"Believe"

One Christmas, when I was a boy, my twin brother and I got a hot wheels play set. IT WAS AMAZING! This thing looped, it curved, and it even went backwards. As a child I couldn’t think of anything better to get. It was THE thing I wanted, which solidified that I believed Santa was real. It also confirmed that I must have been a good boy that year to receive such an amazing gift for him.

Later in the afternoon, as my brother and I were playing in the basement, we came across a very large box in the storage closet. Strangely, it was the box to our hot wheels track. “Why would Santa leave the box here?”, we wondered.  As we tried to understand Old St. Nick’s odd decision, it dawned on my brother first: “Aeric”, he said, ”I think mom and Dad bought this for us.” I was stunned for a second. How could this be? There were no presents under the tree Christmas Eve, and then the presents appeared! When would my parents have had the time to not only wrap up all of our presents, but stuff the stockings AND put together a race car track? There must be a logical explanation. 

We ran upstairs to confront our parents about the mystery of the hot wheels box.  I think it’s safe to say that we all know what happened next. That day, we had the fateful Santa talk. Now, from what I remember, we took the truth pretty well. Heck, we still had the race cars! But despite my happiness with the presents, I think this experience created a slight shift for me as a kid. That day, an idea began to form: you have to see something to believe in it. 

Ironically, in the middle of the word “believe” is the word “lie.” Many of us approach the idea of belief with this kind of a mentality. We have this suspicion that a lie may be the center of the things we can’t see, instead of centering our belief in truth which is sometimes unseen. To complicate things further, we are bombarded with lies like, “God doesn’t love you”, “God doesn’t have a purpose for you”, “you are alone”, when the truth is that God loves you unconditionally. God in fact made you for a very special purpose. This season I choose to remember that God believes in me so much, that he gave THE ultimate gift. 

Aeric Wallace

Production Director – The Market Church

Join us December 22^nd, 2013 for Christmas at The Market Church: “Believe”.  

More information at www.TheMarketChurch.com

Life is Best Done Together: A Look at this Fall at TMC

Summer is a really busy time of year with vacations and family activities. Then, after a few blissful months of traveling, camping, and swimming pools, Fall rolls around, school starts, and everyone generally gets into a routine through the end of the year. 

Just like you, we here at The Market Church have been busy this Summer, planning for an amazing end to the 2013 year, as well as an even greater 2014.  Here are a couple of examples of the opportunities that we have coming up:

Fall Life Groups

If you’re new to TMC within the last few months or have only hung out with us on a Sunday, the easiest way to get to know more people is to join a Life Group. 

This fall, The Market Church is taking the challenge to read the entire New Testament in 63 days! Sound impossible? It’s not! By reading less than 15 minutes a day, you can read all 27 books in the New Testament and gain a greater understanding of who Jesus is and how His Word gives us purpose and direction in our daily lives. Our 3 Life Groups will meet on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights through the Fall semester.

Volunteer

So maybe you meet with us regularly on Sundays and you are planning to attend a Life Group, but you’re looking for that next step? This Fall, there are going to be some amazing opportunities to serve at TMC as a volunteer.  Whether your gift is a friendly smile, musical ability, or even leading a Life Group, we want you to have the opportunity to get involved. 

E-mail us for more details: info@themarketchurch.com

Life is Best Done Together

These are just a few of the ways that you can take your experience at TMC to the next level. Why should you sign up for a Life Group or serve as a volunteer? Because, at The Market Church, we believe that life is best done together! We look forward to all that God has for TMC this Fall and we hope you want to be a part of it with us!

Did you like our blog? Don’t forget to “like” TMC on Facebook!

A Love of Books

I love books. I’d say that I love to read but its more that I love books. I think its that I love information and new experiences. I absolutely love encountering new ideas and ways of approaching life. I am enthralled by what is pretentiously called “the human experience.” The fictional descriptions of how life rises and falls for the characters of Hemingway, Potok, Steinbeck, King, etc just mesmerize me. Set these along side the true retellings of life by Weisel, Durant, Frankl, Capote, etc. where I find myself learning about the choices that have been made and the propensity for those choices to be repeated. Add in the mass of literature that aims to help, encourage, and challenge by such writers as Chapman, Lewis, Yancey, etc that has done more for my personal growth than I can even describe. This isn’t even counting the numerous “children’s books” by Seuss, Sendak, Silverstein, Bloom, etc that make my heart just happy. I love books and what they have done for me.

Let me try to encourage you some here because someone is saying that they don’t like to read. Honestly and truly, I understand. The reason I understand is that I have two obstacles to reading; first is that I am a VERY slow reader, second is that I am or have ADD (a therapist once told me that I could be the poster child for adult ADD). These two issues work together to make it VERY difficult for me to actually sit down to read. My brain is running much, much faster than the speed at which I am able to read (scientifically this is true for everyone, its why you can be reading and suddenly realize that you’ve gone through paragraphs or even pages and not know what you’ve “read”). Now include the ADD, which for me, results in everything being a distraction and reading is VERY difficult. Why then do I love to read? Because it is where I can get everything that my manic brain wants to know. In the end, I want or need whatever is in the books and the only way to get it is to read. Therefore I have come up with strategies that help me read. Here are some that make it possible with my challenges:

1.      I read alone.

I have to. No choice. No music, nothing. For me its home, alone, very few interruptions.

2.      I typically read a chapter and no more

I am so hyper that I have to set a goal or I will quit when I get bored, and I ALWAYS get bored or at least distracted. (Video games and TV are the only things I can really do without distraction)

3.      I very often read multiple books at the same time.

This allows me to read more with less boredom

Now, should you do these steps? Probably not, unless you deal with ADD. My main point is if you will choose that reading is important and then think about what your challenges are, you can come up with solutions also.

Here are some random examples of possible solutions:

1.      Read a fiction series            Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, etc

2.      Read blogs in an area that you are interested           Guarantee that there are thousands no matter what you like

3.      Read something with a friend

4.      Read for a time period        30 minutes

5.      Listen to audiobooks on your way to work and back

www.audible.com                     THE BEST!!!  Subscription based. I pay like $22 a month for two books. I download them and I own them.

www.omahapubliclibrary.org    FREE FREE FREE FREEEEEE!!!!!!  You can borrow library books and download them!!!  I just listened to a retelling of Robin Hood and then to Stephen Colbert’s book for FREE!

All that said, I want to encourage you to read. Read something. Read anything. Read. Read. Read.

Read something about leadership by John Maxwell and think about how you can influence others.

Read The Velveteen Rabbit and reconnect with what it is to feel and to be real.

Read The Hobbit and realize that the movie is different and figure out if you like the changes.

Read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and then read Mere Christianity and be amazed that they came from the same person.

My Favorite Books:

            Anything by CS Lewis

            The Chosen – Chaim Potok

            All of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

            What’s So Amazing About Grace – Phillip Yancey

            The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell

            Where the Wild Things Are – Maurice Sendak

Feedback:

What are your favorites?

What are your reading strategies?         

 -Pastor Greg

God Hardening Pharaoh's Heart

I said that I would write a blog about the idea of God “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart in the biblical story of the deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery, so here ya go.

The question that I can see is why? Why harden his heart?

Honest answer—I don’t know

I will give you my thoughts about it though. My goal then is not to answer the question but rather just cause an opening of thought about the situation.

First the situation of Pharaoh and the Israelites in slavery.

Pharaoh was more than king. He was THE god-king. He was raised knowing that he would be THE god-king and now was living as THE god-king. I write THE because this was not a relativistic culture that had discussions and opinions about this situation. It was a fact of facts. What Pharaoh said was and what Pharaoh willed happened.

The Israelites on the other hand were the lowest of Egyptian society. They had been invited into Egypt about 400 years prior to Moses birth by the Pharaoh whom a hero named Joseph served. They had been invited with hospitality and honor, but over the centuries their acceptance had completely eroded. Their refusal to integrate into Egyptian society and especially the Egyptian religious life had kept them isolated from any form of potential acceptance. In addition to these factors the Israelites were essentially shepherds. This doesn’t mean much to us but for Egyptian society, shepherds were absolutely one of the lower rungs on the societal ladder. As with many powerless outcasts the Israelites were seen as scarcely more than livestock. They were forced into forced labor and slavery. Essentially, what the Pharaoh willed, happened by the sweat of the Israelites.

So, here we are. THE god-king being confronted by the slaves, the outcasts, the livestock.

There is literally no reason at all that Pharaoh should ever in any way even consider the wants, desires, much less rights of the things that were demanding to have the freedom to stop slaving and go to worship some God that he did not know or acknowledge.

All that to say, I am not sure that God needed to do much work in the “heart hardening” area.

It still remains though, that God hardened Pharaohs heart.

My opinion is that Pharaoh became the instrument of God’s deliverance. As I said during a Sunday message, it is very easy to remove a person or group from captivity, but it is almost impossible to remove captivity from the person or group. The entire nation of Israel had been in this slavery for hundreds of years. They were born into it. They were raised in it. They built their lives around and within its constrictions. They were not simply nominally (being named) slaves. They were slaves. It wasn’t just the Egyptians that thought they were slaves. The Israelites thought they were slaves.

Now I ask, what kind of radical therapy is needed to change the identity of a person or especially a people?

What kind of aggressive treatment is necessary to rename and reclaim the soul of people?

Could the plagues make sense?

What is the only thing that could mess up this plan?

From this point of view, only Pharaoh not quite being stubborn enough to make it through the literal destruction of all his gods could mess this up.

God might have needed Pharaoh to be more Pharaoh. More arrogant. More stubborn.

Just an opinion though.

What do you think?

A Question - Why Does TMC Exist?

So I’ve been battling with a question.

Why does TMC exist?

We’ve been working as a church for 4 years now and I think I mostly know the answer to this, but I want it clear.

Our purpose statement says: “The Market Church (TMC) exists to connect people in a growing relationship with Jesus and into community with other followers of Jesus"

I have to be honest here though, while I think we are actually doing that, it doesn’t inspire me to get up and go. I think it is something that we weren’t doing and now we are in fact doing, but it really is more a statement of what we do rather than why we do it.

SOOOO…Why does TMC exist?

Here is where I want some help. Can we make this a conversation?

If so, here is the question again:  Why does TMC exist?

Now let me clarify the question. Lets move past what churches do or should do. Lets ignore what you and I might think ideally all churches should do. What about TMC actually makes you want to not just come, but be a part? What is important about TMC that must get out? Why do we do the things we do? Why are we TMC?

I genuinely think that there is something that is TMC and I have some ideas about what that is, but I am asking for some input so that I can really, really clarify it. See, if we are just another church then we are siphoning resources away from other churches that are probably doing the “church” part of church better and I desperately do not want to be another church. Honestly I don’t believe in another church and there is no need for another church.

Somewhere deep inside though I think and feel that there is a need for TMC.

So why?

Tell me your thoughts.

What is TMC to you?

-Pastor Greg

Thoughts From A Mother...

Our daughter is 20 months old and we are weaning her off of the pacifier; it’s been a difficult few weeks. One night was especially rough and she had been crying for over an hour with no consolation. I was getting so frustrated, trying to explain to her that she is getting older and it’s time to let go of the pacifier. She’s getting teeth that we need to protect and we want to keep her from getting infections. Explaining that to a toddler is impossible. They just know that they want something and you’re not giving in.
I really felt the LORD saying to me “Jess, this is how I feel about you sometimes. I know what is best for you. I have a plan for you. But you don’t see that. You just want what you want; you have to trust me and let go.” There are many things in our lives that we really want and we beg and plead with GOD for. It can be a new job or a new house, maybe a relationship that we want to hold onto or it could be a habit or almost anything, really, that we just have to have. We don’t understand why a GOD that is so wonderful and loves us so much would ever tell us “No”. Why would HE deny us???
As parents, we often get pushed to the edge and finally give up: giving the toy or the pacifier and say “Here! Here’s the toy or the pacifier or whatever you want. Now just be quiet!” But what does that teach them? How does that help them learn? How does that benefit us in any way? GOD loves us so much and wants to bless us. HE wants to teach us patience and faith and if HE always gave us everything we wanted, would we really need HIM anymore? 
GOD loves us, HE wants to bless us. Just like we love our children and want to bless them and make them happy and see them laugh and smile. GOD wants to give us the desires of our hearts but often the timing is just off. We never know if we are meant to be in a specific job for some reason, or maybe the car that we want so badly is actually a lemon that will cause us more grief in the end. Or maybe that relationship will end up leading us away from GOD. We don’t always see the whole picture and that’s why we MUST trust HIM. Maybe HE is not going to heal our friend who was battling cancer so bravely. Maybe HE planned to take her home to finally end her pain and maybe her nurses will come to know Christ through this. We don’t know why HE may not be answering right away but if we just stop crying and listen for a moment, maybe we’ll hear HIM. 
So that night, after fighting endlessly and trying to explain repeatedly that she would not get her “paci” I finally changed my approach and told her that I loved her so much and asked her to trust me. I asked her to let me help her become a big girl and just kept saying that I loved her, over and over. Within a few minutes she was asleep. If we can stop our fussing and stop our crying long enough to listen, maybe we’ll get a glimpse of the big picture. Maybe we can trust HIM enough and we'll finally see all that HE has for us and how wonderfully HE really does love us.