Slowing Down and Celebrating! Feb. 10th

Today the BCC men's group viewed Session Two of the John Ortberg series, The Life You've Always Wanted, Slowing Down and Celebrating. John says we are a people plagued by "hurry sickness", a disease of the soul! The cure is to practice "slowing" and solitude. Also, God commands us to be joyful, to celebrate life and the good things He has given.

Ortberg gave us some practical steps to help us to slow down and celebrate including practicing solitude, ... take time to reflect each day. Plan an 8 hour period of solitude with nothing to do, no contact with people, media. Just quiet.
Some other "slowing" exercises are: deliberately driving in the slow lane, eat your food slowly, get in the longest line at the grocery check out and let someone get in front of you!

He also said that hurried people cannot love. It's a matter of priorities. If we are trying to accomplish what we want rather than what God wants we will miss the work God has set for us to do. God wants us to love people and we have to set aside other things to do that. Opportunities to love and help people come at unexpected times and we have to be ready. We have to train ourselves (there's that word train again!) to be the kind of people that catch those opportunities and see that God has placed them there for us.

Please add your comments, thoughts and experiences in putting slowing and celebration into practice and we'll see you next Saturday at 7AM for coffee and donuts and the next installment of life in the slow lane!

God bless!

........BCCMan

It's "Morphing" Time! Feb. 3rd

This week we watched the first installment of the John Ortberg series "The Life You've Always Wanted." In it, John talked about personal transformation or "morphing", changing into what we want to be. Hopefully that is more like Christ. He introduced the concept of training instead of trying. In trying, we just will ourselves into being different. It doesn't really work. But by training according to God's word, we eventually find ourselves being different. We set up a space for God to work and He does it.
Ortberg also talked about "boundary markers". These are things we put on, ways of appearing or speech perhaps that set us apart from others not in the "group". In this case, Christians or church men. By doing this, we have really despaired of real transformation. It's just a cheap substitute and it doesn't really do what God intends.

As always, we invite your comments.

See you next Saturday at 7AM! Coffee, juice and donuts will be served.

"Bullhorn" Jan. 27

Brian is back from his 30th anniversary celebration in Hawaii. All limbs appear to be functional after several days of surfing and he says he's back to his target weight. We're glad to have you back in any shape Brian!

Today's Rob Bell video was entitled "Bullhorn". It depicted a modern day street corner "Evangelist" delivering threats of hell and damnation to indifferent pedestrians. Bell's point was that this type of evangelism is not only ineffective but is not really the Gospel. That Jesus came not to judge but to forgive sins and show us the way to the Father.
Our ensuing discussion was somewhat animated with points pro and con "Bullhorn", the antagonist. Some agreed that Christians are painted with the broad brush of negativity because of the efforts of people like this while others pointed out that they themselves eventually came to faith in Christ at least partly because of the ministry of Bullhorns. What do you think?

This is the last week of Rob Bell "nooma" videos (http://www.nooma.com). Next week we begin the John Ortberg series, "The Life You've Always Wanted" which presents the spiritual disciplines.

See you there at 7AM! (Donuts, coffee and juice will be served)

As always, bccmen invites and welcomes your comments either directly to the blog or email to bccmen@gmail.com.

"Rich" Jan. 20

This Saturday's video for discussion was from the nooma series by Rob Bell entitled "Rich". He introduced some staggering statistics as to just how wealthy Americans are in relation to the rest of the world. For example, 90% of the world's population does not have a car. Not any kind of car including a beater. So by most of the world's standards, by virtue of my 95 Geo with 181,000 miles and the side bashed in by a snow plow, I am rich! Actually, we also have a second car so I am practically a tycoon!

We had a stimulating and sometimes spirited discussion about what we do with what we have. God blesses us so that we can bless others. Not just our money but also our time. How can we bless others? Not that we can't enjoy what we have but, hey, spread a little of it around!

Pastor Frank shared some insights on the story of the rich young ruler in Mark 10:17, pointing out that the issue here was not that having money was wrong but that putting your trust in anything but God is idolatry.

Brian will be back next Saturday and we all hope he and Jean had a great time in Hawaii!

Don't forget! Feb. 3rd we begin the new DVD series by John Ortberg "The Life You've Always Wanted."

As always, bccmen invites and welcomes your comments either directly to the blog or email to bccmen@gmail.com.

Till next Saturday, God be with you.

New Video series begins Feb. 3rd!

A new 6 DVD session series will begin for the BCC Mens' Group on Sat. February 3rd at 7AM in the BCC lounge (formerly the fireside room in the old building). The title is: The Life You've Always Wanted: Six DVD Sessions on Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People by John Ortberg.

For more info contact Brian Fast at 475-1441 or email bccmen@gmail.com

"Rhythm" Sat. Jan 13th meeting ...

This saturday we watched another Rob Bell video titled "Rhythm". It had to do with how we see God. Do we see him as some "Wizard of OZ" figure who is off behind a curtain pulling levers, blessing this one and not blessing that one. Or do we see him as someone who made the universe but then sits back from some remote vantage point and watches maybe coming back now and then or getting involved only occassionally? Rob Bell said when he thinks of God he hears a song. He said Jesus showed us how to be in tune with the song. That everyone is playing the song, the question is, are you playing it in tune? Here are some challenging questions that he asks us:
What does it mean for you to be in or out of tune with the song?
Are you in tune?
Can you believe in God and be out of tune with the song?
Does it work the other way around?
What is more important to Jesus: what we believe or what we do?

How would you answer these questions? We would love to read your comments!

Don't forget to pray for Brian and wife Jean vacationing in Hawaii for their 30th! Pray that Brian will stay away from the big waves on the North side!

Jan. 6th meeting

Brian is still away in Hawaii. It's a tough deal but hey, somebody's got to do it!

After the usual prayer and worship opening, we watched the Rob Bell video, Flame. The topic was love. Rob used 3 Hebrew words for love to refine the concept. Ahava, riya (ree`-yah) and doh (don't know how to spell these so they're just phonetic from what i can remember).

Here's a quote from the cover of the DVD: "God Created love. and wants us to feel it all in the way it's meant to be felt."