"Encore" Featured at "Halftime"

Really, really, really looking for to tomorrow night at CCF!

Halftime Reloaded begins!!

I will be leading a creative new forum called "Encore" where we will re-engage with last Sunday's message. Questions, answers and accountable application will be our focus.

In addition to this, we will offer...

• Nursery for the Babies
• AWANA for kids 2 years through Grade 6
• REAL Teens youth ministry for Grades 7-12
• Bible Study with Master Teacher, Pastor Nelson
• Live Worship
• More....

See you tomorrow (and every Wednesday thereafter) at 7pm for "Halftime"!! There is something for everyone!!

Floyd McClung Guest Speaking at CCF on January 31st!

We received an unexpected opportunity for a superb communicator and well known church planter and Christian leader, Floyd McClung to come and minister to us at CCF at the end of this month. He will be flying in from South Africa, doing some consulting with EMM and then joining us on Sunday, January 31st for our Worship Service!

Click here to learn more about the McClungs!

Click here to learn more about the ministry they lead!

About the McClung’s

Sally and I have been married for almost forty years and are still best friends. We love Jesus, our kids and our grandkids, non-shedding dogs and a good bowl of ice cream! I love to hunt, hike and experience anything adventurous! Sally loves a quiet day, a good book and browsing in antique stores. We got engaged on an outreach to Jamaica, while standing in a food line with three hundred other noisy students. Not very romantic, but I was in love, we were going to be separated for two months on different teams, and I didn't want to "lose" her to another guy. So I wrote Sally a note while standing there in line. It said, "I love you. Will you marry me" She fell for it! And here we are, almost forty years, two kids, two grandkids, numerous pets, and countless airline miles later, more in love than ever.

After living in Kabul, Afghanistan and Amsterdam, Holland for more than 20 years, Sally and I discovered that we are most fruitful in doing three things: making disciples, training leaders, and planting churches. We love serving God. We never cease to be amazed that God uses us. As a "mother and father" in the Lord, we feel we are entering the best years of our lives.

Our calling is to help people discover their gifts and passions and utilize them to spread the worship of Jesus where He is least known. We have gone to the hard places of the earth to tell people about Jesus, and now we are called to ask others to do the same. And when they do, we promise not to forget them when they get there!

That is why we started All Nations but that is another story!

The Supernatural Harmony of the Bible

Yesterday in my message, I took some time to point out the fascinating parallel between the first three chapters of the Bible and the last three. In Genesis, God sets things up the way he wants it, man contaminates it and curses ensue. In Revelation, God sets in place his plan to reverse the curse and prepare a place of no more pain, no more curse, no more suffering (Rev. 21:4). The tree of life in Genesis 2 and 3 connect to the tree of life in Revelation 21 and 22. So cool! The Bible rocks! It cohesion and supernatural harmony are totally fascinating and only divine. I like the way that Mark Batterson captures this in his latest book, "Primal."

The Bible was written over a span of fifteen hundred years by more than forty writers. God inspired Kings and poets and prophets and shepherds. They wrote out of very different personalities in very different circumstances. Some wrote in the plush setting of a palace, while others etched their words during an island exile. Some wrote out of the agony of personal tragedy, while others wrote in the ecstasy of epiphany. Written in three different languages on three different continents, there is no other book like the Bible. Despite the fact that it touches on thousands of complex subjects and controversial topics, it possesses a supernatural harmony from beginning to end. And it is omnirelevant to every person on the planet.

Amen!! I love the word of God because it deepens my love for the God of the word! I pray that you will make it a priority to spend the time needed to get fascinated by God in his Word!

Final Genesis Highlights

• 30:1-13- This is the first time I can remember noticing this baby making contest/competition. Pretty wild. Check it out. It also exceedingly clear that there is a super strong correlation between a woman’s child bearing and her self worth. This is a repeated theme.
• 31:44-45- Here we have another treaty and monument. We see this over and over again.
• 32:2- “This is God’s Camp!!”
• 35:3- Love this verse!! (“Built an altar to the God who answers me in distress and who is always there!”)
• 37:4- Parents: if you show partiality, you are inviting hate on that kid!
• 37:5-7 Joseph had a lot of nerve to tell his Brothers about this dream. Would you have? Why or why not?
• 37:19- “Here comes that dreamer!” I want to be accused of that!
• 40:8 and 41:16 tell us that Joseph KNEW that interpreting dreams was something that only God could do…but then he proceeded to do it. Hence, it is assumed that he was doing it under God’s anointing.
• 40:23- we all need to be careful to not forget what people did for us or take credit for things that we did not do!
• 41:14- Look clean and well dressed for people in authority. SHAVE!
• 42:36- Jacob felt that he was losing 3 sons, when he was actually losing NONE!! Isn’t this true of life? Everything can look and feel way worse than it really is.
• 43:11- Yummy! Pistachio nuts.
• 43:3- Hide those tears, Joseph.
• 44:30- Parents need to be careful to “bind their lives up in their kids lives.”
• 45:5- You know that “bad” thing that happened to me? Yeah, God did it!

So You Think You Can Laugh

God clearly called and chose Abraham for awesome purposes! But there is this aspect of his story that reveals something humorous about the nature of God. Or perhaps about the nature of man…

In Genesis 15:2, Abraham is basically telling God… “Thanks for all these blessings (that I am not really asking for)…but, how about you give me a son (that I am asking for)!”

Then, in 17:17, Abraham laughs sarcastically after God tells him that he will give him a son through his (old) wife. “Then Abraham bowed to the ground, but laughed in disbelief.” Ha, ha, God! Yeah right!

Next, in 18:11-15 there is this account of Sarah doing the same thing…laughing at the idea of having a baby. “Yeah right, I am too old.” I wonder if this was possibly even some nervous laughter?

Then in 21:6 something really neat happens. It says “Sarah declared, ‘God has given me a spirit of laughter! All who hear about this will laugh with me.” After the “yeah-right-type-of-laughter”, God brings Sarah a real, God-induced spirit of laughter.

Makes me wonder…what is the significance of all this laughter? I think that it says something of God. "So, Big Abe and Sarah…you thought it was funny? Welcome your new baby to the world!" Thank God, they didn’t live in one of those 50+ age qualifying communities that we have now. They'd have been short.

My takeaway: Go ahead and laugh if you want. God will do his thing and defy the odds as he sees fit whether we laugh at his plans or not.

Last thought: Here in these passages, we see them laugh at God. I wonder how often God laughs at us?

No Viagra for Abraham

Now that I have your attention....

Yesterday, I received an email from a Partner in our church. It cracked me up! It just captures what happens when people newer in the faith begin processing and engaging scripture. This warms my heart! THIS is what it is all about, and it is a sign that we are living into our purpose of "living as disciples!"

Last night I read Genesis from 1am to about 3am. WOW WOW and WOW. Like is 700 years old like the new 30? Are you kidding me? Enoch was like the 1st rapture guy? One guy follow god on the whole planet? Even the birds & animal were bad? What did they do? Abraham got his freak on at 100+ with no Viagra? 300 guys defeated an Army??? An Army??? So that makes the movie 300 more like 3 minutes and a commercial! By the way they lost to the Turks!! Abraham got back his stuff, his women, children, dog, livestock, nephew and the gold!!! Shaft is like mini mouse compared to him!!! My GOD and father got my back...and u don't want none of him... homie!! Step aside while I step with me peeps to the field and build me an altar! I cant wait to read some more tonight!

Welcome to CCF! This is how we roll!

Andrew Taylor Memorial Service

There will be a Memorial Service for Andrew Taylor on this Sunday, January 10th at 3pm at Capital Christian Fellowship. You can click HERE for the church's website! CCF is located at 10411 Greenbelt Road in Lanham, MD. There will be a meal after the service.

Pray for the peace of God that passes all understanding to be with the Taylor's these days!

--Noah

Healing...one way or another

Last night when I got home from visiting Andrew Taylor and his family at the hospital, I climbed in bed with my son and wept as I imagined the pain that the Taylor's must have felt as they were in the final moments of telling their son goodbye. I sensed (and twittered) this:

Healing is coming one way or another.

This morning at 10:20, healing came. Eternal healing. Not the healing that the Taylor's had hoped and prayed for, but healing nonetheless. In fact, healing all the more. Instead of being made whole temporarily, Andy was made whole eternally as he went to be with Jesus.

As I continue to walk with people through deeply painful losses, that leave us all with more questions than answers, I am increasingly convinced and comforted by the Lord's healing power. Because of Jesus, when we face death, we receive healing:

• No more sorrow
• No more pain
• No more suffering
• No more sickness

Healing MAY happen here on earth. Or healing may happen in eternity. Our ways are not God's ways. So often we wish things went our way. But, we can rest assured of this...100% of the time, God's ways are better.

Leave what I know. Go where I don't know.

Here we are. 4th day of the new year. How's it going? Did you eat right today? Did you work out? Did you read your Bible? I am not sure what your New Year's resolutions are (if you even have any), but I tend to doubt that many of you selected this as one:

Leave everything I know and walk away from comfort, security and family.

...Certainly NOT a popular plan.

But, that is precisely what Abraham had to do to respond to God's call.

"The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you." Genesis 12:1

Abram is not alone. For many, the FIRST STEP in going after God's plan and desire for you is to walk away from the familiar, to leave what is comfortable, to deny self and to go GOD'S way! There are 2 powerful components here:

1. Leave what I know
2. Go where I don't know

I long to follow God with this type of faith and I long to see more of my brothers and sisters doing the same. Some of us need some change this year...it will require ears to hear God and courage to obey what you heard. And yes, it may require leaving you comfortable city and family.

--Noah

Genesis 1:26

Genesis 1:26 blew my mind and captured my heart this week. It's just one those verses where God reveals a lot of himself.

"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." -Gen. 1:26

These three things capture me (and are incidentally in the first 14 words of the verse):

1. Let "us"! After five days of "God creating", all of the sudden "we" create. This is the first introduction of what we will come to know as the Trinity and reveals something of the nature of God in community. Puzzling. One God. Multiple dimensions.
2. "Make man"! Two words and we get the masterful creation of the human body. There are thousands of processes happening in your body all the time, trillions of chemical reactions taking place in every cell every second, millions of electrical impulses are firing across billions of synaptic pathways and "they" just "MADE MAN"?!?!?! Are you kidding me?
3. ...in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish, birds, animals, etc. Lots of God's original intentions were revealed in the first few chapters of Genesis, and think that we need to pay attention to God's original intentions! One of them is revealed in 1:26--God intended that people rule over animals, not other people. In fact, he did not set it up for men to rule over men until after the fall...a result of sin and needed to keep order. But, it was not his original plan.

There are several others very interesting "original intentions" as I read them in Genesis 1 and 2. I will share a few more tomorrow....

Night!

A Prayer for this blog

Let me first post of 2010 on this blog be this:

God,

I pray that the words written and things posted on this blog site this year will honor you. I pray that there will be many moments when people read something and the result is them hearing from you and not me! I hope that the holy spirit changes people that visit this site through what you lead me to share. Lord, I pray that you help me keep YOU and your glory my main motivation. I don't desire to lift me up, but rather to lift you up and bring you praise! Thanks for modern technology and this extension of the ministry to which you have called me. Take it! Use it!

Amen.