Go Fish: Because of what is on the line.

A few years ago I got the opportunity to go fishing with a professional bass fisherman. I must tell you that it was quite the experience. This guy taught me more about fishing in 2 hours than I had learned in a lifetime. I remember him telling me that during different climates, temperatures, water clarity and different wind conditions called for different bait. He explained that when the fish were not biting it was just a matter of what attracted them. I remember he switched bait and then it seemed that every time he cast he caught a fish. It was so much different than the fishing my father had taught me. I remember getting up very early in the morning to travel about 45 minutes to a friends farm that had 4 big ponds on it. We would stop by the bait shop and pick up crickets and night crawlers. We would then embark on a day of watching Bobbers, bob up and down. We would catch fish, throw some back and keep others to be cleaned later. You see this fishing is so different than the fishing that B.J. did. The fishing that we did was more of a luck of the draw. B.J. was very intentional about what he wanted to catch. He could almost be positive that a bass was going to be on the line. He taught me that there is fishing and then there is fishing with intent. This week we will begin a sermon on becoming fishers of men. We will talk about the strategies in who to fish for and how to fish. We will look at what it means to fish with intent. Join us as we go fishing.

Whose Party is it?

Every year we look forward to that day that honors the day we entered this world. That being our birthday. All of these special days are celebrated a little differently. For some it is a surprise party that was never expected. For others it is a day off of work or a celebratory dinner at your favorite restaurant. For others it may be an Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen. We all celebrate Birthdays in different days. The other thing we like about our Birthday is the gifts that we receive. Some opt for money over gifts. For others a gift card is great because it allows one to choose when, where, and how it will be used. Then there is the common card that just sends you a blessing and a greeting. Some people like to be totally surprised and others give you every detail down to the size and color of the item that they hope to get Today, we celebrate the Birthday of the catholic Church, this is the day that the Church received the gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the day that the Church was established and people began to reach out to lost around them The question that we asked as a Church is how are we doing as we celebrate this Birthday?. With each Birthday have we become more mature? Have we come to a place where we worry more about those outside the Church than we do those inside the Church? Have we really tapped into the Birthday Gift that we received on that day? That gift being that of the Holt Spirit. Are we exclusive only opening our doors to those that we send special invitations to or do we send an open invitation to all. Do we have a certain dress code to get into the party and do we require a gift? This week we will look at how we are doing as we celebrate another Birthday.

Consider this your invitation to attend the party.

Where; Lakeview UMC
Time: 10:00 Am
Theme: The Holy Spirit.

Carry On Wayward SIbling

Since the beginning of time siblings have been in competition. It started in Genesis with Cain and Abel and then there was Jacob and Esau, that list could be extended right into your own family . This week we will revisit the story of the prodigal son again and talk about the sibling rivalry that is taking place here. The prodigal son has returned home to an overwhelmed ecstatic father. But the brother does not want in part of this celebration and reunion. His theme for the day is this is just not fair. The brother saked these questions: "Why did he not get a party, why did he not receive nice clothing, and why was the fattened calf not killed for him?" After all he was the one who had fattened the calf. The problem witht the brother is an inward problem that all of us toil and fight with. It is the problem of "whoa" is me. Sometime in life we all feel that we have not been treated equally. We have been shafted, scorned, passed over and left out. The world has not been fair to us and neither has God. We ask the question, "God do I not deserve what they just received." Then we begin to throw all our good deeds at good. He begin to pat ourselves on the back and wear a green peace t-shirt. Not only that, we feel that we have been faithful, tried and true. Let's face it we all at some point just want to yell at the top of our lungs, "This is not fair". But God did not promise anywhere that life would be fair. Had the brother not already received all that he had been promised. The brother had not known what it was like to go hungry or to sleep outside. The only thing that he could say was that his brother had gotten what he deserved and now he was receiving what he did not deserve. You know one day we will all be glad that we do not get what we deserve. Jesus was blameless in the sight of the Lord and yet he got what he did not deserve so that we would not get what we deserve. The point that Jesus is trying to make here is that when someone is Lost and then they are found we need to rejoice that they have been found and not remind them of where they have been. This week we will find out what it truly means to put aside the sibling rivalry that is fought everyday. Not just with our birth siblings but also our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Carry on Wayward Son

Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' 20So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.


A lot of times a person goes missing! You hear it on the news almost ever week. It always brings up questions, as to there whereabouts and what they are involved in. Sometimes it is because people have been kidnapped or abducted and other times it is because they running, trying to escape the life. Some can not handle the pressure and some cannot handle the resonsibility. In the parable of the prodigal son, a father has given permission to a Son to leave home and do whatever he wants. Now the ironic thing about this parable is that is absolutely disrespectful to the father. He in essence is saying to his father, "I wish you were dead". When I first heard this I thought, wow how disrespectful can one be? But sometimes maybe we do the same thing. Our family instills in us values and morals but we totally go against what they have taught us to do. Some parents work two jobs to put us through college and then we party our study time away. They give us money and we buy things that we have been forbidden to buy. Are we not all prodigal in some ways? Have we not all gone astray and do we not all feel like a prodigal? The great thing is that we do not have a heavenly Father that holds grudges and sins against us but welcomes us back at anytime. This week we will examine the prodigal and how we are welcomed home.

The Lost Coin

"Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!' In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15:8-10)

A few years ago my wife came home in tears. She had lost one of the diamonds from her engagement ring. She felt crushed that the ring had been tainted. I told her that I would replace the diamond. She said, "that is great but it will not be the original diamond. It will not be the exact one you gave me. " You see there is sentimental value in things that were given or created out of love. She felt like that a part of her went missing. Jesus tells the story of a lady that lost a coin. Now this was not just any coin, this was a Greek drachma, which by today's standards would be worth only about 20 cents, but to those of that day, it represented the amount a common laborer could earn for a days work. The woman had only ten coins, and she lost one of them. Jewish women often saved up ten of these coins and joined them together create a wedding necklace or hair dress which became a married woman’s treasured ornament, worn much like a wedding band is today, perhaps having been passed down from generation to generation. Now, last week we talked about a lost sheep. Now the sheep was important but it was also easier to find than some lost coin. This lady was persistent in looking for this coin. She swept through the whole house. Now this was not the kind of floor that we are accustom too. This was more of a dirt floor not to mention that there was no artificial light. So finding this coin would have been a lot like us finding a needle in a hay stack. You know that is how much God loves us, he loves us so much that he would go through any length to bring us back. We may feel that we are just like a worthless coin but we are so much more to God.