________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________

What a success… our 6th Annual Bennett Park Community Picnic was our best yet, with over 200 people attending!  This was the first year that many families stayed for over three hours, playing, laughing, talking, and enjoying the beautiful weather with us.  Connections were made with many new families and ministry continues to thrive in these neighborhoods that God has called us to reach with his love and grace.

Thank you to everyone who brought food, grilled, set up tents, led games, and came out to enjoy the picnic!  Also, a BIG Thank You to Tyler McCloud for the great photos!  We are truly blessed to have so many in the church who love to serve.  We look forward to next year!

Kristen Denning, Community Action Director

The roadmap lines on her aged face were as deeply etched as the convictions in her heart. Her natural beauty long since faded, she nevertheless radiated an inner strenght and beauty that is a rare find indeed. It was an inner fervor born of compassion, and a beauty stemming from the sweetness of a soul touched by the hand of the Savior.

Truely, it was the hand of the Savior who guided her gnarled hands; hands accustomed to toil, squalor, and misery. Yet they were hands of mercy, compassion, hope, and salvation. Mother Teresa: the hand of Jesus extended to the lowest of the low, yet one of the greatest Saints to epitomize His grace, humility, and love.

“Let the poor…eat you up,” she said. May we be consumed with the same compassion-that of our Lord’s heart for the lost and needy in our world.

We all know who Mother Teresa was. We admire her for her selflessness and ardent compassion for the suffering and poverty-stricken of Calcutta; we applaud her courage and convictions. We affirm her place as a heroine among saints, a unique individual with a unique call and even more unique dedication.

But should compassion for the poor (or anyone who suffers for that matter) and a willingness to come to their aid with the love of Jesus be so unique for followers of Christ?

Should compassion for the poor be unique among Christians, or uniquely Christian?

Can I be honest with you? Suffering bugs me. I’m not talking about my own personal suffering (which bugs me alot…if what minor discomforts I experience can actually be called suffering), but it’s the plight of others that really gets to me. Peoples’ suffering really affects me more than just feeling uncomforable or awkward. Many times I feel helpless to help, dumbfounded as what to say, and overcome emotionally by their difficulty. And to be painfully honest, at times I feel put out and worried about how much time compassion is going to cost me.

What is it about me that makes someone else’s suffering about me?

And, am I alone in this?

I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to suffer as many do, but I do know what it is to be self-centered. And the best wasy to cure being me-focused is to become others-focused…and that happens when first, I become Jesus-focused.

If I’m going to truly follow Jesus, then I’m going to go where He goes, love whom He loves, care for whom He cares, and give of myself just as He did, and still does…through us!

The thing that makes Believers Fellowship Church uniquely Christian is not our religious rhetoric, but our selfless love for others and the willingness to have the poor eat us up, as we humbly and gratefully follow Jesus.

“I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.”  - Mother Teresa

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________________

What a great night!  On May 19, over 26 dance students, their families, teachers, and those from Believers Fellowship Church joined with us to celebrate what God has done this past year through our Performing Arts Ministry!  Our students have been studying the fruit of the spirit for the past nine months and we are seeing fruit because of it!

Imagine for a moment, nine young girls crowded around Pam as she pulls out her Bible.  Nine hands shoot up as she asks where the Bible talks about the fruit of the spirit.  They all know it… Galatians 5:22!  And then they start naming them off: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Pam pulls out a mysterious rumpled paper bag and the girls can hardly contain their excitement.  What fruit did she bring this week? !  She pulls it out and… it’s a pomegranate!  The girls all taste the fruit for the first time and listen intently to Pam as she brings God’s Word to life.

Our Performing Arts Ministry is not just about dance classes… it’s about pouring God into these students.  We believe that God has given us opportunities to speak into young lives and while we teach ballet, modern, hip-hop, and break dance, we also point kids to Christ and teach practical life skills that help them succeed in life.

 Thank you, BFC, for your awesome support of this life-changing ministry.  We are building bridges and touching lives, right here in our community.

Kristen Denning, Community Action Director

Your subconscious breaks in on your finish line focus; as your sensory perception clears way the fog, you can hear the roar of a rival clan gaining from behind. From some unknown reserve deep within, a communal burst of new energy surges through you and your brothers, and as one you quicken your pace, renew your determination and block out the leaden legs and cramping sides.

With every pounding stride your  resolve stiffens; you will not let yourself, or your comrades down! As one you bellow your clan’s cheer again and again while the remaining yards melt away. Suddenly you’re there, the finish, your clan pours over the line; you did it, you beat the “Iron Man”!

Abruptly, fatigue gives way to pride and a soaring sense of accomplishment for you and your clan. Not only did you survive the “Iron Man”, but you achieved what many are unwilling to attempt; you dared stare into the abyss…you peered honestly into your soul and came away the stronger for it. You pushed past the vulnerability of Exposure; you’ve grown, you’ve conquered, and you had a heck of a lot of fun doing it!

Either that or you spent your weekend on some project or another…because let’s face it…why do Exposure when you can clean the garage? Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that; maybe one day you’ll believe it.

So, blog on and give us your excuse, we’ll let you know if it’s lame or not. Trust us. Exposure, July 25-26, 2008.

Dangerous   harmless   Adventurous   tame   Competitive   passive   Bold   withdrawn   Daring   safe   Earthy   refined   Leader   follower   Courageous   timid   PowerAde   kool-aid   Leather   terry cloth   Character   dishonesty   Doer   whiner   Giver   taker   Team   self   Exposure   lame excuse

Four or more capital letters: You’re an Exposure-man!

Four or more lower case letters: You need Exposure, man!

Log on with your score and let us know what you think about the Exposure idea. Exposure, July 25-26, 2008.

First, you need to know that I’m not an economist, and I have never been formally trained in that area. However, like you, I am an economist of sorts because I do participate in this economy, experiencing its impact on a daily basis, and while doing so, I’ve made some observations… 

Absolutely, food costs more. Housing has slowed down (some would say, evened out after a prolonged season of unreasonably high accelerated appreciation coupled with stupid lending practices). Pizza joints are threatening to raise delivery charges, and the value of my pickup is going down while the price of scooters and bicycles are going up. I did recently download some music from iTunes for .99 though…at least there’s a smidgen of hope.

And you bet I get irritated at the price of gas; almost as irritated as I get with those Ameri-Euro wannabe noobs that find joy in Americans “finally” having to pay exorbitant fuel prices; “just as the Europeans have been doing for years.” The argument continues that maybe now we will cut back our fuel usage and stop “consuming, consuming, consuming!” I bloody well doubt it.

I admit that fossil fuels are finite in quantity, and I’m convinced that we can come up with more environmentally favorable alternatives, but the price of fuel isn’t so much about supply and demand as it is about the value of the dollar against the Euro, or any other currency for that matter.

As far as consuming, consuming, consuming goes, we are a consumer nation with a consumer economy. We don’t make anything here anymore, except military tech., cars and credit. So for our economy to work we have to buy stuff, eat out a lot, and pay people to do things for us so we can work the extra hours necessary to pay for the stuff we want to consume.

But, all of our manufacturing, and I-service industries have long since packed up and shipped off to the third world. So now we have to import most of what we consume and send our credit card generated wealth overseas. As a nation we go deeper into debt and the world goes deeper into our collective pockets. It’s the new twist on the redistribution of wealth.

Add to that the fact that we are going broke policing the world and rather than paying down the national debt, we’re printing more money and giving each taxpayer a stimulus check that we can use towards that imported 56” HD screen with the name we’ve never heard of, and are going to charge at the nearest box store.

Oh, yeah, it’s also a political season so the doomsday economic rhetoric is in full swing…because perception is reality, and…if you get enough people crying, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” even if the sky is securely in place, you will eventually start the masses running for cover. However, some of the candidates did suggest rolling back the federal excise tax on gasoline for the summer; that’s sure to keep the RVs, jet skis, power boats and family vans going this season, if not the economy to any appreciable extent.

So, viewing the economic picture, some see the harbinger of recession; you can dance to that tune if you want, but I’m going to sit it out, and here’s why…

It’s really quite simple. Trusting Jesus as my Lord and Savior, I am now part of the Kingdom of God with all of its rights, privileges, benefits and responsibilities. The simple fact is that the God of that Kingdom has an economy and His Kingdom is not impacted or affected by anything in this world.

Quite the opposite is true; God’s Kingdom rule is continuously bringing its benevolent influence to bear on this world and its people. You see that in answered prayers; people experiencing God’s miraculous intervention in healing, needs being met in spite of economic circumstances, jobs provided, key insight and wisdom given at the precise moment needed, etc.

Further, God’s economic principles of generosity, sowing and reaping (giving and receiving), benevolence, wise credit use, sound financial planning, shrewd investing, honesty, integrity, coupled with faith in His ability and willingness to provide all we need are all simultaneously working on the believer’s behalf regardless of (and in spite of) our natural economy.

So I’m not going to participate in the recession (if, indeed that’s what this is), and rather than pulling my hair out over inane economic politics, kicking the gas pump for spinning too quickly as it tallies up dollar after dollar, cursing the eco-warriors of our time for not letting us drill in Anwar, or blaming the Chinese for wanting their rather large slice of the American pie (which we served up warm and fresh on a silver platter), I’m going to actively participate in God’s economy and trust Him to help me survive this one.