February's Gone... On to March!

INFOdesk@baylife.org

• Adult Mission Trips | applications due this Sunday, Feb 27
• Artist Circle - Mar 8 | artists sharing and collaborating 
• 5K Cross Country Race - Mar 12 | register at INFOdesk - walkers welcome
• Blood Pressure Screening - Mar 13 | free screening in the Cry Room
• All-Campus Worship - Mar 16 | enjoy a great time praising God
• Welcome Lunch - Mar 20 | meet our pastors, staff, elders and learn about membership

Greetings Lifers,

February is almost gone. I am literally losing months now – I remember them starting, but then I look up and they’re over and I can’t remember what transpired as they expired. So on to March, I guess. Hope this finds you well. I write without anecdote today, as nothing in my past week seems particularly email/blog worthy. It’s not that things haven’t been happening; it’s just that these things aren’t activating the left side of my brain (that’s the creative side, right?) like they usually do. So permit me just a few lines of reminder and I’ll sign off.

Reminder 1:  If you have put your faith in Jesus, He’s got you, and no matter what’s going on right now, it’ll eventually be okay.

Reminder 2:  Church is everywhere. Wherever you are reading this, God is there, you are there, so church is there. Live accordingly.

Reminder 3:  The Global 5K is only 3 weekends away (March 12) – if you haven’t signed up already, remember to this weekend at Bay Life or on our website (http://www.baylife.org/). Got kids? They can do the 1K walk while you're running/walking the 5K. It’s a great way for us as a church to enjoy a morning together and help our students get to their missions trips this summer.

Reminder 4:  You have friends – do they have Jesus? Ask them to join you this weekend at one of our services.

Reminder 5:  Our Saturday night service is growing! We’ve added seats to this service, so if you haven’t been in a while, come spend the evening with us this Saturday!

Alrighty then – need to go speak at our Lambkins preschool chapel, so I’m off like a dirty shirt. See you this weekend – praying for you all!

Free,

Mark Saunders

Senior Pastor

Bay Life Church

Something Profoundly Obvious

INFOdesk@baylife.org

• Adult Mission Trips | applications available at the INFOdesk – due Feb 27
• Prayer Night – Feb 22 | join us for a time of prayer
• Artist Circle – Mar 8 | artists sharing and collaborating
• Global 5K Cross Country Run | Mar 12 – register at the INFOdesk
• All Campus Worship – Mar 16 | Enjoy a great time praising God

Greetings Lifers,

(Spoiler Alert: I am about to say something profoundly obvious, something so “duh” that most will wonder if they really need to keep reading this email (you do). Ready?)

Most things don’t work unless you use them.

I know, I know – it’s kind of painful for me too. I sat through 8 years of higher education – you should expect more. But stick with me - I’ll do my best to explain why I bring such a staggering breakthrough to this here email/blog post (by the way, you can read these emails now online on our newly-minted webpage at my blog there (I’m in the side menu – baylife.org). Here we go…

So I was speaking recently with my mom about an impending trip north to see her and my dad before they transition from their current living space to another. The whole family intends to gather, and after ruling out certain options, I thought I had pegged the perfect dates. My kids will be out of school on the Friday before and Monday following this particular weekend, and after conferring with them, my sisters and their families were squared up to be there as well.

This is when Einstein here decided to look at his calendar. To be clearer, I chose to look at my calendar after I made my plans (I know – I can’t believe I did something like that either). I realize that this isn’t the correct order, and I know some of you detail-oriented readers are shaking your heads at me right now – I get it, trust me, I do. Let’s just say that I made my plans assuming the dates were clear for take-off.

But of course, they weren’t - hence my previous profundity. Who knew that a calendar of one’s life plans only helps when making future plans if it’s consulted before said plans are made? In this instance, not yours truly, obviously.

So let’s apply this axiom to other things, shall we? A gas pedal only moves the car if your foot presses it down (I’ve noticed that some of us are a bit slow on the uptake in this area, especially at the stoplights where I find myself idling behind you – let’s all commit to working on this together K). A car brake works the same (but opposite) way (is that even possible?) – a vehicle keeps going until the brake pedal is compressed (at my vehement behest, my new-to-driving sons learned this tidbit at the beginning of their first car driving experience). Want more? A wristwatch can only help you be prompt if you look at it before your meeting starts – fyi*. Oh, and btw*, a phone message that would have saved you the drive is only effective when the phone owner checks his messages (learned that one the hard way several times).

Seems we can have all the right tools for what life requires and still choose not to use them.

I’m reading Proverbs again at home and with our staff. If you haven’t read it recently/ever, it’s the original (and biblical) “Chicken Soup for the Soul” book. One of my favorite parts of the book comes early in the first chapter, where it reads:

⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Knowing anything of real worth starts with knowing and revering God. Living a life of any real worth is rooted in our willingness to take what we know from God and apply it to life situations (as in all of them). This is what Wisdom is – our knowledge of what God wants for life becoming our life (wisdom is knowledge applied). And did you catch the end part there? Fools (idiots, dopes, spazzes, dweebs, etc.) choose to take what they know from God and do nothing with it. It’s like having a calendar and a watch and not checking them. It’s like sitting in a car and going nowhere, or riding in a car and using a tree for stopping. It just doesn’t make sense.

And neither does knowing what God wants and choosing it not. May you and I learn the “duh” lesson of the week – most things don’t work unless you use them, especially when it comes to our understanding of God’s will. Like Nike said – “Just do it”. Can’t believe I ended with something so pithy, but in this case, it fits.

Before I sign off, a quick note to those who haven’t joined us on Saturday nights here at Bay Life lately. Our crowd has been growing this year at this service (Saturday, 6:00 pm in building B), so much so that we’ve had to retool our set up to accommodate those coming. If you haven’t been in a while or have never tried Saturday nights, this would be a great week to give it a go. We have childcare offering up through 5^th grade available for your kids, so pack up the fam and join us this Saturday night!

Free,

Mark Saunders

Senior Pastor

Bay Life Church

(*  “for your information”, “by the way” – I used the abbreviations to better communicate with you tech-savvy texting types)

Oatmeal & Applesauce

INFOdesk@baylife.org

• Pre-baptism meeting | Sunday, Feb 13 after each service - required for those wishing to be baptized on Feb 27
• Welcome Dinner | Sunday Feb 20 @ 5:30 pm - registration required
• Adult Mission Trip | Applications available at the INFOdesk
• Global 5K Cross Country Run | Mar 12 - Register at the INFOdesk
• Free Blood Pressure Check | Sunday, Feb 13 after each service

For further info or to register for any of these events, go to the INFOdesk@baylife.org

Greetings Lifers,

So I’m walking through my corner grocery store this past Monday on a quest for some applesauce. Yes, I said applesauce. I don’t actually like applesauce on its own, but when mixed into a piping hot bowl of oatmeal fresh off the stove and blended with just the right amount of brown sugar and cinnamon, well, that there’s a pretty good breakfast. So, like I typed, I’m on a quest for applesauce. I actually left my home early in the morning to find some, having discovered an utter lack of applesauce upon opening our refrigerator. Can’t have the oats without the sauce, I reasoned. So out into the cold I went.

Okay – fast-forward to my arrival home. I am carrying the applesauce in one hand like a hunter who bagged his prey. I grab my oatmeal cooking pot, fill it with the required amount of water, put it on our stove and crank it to boil. Next, I snatch the cinnamon and brown sugar from their spots in our pantry and turn to grab the oatmeal can. I reach with one hand, cradling the container so as to assure it’s stability as I lift it from its perch…

…only to realize that the can is completely empty. Horrified, I peel off the lid for confirmation. Check and double check. No oatmeal to be found.

My toast was not tasty.

Ever gotten ahead of yourself in something? You know, you’re buying the drapes for a house you don’t yet own? I was teaching our Lambkins preschoolers about the 10 commandments earlier this morning at their weekly chapel (tough crowd, by the way – holding the attention of a 30 year old is infinitely easier than doing so with a 3 year old. A huge shout out to all who are gifted in leading our kids…). Anyway, in ten minutes I taught a bunch of 2, 3, and 4 year-olds the most important principle in Scripture – check out the first commandment:

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

That simply means God first, everything else second – this is the message of the Old Covenant and the New (Mt. 6:33). But far too often we put the stuff of life ahead of the God of life. Seems we can have all the spiritual trimmings but no oatmeal (i.e., an appearance of godliness but no love for God). People do it all the time. They get way down the road of doing something that they are sure God is 100% behind only to realize that they never truly checked to see if He was with them at all. Ever gotten through a season of life and found the God can empty? I have. That’s why I pray that we always keep first things first, that we start with God and His will for life before determining the specifics for ours. Doing so makes all the difference.

Free,

Mark Saunders

Senior Pastor

Bay Life Church

Painting Lessons

INFOdesk@baylife.org

• Bloodmobile this Sunday | Feb 6 @ 8:30 am – 1 pm. Stop by and give. Blood supplies are critically low at the present time.
• Adult Mission Trip Applications available on Sunday, Feb 6
• Parent's Night Out | Friday, Feb 11 @ 6 pm - 9:30 pm
• Meet the Need | Saturday, Feb 12
• True Couponing Seminar | Saturday, Feb 12. Learn to save so that you can give.
• Blood Pressure Check | Sunday, Feb 13 after each service
• Pre-baptism meeting | Sunday, Feb 13 after each service (required for those wishing to be baptized on Feb 27)
• Welcome Dinner | Sunday, Feb 20 @ 5:30 pm
  

  For further info or to register for any of these events, go to the INFOdesk at baylife.org.

Happy Thursday, Lifers,

Greetings and salutations all – pray this finds you well. I am headed out the door to another workout at the gym “but thought I’d jot a thought I got” (intentional rhyming there – admittedly bad grammar, but still poetic, no?). Actually it’s more of a report on some things I’ve learned this week. And, as usual, it centers on my experiences as a home owner. (Email Sidebar:  I feel like all I ever write about is home projects or running. You must think that’s all I do – run from project to project. Not entirely false. But anyway…)

Personal disclosure alert: I’ve always hated painting. Perhaps that’s a tad strong – of the things that I am required to do as a homeowner, painting is one of my least favorite (how’s that?). Not because it’s particularly strenuous, mind you, but because it has a high degree of mistake potential, especially where walls meet ceilings and floors. My frequent, mid-project trips to home improvement conglomerate stores (I affectionately refer to them as “Lowe’s Depot”) have been well documented in my previous missives – there hasn’t been a project I haven’t been able to botch yet. I’ll put it this way: if a project has a “high degree of mistake potential”, then I can be counted on to realize my potential pretty much every time (which, for those keeping score, I count as success in something, albeit a sad success – emphasize the positive, I always say). So I’ve tried all the precautionary measures available in painting – tape the baseboards, by one of those funky flat edger thingies, get the hi-tech brushes - but all to no avail. Put something with paint on it in my hands and I will manage to get “the paint where it ain’t supposed to taint” (ah, some more rhyming – I am totally hip-hop in this email, yo).

But let me testify – I am a painting pariah no more. And I owe it all to Youtube.

You heard me – I learned to paint correctly on Youtube. For those still using rotary phones and hitching up the horses to go to town, Youtube.com is a website that hosts thousands (if not millions) of completely idiotic and worthless videos. On occasion, one finds a video of value, like the 20 or so offerings I found that taught me to paint. I found my training materials in a section of “do-it-yourself” videos (some extremely homemade posts are quite comical, by the way – it’s apparently quite difficult to hold a video camera in one hand while painting with the other). These videos teach you everything you could need to know about fixing up a domicile (Email Sidebar 2:  Recently intimidated by the hanging of a cabinet in my garage, I typed in my query and spent 15 minutes learning how to do so before going out and knocking that job completely out – no trips to Lowe’s Depot necessary).

Now I know that many of you guys reading this note grew up around tools and projects and dads/uncles/brothers/neighbors with know-how, but some of us didn’t have handy dads to learn from (or dads at all, for that matter). Cut us some slack – we’re late to the party, but at least we’re showing up. Anyway, I digress – the videos I watched explained the “cutting in” process in which a painter edges the room sans drop cloths and messiness and operator malfunctions. So, starting in a corner behind a door (hide your first draft), I taught myself to paint like a pro. And it all turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself (which I do).

This weekend in our study of “all things new” we come to a section in Colossians that teaches us how to live this new life in Christ at home – in our marriages and with our kids. I’ve taught often on marriage (this weekend’s focus), and though I wouldn’t recommend you finding a how-to video on Youtube to use as your compass in navigating marital challenges, I will affirm that every husband and wife (or potential husband or potential wife) can learn from Scripture what they must bring to the table on building a healthy, vibrant, God-honoring relationship. From there it’s just practice, practice, practice, (and complete reliance on the Spirit) and then voila! – you’ve painted a beautiful marriage together. I look forward to digging through the Book with you on the subject - God has much to teach us about this area and all of life.

So y’all come this weekend (ooh – from hip-hop to country in one email) and bring a friend.

Free,

Mark Saunders

Senior Pastor

Bay Life Church