I wanted to share another perspective of what it means to be fully engaged.  Thanks to Robbie Clifton for her poetic expression of what being fully engaged means to her…

Finally I’ve made the choice

Understanding that You require more

Life altering decisions will be made

Learning to depend on You in every way

Yielding to You, being transformed day by day

Entering into Your presence continuously

Never being without Your Light shining on me

Grace and mercy raining all around

Anointing me with a robe and a crown

Getting to be seated next to the King

Eternal life being granted to me

Determined to fulfill my destiny

Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.

“More and more” – that’s what God is doing among the Bethel family!  Sure, we’ve been a redemptive people – we’ve seen thousands of souls saved, we’ve given over a million dollars away into other ministries, we’ve seen people set free from addictions, marriages restored, and bodies healed.  We’ve been intentional about creating a redemptive culture – Bethel IS a place where first and foremost, you belong , you are loved and accepted.  And now, God is calling us to MORE and MORE!

One of the Ecclesia students captured the heart of the shift that God is making.  I pray that Shelia’s words will stir and challenge you, the same way they did me!

“What if we lived today as if it were our last day? What type of legacy would we leave? Whose life did we touch? How did we touch it? Did we build or destroy those attached to us? Did we build them up so that they can build up others or did we destroy them and leave them for dead? What if someone had not poured into you, where would you be? How do we convince the unconvinced to become fully devoted followers of Christ? When we are transparent it is through our trials that allows them to see what they can overcome. For every mess is a message and every test a testimony, not just for you but for those who come after you.”

When we are a redemptive people, we will begin asking questions we haven’t been asking for too long!

The fact that I am a child of GOD is enough to assure me that opportunities will be unlimited. However, I must be prepared and ready to seize the moment.  I like the CEV version of Psalms 23:5, “You treat me to a feast, while my enemies watch. You honor me as your guest, and fill my cup until my cup overflows.”

As my mind wanders, I can think of many instances where I have seized and opportunity and it has worked to my benefit. But, let me share with you an occasion where I seized an opportunity that is working for the benefit of someone that I love dearly. After all, building up others is part of what Kingdom building is all about. I have been at Bethel Harvest for seven years now; therefore I was a part of the building project as we transitioned from the old church to the new.  In stages of the building project Pastor Dalton would call us to this site to gather for various moments of praise and worship. Prior to the carpet being installed, during one service permanent markers were distributed and Pastor Dalton asked us to write on the foundation any miracle that we believed GOD would perform.  At the time I was being bombarded with specialists that had diagnosed my son Israel with so many disorders that he had been declared legally disabled. All of the disabilities were in the autism spectrum. Israel was on four different medications, he was seeing a psychiatrist, an occupational therapist, a licensed clinical social worker and a neurologist. We were seeing so many specialists that it often hindered my ability to attend choir rehearsals and Bible study. Some nights, I was so exhausted from working and meeting Israel’s needs that I would cry until I fell asleep. I heard so much medical jargon that I asked the psychiatrist to explain it in laymen terminology; only to be told, “Mrs. Wilson if you are careful choosing appropriate treatment for your child, there is a possibility that one day you will have a Bill Gates living in your basement.”

Believing that our Pastor had received a word from GOD, I took that permanent marker and wrote on the foundation of this church, “I believe for divine healing for Israel Smith.”  I can take you to the exact spot!    I seized an opportunity for Israel to be healed. That day I took Israel off of three of the four medications and I called all of his specialists with the exception of the neurologist and told them we would no longer need their services.

Today Israel is an honor student, maintaining a 3.75 G.P.A. and he was recognized and featured in the mall as one of Fayette County’s Young Achievers. Not only has Israel excelled academically, he is demonstrating that he has the capabilities of being self sufficient. I may have a “Bill Gates,” but he will not be living in my basement! When I look at Israel, I am reminded of Nehemiah 2:4, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.

As believers, no matter the situation GOD will always present divine opportunities.  What does seizing the moment offer? Possibilities unlimited!

This blog brought to you by Sherri Wilson.

In the midst of all the Easter baskets, colored eggs, and fake grass, I find myself trying to teach my two children what the season is all about.  Believe me, I understand the fun of chasing down that coveted Easter egg, in my Sunday best, after a very fun and entertaining Sunday school lesson.  I can remember how competitively I would run through the freshly cut grass to find the plastic, bright colored eggs, searching for the ones that weighed the most.  The heavier they were the more candy they had in them!  Some even had the party sized Snicker’s… hmmm-mmm… my favorite!  Oh… Those were the days!

But even with those great memories, I still always knew the reason that we were outside finding Easter eggs wasn’t because of some bunny but because God’s only son, Jesus, had been raised from the dead.  As a father, I want those same colorful memories for my kids, but I also want them to realize the sacrificial gift that God gave.

I guess you can say that’s what Easter is about to me- God’s sacrificial giving was the birthplace of my freedom.  Jesus came as a seed-sown by God, and not just another seed thrown into the wind, but His best seed, His only son.  I have to be honest here.  I couldn’t watch my son suffer for other’s sin.

Jesus was beaten and bruised so that we could live a life free from the curse of sin.  But that wasn’t enough.  He was hung upon tree until he died, and was, then, “sown” into a tomb.  Did you know that seeds die in the ground?  They die before something on the inside of them begins to grow.  What a powerful illustration that is for our Christian walk!

So, this Easter, while we were painting eggs, and buying candy, here at our house, we were also trying to instill in our kids something more special than any amount of snack sized Snicker’s; a lesson in giving sacrificially.  On a day when God gave the most precious seed He had, we should honor Him and give back.

Can you imagine if every one of us who believe in His Seed, Jesus, would do this?  If we would give sacrificially of our time to make sure that none of our kids would grow up not knowing Him… Or if we would give sacrificially with our talents to ensure that the church was strong for generations to come… Or if we all gave sacrificially with our finances to make sure that this generosity didn’t just stay within our 4 walls, but could go out into the neighborhoods here, in Kiev, Ukraine, in Haiti, and all around the world.

Easter reminds me that we are givers because our God is a giver!

I also want to give some recognition to the hundreds of Bethel volunteers who made Easter weekend such a huge success – you all are the greatest!!  Thank you for all the extra effort, prayerful preparation, and loving attention you gave to all our guests yesterday morning!  I spoke with numerous individuals and families who were touched by your genuine concern and Christ-like service to them.  What a day – what an AWESOME God we serve!

When I was a young man in seminary, my wife Cindi and I, along with our then newborn son Jonathan, piled into our car every Sunday to drive two hours to a small country church on the far western edge of Illinois.  There I would participate in worship, preach a sermon, and then get back into the car for the long drive home.  Mt Pleasant Christian Church was the oldest congregation in the county and consisted of about twelve of the county’s oldest citizens.

Once a month after service the members clambered down a set of ancient, dirt encrusted steps to the church’s cobweb infested, unfinished basement.  There they sat at rickety tables to eat a potluck meal and love on our family and one another.  All the food was usually good, but the highlight was almost always Edna Mae’s perfect pecan pie.

Edna Mae came to church every Sunday along with her frail husband Albert and served as the unofficial matriarch of the congregation.  She wasn’t the boss, but everyone trusted her love for God and paid attention when she spoke.   I developed a sincere appreciation and respect for her.  Frequently, she would slip a check into my suit jacket pocket that was greatly appreciated by a cash strapped young couple with a new baby.  But the most impressive trait about her was the devoted tenderness she showed toward her husband whose health was rapidly and visibly deteriorating.

After I had been preaching at Mt Pleasant for several months I began a series of sermons through the book of Acts.  Everything went well for the first several weeks.  My sermons were good for a young preacher who knew the Word but hadn’t yet struggled much with life.  The message in each text seemed to leap off the page as I studied and prepared and listened to God speak.  But then I came to the story of the resurrection of Dorcas.  I studied that passage again and again but could not figure out how to make it relevant to my congregation.  I just didn’t know what to do with it.  I wrote and rewrote and rewrote a sermon, but it was terrible, and I knew it.  By Friday my flesh began to panic.  My prayers to God started to sound something like, “You know God, if You don’t help me soon, I’m going to look like an idiot.”   And then on Saturday afternoon I received a phone call that Edna Mae’s husband Albert had just died, and suddenly a story about the resurrection was full of more meaning and application than I could ever preach.

Now that I’m a couple of decades older it seems incredible to me that I once didn’t know how to preach about a topic as central to our walk with God as resurrection.  But I don’t think that I’m the only one.  Often I’m afraid we approach the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a nice story that we dust off at Easter and funerals.  It makes us feel better and gives us hope when someone dies, but that’s it.  We act as though it has no meaning for our everyday lives.

What a lie!  The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of our faith.  It is the proof that God’s Word is always true even when it seems impossible.  The resurrection is the guarantee that no matter how bad things get God always wins.  Jesus was in the grave for three days.  You don’t get much deader than that.  Life doesn’t get much more hopeless than when you’re lying in a tomb with a stone in front of the door.  But death didn’t stop God.  And if death can’t beat Him, then nothing we face can beat Him.

Financial problems aren’t as strong as death.  Unemployment isn’t bigger than a tomb.  Death trumps sickness, loneliness, failed marriages, addictions, or anything else.  It is the biggest enemy we face, and God has already beaten it.  So the next time you are tempted to despair or give up, remember that nothing in your life is as hopeless as death, and even death can’t beat God.  Jesus rose from the dead, and in doing so He won victory for us.  We win!

As tradition would have it every year at this time we start preparing for Easter. If we are not ashamed to admit it most of us are busy buying the children “Easter outfits”, preparing big family dinners with all the similarities of a Thanksgiving feast, buying Easter baskets, candy, surprises, we use the brightest and most beautiful colors ….come on you know the drill?

So today I am stopping all the busyness to ask myself a question; what does all of the hustle and bustle have to do with the cross? What does the cross mean to me? Is the cross merely a decoration for the church wall, or placed decoratively on the church steeple, have we relegated the cross to being a beautiful trinket that we display as a necklace around the neck?  Hmm….I am wearing a very beautiful cross as I write this. Why are our symbols of the cross so beautiful when the act crucifixion was so gruesome?

When I stop to think about the Cross, I have to admit that my mind will never fully conceive what it meant for Jesus to put on humanity and die for our sin without ever knowing what it meant to be a sinner. Can you imagine carrying the sin of the entire world? Only Jesus knows what it means to carry the burden and weight of the sin of this world. Only HE knows the agony of being beaten, bleeding, scourged and mocked.

The symbol of the cross really has no significant meaning to me. It is the act of the CROSS that is so beautiful.  I know that Jesus dying for my sin was an intentional act for the scripture says “the reason my Father loves me is that I may lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but, I lay it down of my own accord (John 10:17-18, NIV). Wow! What happened on the cross was no accident. Romans 5:8 says: “that why we were yet sinners, Christ was willing to die in our place so that our relationship with GOD might be restored.”   Jesus’ only motive was to restore my relationship that I had damaged with GOD. How beautiful is that! The beauty of the cross is that Jesus taught the disciples in John 15:13 that no greater love exists than for a person to lay down their life for a friend. Jesus calls me friend!  His act of unselfishness was motivated by love.

What the cross means to me is that GOD would give all that he had and was willing to pay any price to save me. Although, the act on the cross happened for all mankind, the meaning is so personal. He died for me! His love for me is not just a bunch of words, but reality expressed at the highest price….HIS life. The cross is so beautiful because it bears a message of unconditional love. When I take up my cross and carry it, I am not carrying a message of difficulty, agony, suffering, or death. I am carrying a message of resurrection, love and forgiveness. Why the bright beautiful colors, the pretty dresses, the message of spring, life, and hope as a symbol for Easter?  Because, the beauty of all the celebration is an acknowledgement that Jesus gave us life. The sacrificial gift of his life represents beauty, life and not death, and a hope that through the resurrection, I can have a relationship with GOD; a relationship that I don’t deserve.

Tears come to my eyes as I reflect on the 11th anniversary of Bethel Harvest Church and the answer to prayer that Bethel has been for me and my family.  For the past six years that I have called Bethel my church home I have laughed, cried, prayed and prayed some more as God has been ever so faithful to grace us with His glorious holy Presence.  Week after month, after year – - service in and service out – - I can only remember a few times when He was not noticeably among us.  Signs; wonders; tangible anointing-you-can-feel; or the glory cloud hovering above us.  {And obviously He is never the one who moves.}  For a saint who hungers after Him as a deer pants for water, I have found my home for worship and truth and I can’t imagine myself at any other place.

As Pastor Stephanie’s blog reflected on her journey toward this day – - I too recall that twelve years ago I was living in another town; working in a job that I thought would last forever; connected with a group of praying women (Moms in Touch) that could pray thunder and lightning down from heaven; and preparing for an empty nest as my youngest child was turning eighteen.  I was looking forward to the next season of life.  Spiritually, however,  I had long been yearning for much more than my denominational church life was giving me.  That longing led me to break from the religious stream I was locked into – - and as one prophet spoke to me years later, “the gifts and callings of God invaded my life”.  I have not looked back since.

The fullness and continued escalation of the quality of worship and teaching at Bethel is also what keeps me coming back for more.  Just when I think Pastor Stephanie couldn’t be any more immersed in passionate worship before our God  – - or Pastor Marion couldn’t possibly be any more anointed and gifted in his teaching/caring for his sheep, another shift comes.   And then BAM!  We dive deeper into the Kingdom principles and become more intimately connected with our God and each other than we ever dreamed could be possible.  And the promise is that in 2010 everything is going up!  {Be still my rapidly beating heart!!}

I have finally found that community of believers who are every bit as hungry as I am and desire to dive always deeper into the unfathomable depths of our God!  We may not all express it in the same crazy ways that I have been known to at times – but hunger and thirst with passion we all do.  And our God has blessed us with exactly the right leaders to keep us on His unique track for Bethel Harvest Church.  Happy 11th Anniversary dear Bethel family!   I love you!!

This post brought to you by Deanie Cinnanmon.

Pardon me while I get a little selfish for a minute, but what comes to my mind when I think of the 11^th anniversary of Bethel is gratitude for all the work that went into building a church just for me.  I know, of course, that’s not why you did it.  You did it out of love for God.  You did it because you wanted to obey His vision.  No one in this church even knew me back then.  You didn’t know my wife or kids.  You didn’t know any of my friends.  But regardless, you built a church just for me.

You built a forgiving place—a church that God could use to take me deeper in my understanding of His incredible grace.  I knew God’s grace before.  I knew I couldn’t save myself.  But I didn’t fully grasp that all my condemnation was gone, that I wasn’t second rate goods, that I was a son not a servant.  You built a church where I could worship with all my heart every week, where my soul could fly all the way to my Daddy’s lap on His heavenly throne and bask in His love.  And you constructed a place filled to overflowing with God’s word where I could learn to follow Jesus with more faith and greater obedience.  In other words, you built just the kind of church I needed, just the kind of church I was looking for.  You built a church just for me.

And that makes me wonder—who ELSE are we building the kingdom for?  What unknown brother or sister needs us next?  Whose victories will we get to celebrate together this year?  Whose tears will we wipe away?  And what kind of church will we build for them?  Lord, I can’t wait to meet them.  Please let us build just the church they need.

David McKay

Isn’t it funny how seasons of our life can seem so long at times, but at other times seem to flash before you like the blink of an eye?

I remember the summer day in 1998 that I was sitting in our maroon colored Acura Vigor, going through the Fifth Third Bank drive-through in Columbus, Ohio and heading out to get the day’s chores done.  Just as I was pulling out of the bank, my cell phone rang and it was Marion.  He called to tell me that all plans for moving to Lexington to plant a church had been approved by our Pastor and that the time line had been moved up by one year.  One year?!  Didn’t anyone care that I did not want the time line moved up one year?!

I sat in the sun-drenched car that day with overwhelming feelings of fear, excitement, and urgency. I feared because I had a plan that I was working and now the plan was changing. I knew what I needed and wanted to accomplish to prepare for our move to Lexington.  It only seemed fair to me that I should be able to prepare the way I felt most comfortable with since this was such a permanent move.

Excitement came over me.  This was the day we had prayed for and believed for.  There was an overwhelming sense of urgency to begin the work that God had spoken to our hearts.  The hours of planning, praying and dreaming were actually going to manifest in the natural.

Urgency also hit me.  With so many questions and so few answers, I had a sense of urgency that things needed to get done.  My year time-line had changed significantly and now things needed to get done quickly. I now had four months.  Questions needed to be answered.  When will we go?  How will we find a church meeting place?  Have we prepared enough financially?  What about my family – how do we tell them of the date change? Where will we live?  Who will come to our church?  God….ARE YOU SURE?

Twelve years have passed since that day at the drive-through.  Wow…take a moment with me and think about where you were twelve years ago (I would love to hear your comments!).  Twelve years filled with more emotions and experiences than I have time to share in this one blog!  (I had never even heard of a blog 12 years ago…I don’t think they even existed).

I think about the way God has crossed our paths.  It is amazing to me the wonderful people that God has brought across my path since the inception of Bethel. From the Ukraine to India to Haiti to Lexington to Nicholasville to next door, stories that bring richness to my life.  The individuals that I have watched God restore to a relationship with him is amazing – moms, dads, sons, and daughters that one by one changed their eternal destination at a place called Bethel.  This is a place where friendships have been made and people have begun to build life together.  One Bible study at a time, one wedding at a time, one funeral at a time, one birth of a child at a time, one softball game at a time, one meal at a time,  and one service at a time.  Many experiences have brought us and keep us together.

I think about the wonderful God that has showed me more mercy than I deserve. He has showed me more love than I could ever share and given me more faith than I ever thought was possible. Today, my walk with my Savior is surer; my passion for His mission stronger and my heart is full of expectation.

Today, I am thankful for Bethel’s 11^th year anniversary. I am also looking forward to many more years of stories that declare the awesomeness of our Savior.  To those who have called Bethel home at some point along this journey and to those who are among the family today, thank you for sharing the journey.  We’ve only just begun!

This blog brought to you by Pastor Stephanie Dalton.