In what was a truly amazing day, God cranked it up a few notches as He poured out His presence in an unbelievable way. Julie led us in an amazing time of worship as we just surrendered to God and allowed Him to take us on a journey. We then watched the Indescribable dvd by Louie Giglio. Wow. That just totally blew everyone away, even those who had seen it before. We serve an amazing God, and if you’ve ever wondered about the purpose of the universe, it is just to glorify God. God doesn’t think like us, or work on a canvas like ours. He is huge, we are small. He is, quite literally, indescribable. After watching this, there’s no way you can’t be moved by how awesome God is. And there’s also no way that you can’t worship God, so we finished the service with some more worship as we praised the creator of the universe, bowed down in worship before Him and celebrated how great He really is. We could have gone on all afternoon as there was a tangible presence of God there!

Some fast facts from the dvd:
Our milky way galaxy is 100,000 light years across. If our solar system is the size of a quarter, the milky way galaxy is the size of the North American continent.
It is 10,000 degrees fahrenheit on the surface of the sun.
The Sombrero galaxy is 50,000 light years across and 28 million light years away.

Have a great week this week. If you think that your problems are huge, or that something seems insurmountable, just remember how huge the God that we serve really is. He is able to do exceedingly, abundantly more than we could ever ask or dream!

Pauline brought us a great communion message today from Psalm 139 from the Message translation. As she read the Psalm, the gentle presence of God just came around the people.

Then Carol brought us an encouraging message. We heard how Peter denied Jesus, but became a great preacher when God intervened. God enabled him to do something he wouldn’t have dreamed of. That was a miracle.
What can stop the miracles of God?

• Lack of opportunity
• Not willing to take the next step when given the opportunity
• Criticism
• Fear

Encouragment
Encouragement really helps people to overcome. We need to have faith in God and faith in ourselves to trust Him.

We need to create an environment for ongoing miracles. Don’t provide a “critical” environment. Encourage the quieter people to speak out. Don’t imply superiority over anybody. Allow people to get out of their box. Don’t be judgmental. Let “ownership” go. All of these create a positive encouraging environment. When we use God’s gift of free will, we allow the Holy Spirit to work through us to do miracles. Isaiah 40:12-31.

Allow yourself to reflect this week upon when you’ve encouraged people and when somebody has encouraged you. We all have stories of how people have encouraged us. Think about those stories, then try and be somebody who encourages another, who creates an environment of encouragement. Without encouragement, we will never be who we are called to be in God.

Carol today talked about bravery, loyalty and courage and gave examples of where they are all used when we put our faith in God and overcome our sense of inadequacy. Jesus gave the disciples many opportunities and they took them - they overcame their fears. They made mistakes as they went, but learnt from them.
As we come into the new year, remember the highlights from 2007 and look forward to the things that we will achieve, the goals we set for 2008.
As we do that, we need to share the excitement of Jesus with other people. Let them see us encouraging others and having fun together. Create opportunities to meet others and get out there. Allow the Holy Spirit in and allow Him to lead you and guide you this coming year.

This upcoming year we will be doing SOAP and SOAP.27 again as a church. Grab a copy of the SOAP and SOAP.27 readings or follow the scriptures on the web or email and have fun reading and learning from what God has to say to us through His word!