I am sure you are familiar with the meeting between Jesus and Nicodemus, the Pharisee, in John chapter 3. Brother Nic came to Jesus in the dark of night for fear he might be seen by the other Pharisees! His question for the Rabbi was, “How can a man be born again when he is old?” Oswald Chambers said this about this question brother Nic asked Jesus:
“Being born again by the Spirit is an unmistakable work of God, as mysterious as the wind, and as surprising as God Himself. We don’t know where it begins— it is hidden away in the depths of our soul. Being born again from above is an enduring, perpetual, and eternal beginning. It provides a freshness all the time in thinking, talking, and living— a continual surprise of the life of God. Staleness is an indication that something in our lives is out of step with God…If you are depending on something else as your source of freshness and strength, you will not realize when His power is gone…It gives us new vision and keeps us absolutely fresh for everything through the never-ending supply of the life of God.” My Utmost For His Highest Oswald Chambers January 20
As I thought about this, I wrote in my journal, “Mike, how FRESH is your relationship with Me?”. It was like this jumped off the page of the devotion. It is like those big black and white billboards you see on the highway that say something like, “Let’s meet at My house Sunday, before the game. — God” I f we are drawing our life from anything, or anyone besides God…we will get stale! Let’s keep it fresh!
It has 
been an exciting last few days! Here is a little snapshot of what is happening…
We had a good start to the new weekly kids club this past Saturday. We had 4 kids which I was very excited about. We are doing a series called “Basic Training” which helps the kids get an understanding about becoming a Christian and what that means. Please pray for this time because most of the kids really do not understand what this is all about. They know the stories, but they do not know the Savior! We have also nick-named this “Sloppy Saturday” because we will be serving the kids Sloppy Joes for lunch! The kids club is going to take the place of the pizza night for these kids that was happening every other Saturday night.
We played a very neat game called Balloon Cup Blowoff! You choose teams and place plastic cups on a table for each team. You give each team member a balloon and they have to move their cups across the table where the bottom of the cup has to touch the edge of the other side of the table. If the cup falls off you have to start that cup all over again! You are probably saying, piece of cake! Not so fast my friend! It isn’t! Here are the first and second place winners!
The youth leaders decided that we need to place a priority on reaching the junior and senior high kids. This is age group that is very hard to reach.It was decided that Saturday pizza night should just be for the teens every week. There has been between 6-10 youth coming on the teen night. This is very encouraging. A couple of weeks ago one of the leaders said that he thought it was time to move to the next level with the youth. Pizza nights have been good but we need to try to start moving towards spiritual things. He also said that we did not need to tie the spiritual side (Bible Study) to the game night…some will come for the pizza and games but not stay for the study. Having a movie night was mentioned to some of the youth this past Saturday and they said that would be good. This Saturday night we are going to show the movie Do You Believe? We are going to post this on the message board this week. This is a movie that we hope will stir some discussion afterwards.
This past Sunday we had a real good group. We had a new teacher in town join us, and a couple that had not been with us in a while join us. If we had had 3 regular families, who were out of the community, here we might have had to hook up the video in the overflow room! I have been in a series called “FACE TIME – Face To Face Encounters With Jesus”. We are looking at people in scripture that had face to face encounters with God and how it impacted their life. The first Sunday we looked at Isaiah (Isaiah 6), and this past Sunday Jacob (Genesis 32-33). We have two, maybe three more Sundays in this series. I will conclude the series with Nicodemus’ meeting with Jesus in John 3!
The church is having a special Valentine’s Day event. It will be a Valentine’s Date Night at the church. I posted a flyer on the message board (go check it out…http://members2.boardhost.com/MCG-Community/ look for the post Valentine’s Date Night Special) . We are limiting to 10 couples based on the space to give each couple a little “romantic” space! Plus it is NO COST to the couples! Christie and I are cooking chicken casserole, rice, green beans, drink, and rolls. For dessert the choice of Red Velvet or Chocolate cake. We are also going to play a “clean” version of the Newlywed Game. Hoping we can get some people that don’t come to church to attend. This type of event is a first ever for this church, so we are praying for a good response!
NEWS FLASH!!! I have been given the opportunity to be the new McGrath Library Director. Whoopie…it is 10 hours per week at my schedule. I figure I can give it shot and see what happens. May be a way to connect with more people here, especially the kids when I work a shift or two during library hours. The money will help our monthly support. The church has very limited resources right now due the investment in getting the parsonage completed and ready for us to move in, so we are having to pay for the ministry stuff we do like the kids club, Valentine’s Day event and supplies out of our support money. But God will provide!
On Tuesday of this week, Christie and I have the honor of being judges at the McGrath School Spelling Bee! This is a big event as the top winners get to compete at the State Spelling Bee in Anchorage representing the school!
Well, as you can see there is a lot going on up here in America’s Last Frontier! As always we would love to hear from you all. If you would like to come visit, come on up! The weather is awesome!
We love you guys and appreciate so much your prayers. We can feel them all the way up here!