Jonathan Shradar

We wait with anticipation the celebration of resurrection Sunday! Today, know that Jesus has done the work for you. I implore you to give him your life in return. Be encouraged. [youtube http://youtu.be/407gShI4Zy0]

This Friday is Good. It is good and holy because it represents the day that Jesus Christ was convicted and put to death some 2000 years ago. This was God, come as a man, to proclaim the kingdom of his reign and heal brokenness. Perhaps most importantly, his sacrifice on the cross served as a lasting and final atonement for the sins of humanity, specifically and personally for those he has chosen to know him. This moment - when the words "it is finished" were spoken from the lips of Jesus - changed everything. Hope was truly ignited on this day. Those that believe in Christ live for and with the hope or our eternal reward of dwelling with Jesus. In perfect peace, without pain and sin and death. We don't do it perfectly, we never could, but we should live to share the grace that has been granted to us from this good day to our days. Because today is Good; because the first Good Friday was a holy day, each day for us in Christ is now good. They might be hard and at times pai

Let's set the scene. The miracle worker has been invited into the home of a religious zealot for a meal. It is quite the spot to be on this particular afternoon. Although the host has not honored the miracle worker/itinerant preacher as the most important guest, the meal is without issue. Until a woman of ill repute hears of the party and decides to crash it just to spend time with this mystical man. The woman makes quite the scene, weeping at the feet of this man and pouring perfume on him. She is behaving poorly and is arguable so "unclean" that no one in attendance dare speak of her let alone touch her to have her removed. Those of you reading the one year Bible can finish the story but for the rest of us, Luke tells us what happens. "Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “

We are in the midst of Holy Week and the ABIDE team is gearing up for our Good Friday services (which you should come to if you are in Eastern Washington). After our 10pm service on Friday we will be having Revelry ; an extended time of worship and communion. We are throwing out our woes and celebrating Jesus together. It will be awesome. This is what the church should be about... The Rend Collective Experiment has a worship album built around the idea of community worshiping together and this video preaches a great sermon on the life of the church. We are broken people, in common unity around the cross of Christ. We don't fake perfection but glory in Christ's perfection. And we desire for others to come in. Jesus, set your church on fire that we might proclaim you well. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/57017021] HT: Ashley Butz

Love this from Scotty Smith: "Thinking you can make God love you more by your works is like thinking you can make the sun brighter by lighting your match"

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children..." Deuteronomy 4:9 The Bible is a series of reminders. Reminders of God's holiness and his promise to his people. But why do they constantly need the reminder? Because they were human and prone to forget! Why would we think of ourselves any differently? Certainly if we read the New Testament we see the need for reminder - after all, if the first Christians were good at living well in response to the gospel, we wouldn't have most of the New Testament! Thankfully we get to be reminded along with those early followers of Jesus as well. So we are sinful and need to be reminded of our Savior's work for us why in the heck would we ever stop reminding ourselves and those we are in community with? Why would we stop reminding our children? But we do,

In my role at our church I not only get to work with the best demographic group in the community - young adults - but I also get the privilege of encouraging our church's relationships with other evangelical churches through The 13 . I am prayerful that one future element of this work for our church will be church planting. The story from Village is encouraging to this end. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/36374505]

If you have 11 minutes I recommend this video explaining the gospel. If you don't have 11 minutes, I recommend this video explaining the gospel. [youtube=http://youtu.be/nPIOkdNL-QQ]

I am away this week taking part in our church association meeting in Seaside, Oregon. It is nice to be out of the norm and rubbing shoulders with other men and women building for the Kingdom in the Northwest. I so appreciate the churches we are associated with and I pray that my church will play more of a role and have greater relationships in the future. This is what we are about. [youtube=http://youtu.be/laePFWHeOkM]

I was chatting with a good friend,who is also a pastor, recently on interacting with those that we minister to after they have been to a conference or heard a podcast and things finally clicked for them. They finally saw the truth of the gospel or how Jesus must be central to all that we are about. But wait, haven't we been preaching that week after week? Haven't we counseled them with the same truth one-on-one? This can be discouraging as a pastor - when those you lead finally "get it" but from somewhere else. This reality has me thinking. Just yesterday I counseled a young man that we are called to faithfulness wherever we are at all times. That is it. God will use us as he chooses and we are obedient by being faithful. But in function we allow our flesh to desire worship for "opening eyes" to the truth of Jesus. We want to be the voice that propels finally an understanding of the gospel, of Christ's work for us. We don't need to be however and we