It’s likely your life if busy. You have a lot going on. Even if your life isn’t busy, you may be one of those Type-A people who driven to succeed and accomplish your goals. Some of you may simply feel like you are trying to survive. Regardless of the reason, we often fail to celebrate the good things in our lives. The Bible has a lot to say about celebrating. We’re going to look at some of what it says this weekend and see how it relates to our lives today.

People tend to be busy. There is a good chance, if asked how your week has been, you would respond with, “busy.” In the middle of the busyness, are the things taking our time important or not important? Sometimes when we look back on our days and weeks we find we were busy, but not with the most important things. This week we are going to talk about identifying what deserves our time.

You likely know enough people to know people aren’t all the same when it comes to getting results. Some people are hyper-focused on the results and don’t care what they have to do to get there. They may make a lot of mistakes, waste energy or hurt other people to get the desired result, but they will get the result or die trying. Others are all about the process. These people never get to the finish line because they are continuously adapting the process but not actually working their process. Our approach to getting results matters, but so does actively pursuing the results. That’s what we’re talking about this weekend.

Have you attended a Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament Event? Have you heard of it? Medieval Times locations are designed to look like castles. A person can sit and eat a four-course meal while watching knights on horses, jousting, falcons and anything else that might bring a person back to what the it was like in Medieval Spain. While it may look like there is an epic battle from the 11th century happening in front of you, the truth is, it is just a show. It can be a lot of fun, but it is just a show. It’s a somewhat modern building that was built to look like a castle. The cast of characters, even those who die, will leave this theater and head home at the end of the evening as if they weren’t in a battle of life and death. Because they weren’t. It was just a show. The unfortunate reality is many people are simply putting on a show, with nothing to show for it. That’s what we’re talking about this weekend.

 As we approach the end of the summer and get ready to head into fall, we are beginning a new series called Preparing For Harvest. Agriculture impacted many in Jesus’s day and it certainly impacts us to day. This weekend we’ll see what the Bible has to say about simply drifting along hoping for the best compared to intentionally working toward results. And if we are to be intentionally working, where should we be investing our energy. It certainly matters because what you do today will impact tomorrow…for better or for worse.

Do the names David Blaine, David Copperfield, Harry Houdini or Reza (I had to be sure to include the Brookings, South Dakota native) mean anything to you? It’s a pretty recognizable list, so I’m pretty sure you realized they were all illusionists. These men have done a variety of things, from dangerous escapes to making important landmarks disappear. They make things appear different than they really are in a way that makes you question what is real. Sometimes that happens in the Church as well. How do we avoid it? That’s what we will talk about this weekend.

Do you ever feel like you’re failing at life? Sometimes life is hard and it seems like nothing is going your way. If you are like many people, these are times when we can feel like we are failing. In those seasons we don’t care even so much about winning at life, but we just don’t want to fail at it. This week we’re going to look at how we can win in life. Hopefully you can join us.

Throughout history a number of things have brought fear. Over the past 50 years we have experienced things like the Cold War, AIDS, 911 attacks, al-Qaeda, Covid, and a variety of things different politicians or political parties have done or said they would do. In 1 John 4, the apostle John addresses fear and provides an antidote. We’re talking about that this coming weekend.

This week Scott Peterson gave us the message. He focused on three things that make up our identity in Christ. 

We like the idea of an exciting and adventurous life, but it appears most of us are content experiencing life to the fullest through other people or in virtual worlds. Why is this? Possibly because it feels safe. But maybe the “safe” life isn’t the best life God intended for you. Maybe God’s desire is for your life to be an adventure that is anything but “safe” as we have defined safe. This is what we’re talking about this week.