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 a recap from the last Catalyst session we had a couple of weeks ago. This past Sunday was a special Remembrance Day service and we did not have a session.

This was part 4 of 4 in the Social Justice series, titled “We Can Do Something”. 

There is a always a question that people ask themselves when they encounter the issues of social justice.  They see the issues, the needs, the hurts etc  and wonder what could I, one person do?  God uses some ordinary people to accomplish some great things….just open the Bible read a few narratives, see where these people came from, were called out from.  Then read the beginning of the Book of Acts, specifically Acts 1:8.

These were the scriptures we used in the session:

Ephesians 2:10, Micah 6:8, Isaiah 1:17, I Peter 3:15, I John 3:17, Matthew 23:23, John 10:10

• Seeking justice is the task of bringing the truth and power to bear on behalf of those who are oppressed.
• There are roles for everyone to engage in Social Justice
• Pastors, Teachers etc…need to be teaching about the God of Justice. Teaching about the authority of the Word of God, to know God’s passion for justice.  They can show us how God can use everyone to meet the needs of social justice.
• Frontline workers…live in the communities where the victims of abuse live. Living and working among the poor.
• There are so many gifted, talents of people that can help meet the needs of the oppressed, Christians that are trained as police officers, nurses, doctors, lawyers, business, politicians, cooks etc.  These talents and skills can be used to help meet the needs of these people in situations not just in places around the globe, but in the neighbourhoods and communities that they travel to work in everyday.
• Poetry, art, music, video, these are creative talents that can be used to help capture and tell the story to others to show what is happening.  To help bring awareness and attention.
• No matter what talent a person has, God can use it to help someone in need.

We ended the session and the series with the following two scriptures:

Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 25:31-46

The next series starting next week is based on the book by Francis Chan, called “Crazy Love”.

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.

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.