how big He is, how multi-faceted His love and resources are – by all means, please go to church, but remember, you will need to look outside of there, too. In fact He might be working at the local mall, recreation centre, pub, school, and yes, even Starbucks.