SUIT UP

The month of February was all about Suiting Up for Point Kids. The adults were going through a series titled "Sexy Church" so in efforts to stay on a similar page we talked about putting on the full armor of God.

Explaining to a few of the younger kids early in the month that we don't actually put on the armor was a little tough, but they eventually got it.

When the PK (Malachi) asked me a pretty deep theological

question about weather or not we actually fight the devil I was floored.... "Kat, we learn to put on the armor of God, does that mean that we have to fight the devil at some point?" (something like that) My response was first, WOW and then... "Do you remember what Easter is all about?"// "yeah that's when Jesus died on the cross and then he rose again 3 days later."// "yup that's right! Well part of the armor of God is the helmet of Salvation, which is when we ask Jesus to be out best friend. When we ask Jesus to do that it's like having your own super hero squad."// "Ok so Jesus being our best friend helps us so that we don't have to really fight the devil!" (the words may have been slightly different but not much)

Some weeks we feel like the kids aren't paying attention and like they don't get it at all and then moments like what happened with Malachi happen and you realize, WOW they really do get it.

Yesterday as their teacher taught them about the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit I sat in the back of our theater and wrote "suit up" and eph 6:11 on 17 balloon swords and prayed for our kids I was blown away at the end when they all decided to sign a foam sword signifying that they wanted to SUIT UP! Aside from having AMAZING teachers our church has some pretty incredible kids.

Just when we think they aren't paying attention they come out with AMAZING questions and responses. Yesterday our kids made a commitment to "Suit Up!" (Eph 6:11) They signed a foam sword that now hangs above my desk. It hangs there to remind me to pray for them, to remind myself to "suit up" and as a reminder of how amazingly blessed I am to get to work with such AWESOME kids!

W-A-I-T...

Wait....

Most of the time we HATE that word! One definition for the word wait is... "to continue as one is in expectation"

How do you keep going as though something is going to happen when you're not sure how or when it is going to happen?

Waiting starts with a Want...

We want something. We see something we desire but for some reason it's not the right time for us to have the thing that we want.

Our church has seen the increased need for a space we could call our own. A space where our church could continue to grow as a healthy, life giving, family friendly church. Our leadership discussed the WANT and quickly realized that it would take a miracle of God to be able to obtain a building of any sort. So we decided to make do with what we have and remain in that stage where we continue as though we are expecting something greater than what we have.

But after you Want something you cannot help but Anticipate that thing to come to be. The Anticipation keeps you up at night, it causes you to think and dream things that you're not too sure you will ever really see happen but then also that you know you really want to see happen. In November (2010) our church was approached by another church that was closing it's doors and asked if we had an interest in buying their building. A team of our leadership went to check out this building and could not help but Anticipate and dream of the potential the building could have for our church.

Once you Want and Anticipate you Invoke, you know pray. Ask God do do the impossible, pray that He would direct your steps and that He would help you through the waiting process.

After seeing the building our team and our church prayed, we prayed that God would be in control of the situation and if it wasn't something He wanted for us that we would be ok with whatever happened. That if the answer was no that something even better would come along and if the answer was yes that we would have the wisdom to do what needed to be done for our church.

But what do you do when you Want something, then Anticipate, and Invoke.... what's next? Well... all that's left to do is TRUST.

Once you walk through the Want, to the Anticipation and Invoke God all you can do is Trust that the author and finisher of our faith has it all under control. We (our church) Trusted that God knew what he was doing and today our Pastor (2 days after his birthday, 6 days before we celebrate our church's 3rd birthday, on Valentine's day- you know the day of LOVE) signed a contract to BUY the building we saw back in November. The place we Wanted, Anticipated, Invoked God for, and TRUSTED for... it's ours! It's like our own little TRUE LOVE WAITs Valentine!!!

Yup pretty sure Valentine's Day 2011 is one that we will NEVER forget! =)