Do you ever feel like you’re making bad calls in the game of life?

We’re blowing the whistle on bad decisions. Join us for this empowering series about victory through God’s playbook of life so you can win through wisdom.

A couple good decisions could change everything.

During the weekend services, Mission Viejo Campus
Sunday, 9 & 11a

“Wisdom will save you…”– PROVERBS 2:12 (NIV)

Einstein forgot his own address.
Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant.
W.B. Yeats was denied a post at Trinity College in Dublin for spelling “professor” wrong on the application.
Virginia Woolf accidentally baked her wedding ring into a pudding.
Ben Franklin nearly killed himself giving an electric shock to a turkey.

The world is full of geniuses who fail to make good decisions. The world is rife with scandals that are generally the result of smart people being dumb. This is us. We’re all that way. The only difference between us and Thomas Edison or Virginia Woolf is that they’re they’re smarter than we are. So, everyone is susceptible to any number of actions that fall far beneath what our intelligence would otherwise dictate.

In retrospect, we’re not in need of greater intelligence. We can see the trail of occasional stupidity that has become more clearly defined as we age. In a time where there  is more information available to us, in speedier forms, than ever before, we need more than intelligence. We need wisdom.

We don’t need Yoda-style aphorisms for a galaxy far, far away. Nor, do we need kindly wizard-ishness fit for Middle Earth. We don’t need crotchety old guys spewing complaints about how great it all used to be. We need practically applied wisdom for our real lives, now. We want to know how to live in this world, today. We have big questions with difficult choices. We live where not everything can be forced into conveniently packaged little boxes with neatly defined categories. We need wisdom to know what to do and how to do it.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at wisdom. This will be a great time to invite people who, like all of us, are looking to apply wisdom to their daily lives in our very real world.

See you Sunday,
Jeff

Don’t miss this opportunity to be a hero to children and families in our community! There are many ways you can serve in Port Mariners.

Holding babies, playing with toddlers, computer check in, greeting families, classroom helper, and storytelling are just a few ways you can help. See all of our volunteer opportunities and sign up.

Please plan to attend our training luncheon.
Sunday, September 7, 12:30-2p, K-5th grade room
Lunch provided. Childcare available upon request.
Contact Rachel

Your words are so choice, so tasty; I prefer them to the best home cooking. – PSALM ‭119‬:‭103

Tomorrow my family and I will pack up and head home after a few days of camping along the California coastline. The views have been spectacular. The memories, permanent. The food: weird.

We eat weird stuff by the campfire. We determine that, in the spirit of the “great outdoors,” we ought to only eat foods that can be skewered with a clothes hanger. Food groups and nutritional considerations have new categories. Hot dog: healthy. Eat it before you eat a marshmallow. Some variation on the classic “trail mix” (granola, peanuts, chocolate chips, M&M’s, cereal) constitutes a reasonable snack between meals. Camping, it turns out, is a world where Gatorade has supplanted water as essential for life. It is dreamland for my kids. All hygiene and dietary guidelines governing an otherwise civilized society are completely abandoned.

But, I feel it.

I’m not sure how many marshmallows I can eat before I go into some kind of sugar-induced anaphylaxis. My frequent headaches and jittery-ness has got me convinced that the threshold is close. But, it’s camping. I’ve chosen this for myself. Truthfully, I  love it. But, I can’t sustain it.

It’s time for things that can be eaten with a fork. It’s time for things that aren’t vacuum sealed. It’s time to start eating things that don’t require an open flame to prepare them. I am in need of some, as the verse says, “home cooking.”

In the wanderings of my soul, the principle is no different. The interior longings of my heart can last for a while on sweet indulgences, golden-charred at fireside. But, eventually, I’ll return to what I really need: the long sustaining fullness of God.

See you Sunday,
– Jeff

Help Students in need in our Mission Viejo Community start the year off right!

Please purchase form the following list:
Elementary-sized backpack
Pens – blue, black, red
Pencils
Spiral notebooks
Two-pocket folders
1″ binder
Loose leaf paper
Glue sticks
Colored pencils
Crayola markers-thick
Crayola markers-thin
Highlighters

Next Steps:
Turn in your donation at the collection bins on the patio at Mariners Church Mission Viejo during the weekend services:
Aug 17, Aug 24, Aug 31

Join us for a Sorting Party with pizza, music and organizing of supplies! Sun, August 31, after the 11a service
For more info contact Maher, msalhani@marinerschurch.org

God formed Man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life. The Man came alive—a living soul! – GENESIS 2:7

Where there was once only raw dirt, God breathed and the man was animated. God’s canvas: the soil of His own creation. His inspiration: Himself. Humankind was to be His great masterwork: a self-portrait crafted from the dusty particulars of a freshly ordered earth.

This week, I met briefly with a Disney animator at his office in Burbank. He’s been giving direction to pencil lines on paper for several decades. His role is unique among the artists housed in the whimsical Fantasia-inspired studio. His job is to ensure that any drawn character making it from sketch to computer to screen retains the emotional subtlety that almost imperceptibly yet critically gives the character a “soul.” The only way to better convey the soul of a line-drawn figure, is by making adjustments to the lines themselves.

He froze an image from an upcoming Disney movie on his computer screen and picked up a stylus. Then, looking at the image on his screen, he drew three bold black lines directly on the image: he moved each of the character’s eyebrows only a fraction of an inch in either direction and then he re-curved the corners of the mouth. That’s it. Everything and virtually nothing was different. But, right before us: the soul of the character came to life. What wasn’t there before, was now unmistakably present.

Then, he motioned us over to his drawing table. It was as you’d expect: a few pencils on a drafting table and a moveable incandescent desk lamp illuminating a stack of blank pages. The area around the desk was crowded with initial sketches from Disney movies. He showed us a few of them, flipping quickly through the pages, setting the characters into motion. Then, he turned back to his desk, grabbed a pencil, and clicked on the light. I don’t think he realized all of the impact of what he was about to do.

He drew three iconic circles on a page: a round head and elliptical ears. Within seconds, the master had begun his creation. Subsequently, he drew three more of the same image in slightly different poses. He separated all four pages between each of his fingers and flipped quickly between them all — back and forth in rapid sequence. Where there was previously nothing, a character-in-motion emerged. Four frames told an unambiguous story of surprise. Whimsical pencil scratches were drawn to life. He signed the bottom corner of the top-most drawing and handed the stack of four to my son. It was as if he had entrusted a ten year old with life itself — a life crafted by the hands of a master.

I couldn’t help but think that ours is a sacred trust: to uphold what has been created — for us, for everyone else. The implications flickered forward at 30 frames per second: every earthly character, regardless of how rough or polished we may imagine their sketch to be, is still a work of the Master, sprung sacredly to life and given to dignity.

– Jeff