Emmanuel Christian Fellowship - McGregor, TX

The following is from Kara.  Please consider supporting her as she goes forward with AIM.

Hey Guys!
Just thought I would let you know this new information to give to the church…  People can still continue to donate money through my world race blog… BUT, because I am on staff now there is also another way.. and it can be done by clicking on this link (you choose “staff” and specify my name).  Also, people can give donations directly to me as I will be the one receiving it eventually anyway..  Thank you so much! Love you!

http://www.adventures.org/give/

Change is just downright uncomfortable!  Really, think about it.  It’s unsettling, different, not what we’re used too.  It’s a move from what is familiar…soothing…boring?  Everything is changing.  I see it everyday when I look in the mirror.  Gravity and time are at work (Not Patti…just me). BUT…at the same time it’s exhilarating.  To be strapped into the newest most extreme ride that even Six Flags couldn’t build.  What an honor!  What a life!  What an opportunity we all have to MOVE out of our  all too familiar ruts and into something much larger than ourselves!

All that to say that, I’m moving my blog postings to the new Every Tribe International website.  CHECK IT OUT HERE!!! I really do want your elders to begin to utilize the ECF website and begin to blog more frequently themselves.  I hear the podcast.  I KNOW you’re being fed and that they really LOVE you with a passion that only God can give.  I knew where we were going the first day I stepped foot in the building.  So, I’m not surprised.  Therefore, I need to move over some with this and I’m glad to do it because I know everyone else benefits from such.  I still need outlets for writing and just plain ole popp’n off, so I’ve started a new blog site for myself and ETI.  Just like here, there is a place on the website for you to sign up for an email notice that it’s been updated if you so desire.  Or, you can just see the box on the right side of this blog site that says:  ETI blog site.

Just to clarify: Patti and I are very much and still deeply committed to ECF.  We don’t take the headship position lightly.  We are busy…we travel…we are constantly giving ourselves to something or someone…but, YOU are never out of our heart or thoughts.  You get “prayed over” more than you can imagine.  That truth doesn’t change.  Ever!

I tell young men and women all the time that covenant isn’t limited by geography.  It’s established in the spirit by commitment, trust, honor, preference and most of all:  LOVE.  That’s why all this transition is also filled with HIS peace.   At the core, the change just takes us deeper into what we value and believe the most.  Simply put:  ECF, you are covered.  Covered from every angle.  You are our joy!  We are one.

We be lovin’ us some ECF people!  See you shortly!

Mike

Patti and I meet and interact with hundreds of kids on THE WORLD RACE. You have certain kids whose explosive personalities and gifts make them like fireworks on a hot 4th of July night!  You just see it immediately…even from a distance.  In the spirit it’s loud, bright, colorful and amazing.  Then, every once in a while, you meet a kid who just does the business, right under the radar.  Day in and day out…serving, giving, loving, speaking the love of God in the most tangible expressions.  Rock solid kids who are grounded, deep, sensitive, full of His wine, His fruit, His Word.   Stephanie Tyrna (”H” Squad) is one of those people who you know will do amazing things for the Lord.  There won’t be any chest thumping and it’s slightly embarrassing to her if you fronted her out with any of it, but she just DOES the business.  Patti and I love her dearly!!!

CLICK HERE TO READ STEPHANIE TYRNA’S MOST RECENT BLOG POST…IT’S AMAZING!!!

Steph just got back from Haiti and is to return shortly for another month or so.  Please keep her and the rest of our sons and daughters safe as they offer a cool drink of water in such a dry and hurting place!  YOU CAN ALSO FINANCIALLY SUPPORT HER ON THAT BLOG SITE! Thanks!

Mike

The “Got Milk?” ad people are ingenious!  I did a Google search on the campaign and the people that they’ve gotten to endorse the message is out of control!  Even Batman is in the loop.  They now have a website where you can order hats, bibs, posters and of course…bumper stickers.

Just like you, I see all kinds of bumper stickers.  Most of them are political.  Some are hilareous and every now and then you’ll get one that is just down-right inappropriate.  I cracked up a couple days ago by a sticker I saw on an old busted / rusted pick-up truck.  The driver was probably in his late 70s and  he had four dogs in the back of the truck checking out traffic.  The sticker read:  MY BORDER COLLIE IS SMARTER THAN YOUR HONOR STUDENT. I could not contain the laughter!   People in Colorado are crazy about their dogs.  Geez!  I digress…sorry.

In all honesty, I abhor religious bumper stickers!  I’ve never seen one I like.  Even the displayed “ichthus” just rubs me the wrong way.   I don’t have the energy to explain to you why this kind of thing wears me out, but last nite I had to run an errand a couple miles from the house.  I pulled up behind a vehicle that had this particular bumper-sticker proudly displayed on it’s back window:   GOT JESUS? -big sigh-

Now, I will defend the right of that driver to display whatever they choose on their car, but I have a problem with the entire notion!  I had to stuff down all kinds of preconceived thoughts and judgements.  Was this a weak and ineffective (in my estimation) attempt to evangelize the masses and send a message?  Why?  Why send this message this way?  Why not live the message, be the message?  I do not remember reading anything in scripture about Jesus OR his disciples carrying around a sign that said “Please receive ME, accept ME, take ME!  GOT ME?” He did “say” these kinds of things…sorta, but it was always with personal delivery, backed up by flesh, blood and Spirit.  I can not imagine anyone reading that bumper sticker and then having an internal discussion that leads to their ultimate decision to receive Jesus!   In fact, I think it just fuels lost people to dig in just an 1/8th of an inch deeper in the scoff and mockery of something that can not be explained without love.  Maybe the goofy thing works (it just seems too shallow, too thin, too rigid…too frikk’n easy), but I have doubts about that.

Ok, so you know me well enough to know that I cringe at this kind of stuff, but that is not my real point.  The bottom line here is that I think that the goofy bumper sticker is actually poising the wrong question!  I think the better question or the real question is this:  DOES JESUS GOT YOU? Yeah, my old High School English teacher just threw up in her mouth a little bit and maybe that is why I’m not in the marketing business, but it still is a serious question that requires reflective inventory.  Too many people “got” Jesus, but I’m not too sure that Jesus has all of us.  Maybe “some” of us, but “all” of us?  Does HE “have” my heart, my life, my family, my marriage, my finances, my hopes, my future, my dreams, my appetites, my fears, my body, my circumstances, my relationships, my kids, my work, my service, my worship, my friendships, me?  Does He “got” those things from us?   It’s the better question.   One that requires me to actually process with integrity and relentless honesty what the real stuff is in my life.  That’s the advertisement that I think HE approves of and endorses!  And PLEASE…don’t Honk if you love Jesus! A smile, a hug, a touch works a lot better.   -smile-

Love and Miss you!

Mike

I can’t stop weeping.  Patti and I read hundreds of blogs weekly.  We respond to most of them, she more often than I.  They’re all good, but every now and then, you read one that seems to dissolve the ceaseless barking of everyday task and cares.  The stories wreck us, because the writer has been wrecked.  We’ve already spent enough time with “L” squad to know that they’re a part of our spiritual inheritance.  The richest and most fertile soil for us to plant, water and nurture.  We also know a “little bit” about these kid’s past, their pain, their dreams and the undeniable transformation that happens oh so stealthily.   Then, like a bolt from heaven, someone writes a blog that peels back the cocoon and reveals a breath-taking beauty and change in one of the most spiritually ugly places on the planet.

The Birth Of An Intercessor.  I believe that is a reality about MaryAnne.  I felt the prophetic winds as I was reading.  I don’t claim to know a whole lot, but when the Wind blows…I usually know it.  I really think it’s worth your precious time to read this blog.  It’s a great story that can’t all be told here.  It’s a story of a woman that is growing in anointing and intimacy with the Father.  Another life wrecked for the spiritual ordinary!

Check out MaryAnne’s blog: CLICK HERE!!!

Our 20-year-olds are invited to a 6 week study of Galatians, prayer, fellowship, etc. to be hosted at our home. We will begin this Sunday the 10th at 7pm. So bring your Bibles and an open heart and let’s see what shakes loose.

Paul

Speaking of 20-Somethings, check out the tab at the top of the page titled Testimony.

It’s a new year and we encourage you to continue in prayer regarding serving our kids. Hopefully, we can branch out beyond our four walls and include some service to our community and just plain FUN activities this year. Our January teaching schedule is complete and we are beginning to think about February. Be in prayer about taking a Sunday to hang with the children and speak some life into them. Most likely, however, it will be the other way around.

Paul

I usually respond to our kids on THE WORLD RACE by writing directly to their email link that alerts me that they’ve posted a new blog.  Most of them make fun of me because the most they usually get is a few words or a scripture…just a touch to let them know I’m here…watching…clapping…praying.  It took me about 15 minutes this morning to figure how to respond to Jordan’s blog.   A blinking-blank stare while my mind groped for some kind of stringing of words that would soothe the gash in Jordan’s heart.  We tell our racers:  “expect to be wrecked”.  We are continually amazed at how God does that to those who submit to the initiating process.  Then they go off and do what they signed up to do.  The blogs start coming, we read, we comment, they plow again.  I think it helps them or does it help me?  I did send Jordan some words, but I know they are not enough.  God will have to touch her to truly heal the wounds.  He will do that.  He is faithful to do just that.    CLICK HERE:   TO READ JORDAN’S BLOG!!!

While in my “blank stare” I had this thought…looping over and over:  how can we get so disjointed by such trivial things in our life?  Too often we are “wrecked” (in a bad way) by word and actions that are absolutely childish in its intent and nature.  Our resident goat farmer has said it more than once, “most of the things we value as a people, God could care less about it…and…most of the things He really cares about, we don’t see!” We separate over the goofiest of things.  We get our feelings hurt and our rejection stays flared over pure nonsense.  We do not consider and honor covenant.  We are too easily wounded by those who are in bondage and do not have spiritual eyes to see.  We can’t forgive.  We won’t forgive.  We stiff-arm and refuse our healing.  We demand to be treated in ways that reveal our pride and our insecurities.  We expect lost people to get us.  We expect the religious to understand our spirituality.  We are much like the Galatians:  still needing milk (infants), when we should be able to chew and digest just about anything the world has to serve us.  The world is a mess…a real mess, but someone has to be light.  Someone has to be different…inside and out.  The Lord searches the whole earth looking for men and women who have a heart to be used no matter what the cost and no matter what the distance.  If I’m not mistaken, we are still the plan.  But that requires every one of us to inventory and reconcile what is real and what is right for a citizen of the Kingdom.  FATHER, WRECK US ALSO!  BREAK OUR HEART FOR WHAT WOUNDS YOU!  FORGIVE US FOR THE FALSE WELLS THAT WE DIG.  HEAL US.  BLOW ON US SPIRIT, BLOW!  WE ARE A DESPERATE PEOPLE.

Mike

Prostitution and sex trade is the largest industry in Thailand.   That is a staggering thought, but a brutal reality.  Thousands and thousands of Thai girls have sold themselves in an attempt to satisfy some need:  family, school, food…you name it.  The women of “L” squad are in the trenches every night….doing what they can do to save one, two….three.  The stories and the blogs are almost too much to bear.  I wanted you to read Justine’s latest blog.  Yes, it is gut wrenching, but we need to be aware what our support of a kid on THE WORLD RACE means.  Please read and respond to the blogs of all these women!!!   They need prayer…encouragement…and hope that they’re making a difference.  Father God, please anoint your servants at they proclaim the message of cleansing and redemption for the filth of the daughters of Zion!

READ JUSTINE’S BLOG:  CLICK HERE!

Thanks!

Mike

CLICK HERE TO READ JACOB’S BLOG!

It really isn’t complicated.

We can do this!

Mike  xo