Gather.Grow.Give.Go in Proverbs 11

If you have attended a Thursday Gathering in the last 3 weeks or listened to the podcast of the messages, you know we are in a series about the vision of Watershed called "Gather.Grow.Give.Go".

Well, Andrea Sandoval just dropped off a sheet of paper here at my house with verses on it from Proverbs 11 that fit perfectly with the stuff we are learning from Ezekiel 47, especially this last Thursday as we talked about the fruit and the leaves in verse 12 and how those signify what we as Christians are to give. These verses are so good, I thought I should share them here on Waterblogged, so here you go:

verse 25 : "A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed."

verse 28 : "Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will thrive like a green leaf."

verse 30 : "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise."

If you have any other verses you know of our find in the Scripture relating to the images and ideas in Ezekiel 47, feel free to post them here in the comments.

All Scripture from the New International Version, Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society

Major Announcement #3

Tonight the third Major Announcement was made as part of the Gather.Grow.Give.Go series. And here it is:

We are looking for a new location for our Thursday Gatherings! We'd like it to be somewhat centralized in the city, possibly free, and a room for childcare. Churches, bars, store fronts, whatever you find. If you have any ideas of where this place might be, please send an email to erin.bird@newcoveREMOVEnantbible.org.

Being Entish...

Tonight, during the "Grow" talk, I mentioned some Bible reading plans to help those of you not faithfully getting rooted in Christ through the Word. But I failed to have the website on the PowerPoint for those who wanted to go to the web and check those out themselves. So here's the link:

http://www.heartlight.org/devotionals/reading_plans/

Also, I mentioned ideas to help you remember to pray. I thought it would be fun to open up comments on this post and hear ideas some of you have to help you to remember to pray.

Going Deeper...

I got the following email from someone who missed last Thursday's Worship Gathering and caught up with the message via podcast. I thought it might encourage some of you to know that God is calling some of you (hopefully lots of you!) into deeper places with him. So that the attention is on God and not this individual, I've edited (with permission) the text so that the email stays anonymous:

Erin,

I just listened to the message you gave this last Thursday on Gathering. Something that always amazes me is God's timing. Just in the last few days I've felt a pull to go deeper with Christ. It's not necessarily a new pull, but a renewed one. I feel like I've been trying to do things to get to Christ but missing something. A friend put it best when she explained it last night: it's like I've been striving to get close with Him. I think I need to abide in Him and realize that His presence is already here.

When we go deep in the river that is Christ, he pulls us wherever he wants. I feel like I've been wading for a while now and wish that the river would pull me into the deep as it pulls those who are already there. What can I do to loose the grip on whatever my toes are wrapped around? Or maybe I'm wading in the wrong direction. Either way, I've again realized where I'd like to be and that I'm not quite there yet.

Tomorrow night's talk will be on "Grow" and we'll address for a bit what it looks like in the Watershed context to go knee deep and begin to go deeper in the river (to let our toes loose their grip!). I'm excited that God is not only working in this person's life, but yours as well!

Passion coming to Chicago!

Passion is coming to Chicago! I (Amy) have been to the Passion Conferences the last 2 years and I am so excited to know they are coming so close and over a weekend! I will be organizing a group to go with me from Watershed. The only details I know is that it is the weekend of October 19 and 20th. It will be a Friday and Saturday. I do not know time information, or any other details. But stay tuned because I will be staying on top of it!

If you are interested in coming, let me know and I will definitely keep you in the loop!

Passion is a young adult conference that is an amazing experience and both years I have went, I have been amazed. Having so many young adults in the same room, worshipping Jesus is soooo amazing you will not want to miss out! You will not be disappointed!

If you want to read the Passion blog, you can find it at www.268blog.blogspot.com and if you want to know more about Passion Conferences, you can find that at www.268generation.com.

MORE TO COME!!!!

Paul Rivera Frias: A Life Transformed!

I just received this email from CURE International, so I thought I would share with everyone so you can see just how your donations are helping!

--------------------------------------------------

Passion07 challenged you to “do something now” to actively live your life for Christ. You took that challenge to heart. Your partnership with CURE is not just doing “something”, it is doing incredible things. It is changing lives. The following story of a child who was healed by a Passion07 sponsored surgery is proof of that.
Paul Rivera Frias will never have to grow up with the stigma of being disabled. He probably won’t even remember going through treatment for his disability. The chubby, little two-year-old is fortunate, he was able to get help early on in his life so that he won’t ever experience the trials that other individuals with disabilities in the Dominican Republic endure. Paul has you to thank for that. It was through your commitments at Passion07 that Paul was able to avoid the heartache and difficulties of being disabled in the developing world.
Born with scoliosis, Paul was referred to CURE for surgery by a hospital near his hometown of Los Alcarrizos, a remote village 30 minutes north of Santo Domingo. The surgery to strengthen his spine was a success. He soon will be able to crawl, and eventually walk, like other toddlers. Although, Paul may never realize or understand the transformation he received at CURE, his mother, Maria Frias, is more than aware of the profound affect his surgery had on his life. “We now have the hope that he is going to grow just as any normal person,” says Maria. For such a little guy, his family already has high hopes for his future. “Our biggest hope is that he could study and become a good professional,” Maria says with a smile. Maria and Paul Frias already attend church with the rest of their family, but say that their faith has grown through their experience at CURE.

Thank you,
CURE International

Stand Tall Performance at Cornell College

Many of you will remember the drama performance by Stand Tall (FYI: that's an old website) from Cornell College during our "Worship Through the Arts" series in February. Maggie, one of the student leaders, just emailed me this, and I wanted to share it with all of you:

Hi Erin!

It's been awhile now since Stand Tall performed at Watershed and we've been busy. We loved performing for you all! We just wanted to let you and everyone at Watershed know that we have our large campus performances coming up this Monday and Tuesday, April 16th and 17th. Our performance is called "Quo Vadis...where are you going?" and is comprised of new skits, poetry, music, monologues and choreography written almost entirely by members from our group. The material covers a span of emotions and questions that are faced by both Christians and non-Christians, although we are centering our performance on living joyfully and trustfully in God's truth in order to answer the question "where are you going?". We would love to see members of Watershed there at one or both of our performances. Here's all the information you should need:

What: Stand Tall Christian Performing Arts presents "Quo Vadis...where are you going?"
When: Monday, April 16th and Tuesday, April 17th at 7pm-9:15pm (no intermission)
Where: Cornell College - Black Box - Armstrong Hall (this building is right of the Commons when facing the Commons. To get to the Black Box, enter the doors on the left-hand side of the building, go down a short flight of steps, and directly ahead is the small theatre. People will be there handing out programs)
Other info: Admission is free! Bring your friends!
For more info: contact m-obermann@cornellcollege.edu or Maggie at 970-405-3787

If you could pass on this information, it would be greatly appreciated!
-Maggie

Technical Difficulties

For those of you that gave to CURE International, I thank you again! However, it has come to my attention that some of you might not have saw a confirmation page after you submitted your donation online. There might have been some technical problems with the laptop, specifically the one on the right side (Windows computer).

So, if you did not receive a confirmation page, I would suggest keeping an eye on your credit card account to see if anything posts in the next couple days, if not you can use the link posted in the previous blog that I posted earlier.

Thanks so much!

The 2007 Maundy Thursday service in review

Last night's Maundy Thursday prayer night was a great event in my opinion. First, the generous giving that Amy talked about in the last blog post absolutely overwhelmed me. I am so proud of all of you!

Second, watching so many of you praying inspired me to pray. I had already gone through all the stations in a sense during the preparation, but I was so moved watching so many of you spend serious time with God, contemplating the Scripture passages and what they mean to your life, it motivated me to go through each station again, but this time not as prep but for genuine prayer and reflection.

Third, I was impressed that so many of you just rolled with this completely new method of worship. I expected a few more people to have negative reactions (anytime you implement big change like this, even for a one time event you can expect criticism and negative response), but so many of you were amazingly flexible and sought to connect with God.

I don't know that we'll ever do this again, but if we did, I would change a few things. The scented oil, for one, was too strong. I thought the scent was very nice, but I never imagined it would not only take over the whole worship center, but the whole building! I had a slight headache by the time we were doing tear-down, and I think the scent was partly to blame. My apologies to any of you that are sensitive to smells. The goal was to just have the scent in the area of that particular prayer station concerning the woman and her sacrifice of her embalming perfume.

The other thing I would change is the preparation time. I WAY underestimated how much time it would take to put things together. A HUGE thank you goes to my administrative assistant, Gina Green, here at New Covenant. I try not to bother her with Watershed things, but she got all the books folded and stapled, the various elements collected (communion stuff, props, candles, etc.), and more.

Also, thanks to John Connelly for writing three of the stations' notes and suggested prayers. I wish he hadn't gotten sick so that he could have written more of them - his thoughts and prayers really touched me.

Thanks also to Amy Arp for giving all of us the opportunity to give as part of our worship.

And lastly, thanks to Matt, Mike, Nate, April, Daniel, Ida, Steve, and Heather for their help in set-up and/or tear-down. Without them, the evening would have been a flop.

I've opened up comments on this blog for those who want to share their thoughts about the evening. What did you like? What weirded you out? What would you have done had you planned something like this?

And for those who missed the evening and would like to know what it was all about, I have made a PDF with the content of the prayer guides that were handed out at the door as well as the Scriptures that were at each prayer station. All you'll be missing is some bread, juice, a couple of laptops, and a whole lot of smell!

CURE International Total

I am so overwhelmed by the generous giving of everyone last night at the Maundy Thursday worship service. I am so excited to tell you that we raised $1861.25 last night! That includes the cash and the online donations! Thank you all so much for helping out! Lindsay and I are so excited about it!!!

If you were not able to attend last night and still want to give here are 3 ways:
#1. let me know via email (amyarp@gmail.com),
#2. or you can give by clicking on Sponsor Me! on the left side of this page: http://www.curenetcomm.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=363&srcid=362&frsid=45
#3. or at watershed next week.

Thank you all again so much!
Amy

Maundy Thursday Worship Service

Join us on Thursday, April 5, at 7:30 pm for a special Maundy Thursday worship service. The night looks to be unlike anything we have ever done before, so come with no expectations except to meet with God and worship Him.

CURE International Offering

Because we are in the middle of a teaching series on practical Christianity during our Thursday Gatherings, we want to follow through with what we are learning. James 1:27 tells us to care for widows and orphans, in other words, the underprivileged who perhaps feel unloved. We want to reach out to some underprivileged people who might feel unloved because of a physical deformity.

On April 5, the night of our Maundy Thursday Worship Service, we will be taking an offering to raise $2,000 to sponsor one surgery through CURE International, an organization that is helping kids in third world countries have a new lease on life through life-changing surgeries. If you have any questions about CURE International, visit their website, or talk with Amy Arp.

If you want to donate online ahead of time, please use this link, and click on "Sponsor Me" so we can know how much of the $2,000 we have raised.

Most popular young adult websites

I just saw this morning on the Church Relevance blog that Facebook is the most popular website among 17-25 year olds. Even if you aren't in this age range, what is your most popular website?

Mar 1 Gathering - CANCELLED!

As you can see on the Watershed home page, tonight's Worship Gathering has been CANCELLED due to the weather. Even though it is just wet right now (I was just out on the roads and thought we should be able to go tonight), Kirkwood has cancelled all classes after 5:00 pm (we have used them in the past to help us make cancellation decisions), plus the radar at this moment seems to be showing the storm to be swirling back to the south as it heads east, meaning the part of the storm that has closed down I-80 between Omaha and Des Moines is headed our way.

So enjoy the night tucked in at home. Stay warm, and get ready to hear Andy next week on the topic of "The Heart of God".

The Heart of God

Tonight (weather permitting) and next Thursday we have the awesome privilege of having Andy K share with us a two part series on "The Heart of God".

Andy has spoken for us before, way back in the day when we gathered in the New Covenant basement. If you have never heard Andy speak, do whatever you can to get to tonight's AND next week's gatherings. Andy shares passionately from his heart and from the Scriptures. Our hope is that some of Andy's passion oozes onto you and you will leave each Worship Gathering moved to have your heartbeat get in sync with God's.

Andy is on staff at Parkview Church in Iowa City, helping out with 24-7 and outreach. He is a popular workshop speaker at the Main Event conference every fall as well as a speaker for Perspectives. He is the husband of Jamie and father of 3 (one who went to be with Jesus before birth, and new twins (a boy and a girl) born last summer).

The Next Young Adult Generation

Erin here. I will try not to do this very often, but I thought some of you might be interested in some recent surveys that have been released in the past couple months that I posted about on my personal blog. The only reason I am linking is because it has to do with the next generation of young adults and I don't want to recreate the post over here. Some of the survey results were startling to me and might be to you as well.

As I said on my blog, these results concern me, but also motivate me. And I am glad that God has Watershed here in Cedar Rapids at this time to help address the issues raised in these reports. But it is going to take a group of people moving in step with the flow of the Holy Spirit to help reach the young adults of Eastern Iowa for Christ. Will you step into the flow with us?

Life For God forum

For those of you missing the "good old days" with the Watershed forum, you might want to know that Joe Clark and some others have gotten a "Life For God Cedar Rapids" forum up and running. If you enjoy discussing theology, sharing prayer requests, playing games, or just interacting with other young adults online, then join the Life For God forum.

Thanks, Joe (and whoever else helped), for getting that forum going!

Looking for Angels

Last night, Amber and I went out and to use up a gift card I got for Christmas. We picked up Skillet's newest album, Comatose. I listened to it today (the verdict: it's good), and was struck by the last song, Looking for Angels.

The song ends:

...
Angels show up in the strangest places
Going through this life, looking for angels
People passing by, looking for angels
Walking down the streets looking for angels
Everyone I meet looking for angels

I may have "missed the point" of the song (part of the last verse goes "smile as you turn the other cheek/Pray for your enemies, humble yourself"), but after the song, I wasn't thinking about all the nice/holy/helpful things I could do for other people. I was thinking "What if I looked for the good?" So often, I look for the problems, the flaws, the bad. What if I looked for angels, for good things, for reasons to smile and praise?

I hope to find out. I'm going to try it.

Josh Bales is coming!

Hey everyone. Just wanted to remind you all that Josh will be back with us again this year THIS Thursday night (Feb 8) at our normal time and place (7:30 pm in New Covenant's worship center). Not only will you not want to miss this night of Worship Through the Arts #3: "Song", but you will want to grab two or three friends to come with you.

Not only can you hear some of Josh's songs on his main site, you can also hear some over at his MySpace site. But just a heads up - he will be doing slightly different music on Thursday than you'll find on his albums.

What We Learned on the Retreat

Erin posted already about the great time that we had on the retreat. I wanted to share a bit of what we did and learned, so that those of you who couldn't go can get a taste of what you missed.

The short version of what we learned: not everyone worships God in the same way.

Yeah, the long version is way better. The inspiration for the weekend was a book called Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas. The book describes nine pathways that people take to connect with and worship God:

• Traditionalist: Someone who approaches God through ritual and symbolism
• Intellectual: Someone who approaches God through thought and study
• Sensate: Someone who approaches God through the use of the senses (sight, touch, smell, taste, hearing)
• Enthusiast: Someone who approaches God through excitement and celebration
• Activist: Someone who approaches God through involvement and working to right injustices
• Ascetic: Someone who approaches God through solitude
• Contemplative: Someone who approaches God through adoration
• Naturalist: Someone who approaches God through nature
• Caregiver: Someone who approaches God by loving others
  

These definitions are all based on memory, so feel free to clarify/discuss in the comments.

One of the neatest things about the retreat was that after a brief teaching session about each pathway, we tried them out. Some were very easy and fulfilling (I could have walked outdoors enjoying the Naturalist session for hours), and some less so (I enjoyed the Sensate session, but didn't strongly feel that I was drawing closer to God during that time). If you liked a pathway, the practice session was great, but ended too soon. And even if you absolutely weren't compatible with a pathway, you knew the practice session would be over eventually.

As a result of the retreat, God gave me (and almost certainly others) some insight into some of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Not everyone connects to God like I do (which is good, because I tend towards the ascetic end of things). Even though I might not be able to understand how some of you connect to God, it doesn't mean that your pathway is any less than mine (many of the pathways came with a caution against judging others). In fact, Jesus illustrated most or all of the pathways, so they're all pathways that God in the flesh followed.

For those of you that went to the retreat: what session(s) did you enjoy? What's your pathway? I already mentioned I'm a bit of an ascetic, and I have naturalist and caregiver tendencies. Were there any pathways that just didn't make any sense to you?

And for those of you that didn't go: what do you think your favorite pathways are?