Harvest Barrie

In the quiet, in the stillness I know that you are God

I am a night owl…well, I used to be…I’m in transition, desperately trying to train my body for mornings.  I am well aware that personal time with the Lord needs to be a significant priority and I tried, sometimes harder than other times, to keep my priorities straight and make sure that I spent time with the Lord every night before I went to bed. Lately I’d been failing in this a lot more than I’d been succeeding and many of my successes were weak.

My small group just finished reading Good to Great in God’s Eyes by Chip Ingram (GREAT read!) and the last chapter focused on developing great habits.  Kerry asked each of us to share what habit the Lord was laying on each of our hearts – I will admit to not being initially thrilled about what the Lord was laying on my heart but I knew that disobedience was no longer an option. I’ve been spending years making up excuses as to why I don’t spend my time with the Lord in the morning: “I’m a night owl, morning isn’t my ‘best’ time, the words don’t even make sense to me in the morning, people in my life don’t even try to talk to me before 9 a.m. so why would I spend my miserable hours of the day with God?” …I had more excuses than that but I will spare you!

Honestly as we went around the circle sharing what habits we needed to change I was pleading with the Lord to direct me to a different habit – pretty much anything other than getting up earlier would be fine. However, it was the Lord’s timing and I committed to turning things off earlier at night and trying for one month to get up earlier to spend time with the Lord. I’ve done pretty well with this new resolve and am about three quarters of the way through my specified time commitment…and I’m LOVING it.

The line from None but Jesus that says, “in the quiet, in the stillness I know that you are God” has a whole new meaning for me.  There is something so precious about sitting on my couch, wrapped in an afghan, fireplace on, listening to worship music, sipping coffee and spending time in God’s Word by the light of a lamp while the rest of the house is silent – I LOVE it.

I love that there hasn’t been any distraction to my day that early in the morning – no problems that need solving, no emails (that I know of) that need answering…I’m rested and ready to begin a day with my priorities straight and my heart being tuned to the Lord’s. I’ve found myself to be much more aware of my words, thoughts and actions and that I seem to be operating on more grace than I would say is usual for me.  I feel like my relationship with the Lord has grown immensely in three short weeks and I’m a bit stunned.

People have told me MANY times about the value of spending time with the Lord in the morning…and there are LOTS of verses in the Bible to support the idea of morning devo time – Psalm 5:3 for example - "O LORD, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch." I’m not up preparing a sacrifice of anything but my time/sleep…I just needed to come to this on my own and in the Lord’s timing.

If you have the same excuses that I did let me challenge you to give mornings a shot for just one month to see if it makes a difference in your life.  You’ll likely need to be intentional – I have to write out the verses I’m reading that really stick out to me and I’m journaling my prayers daily…because early mornings aren’t my sharpest time of the day I do need some tools to ensure that my time with the Lord is meaningful…but it’s working!

Our Journey is another EXCELLENT tool – there are always copies at the bookstore on Sunday mornings. If this is a tool that benefits you make sure to order your copy for the new year!

I would love to hear from you what tools you use in your time with the Lord…

Amy

Words

My book study group is reading a fantastic book right now – “The Power of Words and the Wonder of God” by several authors (see below). If you want to be challenged and want to see your tongue as the disgusting piece of flesh that it can be so that you are sickened and strive in a whole new way for personal holiness when it comes to your words – pick up this book!

I just finished a chapter written by Mark Driscoll and he lists seven practical ways that we can pray for our shepherd. My small group has been praying through one of these points each week since the end of summer…we pray not just for Todd but for the other elders and ministry leaders in our church. I thought it was a really great resource to share.

I wonder what our church would look like in a year if we committed to praying through one of these points each week for the next year? What a great way to show that Harvest Loves...OUR SHEPHERDS!

Seven Ways to pray for your Shepherd

1. Pray that God would give your shepherd a discerning mind. Your shepherd needs to discern who the sheep, swine, wolves and dogs are so that he knows how he and the church should respond.

2. Pray that God would give your shepherd thick skin. Critics can be merciless, and Judas-like friends can be even crueler. Your shepherd receives mean-spirited emails from the people he cares for, suffers from constant gossip and rumors about him and his family, and spends hours every day simply turning the other cheek. When he fails, he is criticized for being a poor leader. And when he succeeds, he is criticized by those who are jealous. When he is a young man he is criticized for being inexperienced and arrogant. And when he is old, he is criticized for not being as energetic, passionate, and innovative as when he was young. Pray that your shepherd would have thick skin and selective hearing to ignore people and comments he should — and yet to receive the people and comments he should.

3. Pray that your shepherd would have a good sense of humour. Without a good sense of humour, shepherds will be overcome with anxiety and stress and will miss wonderful opportunities to laugh deeply from the gut as an act of faith. Shepherds are imperfect as are their individual sheep (sorry, but it’s true!) and their collective flock.

Ministry is pressure, and humour is a good release valve that helps to relieve the pressure. Without the release valve of humour, the pressure on a shepherd increases until he simply breaks. This break will be spiritual, emotional, mental, or physical depending upon the weakest cracks in his life. Too many shepherd break. Some leave ministry altogether, while others limp along as their outlook grows bleaker, darker and more somber.

4. Pray that your shepherd would have a tender heart. One of the primary duties of a shepherd is to see and deal with sin, folly, and horror in the lives of people they love. It is brutal. If you are not a shepherd, imagine spending much of every week visiting the sick and dying in the hospital, preaching funerals, mending the broken marriages, serving addicts of various ills, and weeping with victims of molestation and rape. The needs are overwhelming, the shepherd feels woefully unfit for the work, and there is no end in sight. Pray that his heart would remain tender toward God and his flock, because that requires a miracle of grace.

5. Pray that your shepherd would have a humble disposition. Simply put, pride is the root that nourished the fruit of all sin and is akin to picking a fight with God. But God promises to give grace to the humble. Nothing breaks a church like pride, and nothing builds it like humility. Jesus the Chief Shepherd is the most perfectly humble person who has or will ever live …

Without this humility, a proud shepherd contributes to a church culture of rivalry, conceit, competition, and selfish ambition, and a lack of teach-ability, submission to godly authority, and repentance.

Pray that as a result of humility he would follow the truth wherever it leads, invite and pursue correction from fellow shepherds, have the courage to lead boldly despite the personal cost, learn from everyone, repent quickly and thoroughly, seek and celebrate God’s grace at work in the lives of other Christians and churches, have a spirit of thankfulness, and listen to Scripture more than himself.

6. Pray that your shepherd would have a supportive family. Between the accusations of Satan, stings of critics, and discouraging awareness of his personal shortcomings and inadequacies, a shepherd is greatly served by an encouraging wife and a home in which the Holy Spirit’s work is evident. Pray for the shepherd’s wife, because she is often put under great demands to be friends with women in the church she does not enjoy, reveal details from her personal life with people she does not trust, attend parties with people she does not know, share her marriage and family with people she does not feel appreciated by, endure gossip from people she has not met, and lovingly serve people who are not thankful.

Pray for the shepherd's children. If they are struggling with sin and faith, there is great pressure to hide it so that their father retains the respect of the sheep and so that the swine do not have an opportunity to gloat and call their father a hypocrite, the wolves do not have an opportunity to attack their father, and the dogs do not have an opportunity to bark at their father.

7. Pray that your shepherd would have an evangelistic devotion. People are dying and going to hell without Jesus. It is easy in light of the needs of the sheep, folly of the swine, dangers of the wolves, and threats of the dogs for the shepherd to become so consumed with his flock that he does not seek the conversion of lost people.

Pray for your shepherd that he would have a heart for lost people and make time in his schedule to labour for their salvation.

From: The Power of Words and the Wonder of God John Piper (Editor), Justin Taylor (Editor), Paul David Tripp, Sinclair B. Ferguson, Mark Driscoll, Daniel Taylor, Bob Kauflin

Amy

Relevant Evil

“I want to be relevant” – I feel like I hear Christians using that phrase a lot. What does that even look like for a believer? I kinda know what they’re getting at…but when I stand before Jesus I’m pretty sure he’s not going to be overly concerned with how relevant I was…but probably pretty concerned about my personal pursuit of holiness.

Philippians 4:8 is pretty clear:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

I took 13 minutes recently to watch a Mark Driscoll clip that was all over FaceBook the other week and was SO impressed by what I heard. The whole clip focuses on the current teenage (and beyond) fascination with vampires, werewolves, sorcery, witchcraft and other far from honorable, pure and lovely things. Why on earth are we giving headspace to these things?? Why are we allowing our youth to be filling their minds with this garbage? And not just allowing – we’re buying them the books, taking them to the movies…WHY!?!?

In talking with someone recently they stated something along the lines of, “Good thing I know what’s going on in the latest (insert Twilight book title here) so that I can discuss that with my peers but too bad I don’t know the bridge illustration and can’t share the gospel.”  How sadly true.

From the book "For the Love of God" D.A. Carson says...

 “People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, and obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord. We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.”

I urge you to check out the video below…see what the latest in teen fiction is these days, then PURGE the bookshelves in your home and get focused on things that are true, honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable…things that point us to the cross. 

Amy

 

Location Location Location

Just in case you’re in the south end sometime soon and have an overwhelming urge to bring someone coffee, the staff here at Harvest thought it would be a good idea to review where you can find us <winks!>.

Here’s how it is right now:

Sundays – worship with us at 750 Essa Road…9 a.m. or 11:15 a.m.

Monday to Friday – come by and see us at 112 Caplan Ave (corner of Caplan and Veterans in the old Canac Kitchens building…enter through the north facing doors…and you don’t really have to bring us coffee!).  We have been truly blessed as a staff to be back working together, with a fax machine, photocopier and phone lines all ready to be used. Feel free to drop in anytime to say hello and get a tour!  Don’t tell the rest of the staff but I totally have the best office (and the nicest smelling one!).

And if you want to mail us anything you can send it to:

37 Mapleview Drive West
PO Box 31040
Barrie ON
L4N 0B3

You might be thinking, “Wait a minute! What  about that house up on Bayfield Street!?!”  We’re really just waiting on the Lord (and the city) right now so please join us in praying for God’s clear leading, direction and timing.

In the meantime, drop by 112 Caplan for a visit…and feel free to bless us with coffee if the Lord just happens to lay that on your heart ☺.

Amy

I Worship Because

There are seasons in life where we know that God is God and we are not…but if we were God we’re sure that we’d be doing things differently because how it is right now just sucks (can I say ‘sucks’ on the church blog!?).

Desert Song has been my song during some hard seasons…being able to sing – really sing - some of those lyrics have been hard, terrifying, emotional and freeing all in one breath. “All of my life…in every season…you are still God…I have a reason to sing…I have a reason to worship.”

When we walk through a trial the lens through which we view life is changed…we see things differently, analyze things in a new way…when prayers and pleas with God have yet to be answered how we expected or thought they should be, we need to decide who and what we’re going to let God be to us in that moment.

Music is a big part of my life…corporate and personal worship is such an important part of my relationship with Christ…but I never want to sing the words of the songs on Sunday morning or at small group or on my iPod simply because I like the song or think that people are watching me (I’m not that big a deal!) and will wonder what’s wrong if I’m not singing…I want to sing meaningful words to my God. Sometimes I can’t sing all the words and I just need to sing what I can…and sometimes I just need to rest in the words and let them wash over me.

As I’ve thought about my approach to worshipping God I was reminded of something I read almost three years ago about a man grieving the loss of his son and his journey back into being able to sing a song of praise to God. I had to go back to find what he wrote so that I could share it with you and the words struck me even deeper tonight:

I sang because:
I worship God for what he has already done.
I worship God, not out of a heart of understanding, but a heart of surrender.
And, for the first time I was able to praise a God who could have healed my son but did not.

I don’t need to fully understand God to know that he deserves my highest praise…but I need to trust him and live in surrender to him and the life that he has for me.

I’d love to hear what song God is using to really speak to you right now…leave a comment…who knows who it might encourage today!

Amy

Joshua Seller – My King is Coming Album

Way back in June a group of faithful servants gathered in a room for the Harvest Volunteer Appreciation night. It was a great time of fellowship and celebrating what the Lord has been doing and continues to do at Harvest Barrie. Norm Millar from Harvest London encouraged us from the Word and Joshua Seller came from Oakville to lead us in a sweet time of worship.

That night was the first time I’d heard Joshua lead in worship. I spent the first song or two getting some pictures and then stood at the back of the room watching 200+ people responding in worship to the God of their salvation – it was incredible. Joshua has a deep love for the Lord and the words he spoke and sang that evening rang of deep gratitude for his salvation.

Many of you received Joshua’s Passionate Reverence EP that night – those three songs have been played A LOT in my iTunes over the past four months so I was SO excited to finally get the full album My King is Coming a week or so ago. Pretty sure I’ve listened to the album about once a day since getting it.

What’s not to LOVE with lyrics like:

- “I believe You are all You say You are/I put my faith in the greatness of my God” (track #2 – my personal favourite!)
-  “No praise can define You/No thought could contain You God/No other one is holy/No other one is robed in righteousness…”
-  “As I open this love letter let the words carry me/Let ancient truth echo/Through these pages and this ink…”

I get pretty excited about new music in my life so I wanted to share this with you. My King is Coming is in our Harvest Bookstore.  Make sure to bring $10 and plan to pick this album up on Sunday – you won’t be disappointed!

In the meantime – check out Joshua’s FaceBook group page for a sample of "Came to Save."

Amy

Time Wasters vs. Time Robbers

Today I came across an email that I wrote to a friend in 2005 after having a discussion about time wasters and time robbers. It was encouraging and challenging to me as I read over our discussion. I think I needed to be reminded and re-challenged in this area. I’ve tweaked it a little but pray that you too would be challenged and encouraged:

Life is short. I want every possible minute of my life to count for God’s glory. I don’t want to live a mediocre life for Christ…I have been made for the sole purpose of worshipping him and bringing glory to his name. There are so many things in my life that can take away from time better spent for him.  Take sleep, friends, some reading and T.V. as just a few examples. These aren’t always a waste of time but sometimes they can be time robbers in my life.
 
For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw--each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.

1 Corinthians 3.11-13

I have to be responsible to God for the choices that I make regarding how I spend my time.  I want to be able to know that each day I have spent my time well…I have worked toward building a lasting foundation by choosing things that actually matter in life, that have a greater purpose and something that others will see and by it know that I have something different in my life…ultimately a relationship with Jesus Christ.
 
I’m not saying that rest is something frivolous that we shouldn’t waste our time on…God wants us to rest. He created the day of rest! But I personally need to be very careful in finding the balance between rest and idleness/laziness…that’s me…an area in my life that I have recognized as a weakness…a time robber…
 
I’m also not saying that God doesn’t want us to have fun or spend time with friends. I just think that at times there are wiser choices that I could be making…both in my friendships and how I spend my time with friends. I value my friendships very much and consider them to be blessings from God.  My close friends are amazing people who encourage me, support me and challenge me to grow. However, I also have other friends who are more of a challenge at times and who (at times) have no interest in mutual growth/encouragement and yet I feel that the Lord has called me to continue to be a friend to them, invest in them and love them. I just need to protect myself and my time with them so that I don’t end up wasting hours by doing something completely meaningless with them. If the friendship isn’t "iron sharpening iron" (Proverbs 27:17) or at the very least me having opportunity to encourage the friend and point them to Christ, it runs the risk of becoming a time robber if there is someone or something else that I could be investing in that the Lord is directing me towards. I know that I need to be really careful to never view people as time-wasters or robbers…but the activities and conversations that I participate in with them could become those things. That is why I should always be putting these things before the Lord and striving to love people with Christ’s love.
 
I want people to see me as different, set apart and unique. I want people to be drawn to Christ through me but I know that I have A LOT of things in my life that I need to continue to work on. I’ve come a long way but I still seem to have forever to go and that excites me…it really does. I’m excited to become the woman that God has made me to be, to continue to develop and use my gifts for him, to work toward my goals…but I need to remain focused.
 
This is just where I’m at. God’s really been pressing on my heart to get my priorities straight and live a life that is for him alone because he is more than enough…and I need to keep working towards accepting that.

There’s always a choice – good, better, best…
 

Small Things

Nine months ago I started reading a blog…Kelle was a perfect stranger (okay, she still is!) but she has challenged me.  Over nine months nothing this woman has written has led me to believe that she has a personal relationship with Christ but I’d say she’s "spiritual". The thing is…this woman LOVES life and seems happy, intentional and focused. Let me share with you the opening to one of her September blog posts: “ …I am a life-lover. A marrow-sucker. An optimist on a life-long hunt for good and wonder and joy, and I find it.”  Pretty much EVERY blog I’ve read of hers EXUDES a love for life.

So…what I’ve asked myself time and time again after reading her blog is this. “If this woman, who doesn’t know Christ, can embrace life like this…what is my problem!?!?!” Honestly – shouldn’t the fact that I have a personal relationship with the Creator of the universe, the God who sent his only Son to die on the cross for my sins so I could be forgiven and have eternal life with him be making an incredible difference in my life when it comes to my happiness, my love for life and my JOY!?!

Life isn’t easy…there are trials that we need to remain under…but our God is greater and his grace is sufficient.  And I really do have a lot to rejoice in…I just don’t always stop to take the time to reflect on these things. It’s easy to see the big things that are blessings but there’s a lot that I take for granted and reading Kelle’s blog has challenged me to LOOK for the small things in my life that are incredible blessings and to LOVE LIFE.

What about Harvest Loves...Life!?!?

I love the smell of coffee in the morning, I love the feel of mist on my face, I love laughing with my friends, I love praying with my small group, I love realizing that my allergies have finally subsided, I love finding my favourite lip gloss in the pocket of my spring jacket, I love finding a card from a friend in my mailbox,  I love opening my Bible and reading a word from the Lord that is meant specifically for me in that moment, I love opportunities to share Christ that I totally wasn’t ready for yet the Lord gave me words to speak, I love that the Lord is working in my life to help me to find joy in very simple, small things that are blessings from him…I need to rejoice in the days that the Lord has blessed me with.

Psalm 16:11 say, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

What are the small things that you love about life that bring you great joy?

Amy

Coming Generation: New Higher Ground Curriculum

If you’ve been around Harvest for more than a week you’re likely pretty familiar with the four pillars.  Sitting in a Sunday service it’s easy to see that "proclaiming the authority of God’s Word without apology" is a top priority – that same value transfers to youth ministry and children’s ministry.

I’m incredibly excited to announce that the new Higher Ground curriculum from Chicago is HERE and we will start using it on Sunday, September 12.  I’ve been waiting (sometimes not so patiently) for this curriculum for over six years and it has not been a disappointment as I’ve spent quite a bit of time this summer pouring over lessons and praying about the impact they will have on the children entrusted to us in Higher Ground.

The basis of this curriculum is that “God’s Word isn’t something that should be stored in the head without being captured by the heart. And that is the goal of this material—to foster a maturing relationship with Jesus Christ in all who participate. Our ultimate goal is to connect with the children, but along the way we aim to fortify everyone involved in children's ministry—from workers, to parents, to families. That’s why we’re committed to delivering the whole Bible, to the whole family, one book at a time.”

We will be teaching the Bible chronologically. All material repeats on a rotating basis so that upon completion in each environment (Ramblers/SK-3/4-5), every child will receive the same curriculum regardless of when they enter or exit the program. The three big ideas that we're aiming for kids to take away are foundational faith-builders: God has all the power, God is in control, and God takes care of his children.

So this year students will be starting in Genesis and working their way through the Old Testament with lessons age appropriate to them. Throughout the year we will veer from the OT to spend a week or two focusing on prayer and missions.

Here’s how you can be a part of this:

❉    Parents – your child(ren) will receive a take home page each week that will give you discussion questions as well as devotions for the week – why not make this a part of each week for your family
❉    HG Leaders – make sure to set aside time to prepare not only the lessons but your hearts – what is God teaching YOU as you prepare.
❉    If you aren’t yet a leader in Higher Ground but want to talk about how you can get involved we would LOVE to hear from you.
❉    PRAY – without prayer nothing else matters. Here are our requests for the year – we would love for you to add these requests to your regular prayer rotation and partner with us in prayer.

Pray for passionate and committed leaders who love the Lord and are excited about teaching children and developing relationships with them.
Pray for the children in Higher Ground - that they would be impacted for Christ in a huge way by the lessons taught to them, the love they experience and the example of their leaders.
Pray that Higher Ground would be a place of community, where children would feel that they are a special part of our church family and would be excited about coming each week.

Psalm 78:4b
…tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD,
and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

Awana

In less than a month there will be a flurry of activity filling the halls, gym, foyer and classrooms of Timothy Christian School as Awana starts up again – I can’t wait! I grew up in the Awana program…I started as a Sparky when I was in senior kindergarten and went through nine years of the program.  I have no idea how many hundreds of verses I memorized between the ages of five and thirteen but I still know SO many of them and am thankful for the blessing that Awana was in my life.

I remember my leaders, many of them by name…how they poured into me, listening to me recite my verses, talking through what the verses mean and how I could apply them to my life, living their lives as an example of Christ and his love. Some of the most influential spiritual leaders in my early years were my Awana leaders. The other part of my experience in Awana that had significant impact on my life was the time that my parents spent with me each week - teaching me memory verses  (making songs and dances up to help me remember them), discussions about my reading homework, praying for missionaries together, getting me ready for theme nights…it was SUCH a huge part of my childhood that I loved.

So over five years ago when it came time to choose what mid-week program we would use at Harvest I was already sold on the Awana model as I had experienced first hand the value of this program. If you don’t have young children you might not be familiar with Awana…let me tell you about it. Awana is an international children’s program that Harvest Bible Chapel in Barrie offers as a mid-week children’s club. Awana is designed to teach children lessons and values from the Bible that build character. The Awana name stands for: “Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed.” This is taken from 2 Timothy 2:15.

Our Awana Club has the Cubbies program for children ages three and four – their program runs from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Sparks is for children who are in senior kindergarten, grades 1 and 2 and the T&T club is for students who are in grades three to five.  Last year we had quite a few Harvest children, some students from other churches but also a strong number of children from the community – we, as leaders, were so excited about the opportunity to impact over 120 children for Christ last year…all summer we’ve been praying that the Lord would increase our circle of impact for his glory – we can’t wait to see what he has for us this year!

Registration information as well as more specific information about the program is available online. If you are interested in registering your child(ren) or know of someone else who might be interested - neighbours, cousins, grandchildren – all are welcome!

On Wednesday, September 8 there will be a registration night at TCS between 6-7:30 p.m. for parents to come and register their children – there is also an information session for families who are new to the Awana program from 6:30-7 p.m.

Following the registration night there will be a training night from 7:30-9 p.m. for our entire team – new leaders, returning leaders, young leaders, old leaders…EVERYONE who will play an important part in Awana this coming year! We ARE looking for some new volunteers as we believe that the Lord has something BIG in store for us this year so if you’re free on Wednesday evenings and want to be a part of what God is doing in many young lives PLEASE let me or John and Jeannie Coros  know and plan to attend the September 8 training meeting.

Even if you can’t be a part of Wednesday evenings we covet your prayers for us as leaders and for the impact of this program on the lives of children who need to hear about Jesus. Thank you for partnering with us in this way!

Amy