HAPPY EARTH DAY!
We had every intent on checking out Rainier Ave Church today, which we did, but not as we had hoped. We arrived just before the first service and were greeted with many “hellos” and “we are doing church a little different this morning”. The church was using their Sunday morning to go out and worship in the community. They were splitting up to groups and either attacking the trash or the weeds in the areas around the church. Before they left the building the children’s/youth pastor got up and spoke about getting outside of our “Christian bubble” and loving the community around you. It was actually quite cool to hear how they had gone out into the community on specific occasions in the past and how the youth were very much involved. They had even given the youth a budget and a challenge to create something to identify and unify their city. This church is located in the Hillman City, which is right next door to the Rainier Valley. The youth had designed their own logo for Hillman city, which was printed on posters and shirts. During the time of service they would be handing/posting them in the community. The pastor greatly emphasized that their serving was an act of worship for the morning- very encouraging to see yet another church getting involved with their neighbors. So seeing that we were not expecting this and were dressed in our Sunday best we headed back to our apartment until the second service of Mars Hill started.
During our in between time, Josh and I took a short walk around the neighborhood to familiarize ourselves more with our community. 98118, the zip code we currently live in, is said to be the most diverse zip code in America. The city has been trying to improve the area with nicer housing, the light rail system and renovating some of the parks, but like I mentioned yesterday it still has so far to go. Now don’t misunderstand me here in what I am trying to say because in reality EVERY community in the world still has so far to go because we are not in heaven. But the darkness is thicker
Now Pastor Mark (lead pastor of Mars Hill) brought the Word today. 75% of the time it is a video of Pastor Mark but it doesn’t make the message has any less of an impact. We are currently doing a series called “The Seven” that goes through the letters John wrote to the seven churches in Revelations. The first 2 weeks of this series has been focused on John the author. Pastor Mark has brought to our attention the incredible credibility of John and his amazing devotion to Jesus. This morning we went through Revelations 1:9-20 and he had 4 main points: *Do persevere in Jesus, *Do worship Jesus, *Do serve Jesus’ church and *Fear Not, Jesus is with you and us. I would encourage you to listen to it online because there is so much and he speaks for at least an hour but here are some main things that stood out to me.
**John started worshiping Jesus before He showed up- John began worshiping in faith.
**Pray for your church, and the church because Jesus loves the church. Be aware of how the church is doing . The whole first part of Revelations is about churches and being aware of what is going well and what is not.
**Fearing ANYTHING but the Lord is a sin and it should be repented of. Fear, according to Pastor Mark, does 4 things: its vision without God, its an attempt at sovereignty, it preaches a false gospel and it makes you a false prophet - WOAH
and with that…
**Numerous times in the bible God tells us to “fear not” and it is a loving invitation because of what is said after the “fear not”, reminding us of who God is and that He is with us.
I know that God is going to reveal some amazing things to me here- not just because of Mars Hill church but being in a position where I desperately need to understand what the gospel really is. For so long I have heard that word “gospel” but I know it is so much more than what my mind has known it to be.
It was such a BEAUTIFUL day out we decided to head to Alki Beach. Josh had read about it and that it has great views of the city and lots of little shops and restaurants. It was a pretty sweet spot but it was packed! It took a long time to find a parking spot moving in very slow traffic. Once we got a spot we sat near the water, ate our lunch while gazing out at our new city. Yesterday (Saturday) the Space Needle celebrated 60 years. When it first opened it had “galaxy gold” paint all over it- but it really just looks like the color orange. In honor of its opening the top of the dome is the originally galaxy gold. (We also missed out on the going up in the needle for a $1- the price it was 60 years ago, bummer). We decided that it felt more like we were in California than Seattle. The road to the beach was like a typical Cali boardwalk with tons of ridiculous cars with way too loud of music. The street was lined with apartments and houses facing the “boardwalk” with people hanging out on their front porch drinking and eating. And all the shops and restaurants were brightly colored and packed with people in their summer ware- yeah its basically Cali.
I made some delicious Chicken Corn Chowder for dinner thanks to RCV Meals Ministry! It was my first time making it and has a great Mexican flavor, which is an automatic WIN in my book!
Thankful for: the conviction of the Word and good food today (I also had made french toast with caramelized apples and potato cakes for breakfast…AND we found this delicious peanut butter at Target- White Chocolate Wonderful- yeah it is pretty wonderful)
So as I end this SUPER long blog- congrats if you are still reading this far down- I challenge you to really see how your church is doing and pray for them diligently because no church is going to be perfect and Jesus LOVES the church!
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