Men of Fuel

Tomorrow is the last day of our third year at Hidden Creek. What better way to celebrate than to sit around with the guys and crush a few breakfast burritos. If you have not been with us before for a year end wrap up, allow me to explain. At 6:20 hidden creek is going open up the serving trays on an assortment of egg and cheese, bacon, egg and cheese, and sausage, egg, and cheese breakfast burritos. As soon as you walk in the door, please feel free to grab a burrito and head to your table. We will give some time for the guys to catch up, before opening up the floor.

Once the floor is open, anyone is free and encouraged to stand up and share with the room. This can be something God showed you this year, something that stuck with you, something that changed you, or basically anything you want to share. At the same time if you do not want to share, please do not feel any pressure at all. Our three biggest series this year were “The Greatest Story ever Mistold, Lust Vegas, and Imagination Movers, and we (the room) would love to hear something/anything that you will take from our time together.

I know the voice inside our head tells us that no one wants to hear what we have to say, but I can tell you that is a lie. I would encourage you to pray about it tonight. Ask God to show you if there was anything this year that moved you. Cause if there was, we love to know what it was

See you guys in the am

D.R. Carlson

Men of Fuel

Crazy to believe that we are but two meetings away from wrapping up our third year at Hidden Creek. Per tradition, NEXT week (5/22) will be our Breakfast Burrito Bonanza and Year End Wrap up Extravaganza, where we will open the floor to anyone who would like to share with the group.

This week (tomorrow morning) Bill Clark will finish out our final series of the year “Imagination movers”. Set your alarms and come on out as we wrap the final series of the year.

Invest and Invite

My daughter Kasey, who will turn five this July has become completely captivated by a show called Imagination Movers (www.imaginationmovers.com/about/). I have never seen a complete episode of this show, but I do know that there are four guys who are in a band who dress is blue coveralls that encourage their young (and not so young) viewers to use their imagination to assist them in accomplishing their task at hand. Their motto: “Reach high, think big, work hard, have fun!”
I had never given it much thought before, but do young children need to be encouraged to use their imaginations? With an 8, 4 (almost 5), 2, and 9 month old, I can tell you that the use of imagination is NOT in short supply in the Carlson household. I hear stories of imaginary friends, imaginary situations, and amazing imaginary outcomes.

What happened? Weren’t we at one time those children, children that stood in the glory of all that could be……real or imagined? Maybe it’s not that children need to be encouraged to use their imagination, maybe it’s they just need to be encouraged to never stop using their imagination. Again, it wasn’t that we never used our imagination; it was just somewhere along the way we stopped using it as much as we once did.

But what if our imagination was a big part of understanding God? After all think of all of the times the Bible calls us to use our imagination. We are continually told that God is like……. Or Heaven is like………How many times when asked a question does Jesus tell a story? Why not just answer the question. Why not tell the Pharisees and Scribes the reason he was accepting sinners and tax collectors? Why in the world would he go into this long story about lost sheep, and lost coin and a lost son? Was He not compelling us to use our imagination?

Maybe we are the ones that need the Imagination Movers, to move our imaginations out of the places where we tucked them away and back to the front of our minds where they once were. Join us tomorrow morning as we start our last (two week) series of the year: Imagination Movers.

Imagine how fun it will be

See you in the AM

Men of Fuel

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow morning. Last week Bill Clark answered a few questions that we collected over the last few weeks, as well as several that came up that morning. Tomorrow we will dive back in to the questions which I am guessing will again produce more questions. None of us have all of the answers but I can assure you that after tomorrow morning we will have more than we have today. I know that was the case last week.

I hope you can join us
D.R. Carlson

Men of Fuel

Many years ago when I first started going to church (in my late twenties), I went to this little church in Vienna (http://www.antiochdoc.org/index.html) that shared the driveway with the house where I was living. I went there for a few months, and can remember being there the day the attendance hit 19 people, a high-water mark for the time that I attended. Unfortunately I don’t remember much else about my time in that church. As a matter of fact I can bring to mind only one sermon I heard. It was on John 11, where Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead and of that entire teaching that day I can recall only one verse. Verse 6 reads “ So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days”

The reason I remember that so clearly is because the moment he read that verse all I could hear in my head was “WHY?”. I honestly thought he explain why Jesus waited, to the point that when he didn’t I started looking around the room to see if anyone had their hand up to ask. “Can we go back a second please” is all I wanted to ask, but being new to this church thing, it didn’t seem like something that you did. I eventually found out why Jesus waited, but I can’t help thinking about the missed opportunity that day in that tiny church in Vienna, as I have to imagine I wasn’t the only one that had that question.

Over the last few weeks, we have been collecting questions from the tables that guys have about lust. Tomorrow we will start to answer them. Set your alarms and come on out as Dr Clark begins to go down the list of questions that have been submitted. We will continue to collect questions from the table, so if you didn’t submit one, or have a new question in the next few weeks please feel free to ask away. An opportunity was missed years ago in that church in Vienna, let’s not repeat that. After all, if you are thinking it odds are you are not the only one

See you guys in the AM

Regards
D.R. Carlson