Fall Back

Daylight Savings is this Saturday and I LOOOOOOVE daylight savings in the Fall. We get to set our clocks back and gain an extra hour. That's right - we are literally giving ourselves the gift of time. How often do you get to have an extra hour in your day to do whatever you want? Never! Of course, it is all balanced out in spring when an hour is forcibly taken away from us. That one is like getting kicked in the face by a donkey, which I mean to say is not terribly pleasant.

Some years I soak up this extra hour in sleep. Some years I sit comfortably in bed watching an extra hour of TV because I know it can't hurt me. To me it isn't just an hour, it is sixty sweet, precious minutes of constitutional freedom.

Love

Get this week's small group guide here: Love.

Eagle Creek is Moving

Big news...Eagle Creek Church is moving to the Gamber Center. We have met for the last two years at the Eastglen 16 Theaters, but time waits for no man and on Sunday, November 30 we will begin meeting at the Gamber Center. There are a lot of things I will miss about the theater. There is something pretty sweet about having church in the same theater where people are going to see Saw V. I'll miss some of the cool peeps we have met who work there. Shout outs to Erica, Scott and Eddie especially. I'll mostly miss having Dots stuck to the bottom of my shoe every Sunday morning. Okay, not really.

Eternal Life

Get your hot, fresh small group guide here: Eternal Life.

Cameron's Post

Cameron saw me writing on the blog and wanted to put a post up. So here's Cameron:

Cameron: I like to be silly because we all like to be silly. Because it's funny.
Uuuuummmmm...it's because we like to wrestle. We like to...ummmm...Trinity, what do you like to do?

Trinity: I like my yogurt pants.

Cameron: Calvin, what do you like?

Calvin: I like Heepa the sheep.

Cameron: It's from Sesame Street. I like Lambchomp and Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy..

They continue on for a while but I start to get carpal tunnel transcribing the randomness...

Mr. Mom

Terri is out of town this weekend with her sister at a women's retreat in Springfield, MO. That leaves me at home with the kids for three days. I would love to be able to say that I am the greatest at home dad you could ever imagine, cooking three course meals for the children while they quietly play with flash cards that are teaching them the basics of physics. The truth is that I have cheated all weekend. I have only cooked one meal - scrambled eggs and cereal (if you can count cereal as cooking). I have taken the kids out to restaurants with playlands for every other meal. They won't write about me in parenting or nutrition magazines, but my kids think I'm pretty awesome right about now.

Narrow Door

Get this week's small group guide here: Narrow Door.

Small Things

This week in small group we talked about Luke 13:18-21...

Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.”

He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like? It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”

This passage is full of all sorts of great thoughts about how the Kingdom of God starts small in our lives, almost insignificantly, but grows into a powerful force that impacts not only our lives but the lives of everyone we come in contact with. It's written into the DNA - the Kingdom of God will grow. It has to. It's how God designed it.

Which leads to this thought: What does it mean if the Kingdom of God isn't growing in our lives? What does it mean if my relationship with God is not really going anywhere? What does it mean if my life is not having an impact on those around me?

Let me ask you this question: What would keep a flower from growing in a garden? Lack of water. No sunlight. Weeds. Infestation of nasty bugs. The one thing that all these things have in common is that they are external forces. The flower, if placed in the right circumstances, will grow. It's written in it's genetic code. It requires external forces to prevent it's growth.

It's the same in our lives. For the Kingdom of God to not grow in our lives, it would mean there are external forces preventing it from growing. You see, the only reason many of us don't experience all that God has for us is that we keep things in our life that suppress our spiritual growth. We hold on to relationships, sin and selfish desires that limit our ability to grow. We allow things to block God's nourishing sunlight, preventing us from growing closer and closer to him. Proverbs 1:18 describes the person who commits the ultimate act of self-sabotage and suppresses the Kingdom of God from growing in their life:

But these people set an ambush for themselves; they are trying to get
themselves killed.

Ask yourself this: Is the Kingdom of God growing in my life? If not, what is it in my life that is keeping it from growing?

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious
thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me
along the path of everlasting life. Psalm 139:23-24

Get this week's small group guide here: Small Things.

Bearing Fruit

Get this week's small group guide here: Bearing Fruit.

Reaching Out

In case you have missed it, the Fall section of Creek Student Ministries small group has started up already, and it has been great. We have had some incredible discussions as we've opened up God's word to look at the parables of Jesus that describe the Kingdom of God and what it means for our lives.

If you have not made it to small group yet, COME THIS WEEK! I will slap you with a chicken leg if you don't come! Small group is essential to growing in your relationships with Christ and other Creek students. DON'T MISS IT!

(Although, we did play a dodgeball-like game this week and Jimmy-Tots nearly broke my upper thigh bone)

But if you can't make it, I will be posting our discussion guides for download here on the blog. The guides include the passage we look at as well as the discussion questions. It also includes daily Bible readings that shed more light on what the Bible has to fully say about our weekly topic.

Get the first one here: Reaching Out.