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?

Retreat Wrap-Up

Wow! What a retreat! I have wanted to post about the retreat for the past three days, but haven't been able to find a good time to do so until now. To sum up my opinion of this past weekend: I've been on lots of retreats in my life (and get to go to a men's retreat from my church this weekend), many of them very good, but this one might be the best one I've ever been on. I'm not prone to exaggeration or hyperbole, so I say that with all seriousness and joy.

A huge thank you to everyone who went. You were GREAT participants and engaged in the wide variety of worship styles and activities with wonderful attitudes which allowed me to also worship freely despite being focused on teaching.

A few other thank you's...
Thanks to Steve and Rod for so ably leading us in worship through song. Thanks to Amber & Matt for buying all the food and overseeing the cooking. Thanks to Christina for the great games. Thanks to John for leading us all weekend and keeping us on schedule. Thanks to the Boy Scouts for letting us use the Allsop Center despite having a busy weekend hosting a Boy Scout conference. And thanks to God for the sunny day on Saturday and the great weekend.

If anyone has pictures from the weekend, email them to me at erin.bird@newcovenantbible.org, please!

Watershed website down

Yes, we know - the main Watershed website is currently down. We are working on correcting the problem.

For those of you wanting directions to the Allsop Center for tonight's retreat, Joe has bailed you out with this post. Thanks, Joe!

Maps to Retreat

I believe an email will be sent out about this later today, but for those like me who've been wondering how to get to the Boy Scout Camp/Allsop Center in Waubeek for the retreat, here are the directions.

For you Google fans, here's a Google map of the same general area.

See you in Waubeek. :-)

John Stackhouse is blogging

Some of you may remember our Nov. 2, 2006 worship gathering at Coe College to hear John Stackhouse speak about "Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad: What's the difference?"

Well Prof. Stackhouse is now blogging! I just happened to stumble upon it this evening and thought some of you might be interested in his thoughts.

Free Bible Software

Just heard about Bible Explorer, a free full-featured Bible software program. Thought some of you might be interested.

Thursday Serving Opportunities

We could use some happy-hearted servants in the following areas:

1) Childcare: A huge thank you to those of you who stepped up last month to help with childcare. We are still in need of 2 to 4 more childcare workers. We currently have a team of workers, and would like to keep a full team so that people serve once every 6 weeks. If you would enjoy playing with infants to 7 year olds, then please talk Erin Harlan. It's a great way to help the single moms and married-with-children couples in our midst!

2) Greetings Central: If you enjoy meeting people and making others feel comfortable, then we would love to have your help. We are hoping to put together a small team that will rotate serving at Greetings Central. It’s super easy and super fun, plus you get to meet lots of new people at our Thursday Gatherings. Talk with Amber Schouten if interested.

3) Worship Team: If you like to sing or play an instrument and have a desire to lead people in worshipping God through song, talk with Steve Adolphs.

Women's Summer Retreat

With the annual Watershed Retreat coming up, some of you females might be interested to know that Nichole DeKlotz is working on putting together a Watershed Women’s Retreat to The Boston Mountains in Arkansas this summer. If you are female, enjoy hiking, and discussing life as a God-fearing woman, then come to an informational meeting Thursday, January 25th, immediately following the Worship Gathering and learn how you can get involved in the preparations.

Retreat!

We will be having our 4th annual Watershed Retreat starting 7:00p Friday night (registration begins at 6:00p), Jan 26, and ending the next day at 5:00p on Jan 27 (but could use clean-up help until 6:00p).

This year's topic will be Spiritual Pathways and promises to be deeply spiritual, wonderfully refreshing, and highly practical!

Cost is $25 for the whole retreat, which includes lodging, meals, and a copy of Sacred Pathways by Gary Thomas. Registations can be downloaded here (and the pretty cover for the brochure can be downloaded here if you so desire). Registrations and payment can either be turned in at a Thursday Gathering or mailed to:

Erin Bird
New Covenant Bible Church
1800 46th St. NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Checks must be made payable to New Covenant Bible Church. If you have any questions, direct them to Erin at 395-0021.

Podcasters Wanted!

For quite a while, we've been recording the message from Watershed's Thursday night gatherings and posting the MP3s to the "Listen" page. We've even started podcasting. But we've done all that kind of on the side, with various people (mostly Erin) chipping in some time to edit MP3s, update the listen page, get the podcast feed set up, and so on.

We want to make sure that if someone can't make it to a Thursday night gathering, they can still hear the message. It's not a huge time commitment, but it's something that needs to be done regularly. Ideally, we'll have a team of at least two podcasters, so one person won't have to do all the work.

Do you want to serve the Watershed community as a podcaster? Do you want to know more? Talk to Matt, Erin, or Steve, or leave a comment here. (Updated to allow comments - sorry about that!)

The First Post

Waterblogged is now live! The official blog of Watershed will soon have announcements, news, and thoughts related to life as young adults who are seeking to be followers of Jesus.

You can subscribe to the blog with programs like Bloglines or Google Reader so you won't miss anything posted here.