Organic God Week 4

From Holly.

Week one was on getting to know God: pure, essential and natural. Week 2-challenged our preconceived ideas about God and how we view him, Week 3-encouraged to think about who we go to for wisdom. Often it's the internet, books and people-not the Word of God. This week we looked at a continuum of God's Love. Because he loves us so much he allows us to go through pain. We then desire to live a life of gratitude because of his faithfulness, which brings us back to Love-for God and for others.

If you missed class we would encourage you to watch the Rob Bell video titled "Rain." You can watch it online or check it out from the church office.

Our challenge this week is to reflect on our lives and name out loud the ways that we saw or felt God during our times of pain and suffering.

Organic God Part Two

This past Sunday we focused on the idea of stripping away our misconceptions about God and what our relationship with Him might be. He is a mystery that we will never fully understand while we are here on earth but working toward knowing Him better is a goal we all share.

This week you have two spiritual challenges.
1) Take a moment and prayerfully reflect on your relationship with your earthly father. Are there any ideas about your dad or experiences form childhood that you unintentionally project on God. Spend some time in preayer and ask God to reveal any of these to you. Then, spend some time in the scripture asking God to replace any false beliefs with a haelthy, Biblically-based understanding of your Heavenly Father.
2) Ask at least three people, " What do you love about Jesus?" and see where the conversation goes.

I would love to have a conversation in the comments with your own answers to question number two.

Yummy Fall Snack

This recipe came from the October issue of KIWI Magazine.

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flaxseed or wheat germ
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup canned pure pumpkin
2 large eggs
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup 1% lowfat milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat 24 mini-muffin wrappers with oil or nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the two flours, ground flaxseed, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, combine pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, milk, oil and vanilla and stir until well mixed.
4. Pour liquid ingredients over dry ingredients and stir until moistened. Mix in the chocolate chips.
5. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups. Bake 15 to 18 minutes (if you're making 12 full-size muffins, bake for 20-23 minutes), until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and cool 5 minutes before removing the muffins.

Organic God

Today we started a 6 week study called The Organic God. There is a blog that I'll get over on the links at a different time but here is a quick link. This study focuses on having a natural, pure and essential relationship with God. I think it will be really good for us to do this and so to keep everyone part of things over the next six weeks, I'll try to post some of the questions that we discuss in class and the weekly challenge (that will also be emailed).

-Have you ever thought of "organic" in relation to God? What prallels do you see between the word "organic"and "God"?

-Why Should our relationship with God be Natural, Pure and Essential?

Read Psalm 105:4

-How often do you seek God? What does your personal time with God look like?

-Is there anything about seeking God that makes you uncomfortable?

CHALLENGE:

Challenge yourself this week by reading Psalms 24:4,5 then write a personal prayer to God inviting Him to reveal Himself in new ways to you and draw you closer to Himself.