It’s been an interesting weekend, a lot different than last week. Last weekend felt like an adrenalin rush in stress city. The subject was controversial & dicey. Kicking off the new series “SIGNIFICANT” it occurred to me that in many ways this weekend arguably is more important. The heart of the message of Jesus is kind of like this: repent (y’all need to re-think everything), because you are looking for the blessed life in all the wrong places. This series will be kind of guided tour of the places we mistakenly look for significance & then a how to find what we are really looking for in HIM.


Here are a couple of my highlights for the weekend:
• WORSHIP WAS COOL – it was great to have a good chunk of time to worship. On Sunday it felt like the Holy Spirit kind of hit the gas pedal when Valerie led “Here I am to Worship” (a kind of older worship song, but it took on some new life!)

• HOMIE THE CLOWN – I finally got a Homey the clown reference fully into a message. If you are too young or too old or just didn’t watch enough TV to see In Living Color, check out this Homey clip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QhuBIkPXn0&hl=en&fs=1]
• SELAH – Jason did the lion share of the leading & did a monster job of leading us into the presence of God. I did have a leading Sunday afternoon to pray for “Fibromyalgia”. Sure enough, one of our prayer team prayed over someone & they experienced some powerful healing. Check out this email – shared with permission:
Hi Ed,
It’s almost unbelievable that you brought up fibromyalgia last night.
The pain was so extreme, I could not remember how to drive to church. I got lost three times, although I’ve driven the same route hundreds of times. Something was pulling me there. It was hard focusing on the guest speaker, I had to tune-out and try to deal with the pain. I started to lose hope and thought maybe I was mistaken and should have stayed home. The prayer team seemed like a good place to turn to.
The moment I walked up, Pam had this aura about her, sort of an angelic pureness. She sat me down and I told her about my searing pain. She anointed me, and shared some beautiful and caring words of prayer. I started falling into a dark place as the truth emerged in my mind, the reason I had this pain. I shared my fears with Pam, which are tied to a troubled relationship, and she prayed for that, and also for the other individual. We sat together about 10-15 minutes, and when I went back to my seat the pain was greatly reduced. I invited some church friends over to my house and we had pizza and played ping pong. By then, the disabling pain was completely gone.
• Cool works of God – check out this email from one of our prayer team members:

Last night at Selah, both Pamela and I prayed for women who were suffering from fibromyalgia. Both women said that they felt improvement in their pain. Mine also had a frozen shoulder which she was able to move up and to the side after prayer, but not to the back (yet).

A woman named Janet came up to share her miracle with me after Selah. I had prayed for her 2 weeks ago along with a couple other members of our team. Her doctors had told her that her symptoms indicated either MS or a brain tumor. She was scheduled for an MRI where nothing was found, symptoms gone, doctors perplexed. Don’t you love it when doctors are perplexed! She told them that it was God healing her through prayer! She still has some scoliosis in her spine, so far.

This next one was also very powerful. After first service that same Sunday, Steve & Allen and I prayed for a woman whose sister is living on the streets and she believes is possessed, suffers from schizophrenia, etc. The family, she said, was beyond dry in their prayer after years of no result. I invited her to Selah and to bring her sister if she could. I spoke with her afterward & she could not find her sister but she shared with me that SHE was emotionally healed by the extended time of worship and adoration during Selah. “This is what I have needed!”, she said.

Thank you for the opportunity to have the Holy Spirit wash over us so mightily last night! Precious, Powerful God!

Jason, will you pass this on to the guys who played last night? Soooooooo many were touched by God through their anointing!!

• Great surf session on Saturday – it’s always more fun w/ a crew of friends & we had about 5 guys from Church that went to San Elijo together for some really fun decent sized waves. We’ve had a great summer in SD surf wise – sometimes it can go real flat, but this year the water is warm & there has been one nice South swell after another.
• ENJOYING THE MYSTERY OF GOD AT WORK – This week, I had an appointment w/ someone whow3 became a Christ follower at Journey about 5 years ago. She set the appointment about a month ago & just wanted to run the story of her journey with Jesus by me. She cried through most of it ☺ and I’m getting a little veclempt thinking about it. God really turned some things around earlier this year during a message (she remembered exactly what was said & what God was saying in the midst of that) and in a Selah when I just gave people paper & had them listen & write (pretty clever huh?). I was blown away at how much MORE God was doing in her life than we could have planned for or hoped for in the course of the services. Then on Sunday between the services I began to think about how many of the peeps that I was passing by & saying hello to, had seen a decisive “only God” kind of work in their lives. Finally, I think about Willie, our greeter who passed last week in his mid 40s. I think of how God so got a hold of him 3 years ago that his NEIGHBORS who don’t go to church were saying – he was a completely different guy after he started going to this Church. We showed a clip of his baptism in the service. O the beauty of the mystery of God at work in people’s lives. Is there anything better than this? Sola Gloria Deo!“SIGNIFICANT” VIA GIVING Y EL FIN DE SEMANA PASADO