Tag Archives: encouragement

Mission Viejo

A Note From Jeff Maguire

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MessageFrom-MV

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

Irvine

A Note From Kyle Zimmerman

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MessageFrom-IR

Believing the Best or Assuming the Worst…

How have you been filling the gap between expectations and behaviors this week? Have you seen a difference in the relationships you’ve intentionally chosen to believe the best in? What a great tool we received last week to help us become more loving in our relationships with others, bringing healing and joy.

This weekend, we continue our Beautiful Mess series and the message is on SEXuality! (note: very PG-13 😀 )  I believe it’s going to provoke and unlock some new thinking and bring healing and fullness as we learn to see one another and sex the way God designed and intended. You’re not going to want to miss this week – bring your family and friends…it will absolutely create healthy conversations!

Also – if you’re new to our church community and looking for a smaller place to connect – with me, our staff, and others in our church – we’re hosting a “family dinner” this Saturday night. Bring your family and join us after the 5p service for an informal gathering to share a meal, get to know one another, and take your next step forward.

Peace…

Kyle

Ocean Hills

A Note From Jeff Pries

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MessageFrom-OH

I hope you are enjoying our Heroes series where we are all learning that life can have its challenges, and we can either cower and shrink or stand up and be heroic.

There’s still time to sign up for our winter session of Rooted. It’s a unique and powerful experience I know you won’t want to miss. You can visit the patio this weekend to sign up or go online. So many of you have shared how Mariners Ocean Hills is such a great place and has become your church home. If that’s you and you’re looking for a way to find connection and become more involved at Ocean Hills, Rooted is a great way to do just that. Jump into community with a group of people for 10 weeks, and allow God to draw you into closer relationship with Him and with others.

And one final note this week, our junior high students are away at winter camp, please lift them up in prayer. Pray that God will keep them safe and bless them with a growing relationship.

Blessings,
Jeff

Huntington Beach

A Note From Caleb Anderson

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MessageFrom-HB

Our Beautiful Mess series is up and running!

You can always catch past messages here. And you can interact with us on Facebook here.

This week, we’ll be talking about the vast majority of our relationships – not the immediate or intimate relationships, but everyone else. How do you relate to the world around you?

There are a few keys from Romans 12 that could change your life, and all your relationships. Honor someone you care about and invite them to join you.

Don’t miss a week of this series. We’ll have different elements each week–art, food, special music, date nights, dancing… you just never know.

Enjoy this 80 degree January day! May God bless you, heal you, and lead toward healthy relationships.

caleb

Mission Viejo

A Note From Jeff Maguire

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MessageFrom-MV

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.

Irvine

A Note From Kyle Zimmerman

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MessageFrom-IR

Who are you? When we look at that question through the lens of culture, we tend to start with what we do, the relationships we have, what we possess, the things we’ve accomplished, how we look…or the places where we fall short of the world’s or our own expectations. That’s why I loved where we started our Beautiful Mess series last week…our identity. Who we are – that we were designed and created by a loving heavenly Father to walk in the fullness of a relationship with Him and one another. I can’t wait to see how this series continues to unfold and the healing that will take place as our lives are reshaped by our Creator.

I’m looking forward to this weekend and all that it holds for our church and community. There are so many opportunities to love the people around us and invite them to see the beauty of the Church on display. The Beautiful Mess series continues. Kenton will be laughing and mocking me as I swim across the lake after our Saturday night service (I can’t believe I lost the bet:), and of course our winter session of Rooted begins next week. If you’ve never been to Rooted or there are folks in your life looking for a place to dive into understanding more about who they are, who God is, and how His story gets lived out through His Church in this world, we’d love to have you join us.

Peace…

kyle

Ocean Hills

Heroes: Our New Weekend Message Series

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Heroes Message Series

We are a society that is enamored with heroes and deep down we all want to be heroic. For every one of us, we hope that when the moment comes to step up into the gap, we have what it takes to be heroic. Not only are heroes all around us, but the Bible is full of heroic people. Join us for our new weekend message series as we look at what it takes to be a hero.

Ocean Hills Campus
Sundays @ 10a
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