Emmanuel Christian Fellowship – McGregor, TX

We’ve updated the preaching schedule through June 20. Click the calendar tab at the top of the screen to view it.

We will be having a water baptism this week for those who are feeling the call. Please bring dark clothes to wear when you “go under.”

PLEASE CLICK AND READ!!!!

When is the last time you said “Thank You”?

-MDP-

Just about everything we do in life involves some kind of preparation. We prepare to go to work by cleaning up, dressing up, and gearing up. Athletes work out, diet, study and dream, all so they will have the best chance of success on game day. The kids (sometimes adults too) prepare to go to school by studying and packing a lunch. We even prepare to “go out.” We wash, shave, primp, blow dry, and put on perfume or cologne in the excitement of getting to go somewhere special. There’s actually a mindset of anticipation about going to your favorite restaurant or dance hall , YeHaw!!!

I’ve been pondering lately on the question of how we go about preparing for our meeting on Sunday mornings. I know, I know.  We have talked and talked for years now about how this whole ride is about a relationship with God and not about just sitting in a building on Sunday morning. However, since we have been called to fellowship and worship together as an extension of that relationship, Sunday morning suddenly takes on a great deal of significance. Suddenly, we understand that we are not getting out of bed to show up at the terribly early hour 10:30am to just sit in a chair and survive a couple of hours. We have the privilege to enter into a time of worship, prayer and learning in the presence of God in a corporate setting. Love, companionship, iron sharpening iron; that sort of thing.

I believe that is enough reason to make valiant effort to prepare our heart, mind, and spirit to enter into what God might want to do for us in that setting. That takes us from people rushing around all morning and sliding in at the last minute (guilty), to a body of believers that are full of hope, expectation, and a sense that their prayers and attitudes will have an incredible impact on how God moves in the corporate meeting. It’s no more than getting our “game face” on for  church on Sunday or for any meeting of believers where we want to see God move. AWESOME!

Can’t really tell you how to do that, but you know. It’s prayer, seeking, asking, preparing with the same excitement we have when we prepare for other important events. Pray for our worship and our worship team, pray for the needs of the people, pray for the person in the pulpit, for visitations, miracles, healings, breakthrough.  PRAY FOR GOD TO HAVE HIS WAY!

This Sunday is a good day to start if you don’t really think about it much. It’s time to get out game faces on……

Paul

We will be having a water baptism this week for those who are feeling that call.  Please bring dark clothes to wear when you “go under.”

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!!!