oasisCHURCH

A Story

After finishing my last post the Spirit compelled me to share one of my early experiences with the power of understanding that comes in acknowledging the presence of God. It seems like forever ago that this happened but the freshness of it on my mind has not been dulled by the passing of time. It is basically one of those stories where you wrestle with the “why” of life and ultimately turn to God as a source of blame. It was amazing how God responded to me in that moment and it took me years after to understand the implications that it would have on my life further on up the road.

It was October 19, 1999. Three years prior on this date my best friend had passed away. This event tore through my life in several different ways. Naturally there was the pain and considerable anguish that comes with losing one so dear to your life. Yet there was also an odd calm that would follow his death. Upon his passing I had made myself this promise: I would refuse to blame God. Why I made this promise to myself I’m not really sure. At that time I wasn’t regularly attending any gathering with fellow Christians. I didn’t even really put that much stock in the ultimate authority or legitimacy of God. Yet for whatever reason this was the vow I made to myself in that trying moment. For nearly two years I had held to that promise but this day was very different. I’m not sure what had happened in my mind but for the first time in two years I had awoken to the urge to find a reason or even some small level of fairness in the passing of one of the most beloved people in my life. The irrepressible urge to demand answers from anywhere was intoxicating in the most negative kind of way. My whole day spiraled down a steady tube of bitterness. I finally hit bottom at the grave of my friend. In the years since his passing I would regularly visit his gravesite. Sometimes I would be nothing out of the ordinary but there were other times when I was nothing short of an emotional basket case. This time, however, I was something much worse. I was fiercely embittered and the source of my rage became the one who created everything. In short my razor of hate turned sharply on its edge and took aim directly at the only sensible source left to blame…God.

It was night in the graveyard. The air was cold and taunting. There I stood a complete mess. My emotions bubbled deep in the core of me and began a steady climb to the surface. The tears came first and were immediately followed by a feeble attempt to fight them back. The effort succeeded a little at first but the more my mind turned and the more the headstone glared back at me I began to crumble one little piece at a time. I felt all my natural defenses shudder at the seams. What followed after the fight with the tears was something I was completely unprepared for.

I closed my eyes and my mind had returned to my childhood home. I was in the playroom and my friend was there. We were playing in my toy box. We couldn’t have been any older than six. We were laughing and having the best of times. One of our mothers came into the room and snapped of photograph of this oh so Kodak moment. I still have that picture to this very day. It’s one of my favorites. Flash forward. There he and I are in my backyard. We must be at least thirteen by now. We’re playing catch out in the backyard. He always knew how to throw a pitch so much better than I. He was always more athletic. I could hardly keep up but I loved to play catch with him. He was the last person I ever did that with. No matter what such a thing will always remind me of him. Flash forward. I’m not sure how old we are but we’re in his kitchen. It’s late. We really shouldn’t still be up. If his mom or dad woke up right now we’d be in some serious trouble. Yet that didn’t matter much to us. We had been talking for hours about everything. It wasn’t your typical conversation between adolescents. That night we promised one another what we would do if one of us died before the other. I remember telling him that there’s no way I’d have to worry about what would happen if he went before I did because that just ain’t gonna happen. I said, “If either of us goes it will be me first and that’s for sure.” We promised each other anyway and swore to see it through no matter what. Flash forward. We’re in high school now. It’s football season. The team had just won. He was with his new girlfriend. They were perfect together. He told me once that she was the one. Everything seemed so right. Flash forward. It’s only weeks later from my last vision. It’s all a blur of quickly moving images. The sound of ambulances. The stiff smell of hospitals. The ceaselessly echoing words of doctors with “unfortunate” news. Holding my friends hand for the last time only to realize that it would be the first time in my life I ever told him I loved him. Regret. Weeping friends and family. A coffin. A grave with it’s freshly dug dirt waiting to be thrown over yet one more life. Then the memories moved faster than my mind could handle. The bitterness was reaching its peak. There was pandemonium in every corner of my mind. The world around went away. All my thoughts turned inward to try and kill the struggle within only to be thrust back out so that the fire could properly breathe. I think I turned round where I stood. Nothing was clear anymore. My heart was racing. And then in one swift moment…………….

The dam broke. I fell hopelessly to my knees. A pain twisted deep inside of me the likes of which I had never known. Tears freely flowed to ground beneath me. I put out one hand on the headstone to steady myself from falling completely over. I wanted to say something passionate and meaningful. I wanted to hurt God. I wanted Him to know what his created life did to those actually living in it. I wanted to call Him a bastard and worse. I wanted Him to fall in the worst way. I wanted him to know what the word loss really meant. You can’t know loss by looking it up in the dictionary. You have to experience it to know what it really means. I realize now how foolish and selfish all these things were to say. Yet in that moment reason was beyond my comprehension. I turned my eyes to the pristine night sky above me and weakly screamed out, “WHY!?” I kept my eyes fixated on the stars above waiting for some kind of answer. It was an answer that I never thought I would have received. At that very instant a shooting star reeled across the sky. I had never seen one until that night. Suddenly a series of things happened to me that I’ll never forget. The wind blew warmly around me even though the night had been rather cold. I felt unexplainable warmth around me. It was the kind of warmth you feel when someone holds you. I’m not sure what it was but it was there. Then there was calm. A kind of peace that comes only with resolution but I couldn’t identify what it was in me that had suddenly been resolved. All the wheels of angst turning inside of me seemed to grind to a halt. All of my previous emotions were replaced with something different. What I’ve come to realize is that on this night in an empty cemetery I felt the presence of God fill up every ounce of emptiness around me but not just around…inside of me as well. Somehow I knew that everything was going to be all right. Now I know that it was God telling me that my eyes do not yet see but His do. Because his eyes had seen me he had in turn found me. His arms were holding me and his heart had touched me in ways that could not yet identify.

I left something in the cemetery that night. I buried something. I put to rest that part of me that refused to trust God. From time to time that little piece of me resurrects itself to burden my life but ultimately it returns to the grounds where I left it. That night stands out in my mind as a testimony that God is not distant and frigidly averse to us. Instead, he’s busy rescuing us from ourselves even when we don’t realize we need rescue. That night in the cemetery was my first lesson in feeling the Holy Spirit. From death I was given a glimpse of a different kind of life. Though it would be many years before I felt this same thing again I realize now that it was only because I hadn’t yet learned how to look or feel. Yet God was patient and the best kind of teacher. Perhaps I’ll never know why the wheel turns as it does but I now understand that such understanding isn’t really important. It’s what’s behind the turning that matters most. What is behind the turning? I know only of one thing: God. If I know only this and nothing else in my life then I will not feel that life has been misspent because God will show me the rest at His discretion. In the end, it is only God that matters. 

“I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit.”  If you had known me three years ago you would have known that a phrase such as this would never have passed my lips.  To me saying such a thing was as silly as saying, “The force is strong with this one.”  Perhaps the reason for my strong feelings was the simple fact that I never put much stock into the so-called “supernatural”.  Every time I would hear a story about ghosts or any other such nonsense I would casually say, “Yeah, I know there are things in this world that I know I can’t explain.  Perhaps what you say is true.  I do not doubt that part of it.  I’ve just never experienced it for myself so it becomes more difficult for me to relate to what you’re saying because it’s not part of my tangible existence.”  In other words I was saying, ever so foolishly, that if you can’t see it, touch it, taste it and hear it then it has as strong a chance of being real as it does of being a fabrication.  I suppose my thinking about the moving of the Holy Spirit was rooted in what my version of a comfortable reality was.  Suffice it to say that my scope was not only limited but also ultimately flawed.  I used to say that God wasn’t a supernatural being like we might think.  “Look at scripture” I’d say.  God tends to work within the confines of human restrictions.  Of course that whole parting of the Red Sea thing wasn’t supernatural at all now was it Chad.  DUH!!  I look back on some of the ways I used to think and feel the urge to whack myself in the skull with a metal fork.  The supernatural element of God is very uncomfortable for many people because it stretches beyond the boundaries of what such people would call normal reality.  But I think it often becomes necessary when we talk about things like the Holy Spirit to expand our set of definitions.  The very terminology of our lives must be re-examined and perhaps altered. 

For months now you’ve heard many of the authors on this blog say that there are exciting things happening in our fellowship.  In contrast to these statements you may have found yourself asking, “Just what are these exciting things you’re typing about?”  On Sunday I felt something during our fellowship time.  Something different than I feel when I’m by myself.  The only way I know to describe with my own feeble words is to say that I felt the atmosphere of many people drenched in the Holy Spirit and those gathered were completely aware of it and loving it.  Awakening.  That’s the word that comes to mind.  This is a feeling that I’ve come to know quite often in my own personal times of worship yet I believe you can feel the energy in the room jack up about ten fold when those around you are experiencing the same thing.  This feeling reeled me spiritually.  The presence of the Holy Spirit was thick among us.  It was as if you could reach out your hand and run your fingers through the air only to get them stuck in the thick presence of the Holy Spirit.  I described this feeling with the intercession team as being gooey in the Holy Spirit.  This is what I mean when I say, “being drenched in the Holy Spirit.”  You’re stuck in the Holy Spirit yet more free than you’ve ever been in all your existence.  It feels like waking up for the first time only to discover a world of wonders that you had never before seen even though they had lain before your eyes for virtually your entire life.  The feeling of many actively engaged in a deep sense of worship was awe-inspiring. 

I never imagined myself talking like this or feeling like this.  I used to think it was all emotional mumbo jumbo for weak minded people but now I acknowledge that when God moves there is no earthly will strong enough to shut Him out.  I think that's what happens to those who seek.  God seems to meet them and when they experience Him, and I mean
really experience Him, your life is forever revolutionized and no thing in this world will ever look the same.  I see God on everything.  I find myself not just excited for every Sunday meeting, but rather excited to wake up every day to see God oozing out of every facet of life.  I get the sense that many of us are beginning to experience something similar.  I know this might sound a little like cult talk and if you’re someone reading who’s not at the same place yet then don’t think there is something wrong with you or that you have some kind of spiritual deficiency.  It took me over a decade to come to this place of spiritual sensitivity and I know that my road of learning is still very long and filled with new lessons.  We all grow and experience God in both different but similar ways.  It is growth in our relationship with God that we should look at.  Don’t go comparing yourself to someone else saying, “Well I’m not where they are at so I must not be a very good Christian.”  Keith Wasserman once said that when asked how he was doing he would reply, “I’m becoming.”  The immediate question would follow, “Becoming what?”  And he would respond, “Becoming like Jesus.”  Each one of us is in a constant state of transformation from the time we are in the womb all the way up to our final moments of breath on this good earth.  When we seek God we find that God has always been actively seeking us.  God knows what you need more so than any of the rest of us and He know what kinds of roads you’re ready to walk and those which you are not ready to walk.  God is, ultimately, our guide in this life.  As our relationship with God grows so does our sensitivity to the teachings of God.  I believe that God opens doors for us when He feels we’re ready.  It’s equally exciting to see those who are coming to a deep place of relationship with God after a vast expanse of years as much as it is to see someone who just decided to turn their life over to Christ yesterday.  As we continue to grow with one another as a family I believe we are going to see many things that both fit our scope of reality and defy it as well.  And by growth I’m not talking numbers.  In the case of God and a sense of relationship the emphasis should be on quality not quantity.  If you continue to have a desire to seek God in every little nook and cranny of your life then I promise you that God will not disappoint in how He responds to your search.  The key is not to be expectant or selfish in any way but rather it should be our goal to simply listen inward and expect only God’s will.  Again, that might sound like a somewhat clichéd piece of phraseology but I’ve come to feel that when you’re surrendered to God you expect nothing more than His desires for your life.  Your life then becomes less about you and more about God.  For those who have crossed many thresholds in their relationship with God please remember that God has much yet to show all of us.  For those of you who are still staring at your first threshold to cross remember that God is not beyond the threshold.  God is with you.  That might sound like complete new age nonsense but I promise you with every last ounce of muster in my body that it’s true.  God will take across that threshold.  All we must do is trust and surrender.  I say “all we must do” as though it were no big deal.  I know such a thing is always easier said than done.  However, when you take that first step I believe the eyes of your past, present, and future will be open anew.  What you’ll see with these new eyes is that God wasn’t somewhere waiting for you to “see the light”.  God was always there.  He was there when you saw the dawn of your first day.  He was there when you were the curious child hiding under the kitchen table.  He was there with you on early days on the playground.  He was there as you breached into adolescence.  He was there when you had your first kiss.  He was there when you saw your first brush with death at a funeral home.  He was there in all your tears.  He was there in every hurtful thing you ever said.  He was there in every flowering thing you ever said.  In short, God was a loving and embracing presence at every significant or insignificant moment in your life whether you acknowledged Him or not.  When you really step back and take a moment to consider what that statement means it knocks the wind right out of you.  To know that a being loved you though you may or may not have loved it is heart rending.  And to know that this being loved you not from afar but rather in a very close way it rattles the soul that much more.  It’s a weakening thing to consider but also a life enriching one.  When walk outside either today or tomorrow look to the sky and consider this:  God did this for you.  God is in everything for you.  God made you.  God loved you and more LOVES you.  God is not a past tense being.  He is here and now.  You can reach out and touch him anytime.  Simply walk barefoot through the grass and you’ll feel God.  You’ll feel him because the design in between your toes was something that God did for you.  God embraces us every day with the very world around us.  It literally, and I’m not just saying this for dramatic effect, makes me tear up to think that even in those days when I cursed the very existence of God he was holding me with the very ground at my feet.  He was caressing me with the very wind around me.  Who does such a thing?  Who would ever even consider such a thing?  Is it supernatural nonsense?  I don’t believe that.  I believe that’s just how God is.  He sees us even when we don’t see ourselves.  He sees us even when we refuse to see Him.   

Friendship

Brock and Brody really hit it off this weekend. Brody is Louie and Robyn Weber's son, and they were all visiting from Saturday to yesterday evening. Last night Louie and I went out for one more round of drinks and conversation, and I took the kids and April down to their hotel to say goodbye. Apparently later when April was putting Brock to bed his lip began to quiver. She asked him what was wrong, but he just shook his head. Then his eyes filled with tears and he began to sniff. She said, "Brock, what are you feeling right now?" He began an all out cry and said, "I really like Brody and Jazzy." He was sad they were leaving. She hugged him and prayed for his broken heart.

I've seen this in my son on two different occasions now. He develops friendship so quickly and so easily with other boys, and when it can only be a temporary thing, like on vacation or a weekend visit... his heart hurts when it's time to say goodbye. Last night when I returned from uptown I saw laying on the countertop two letters, one to Brody and one to Jazzy. They both said the same thing, "Dear Brody (Jazzy), I am going to miss you. I love you. Brock."

Friendship... kinship... the bond of Jesus... is a beautiful thing. I understand how they felt. I teared up a little after embracing Louie as well. It happens to me every time I say goodbye to Jamie Lankford in St. Louis. That's why I believe the reconciliation work Jesus did on the cross was not ONLY for us and the Father... but also for us and each other. When we understand the love of Jesus, and what he did on the cross, we can truly understand reconciliation in the deepest sense. Friendship in the deepest sense. People are meant to be together forever... with their God. In one community. We will be someday.

Thanks Louie

Yesterday's Oasis gathering in Middleport was a special one. The Lord relayed through Louie some very important reminders for us... that as we enjoy living our lives in relationship to Him our trust continues to grow, which means our faith begins to grow and as a result we begin to give Him more and more of ourselves. As we live our lives in constant practice of His Word, Works, and Worship we are continually putting ourselves in a place to KNOW Him better because we recognize our identity as His children.

I know Louie was a blessing to many yesterday. I saw the intercession team praying with an extra spark of life, I saw our worship team playing with an extra spark of life, and I saw our fellowship have something extra yesterday. It was life... the kind of life a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit brings to a group of people just by their presence. Thank you, Louie. We love you.

Download Louie's sermon here.

Duo Glide

There he is, folks! Our very own Chad Dodson sporting the "cool cat" look in the Athens News Arts & Entertainment section this week. Chad will be playing this Saturday evening from 9:00PM-10:00PM at the Blue Gator in Athens.

Facedown Worship With My Son

Yesterday at our worship gathering my son asked me if he could buy this book from the Oasis Bookstore. I said, "Sure. Would you like me to read it to you at night before bedtime?" He then responded, "You can if you want, but I'm going to read it first."

He thinks he's big stuff right now because he's the top reader in his Kindergarten class. He does read well for a six-year-old. And last night, as I understand, he read the first two pages of Matt Redman's book by himself. Tonight he'll read some and then I'll read some. I've heard it is a very good read. I know it's been inspiring to several Oasis people.

Lifting Our Eyes in Prayer

I wanted to share a few brief thoughts with you about something that has really revolutionized my way of thinking about how we as a creation communicate with our creator. If you have the chance you really should consider buying the book by Juan Carlos Ortiz, Disciple, which is currently in the Oasis bookstore. I bought this book and read it within 24 hours and I’m not what one might be inclined to call an avid reader. There is a chapter in this book entitled “Open Eyes”. This chapter of the book basically discusses a philosophy of how we praise and pray. In Psalm 150:2 David says this of God: “Praise Him for His mighty deeds.” This brings about a question. What is praise? Any dictionary will tell you that it is the recognition of virtues. There is a language that can be dangerous to speak. This might surprise you but this “dangerous” language includes words and phrases such as: alleluia, praise the lord, glory to God and amen. Why might I theorize that such language can be dangerous? After all, these are staple words and phrases of the church repertoire. How could they be bad? How could it be wrong to utter such terminology? Keep the word “deeds” in your mind. Imagine you saw an artist on the street and you thought his work was really something. You want to let that artist know how much you love their work. So what do you do? Do you run up to the artist shouting, “Hallelujah, hallelujah. I praise you!”? Most likely you don’t because it doesn’t really make much sense. The artist would have no idea what you were doing and would, in the process, most likely formulate some opinion about the state of your sanity. Even though you said words like “praise” and “hallelujah” you, in essence, told the artist nothing. Remember a word like praise is the recognition of virtues. What virtues of the artist did you recognize by telling him that you praise him? You didn’t praise him. You just said praise but you failed to recognize the virtues of the artists work. When we say praise God we have to ask ourselves the following question: “For what?” When we say hallelujah we have to ask ourselves why. Do we know why we say these things or are these utterances merely pre-conditioned responses to what we think is appropriate to say in our worship of God.  This can be a tough pill to swallow because many of us, myself included, have been guilty at some point in our lives of spitting out meaningless words that may have sounded good on the way out but failed to mean anything on the inside. This is a grievous mistake and sadly it’s one that I didn’t realize I was making for many years.

I want to share a piece from the book “Disciple” by Juan Carlos Ortiz that tells a story of how he challenged his fellowship to find meaning in their words of praise.

“In order to grow in praise,” I announced, “we are going to forbid the four praise phrases for one month in our meetings. We will keep on giving God our praise, but we will find other words to use.”

Nobody knew how to praise! My wife said, “Juan, if I can’t say, ‘Alleluia,’ what am I supposed to say? After all, the angels say, ‘Allelluia.’”

“Yes,” I told her, “they say, ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns’” (Revelation 19:6). They praise Him for His mighty deeds. You must have a mighty deed in mind when you praise-otherwise, it is empty.”

We had become like the trucks in my country that get stuck on the mud roads. They bog down in one place. They grind away and make lots of noise and use up lots of gasoline-but they don’t go anywhere.

I had the same problem-I was making lots of noise, but I was stuck. I had no words. I recognized my poverty in praise, and I said, “Lord, I guess You don’t mean very much in my heart. If I don’t sing the Psalms of David or else the hymns from the book, I don’t have much to tell You.”

We learned a lot from that experiment. We found that we had been judging our meetings by the amount of praising that we heard, which often didn’t mean a thing. I started trying to find things in my life and experience for which I could praise the Lord. And I found God in many places where I never thought He would be.

If you found that little snippet to be interesting reading then the rest of that book will just knock your socks off so much so that you’ll have to go to Wal-Mart and buy a new package. So how do we ensure that our words don’t simply become empty boxes of praise? Examples of praise permeate the Bible like the vast oceans that cover the bulk of this planet. If you want to know how to pour your heart out to God in ways that aren’t contrived simply read the Psalms of David. David was indeed a man after God’s own heart. Simply look at the words he used to express his raw emotion to the Father. We have such words in our own heart. Those words don’t have to be poetic. They don’t have to appropriate rhythm and meter. They don’t have to have artistic expression. They don’t have to be big words that nobody except avid Scrabble players know. They don’t have to rhyme. They don’t have to sound appropriate in song form. Those words simply have to be us. The “un-rated” us. The “bare” us. The “meaty” us. The “vulnerable” us. The “true” us. After all, I believe that God seeks to move us to the place where our honesty of love and life, that both are God granted, ooze out of us in immeasurable amounts. This is how God wants us: Surrendered. Our society doesn’t laud surrender. Surrendering would be a vulnerable act committed by the weak in the eyes of many in our culture. But surrender in God’s kingdom is essential. In God’s kingdom surrender doesn’t necessarily mean that we are weak, a word some equate with worthlessness. It’s quite the opposite in the language of the kingdom, i.e. God’s. Weakness and vulnerability are essential parts of the language of the kingdom because they are vital elements of how we surrender to God. It is in this place that we can begin to find words that help us express honest waves of praise to God. As we look for ways to continually praise God we find that one day our lives have become and endless stream of praise. We see God in everything and acknowledge God in everything. Praise then become less like a chore and more like a way of life. We make praise a habitual part of our lives by learning to express ourselves to God in ways that uplift only Him.

What about prayer? Prayer is such an important time with God. It’s that moment where we take every effort we can marshal and put them into an act of intimate communication. So we bow our heads and close our eyes to better communicate. This has become the standard tradition of prayer. Many consider it downright rude and disrespectful to not bow your head and close your eyes during a prayer. Some believe that those who don’t respectfully bow their heads in prayer don’t believe in prayer and more…don’t believe in God. Curios. Very quickly dash from Genesis to Revelation in your head and cite the verses where the tradition of prayer with head bowed and eyes closed pops up to establish itself as the norm for all who would follow in the act of prayer. Curious. Psalm 121: “I will lift my eyes up to the mountains.” In John 17:1 Jesus begins His prayer by “lifting up His eyes to heaven.” Curious. I don’t see much evidence of prayer with bowed heads and closed eyes. Does that mean it’s wrong? Of course not. I think it’s just as legitimate to pray with your eyes closed as it is to pray with your eyes open. But here’s the thing: if you happen to be sitting on your porch (or wherever) on a beautiful summer day and you feel the urge to pray but you close your eyes and can’t think of anything to say then simply open your eyes to look around you. You’ll see an avalanche of God’s deeds and you’ll be hard pressed to run out of things to praise God for. Don’t think that praying with your eyes closed is the only way to communicate with God. You can pray with your eyes open until the cows come home and you’ll be fine so long as you’re praising God for His mighty deeds. I’m looking out my window right now and I see three beautiful cardinals. I praise God for the beauty He made in the creatures of the earth such as these. I look up past them to the foot of the forest kissing the edge of my neighbors yard and I praise God for how He made the seasons because I love to see the forest all around my house come into it’s splendor during the spring. I continue to look and find more things to praise God for. I could just go on and on marveling at this creation that God allows us to be in. When we open our eyes God smacks us hard in the face with the vast multitude of creation. You know that old saying, “Sometimes you can’t see the forest because of the trees,”…don’t get caught up in all that. Stop and take time. Drum out the roar of the busy world and replace it with the dulcet tones of God’s kingdom. By simply looking you will find words to express what you see in God’s kingdom. By listening with your inner God heart your ears will be laden with the whispers of the Spirit. By surrendering you will find a benevolent teacher that fills you with the essences of life. This essence pours over the edge like warm and inviting hot chocolate. You’ll never want to stop being filled and you’ll never tire of pouring praise over the edges. After all we live not to be filled. We live to praise. So I encourage you to open your eyes in prayer. I encourage you to see the world that God has put before you. I encourage you to search every corner of yourself and of the world around you to find word’s to praise God. Recognize the virtues of God and His creation. Speak of them with an ever-affectionate tongue.

I am going to continue on later with a further study on the words we use. For example, the word Amen actually has some interesting implications and history behind it. The same is true for words like “hallelujah” and “glory”. My hope is that our words would not be idle but deeply meaningful. Our words can be like exquisitely wrapped gift boxes. The wrapping paper can be astonishingly detailed. The bow can be luminescent and it’s flowing curls can fall around the gift box like professionally done hair falling down one’s back. On the surface level the whole presentation looks so fancy, so well thought out. But then you open the box only to find empty air on the inside. Challenge yourself to not let your words be empty boxes. God doesn’t want our best surface level appearance. He wants the core of us. Seek your core and unabashedly hand it up to God. You will not be disappointed.

Oasis Band Playing the Late Bill Tonight

I want to invite everyone reading this to come join us tonight at the Meigs County Fairgrounds (I realize it might be a stretch for those of you reading from New Zealand). The Oasis Band is playing from 10:00PM-11:00PM at the Relay For Life. I was just looking over our set list and realize how appropriate many of the songs we will be doing are for the folks walking in the Relay For Life. We have some in our fellowship who can joyfully sing these words, having battled cancer and done exactly what these lines proclaim...

I'm trading my sorrows
I'm trading my shame
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord
I'm trading my sickness
I'm trading my pain
I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord

"Trading"... that's the whole story of the Gospel, really, isn't it!? Jesus traded his life for ours. He traded his place of honor to be born in utter humility. He traded his rights as "God" to become a man like us. He traded his glory and honor to take on our sin.

But in a true "trading" situation there is another party involved. Who is he trading with? Us, of course. We receive what he has! Galatians 3:26-27 (I paraphraze) says that we are all sons and daughters of God because when we have been baptized into Christ we have clothed ourselves with Christ... we have received what HE deserves. Trading!!! We trade our sin for His holiness. We trade our sorrows for His joy. We trade our pain for His glory.

Seems like a very unfair trade. We certainly do have a GOOD God.

Finally, Some Teaching MP3s Added!

I know it's been a while since I have uploaded new teaching MP3s to the web site. My apologies for that. Because of several requests, I have edited the past two weeks' teaching files and uploaded them here. I will have our 1 Corinthians series up and available very soon.

"The Ministry of Worship"
Oasis Teaching by Chris Stewart
May 1, 2005

"Mom's God"
Mothers' Day Oasis Teaching by Chris Stewart
May 8, 2005

** I noticed that the Mothers' Day teaching has over a minute of dead space at the beginning of the recording. Just fast forward past it until you get to a testimony by Bill Lawless. That's the beginning of the recording. My mistake.

All Authors Are Very Busy

It's funny how things tend to go in phases. I have noticed that all of the blogs I read are very slow during this time of year. The weather is nice, people are busying themselves a little more, staying out a little later, doing more stuff outside and away from the computer. It's all good.

That must be where all of our "bethechurch" authors are lately. The web site has been a little quiet, but I am confident things will continue buzzing soon enough.

On an "announcement" type note... the Oasis Band will be playing this Friday night from 10:00 to Midnight at the Meigs County Fairgrounds for the Relay For Life. If you are in the area, come and say "Hi"... we're going to have a great time playing some favorite worship tunes.