Volunteers needed to help with song words, cameras and more! If you enjoy helping behind the scenes and have an interest in “gadgets,” this is a great place to serve.
Contact Mikey.
Sunday, February 16, after the 11a service
meet at the front of the stage
When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, ‘Do something. Make gods for us who will lead us. That Moses, the man who got us out of Egypt—who knows what’s happened to him?’” Exodus 36:1
I read this passage this week in the Daily Message (We discovered, incidentally, that the mobile-app version of the Daily Message finishes the year of reading 16 days earlier than the paperback version. In case you’re wondering why I read Exodus 36 this past week). But, this hit me. At some level, it’s a passage about impatience. It’s more than the feeling of not getting stuff when we want it. It’s a passage about this – WHAT WE DO when we don’t get what we want when we think we deserve to have it.
To recap: God’s people have been miraculously rescued from captivity in Egypt. They’ve walked through the Red Sea. They’ve followed a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day. They’re standing at the foot of a mountain where God’s full pyrotechnic array has been on display. Moses has gone up to meet with God. And… he’s taking too long. God’s people reason, not only that God had abandoned them, but that they need something else — something that will capture their hearts. Clearly, God-who-rescues isn’t around anymore.
So, they create something to worship, something to which they can dedicate themselves: “gods…who will lead us.”
This is us. This is me. I suppose none of us have actually melted our jewelry into molten liquid so that it can be reshaped into a literal idol for worship. But, we do get impatient. When God isn’t operating on my schedule, when He’s decided my need for traffic abatement isn’t His priority, or that my need to have that thing everyone else has isn’t something I ought to have, I bow down to other some lesser gods who promise to deliver much more quickly. I kneel before the idols of my own desires. I bow to the gods of my own self-gratification. I lay down before the statues of my own ego — the ones I’ve built with my own hands.
For us, when our needs (so often confused for our desires) aren’t met the instant we can think of them, we find the most troubling thing about God — He tends to take way too long. Clearly, He must be confused, not only about our time table, but about what actually constitutes real need. We run to the lesser gods who give us everything, no matter the damage to our souls. We run to the gods who leave us emptier and hungrier than we’ve ever been. We keep building idols, hoping that the next one will fill us. It is in those idols that we lose our true humanity. We self-sabotage. We sabotage others.
We need a re-rescue from God. We need a rescue from the mess we continue to create for ourselves. We need a rescue from the mess we create for others. We believe God can and wants to restore brokenness. We’ll continue to look at this God who rebuilds and restores and re-rescues this Sunday morning as we continue in our relationship series: BEAUTIFUL MESS.
See you Sunday,
Jeff
IF: Gathering is a fresh, deep, honest space for a new generation of women to wrestle with the essential question: IF God is real…THEN what? Join us for a live simulcast of this conference featuring speakers Jen Hatmaker & Ann Voskamp.
For questions and to RSVP, contact Jessica.
Friday, February 7, 3-9p & Saturday, February 8, 9a-4p
Mariners Mission Viejo, Worship Ctr. R1
Recovering our identity in Christ means being Christ-like to those in need all around us. Join us for a training led by Orange County Homeless Ministry’s, Mickey Jordan, to learn more about the next chapter of our “Care for the Homeless” Ministry. RSVP to Maher.
Sunday, February 9, 12:45p (lunch provided)
Upper Room
On Tuesday night, after my son’s basketball game, a bunch of us went to In-N-Out. I was reminded how the now almost ubiquitous fast food chain was in only a few locations 20 years ago — all of which had no indoor dining options. I remember eating a “Double-Double” for the first time, and discovering a previously unknown level of burger-joy. A new longing was formed, even if it meant eating in our car or sitting on a curb, outdoors. Previously, I had known Carl’s Jr. — good. I had experienced a “Big Mac” — fair. I had eaten a Whopper. I studied the enigmatic square-patty at Wendy’s. All of those were the best I believed life had to offer. But, In-N-Out changed all that. Something previously unknown had become known and it altered everything (Well, not everything. It is just a hamburger, after all. But, it did elevate my baseline standard on what to expect from fast food).
This Friday night, Mariners MV will host “Date Night.” The heart behind the event is to paint a picture of how any marriage could become better. It’s a shot in the arm. It is not a crisis intervention for marriages (though that shouldn’t preclude a couple experiencing a marriage in crisis from attending). Date Night is a way of revealing what “could be.” For a lot of us, we’ve made a vague peace with the way things are — good, bad, or otherwise. We’ve stopped imagining how the present state of our marriage could become better.
Come, join us. Bring friends. We won’t be weird or obnoxious — at least not more than usual. We’re not going to ramble on for hours and hours. Our intent is to breathe fresh life into marriages. Doug Fields will give some lighthearted and highly practical tips on how life with our spouse (who is, in many ways, our opposite) could be better than we might have ever imagined.
Couples can register online here. Of course, walk-ins (without child care needs) are welcome. For those of you with kids, we’re working feverishly to expand our Date Night child care to meet the demand. Check our Facebook page for the latest on child care options or email Bailey May to have your kids placed on the waiting list.
See you Friday (and Sunday),
– Jeff
A hostile world! I call to God, I cry to God to help me. From his palace he hears my
call; my cry brings me right into his presence — a private audience!
Psalm 18:6 (Day 22 of the Daily Message)
I remember once, when I was in college and my mom had driven up for a visit, she took me to dinner at the Hamburger Hamlet in Westwood Village. The dinner, served hot, and on real plates stood in stark contrast to the steady diet of Top Ramen and hot dogs comprising the bulk of my collegiate meals. As we were eating, my mom took a pen from her purse and wrote on an unwound paper napkin ring. She slid it across the table to me. It read: “Magic Johnson.”
Magic Johnson?
Puzzled, I looked up from the note. She silently mouthed the words: “He’s right behind you.” Nervous, and not all that subtly, I turned to get a glimpse of one of my childhood heroes. I was somewhat disappointed to see that he opted for street clothes, instead of the Lakers purple and gold uniform. Why would anyone, once they get to be a Laker, ever wear anything else? I turned back to look at my mom trying to figure out how to get Magic to invite me over to his house. I was certain we’d be friends. I don’t remember much of anything else at the meal. Just to be next to him, felt like I had somehow become a part of the mystique — his mystique. My life and his legendary life intersected in that moment — burgers, french onion soup, two athletes bound to be friends (I’m convinced he’s writing about it now on his own blog). The dinner had a new focus now. Before that moment, I was catching up with my mom, grateful for a meal that didn’t need to be prepared in a styrofoam cup. But now, everything was about Earvin “Magic” Johnson.
David, the Psalmist here, writes “my cry brings me right into his presence.” For a lot of us, we tend to understand God to be primarily distant — a celebrity who might be polite to us but to whom, we’re generally unremarkable. Only, it is His delight, His desire that He would be with us. So we, rather than worrying if we’re interrupting His meal or fearing that we might be turned away for trying to get a quick picture or an autograph, we’re invited into a “private audience” simply because we cry out to Him. When we get to be with Him, it’s in His presence that everything DOES change. We were designed to be with Him and to build our lives around Him.
What does it look like to cry out to Him? In joy? In despair? In loneliness? In wonder?
Join us this week as we hear from Doug Fields in his second of three messages in the BEAUTIFUL MESS series on parenting. We heard so much great feedback last week. It is a great opportunity to invite people who are presently parents, soon-to-be parents, or people looking to receive some healing from the way they were parented.
See you Sunday,
Jeff
Hear about our next phase of ministry with our Uganda church partner and how you can get involved as we begin planning our June 2014 Faith Adventure. Contact Maher.
Sunday, January 26, 12:45p
Upper Room (lunch provided)
Through March 23, 2014
Life Groups provide care and support for each other, while maintaining a broad view of how God wants to work through the group to bless others. What we experience In Community; freedom and healing, we live out For Community so that others can encounter salvation, freedom and healing.
Register online or on the patio to get connected into a Life Group.
Questions? Contact Mike Kenyon.
I’ve already run for dear life straight to the arms of God.
PSALM 11:1 (Day 12 of the Daily Message)
This past weekend we talked about living in the reality of being God’s “dearly loved children.” Most of us understand the idea of being children. We were once kids. Some of us have kids. But, for a lot of us, it seems, we’ve got no real concept of what it means to be “dearly loved.” Consequently, most of how we view what God intends for our relationship with Him centers around our ability to be good, do good, and generally try not to ask for too much. But, that’s not how dearly loved children live.
I had a number of conversations with people after church last weekend (as did the Mariners staff) about this idea. So many of us have broken relationships with our own dads. Because our first and most lasting impression of who God is, stems from the relationship with our own fathers, a lot of us are in need of repair. We’re longing to be understood and heard. We’re longing to live in the reality of being God’s loved children. It turns out, that is the critical component in all of our other relationships. Being deeply loved enables us to deeply love.
It is my prayer that you would know this kind of love. It is my hope that you wouldn’t settle for bland religious moralism. There are far too many people masking deep loneliness in wonderful and admirable veneers of career, beauty, parenting, goodness, and hard work. This week, consider that you are God’s dearly loved child; that in Jesus we don’t have to live as orphans, we can be known and loved the way we were intended to be.
I’m looking forward to this weekend as Doug Fields continues in our series on relationships called Beautiful Mess. Continue to be the great invitational and inclusive community that we are by bringing people who, like us, are a “beautiful mess.”
-Jeff
P.S.: For those of you who were here this past Sunday…
I mailed the picture to my dad.
Join us for our new series that explores some of life’s most essential relationships – marriage, sexuality, friendship and parenting – all of which can be wonderfully beautiful and incredibly messy.
Mission Viejo Campus
Sundays 9 & 11a
Worship Center
Directions and more info
