March Movie Madness was a day filled with fun, popcorn, candy and craziness! The students enjoyed the movie of their choice with an occasional pillow fight or two! CCS students showed amazing school spirit by dressing up as their favorite movie star. The Activity Center was filled with a few Hannah Montana’s, Indiana Jones and a Ninja Turtle!

I want to thank Mrs. Christ who planned this day for the CCS students. Words can not express my gratitude for your attention to detail and your dedication to CCS!

Thank you Mrs. Santos who rearranged her work schedule to spend the morning with us! We apprecaite your time and support! Without you we could not of done it!

With the fourth quarter under way and only 44 days of school left (can you believe it?) I must say it has been a great school year so far! I’m looking forward to the CCS Talent Show on April 24th.  I can’t wait to see your smiling face on stage singing/dancing your heart out!

Easter

Easter is fast approaching and we are well on our way to having 12,000 eggs. The Saturday before Easter, April 11, we will be having an Easter egg hunt open to the community. In addition to the egg hunt, families will also be able to have a spring family picture taken. Please feel free to join us on April 11, 2009 and bring all your family and friends.

Face of Christianity

There is an interesting encounter that we will be studying in 20someone this week from Mark 9. Jesus comes down off a mountain and walks into a bees nest. Well not literally…but you get what I’m saying. While he was gone a guy took his son to some of Jesus’ disciples to have a demon cast out. But when the disciples couldn’t cast the demon out a crowd was attracted. 

I’m sure there were some people there waiting to see what happened. Just watching in the background, wondering if this thing was for real and if this Jesus was for real. But I know there were people there arguing, heckling, attacking, the disciples. For those people, this was a clear instance that what was going on was not from God.

That’s the situation that Jesus walks into. I wonder if he cringed a little bit. I know I cringe when I see Christians talking on TV because usually they make a horrible example about Christianity. When people who don’t believe Christianity encounter people who do believe Christianity but they don’t have the faith/knowledge/life to back it up, damage is done.

Now in this situation, Jesus stepped in, had some teaching moments, and cast the demon out. But what about now? Who are you looking at as the face of Christianity? And is that really the fairest assessment?

And what do people learn about Christianity when they look into your face?

Bad Days

Everybody has bad days. Even pastors. I think it’s funny that some people think that when bad days come it’s because you’re not spiritual enough, or maybe not holy enough. Or maybe God just doesn’t like you. But it’s not true.

Everybody has bad days. Even people like Mother Teresa had bad days, days when she felt like she couldn’t get anything done and days when she felt like she was disconnected from God.

In some way (maybe it’s kind of sick way), it’s comforting to know that people in the Bible had bad days. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had bad days. Joseph and Moses had bad days. David and Nehemiah had bad days. You could go on and on. And Jesus had bad days.

I don’t really have any advice about bad days, and I certainly don’t want any cliche about bad days. But it’s good to know everybody has bad days and the bad days don’t last forever.

Love One Another

This is a beautiful picture of a few of our men preparing to express the love of the Father to our women at Our Time.  This image should not be unfamiliar to us, as daughters of the King.  We should know it, accept it, and live it out with one another as well.   ^{Galatians 13-15 says, “}It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life… use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.”    When we smile, when we love, when we give, we become the expression of freedom from God to a world that is desperate for love.

I wanted to let you know we raised over $4,500.  to give to others at the Our Time Conference as well.  Your generosity allowed us to touch the lives of so many through education and awareness of heart health at Go Red, we blessed many many women and children through Advocates to End Domestic Violence, as well as partnering with the work they are doing in LA at GodChicks.  You are an amazing force of women, poised to take on the challenges of building the Kingdom in Carson City and beyond.

I count it a privilege to call you my sisters.  Don’t forget to express His love to someone today, and live your life knowing you are a daughter of the King!  Love you, Connie

Simply Amazing

This past week we discussed that God has created you and I to be simply amazing. There are no mistakes, accidents, or oops in the kingdom of God. You and I were created intentionally, for a kingdom purpose, a purpose the goes beyond anything we can dream of or imagine. However often times our view of what an amazing life looks like is skewed by life. When we choose to have a relationship with God, He begins to re-define what an amazing life looks like. You and I have to choose to except this new definition of life, the definition that will give us the best life possible; a life that is simply amazing!

Come join us next week as we continue to discuss this amazing life.

Jonas Brothers!

This Sunday the first person to bring 4 new visitors to children’s church will win a pair of tickets to the Jonas Brothers 3-D concert experience. A pair of tickets will also be given to the person who brings the most candy to children’s church. The tickets are for the 7:30 showing Monday night March 9, 2009.

P.S. Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead one hour on Saturday night.

What is your theology?

I have always been challenged by a thought I heard from Tim Hughes. He said, “If people came to your church and only listened to the music, what would they know about God?” In other words, the songs we sing reflect our beliefs about God. What are the songs that you come back to over and over again? Because that’s probably what you believe about God. Or are there no songs? And what does that mean about your belief in God. So here’s a list of my 5 worship songs:

Today is the Day by Lincoln Brewster

Amazing Grace/My Chains Are Gone by Chris Tomlin

How Great is Our God/How Great Thou Art by Chris Tomlin/?

Lord You Are Faithful by Jared Ming

You are Good by Israel Houghton

What are your top 5 songs? Maybe they are not even worship songs. And what do they say about your theology?

Spiritual Experiences

So I was getting ready for the Bible study for tomorrow night, and as I was reading a story about a woman who seemed to have more understanding about Jesus than the disciples, who lived with him everyday. It made me think of a question. Is it possible that we have come to a point where society in general is open to spiritual thoughts, ideas, things, experiences (call them whatever you like) and they have more understanding about them than the population within the church?

Why don’t people think of the church as a spiritual/experiential place?

I know I have had true, spiritual experiences in my walk with God. But do I help other people have those same experiences? I’m not sure I do. I want to because I know that experiencing God is life changing. It has changed my life. And I am not willing to simply surrender that ground to something else. Any other spiritual experience outside of a relationship with God is simply a fake/a knock-off/a pseudonym.