John Raker

There was a great letter to the editor in Wednesday's Naples Daily News concerning a valued member of Celebration. Here is the letter in case you missed it....

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Editor, Daily News:

Fifteen years ago John Raker, co-founder of Collier Harvest, made contact with the U.S. post office in Naples to help letter carriers distribute the food collected on their annual food drive.
Over the years, 4.5 million pounds of food has been delivered to the agencies of Collier and Lee counties to feed the hungry “without money.”

He indeed should be considered for Man of the Year.
Bert Paradis

Real Florida Eating!

As many of you know, I have this love/hate relationship with food. OK...it is mainly love. OK...it's all love! So, when you ask me, as a Floridian, what is the perfect Florida meal, I respond with one word...buffet! No...the word is...mullet! I was meeting with our pastors last week and neither one of them had ever heard of a mullet? How about you? So, to provide a benefical public service, please peruse the attached photos. That is fried mullet. Those are hushpuppies. You eat the hushpuppies with guava jelly. That is sweet tea in the glasses. What you are looking at (and, in my case, drooling over,) is an authentic Florida supper. By the way, that is my father doing the frying.

"Is Your Church Worth a Second Date?"

Hello everyone,

I came across this article called "Is Your Church Worth A Second Date"? by Rod Arnold of Smart Churches.

Let me know, do we fit well in these four areas? Feedback please???? (you can always be anonymous!)

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Step #1: Like Us

When you meet someone for the first time, you make a judgment on whether you like them. You pay attention to their personality, their sense of humor and how they interact with you. Whether we admit it or not, first impressions really are huge. We make instant decisions, often subconsciously, about whether we want to get to know that person better. In business, a "brand" is a mental image that comes to mind when someone thinks about an organization or a product. What is the mental image that comes to mind when people think of your church? Do you make a great first impression? Does it compel them to want to get to know you better? If you could paint the perfect mental picture about your church for the people in your city, what would it look like?

Step #2: Know Us

If your church makes a good first impression on someone, they will want to get to know you better. They'll want to know what you think and talk about, what's important to you and what you're passionate about.

Step #3: Trust Us

Think about the people in your life who you trust—I mean really trust. Doing a trust-fall exercise on a teambuilding retreat is great, but just because someone didn't drop you on the ground doesn't necessarily mean you're going to trust them to always have your best interest in mind.

One of the keys to developing trust is simply time. The more time we spend with people, the more we see what they are really made of. We see their character and values in action. People need time to see what your church is all about, to see if you are consistent in what you say and do, to believe that you really care about them, and to build trust.

This is especially true for many people who have been burned by church in the past. Unfortunately there are a lot of "de-churched" people out there who have been victims of church politics, gossip or disingenuous leaders. Building—or rebuilding—trust and changing their opinions about church can take some time.

Step #4: Join Us

Ultimately, your goal is for people to decide to make your church their home—to integrate into a community that loves each other, serves each other and supports each other through life's highs and lows. But getting to this decision is the result of a relationship, not a transaction. And healthy relationships are a progressive process of discovery. So what can you do from a practical standpoint to help more people get to know your church?

So? Are we doing things right? Could be doing things better? What do you think?

Pastor Gene

Happy Earth Day?

I want to be honest with you up front. I have never been very excited about Earth Day. In the past, I have always associated Earth Day with work. Whatever club or group that I was a member of would send out a flyer telling us where to meet on Earth Day where we would celebrate by picking up 50,000 cigarette butts. Happy Earth Day. Whee!!!!

A Christian environmentalist will care for creation, the creation that God has made. Not just to look at it but care about some of the things that are happening. Some of you do. Some of you are making a difference. You need to do that as a believer in Christ.

I am responsible for God’s creation. Does that include people? Yes. Children? Animals and plants? It includes everything that has to do with our purpose in God’s creation. We’re responsible from the very beginning. In Genesis 1:26 God said “Let us make man in our image and in our likeness. And let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move on the ground.” We are responsible as stewards.

And from the very beginning in Genesis 1:25 Adam and Eve carried out that responsibility. God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it.

Just look at His creation. Even things we’re familiar with. The honeybee. When one bee finds pollen it has a problem; it’s got to tell all the rest of the bees where the pollen is. They don’t talk! So the bee goes back and through an intricate dance, it shows the other bees where the pollen is to be found. It’s absolutely amazing. They make a circle and the number of circles they make shows the distance to the food source. They also show the distance by wiggling their abdomen or their bellies (belly dancer bees). The greater the distance the more slowly she wiggles. The direction of where this flower or group of flowers is, is revealed by how the bee cuts across the circle after this dance. The exact angle that the bee makes tells the bees exactly what angle to take from the sun.

The creation that’s around us is something to be fought for. It’s something that you and I need to stand up, as believers, and say, “It’s God’s creation because it expresses who my Father is” Sometimes in all the argument about global warming and PETA and creation that point is missed. We’re talking about the who. That’s the key. Creation expresses the very character of God.

And of course, when you meet outdoors each and every Sunday, it is not too hard to make the connection between creation, creator and worship!

New Message Series -- Hitting the Reset Button

You know, I was thinking about these old commercials they used to do years ago. I think initially it was for a laundry detergent, where if a company really believed in what they were selling, they would actually offer a challenge. They would come up to folks, generally women in those days, and take whatever laundry detergent was in their grocery cart out of the cart and then put their brand in and say

"We're going to give you a challenge. For a limited period of time we want you to test our product. We want you to try things our way. We know there's a resistance. Maybe you're afraid. Maybe you're kind of stuck in a rut, so don't take our word for it. Think about this as kind of an experiment. You try this yourself. You judge the results. You decide, and if you do this, your life is going to be different. Your laundry is going to be better. Your whites are going to be whiter. Your reds will be redder. Your blues will be bluer. You will smell better. People will want to date you more. It will change your life."

Then this idea, kind of, spread, and not just for Tide. I was online earlier this week and they have all kinds of these challenges. There is a Purina 30-day challenge…switch your cat's food for 30 days and see if your cat is not happier. Quaker Oats 30-day challenge…switch breakfasts for 30 days, and see if your cholesterol doesn't go down and you're not happier. One organization online has the husband 30-day challenge…which I guess is, you know, switch husbands for 30 days and see if your marriage doesn't work better or something.

So today we want to offer you a 30 day challenge. These past six months have been rough. I was trying to think of a great theme song for this series and this one song would not leave my brain…from the BeeGees…Ah Ah Ah Ah staying alive, staying alive. Sing with me….for these past six months or more everyone has just been trying to stay alive. Just survive. Like we said last week you have the choice to panic or pray and most people have chosen to panic, well almost everyone. One Sunday morning, everyone in one bright, beautiful, tiny town got up early and went to the local church. Before the services started, the townspeople were sitting in their pews and talking about their lives, their families, etc. Suddenly, Satan appeared at the front of the church. Everyone started screaming and running for the front entrance, trampling each other in a frantic effort to get away from evil incarnate. In a panic …Soon everyone was evacuated from the church, except for one elderly gentleman who sat calmly in his pew, not moving... seemingly oblivious to the fact that God's ultimate enemy was in his presence. Now this confused Satan a bit, so he walked up to the man and said, "Don't you know who I am?" The man replied, "Yep, sure do." Satan asked, "Aren't you afraid of me?" "Nope, sure ain't," said the man. Satan was a little perturbed at this and queried, "Why aren't you afraid of me?" The man calmly replied, "Been married to your sister for over 48 years." But for most of us, we have been pushing the panic button. Well, here is what we want you to do for the next 30 days. Instead of hitting the panic button, we want you to hit the reset button.

These economic times are causing all of us to Press the “RESET” button. Not the EASY button but the RESET button. So, for the next 30 days…

RESET what is important in your life:

Time to get off the acquisition treadmill - ‘Things’ do not equal happiness. People with few worldly possession are just as happy (or happier) than people that have loads of ‘things’. He who dies with the most toys, still dies.

Instead of spending money, spend time with the people you love and the things you are passionate about.

Get back to basics. Simple is better. The less you have, the less you have to lose/worry about.

And then…

RESET your definition of security:

When you’ve lost everything you thought you had, or half of everything you thought you had, where do you turn for that sense of security? Is money really security? The ultra-wealthy guy who lost his health couldn’t buy one more day with all his money. Life is full of uncertainty; uncertainty is part of God’s plan. Our security comes from our relationship with God.

RESET what you thought your future/retirement years would be like:

They may be different than you thought, not better or worse, just different. There are opportunities in the change that we would not have considered otherwise. Grieve the loss, then start being grateful and filled with joy for what you do have. If you have friends, or family, and God, you have everything you need for a fulfilling future/retirement.

So, we will give this a 30 day free trial…things, money, jobs, and retirement. Your whites will be whiter, reds redder, smell better…all those things.

(Thanks to Valerie Pike for suggesting and researching this topic).

Should I Have FaceBook Page?

I came across this article and loved it. So, I want to share it with all of you ...comments?

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The antidote to technological isolation
by Jon Ferguson

I have over 800 friends on Facebook and about the same number of Twitter followers. I have additional acquaintances on Plaxo and LinkedIn, not to mention all my Outlook contacts. I can access the New York Times, CNN, and almost every version of the Bible on my Blackberry or laptop in seconds. I have instant access to incredible amounts of information and literally thousands of people. Yet sometimes I wonder if I’m any more connected or better informed than I was before all this accessibility.

We can have a false sense of community because we have contact with so many people, but often have no real connections. We can have loads of information at our fingertips, but rarely interact with it in a way that makes a difference or results in life-change.

Jesus offers a solution to this kind of technological isolation. One day a man asked Jesus, “What is the most important commandment?” In Jesus’ day, people had taken the Bible and boiled it down to 613 commandments. So the guy is saying, “Help me out here, cut through this information overload and just tell me which is the most important commandment? He was asking Jesus, “What’s the big idea?”

Jesus responds by saying the most important one is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” In the same breath he says, “And the second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. No commandment is more important than these.”

Why did Jesus give the two most important commands and not just the one? He adds this second thing so that we don’t fall into a “just Jesus and me” kind of spirituality that can lead to isolation. When Jesus says to love other people with the same kind of focus and energy that you love yourself, he is echoing God’s original dream in Genesis. Jesus doesn’t say love your neighbor as yourself because that’s what nice and good – what Christian people should do. It’s because it’s how we are hard-wired to live. It’s what it means to be a Christ-follower.

"We can have a false sense of community because we have contact with so many people, but often have no real connections. "

Jon Ferguson

Thoughts on Easter 2009

All of the area churches were buzzing last week as we all talked about their upcoming Easter worship services. Seemed like we were all excited. I know I was. It's not that this one day is more important than any other Sunday, but that many nominal Christians and relatively unchurched individuals show up at our worship on Easter. Some are coming for the right reasons, some for the wrong, but for a variety of cultural and spiritual reasons most of our churches have higher attendance numbers on Easter than most other Sundays. And this exciting.

But I think we can easily get confused. It's not exciting simply because attendance is higher. And it shouldn't be exciting because we put on a big show. It isn't about the big band, the cool music, great choir, or whatever else we are tempted to exalt for a big show.

It's exciting because worshipping our risen Savior is exciting. It's exciting because as we make much of Christ, many more have the opportunity to hear his story and his words, and by God's grace many will believe! And, it is in many ways just like any other Sunday-- the gospel is preached and people need to live a cross-centered life in the power of the resurrection. Now after saying all that....I thought the Easter sunrise service at Lake Avalon was amazing with the fog over the lake and the sun peeking through right at the end of the service. I also liked the format we used during the 9:30 service at Cambier of 4 messages with four songs. We will use this same worship format during the Christmas eve service. The music was phenomenal but the greatest part of the service to me (as it is every Sunday) is the massive amount of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers who show up so early each and every Sunday morning to basically build a church in the park.