thrive

It is Holy Week and one of the great things about Thrive is that we get to celebrate an Easter Vigil.  It is not quite Easter morning, it is not Good Friday and so we are somewhere in the middle.

The United Methodist Book of Worship says this about the celebration of the Easter Vigil, a practice from many centuries ago: “It was the most holy and joyful night of the entire Christian year, for it proclaimed and celebrated the whole of salvation history and Christ’s saving work.”

Will you join us to help celebrate the most holy and joyful night of the entire Christian year?  We have some amazing things planned for you to celebrate this night.  Join us for worship at 5pm on Saturday, April 7.

blue·grass  (blgrs)

Join us March 10 for a little thing we like to call Bluegrass night.  You might be thinking to yourself, really, what does bluegrass have to do with worship?  So, so much.

Don’t believe me?  Check out this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55LQ1IkvPpE

I thought you would like that.  We’ll see you Saturday at 5pm!

We are right in the middle of a sermon series at Thrive called, I’ve Got Issues, But God Is…  And I have to admit that it is one of my favorite series we have ever done.  I think what we think about God is so important.  In fact, AW Tozer (a famous pastor) once said “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”

A couple weeks ago, I pointed out that what we think about God changes how we behave.  If we think God is a strict judge, we live lives afraid of messing up.  If we think God doesn’t care about or isn’t paying attention to what we are doing, the incentive for us to live lives that would please God is gone.

I watch a lot of sermon online and one of my favorite pastors that I watch came up with two questions that hit me so close to home.  He asked his people: What do you think about God?  And what do you think God thinks about you?

These are possibly two of the most important questions we can ask.  So, what do you think?

Doesn’t everyone take two months off from their blog?  Our last entry was in August.  If it makes you feel any better, my desk calendar until today was also at August.  It’s just how I roll.  But some great things have been happening at Thrive, such as:

• We’ve started adding some quieter, acoustic nights which have been super cool.  We don’t like doing the same thing over and over, so it is fun to change things up a bit.  Perhaps the coolest of these was the night that we had a mandolin, banjo and violin on the same night.  It was like Mumford and Sons worship!
• The Thrive band played at Advent’s Imagine No Malaria 5k on October 8.  It was an awesome, gorgeous morning and we raised over $3,000 to help eradicate malaria in our world.  And with our matching donor, we have raised over $6,000!
• We started (and finished) our sermon series Be Rich about how to live a rich life without having a ton of money.
• We’ve started a sermon series called I’ve Got Issues, But God Is…  I love a good, back-to-basics sermon series that helps us think about God and what God is and does.

In elementary school, I loved the beginning of the school year.  Not because I was a nerd that wanted homework, but I loved having new school supplies.  We would have to have these pencil boxes and something about the eraser smell mixed with the smell of the colored pencils and crayons…Lord have mercy, I loved that smell.

And now that I am an adult, I am realizing that there is not the regular, you-can-count-on-them new things when you get to adulthood.  Some of you might disagree, but for the majority of adults, new things like the first day of school don’t come around that often.  And I wish that I had a moment like that to look forward to each year.

But the exciting thing is that when we look at the Bible, and especially the prophets, there are times outside of statements of judgment where God is saying, ‘Look I am doing something new!  Stand back and be amazed!’  And though it might not smell like a new pencil box, it is probably way better than new erasers.  I can’t just let myself believe that nothing new is coming when God has said and is saying that He’s up to something.  I’ve just got to be watching.

What are you looking forward to?  It can be a new pencil box or something bigger.  But what has you excited for the future?

Acts 1:1-11

The Promise of the Holy Spirit and The Ascension of Jesus

Traits of God: Provider, Mysterious, Authoritative

Questions: Wouldn’t it just be easier if God would tell us when the second coming is happening?  Why did Jesus have to go so the Holy Spirit could come?  What did they mean by Jesus would come back in the same way he left?  Should we be watching for Jesus to descend from a cloud?

Okay, your turn…thoughts?  Hit up the comments.

So, we are now three weeks into our sermon series on Acts, so maybe it would be a good time to post some thoughts on Acts.  And, apparently the goal of social media and blogs is to get people socializing.  So let’s start a conversation, shall we?  So here are the rules, peeps.

1) Read the Bible.

2) Look for images of God that you see in the passage.

3) Keep track of any questions you might have.

4) Post these and any other thoughts in the comments.

5) Keep checking back for what other people have shared.

I (Lindsey) will be posting my thoughts and various insights to the blog.  Feel free to question me, but let’s be nice to each other, ok?