Newspaper article

My twice yearly appointment to send in an article for the Rochester Sentinel came this week.  You can read below.  I really try to take this opportunity seriously.  Not sure who will read it and being limited to 400-500 words is tough, but my hope is that one person might get turned into God's direction and see Him, church and faith a little differently.

When I was first married, I made one attempt to accompany my beautiful bride to the grocery store to assist in the process of buying groceries for our new little family.  In the process of that trip, I learned that we would have two different strategies when it came to food purchase and consumption.  I believed in the purchase of name brand, my lovely budget-conscious bride with limited funds believed in saving money by buying generic or store branded items.  Needless to say, as I look in our pantry almost 13 years later, I lost.

Deep down in the soul of every person is a drive to find the “real”.  We ask tough questions like, “Why am I here?”  “What is my purpose?”  “What is the meaning of life – my life?”  Believe it or not, humans having been asking these questions ever since our first breath.  We are born with an innate sense of trying to find “real”.  We know there is something more to these lives and we try desperately to find it but the search often comes up empty.  Sure, we find short-termed victories but a feeling of loss and emptiness usually follows the success.

There are some incredible words spoken by Jesus in the story of his life written by one of his followers, John.  He says that there is an enemy in this world that wants to stop us from finding “real” – real purpose, real value, or real significance.  However Jesus says that his mission coming to earth was to give us an opportunity for life.  He says he came to give us abundant life, full life, REAL LIFE!

That is our heart at Mill Creek.  We are not perfect people, in fact we are quite flawed, we recognize that the battle over sin is real and sometimes we fall short.  But we also believe that we are on a journey together of discovering the REAL LIFE Jesus says he came, lived and died for us to have.  We are not a perfect group of people, but ones who believe in a God who can redeem, change, heal and transform our lives.  We believe in a God who wants us to step out of the fake and phony and step into the REAL.

My challenge to you this week is simple.  Look at your life; is it everything you’ve wanted it to be?  Are you truly happy with where you are, who you are and what you have?  Is there a deeper sense of longing for something more?  A pursuit of faith and God is a journey filled with honest questions.  Start asking today!  And, if you don’t have a church home, we would love to share our journey with you soon.

So, whether you love name brand food or know how to stretch your dollars by being budget conscious, know this - God loves you, he has a plan and a purpose for your life and you can live the REAL LIFE.