Much has went on over the past couple of months, which has taken focus away from updating the blog.  Catalyst was on hold for a while, we have it running again with a temporary speaker on the AM, while I focus on a family matter. Here is a short recap of the last session we had on Crazy Love before the break.

The title of this session was “When You’re In Love”

When you are in love you go to great lengths to be with the one you love.  I remember everything I would do when I first met my wife.  The back and forth driving, the late nights…just to be able to spend a few minutes after work with her.  The many times I would phone her in the payphone while working (this was before cell phones and txt’ing).

The question that was dropped at the start of this sessions was “Are we deeply in love with Jesus Christ?” 

Many times, we will just say, “Yes”.  But we need to examine our lives and see if that is really the case.  Even as I type this recap, I am examining some things in my life, and it is gut check time, are there changes to be made, focus to give.  Let’s be honest.

Are we craving a genuine love relationship with Him?

Galatians 5:13-14

Why are the words of Psalm 63:1-5 not an honest reflection of our lives most days?

Are we fooling ourselves? Can we really be in love with God and that it would be the most satisfying aspect of our lives?

God wants to change us, He died so that we could change. But are we letting Him change us?

Revelation 3:20

James 4:8

John 10:10

Not in the future, but in the now.

As we begin to focus more on Christ, loving Him and others becomes more natural.  As long as we are pursuing Him, we are satisfied in Him. It is when we stop actively loving Him that we find ourselves restless and gravitating towards other means of fulfillment.

We can experience closeness with God…these verses can help us communicate with Him.

Psalm 131:2

Psalm 4:7-8

Psalm 16:11

Psalm 28:7

Psalm 90:14

Psalm 119:111

Tell God:

• that you want Him to change you
• that you love to genuinely enjoy Him
• how you want to experience true satisfaction and pleasure and joy in your relationship with Him
• that you want to love Him more than anything on this earth
• that you want to treasure the kingdom of heaven so much that you’d willingly sell everything in order to get it
• what you like about Him
• what you appreciate
• what you struggle with
• what you are angry about
• what causes you to get frustrated
• that you want to experience His love
• how you feel
• what is really important to you
• what isn’t important to you
• that you want Him to change you

Here is the recap from the second Catalyst talk in the series, “Crazy Love” by Francis Chan.

The title was “Profile of the Lukewarm”.  The talk was back in November on the 29th.

Fact: Jesus is not interested in those who fake it.

Is there evidence of the kingdom of God in your life?

Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things that can distract us away from Christ?

Hard hitting scripture to think about – Phil 3:10

Would you describe yourself as in love with Jesus Christ? Or do the words halfhearted, lukewarm, and partially committed fit better?

Lukewarm people attend church – Isaiah 29:13

They give money to charity and the church – I Chron 21:24, Luke 21:1-4

Don’t really want to be saved from their sin – John 10:10, Rom 6:1-2

Moved by radical stories about what people are doing for Christ  - James 1:22, James 4:17, Matt 21:28-31

Rarely share their faith – Matt 10:32-33

Gauge themselves to the secular world – Luke 18":11-12

Jesus is a part of their lives; only a part – Luke 9:57-62

Love God, but not with all of their heart, soul and strength – Matt 22:37-38

Love others, but do not try to love others as they love themselves – Matt 5:43-47, Luke 14:12-14

Will serve God and others, but there are limits on what they will do – Luke 18:21-25

Jesus said, Luke 14:31-33

Jesus asks for everything.

When you go through all the scripture that Chan uses, it is quite an eye opening and challenging chapter of the book. It did stir up some comments and lots of questions from those in attendance in Catalyst that morning.

It has been a long time since I posted on my blog.  I need to get back into a regular groove. 

In Catalyst we have been going through a series called “Crazy Love”, based on the Francis Chan book of the same title.

This session was November 15. Here is a quick recap.

• Creation is simply amazing. God as creator, made over 350,000,000,000 (est.) galaxies. Generations of people never knew they existed.  What is our response when we look up on a clear summer evening and see the expansive universe?
• Look at the intricate detail of creation.  A caterpillar as 228 distinct muscles in its head.  The precision of the human body on how it all works together when healthy.  For instance, when you study how insulin is produced and regulated in someone without diabetes…when it doesn’t work you have the different forms of diabetes.  Precision.
• Whatever God’s reason are to make such diversity, creativity and sophistication the point of it all is for His glory.
• We are called to worship Him.  All creation echo the truth that He is glorious.

How do we learn to know God? Here are some basic and crucial points about God. Scriptures used somewhere under each point when teaching are in brackets.

• God is Holy – This means He is set apart, distinct from us. Perfectly set apart, with nothing and no one to compare Him to. (Exodus 3:14)
• God is eternal – We all had a beginning. Everything in creation had at one point in time a start to their existence, a specific time.  Everything that is but God.  He always had been, since before there was an earth.  Big bang…only when God spoke into existence the beginning of time, I guess there may have been some sort of big bang (not the scientific theory). (Psalm 102:12, 27)
• God is all-knowing – We can fool some people about who we really are.  Put on the masks.  But that is impossible with God. He knows us deeply and specifically. (Hebrews 4:13)
• God is all-powerful – Colossians 1:16, tells us everything was created for God.  We live though as if God is created for us, to do what ever we what.  Maybe we have watched too many Aladdin movies from Walt Disney. (Pslam 115:3, Daniel 4:35)
• God is fair and just – God is the only being who is good, and the standards are set by Him. (Proverbs 8:13)

When we stand in the awed silence before a mighty, fearsome God, whose tremendous worth becomes even more apparent as we see our own puny selves in comparison.

I will be posting recaps of session’s 2 & 3 soon (or at least that is the plan)

Getting this post out late.  Been meaning to get to it all week.

This past Sunday we completed session 3 of 4 that we are doing in Catalyst on Social Justice.

We talked about hope. 

With everything that we have talked about in regards to Social Justice and all the issues and problems ongoing in the world. There are 4 aspects of God character that we can trust in: (I am listing the scriptures we used for each aspect/trait)

1. Justice – Isaiah 30:19, Isaiah 61:8, Ecclesiastes 4:1, Psalm 10:13-14, Psalm 11:5-7, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Psalm 146:5-20
2. Compassion – Psalm 145:9, Exodus 3:7, Exodus 22:26-27, Psalm 9:9-12, Psalm 12:5, Lamentations 3:36, James 5:4, Isaiah 53:3, John 11:33-35, Acts 1:8
3. Morals – Isaiah 59:2+16, Jeremiah 5:28-29, Jeremiah 21:12, Amos 2:6-7, Zechariah 7:8-12, Luke 11:42
4. Rescue – Psalm 10:13-18, Psalm 35:10, Psalm 140:12, Jeremiah 20:13, Luke 4:18

Stayed tuned for the Facebook Event announcements for the Catalyst Meet-Ups. 

This Sunday we close out the series….next series on the horizon, Crazy Love, based on the book by Francis Chan.

Last weekend we had an All Nations Sunday at Calvary Church.

I had forgot about that special service….I had sent a Facebook invite out to Catalyst that we would have a gathering. Just before service started Pastor asked if we should stay up for the special service. We decided we would because we wouldn’t have enough time to get through everything.

Catalyst will be on tomorrow and we should have the annoucement for the 1st MeetUp next Friday.

This past weekend there was no Catalyst due to the installation service of Bishop Hanscom and Pastor Jeremy. It was a great service to be a part of today.

We are half done the series on Social Justice.  2 down and 2 more to go.  This upcoming weekend we will be back at it. Also, it should the first Catalyst Meet-Up.  This is where members of Catalyst will gather somewhere in the city and discuss the topic we have covered in the Sunday Catalyst gathering. The meeting place will be announced Sunday and through the Facebook group.

I am also planning the next couple of series…the next series will be based off the book by Francis Chan, “Crazy Love”, this book is amazing. The following one may be based on txt messaging, and Facebook/Twitter DMs…..where I will take questions from Catalyst throughout the week and preCatalyst and answer and teach based off the questions. 

This past weekend we continued our series on Social Justice.

We dove into some scripture that talks about how we should not be surprised that we live in a world that has so many injustices.

Job 24:2-4, 9-10

Psalm 37:14

Isaiah 3:14

Lamentations 5:11-13

Ezekiel 22:29

Joel 3:3

Amos 1:13

We got into a good discussion when I mentioned that Jesus was born into a situation that can be classified as one of the most brutal acts of injustice ever, Matthew 2:16.  Can you imagine if you went to a Christmas production and they had their drama take on that angle. 

Read: Matthew 5:14-16, Matthew 28:18-20, Ephesians 6:14-15, Acts 1:8 as you engage into Social Justice issues.

I closed with a quote from Ed Stetzer tweeted on Twitter Saturday night…”When James speaks of ‘faith without works,’ the example he uses is social justice. Faith caring is dead faith.”

Matthew 14:27 “Take courage, It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

I also continued to stress the fact that being Apostolic, means social justice is at the core of who we are…read scripture and it is without a doubt, Jesus calls us to engage.

This past Sunday AM we had our first meeting of Catalyst.  We are rewinding the Social Justice series from 2008, as we never completed that series.  I spoke the first message again, this time however, I added more ideas on how being Apostolic means social justice takes on quite a significance.  If you examine scripture from the Psalms, to the words Jesus spoke, actions that Jesus did, actions and behaviours of the Apostles…social justice is important; very important.  In fact, I would say that when you are engaged in acts and needs of others, the “least of these”…it allows for you as an individual to connect with what the spirit of Christ is already doing in that situation.  We dove into more of this, and will continue to explore the subject of Social Justice…the goal is not just to be studying, talking…..but to take it to a new dynamic.

This week, we will be speaking in the AM again, and plan for the first meet-up of Catalyst the following week.

I also announced that every 2 months to 1.5 months, we will be having Catalyst At Night gathering in the main sanctuary on Sunday evenings.  This is not a break out session or service, but rather we are going to brand the evening service as Catalyst At Night.  I will be speaking, and we will be adding some additional elements from Catalyst.  Should be good. 

Saturday night I sent out the message to the Facebook Group about Catalyst.  Catalyst is being relaunched at Calvary Church. When it is relaunched it will be bigger then last year’s Catalyst.  Those that were on Facebook Saturday night, Sunday morning or on their mobile device stepped into the service Sunday morning with a little pre-service information.

Sunday morning, Pastor Jer in the AM spoke on the changes happening at Calvary Church. Part of what he spoke was the relaunch of Catalyst. Catalyst is unique to itself at Calvary Church, and it is being led by my wife and I. It is also a department by itself. There was lots to cover in the AM, and Pastor Jer couldn’t go into all the fine details of what this change to Catalyst meant.  That being said, there were some questions by some people after the service.

This upcoming Sunday morning we will be having a “Catalyst Remixed”. This will be a time to go into the changes in a little more detail.  I will also take questions and provide answers. 

There are reasons that we are going to relaunch Catalyst the way we are.  Primarily, with just being a Sunday morning class, it was too restricted, and couldn’t maximize its potential.

It is official this September Catalyst is once again launching at Calvary Church.  This time around there will be more to Catalyst then just a Sunday morning experience. I met with Pastor Jeremy this week and we discussed how we needed to take this to the next level. 

Catalyst will be for 19-35 Singles, College and Careers.  Sorry, those that are married will not be able to attend, even though some have asked me if they can.

Look for the new trailer announcement coming on Facebook in the main sanctuary soon.  The first series will be the one we never did finish in 2008 due to my family interm’ing in Cornwall.  That series was on Social Justice.

Again, there will be multiple ways to connect with Catalyst, this blog, Facebook Group, and following me on Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/regbertrand).

There are a few things that we are still developing….but see you soon.