One time I was trying to make Caesar dressing from scratch.  Have you ever made Caesar salad dressing?  Raw eggs and anchovies are two surprise ingredients.  When I was done, it tasted like an undercooked anchovy omelet.  Yuk!  The seasoning just wasn’t right!

How are your holidays seasoned?  Too much seasoning?  Too little seasoning?  While the holidays are supposed to be about thankfulness, joy, peace, and the love we share with God, somehow they seem to get seasoned very differently for many of us.  The holidays are seasoned just right for too few of us.

For some of us the holidays are mixed with a bitter seasoning due to family conflict, lost loved ones, finances stretched too thin, debt piling up, and too many expectations put on us by others.  For some of us the holidays are mixed with just a little too much sugar.  We run around this way and that trying to get everything done that we want.  We spend way too much money, go to way too many holiday parties, and host too many family members or friends.  Then the inevitable sugar-low crashes sometime around January 2^nd.

This season Sycamore Creek Church is giving you several tools for seasoning your holidays just right.  On Sunday, November 27^th we’ve got a stand-alone message entitled Seasoned for Hospitality.  How do you offer excellent hospitality whether you’re at home, work, or church?  We’ll answer that question with simple practical steps that can be applied wherever you find yourself.  If you missed it check it out online.

Next, this Christmas Sycamore Creek Church is joining a conspiracy.  On Sunday, December 4^th we begin a teaching series called Advent Conspiracy.  It’s a conspiracy to season Christmas the way it’s supposed to be.  We’ll learn to worship fully, spend less, give more and love all.  Christmas can still change the world!

Because Christmas day falls on Sunday, we’ll be offering three Christmas services that will all be basically the same worship service (Christmas Eve at 5pm & 7pm) except that the Christmas day (7pm) will be an unplugged communion service.  Lots of choices to fit your Christmas schedule.  And don’t forget to bring a friend!

Peace,
Tom

Dear Friends,

A couple of Sundays ago we had ten guests in worship.  They all came on the arm of a friend.  I wondered how they would be welcomed.

Our Sunday morning team meets every Sunday before worship, and for several months I have been hitting on the importance of hospitality.  I begin with a simple question, “Who is on the hospitality team?”  The answer is: everyone who is present! We then walk through some basic reminders about how to be hospitable (the 5-10-link rule which says, five minutes before and after each service connect with people you don’t know within ten feet of you and link them to someone else who has similar affinities).

Well, that Sunday we were ready, and as I sat back and watched our team interact with these ten guests, I saw us hit a grand slam!  No one was left unnoticed.  Everyone had at least one if not two or three people approach them and welcome them.  That week we got several notes from the guests.  They said things like, “Your church is so welcoming.  I feel like we fit right in.”  It was a beautiful sight to see new people being welcomed by the church and experiencing God’s welcome in the process.

Do you realize that your giving to SCC makes moments and notes like that possible?  When you faithfully give to SCC, we are able to organize this community of friends to meet regularly for worship and invite more people into that community of friends.  All this ministry is toward the goal of igniting authentic life in Christ by connecting (to God and others), growing (in the character of Christ) and serving (the church, community, and world), and it all happens in large part because so many of you give generously.  Thank you!

Also, because of your giving to the 20 Years Deep capital campaign, we have just made another $25,000 payment on the mortgage to the parsonage and have a current balance of only $30,634!  In less than three years, we will have bought and paid for a house.  We’ll soon begin accumulating a building fund for a future home for SCC.  That’s awesome.  Thank you, God!

One great way to continue to give faithfully and regularly is to sign up for Electronic Fund Transfer.  It makes giving super easy.  You don’t even have to remember to bring your check book to worship (what is a check book anyway?).  You can change it at any time by contacting the church office (office@sycamorecreekchurch.org).

So keep offering radical hospitality to guests who join our community.  And keep giving so that we have ministries to welcome people to.

Peace,

Tom

Peace Friends!

I’m writing this during the last week of the 20 Years Deep Capital Campaign before all the final pledges are in.  I must admit that I am full of excitement and not a little anxiety too.  I’m sure that none of you suffer from this, but I am a perfectionist.  Just in case you do happen to suffer from perfectionism, let me pass on some thoughts about ministry that I think can be applied to the entire Christian life and that have been helpful to me in the past weeks.

Ministry is both heavy and light (I’m thankful to Rob Bell who I recently heard speak about this paradox).  It is heavy because you pick up your cross and carry it (Luke 9:23).  It is light because Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30).  Ministry isn’t just something that I do as a pastor.  It’s something we all (perfectionists and non-perfectionists alike) do as we each live into the mission of our church of igniting authentic life in Christ.

Ministry is heavy because we throw all of ourselves into it.  We give it everything we’ve got.  We pour our lives into the life of the church as an offering to the Lord.  This is the easy part for perfectionists.  We perfectionists are good at striving with all we’ve got.  We want perfection of course, and the attainment of perfection is what drives and motivates us to give everything and even then some.

But ministry is also light.  This is the hard part for we perfectionists.  Ministry is light because after we give everything we’ve got to the Lord in ministry to the church, community and world, we hold on lightly to the results.  We put it out there, and we let it take on a life of its own.  “Ouch” says the perfectionist!

This capital campaign, like all ministry, is a paradox that is both heavy and light.  Many people (not a few perfectionists, I suspect) have given their all.  What will the results be?  What will the life of its own be?  Now it’s time for us to hold this ministry lightly.  That won’t be easy for me.  There will be many twists and turns from this point forward.  Just as God’s grace is sufficient to meet the twists and turns of humanity’s sin and disobedience, so too will God’s grace be more than enough to walk alongside us as we follow God’s call in this capital campaign.  Ministry is heavy.  Ministry is light.  Thank you, God!