I can’t believe it’s 2012, and the Summer Olympics is happening again!    This year’s game will be in London, and I’m really looking forward to watching the competition.

This Sunday will be a special time to worship together for our “Family Sunday.”   All the elementary children will be in the sanctuary, and we’ll worship and take communion together.  I’ll be sharing a message called Olympic Living.   The Scriptures and illustrations I am going to share will be inspiring to both the kids and adults.

Make sure you make church a priority this Memorial Day weekend!

However, I hope my sermon also communicated that despite very certain theological differences, there can be solidarity on family and moral issues with Mormons. There are many things about the Mormon family life and values that I respect, despite their erroneous religious views.

A few years ago, we had a candidate for governor in Tennessee make a last ditch effort to secure votes by stating in an exaggerated manner that he had “Christian values.” While those are my values also, the commercial communicated, “Hey I am a Christian, so vote for me.” I think politicians should be judged on substantial issues, not simply religious affiliation. Christians have a wide variety of views on political and social issues, so simply riding our religion would be an incomplete presentation.

There are times when a person’s faith could override civil judgment, so I do think an evaluation of one’s religion has some merit. However, if a Mormon politician has a record of unbiased decisions, than that politician shouldn’t be judged any harsher that a practicing Catholic or Protestant.

Observing religion is an act of humility. Though I would love for every person in the world to believe just as I do, I think the power of believing something makes a leader more humble, even if they believe a delusion.

Join me for a night of worship at CIL on Wednesday, May 23 at 6:30 p.m.   Penny Simms will lead us both passionate and reflective music.  We’ll have communion available, and there will be an open microphone for any messages from the Lord that may come from one another.

With the pending presidential election and the two candidates established, you will be hearing a lot of noise about religion, and specifically the Mormon religion.   I want to share with you about Mormonsim, and how it relates to Christianity.  I want you to make this Sunday a priority, because this message will be a tool to help you discern the times, and relate better to people in the Mormon faith.

Also, make sure you attend a 242 Group Sunday night.  We have to “invest” in Christian community.

Isn’t it comforting to have the Holy Spirit, who helps us discern right from wrong?   More specifically, the Spirit helps us determine what is of God, and what is from demons.

Tonight, I will be teaching on “Distinguishing Between Spirits” as we continue our Wednesday night series on Manifestations of the Spirit from 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.    As always, we’ll have passionate worship and solid teaching.

You’ll be stronger by attending church tonight.

In recent years, Jim moved to Murfreesboro where he oversees the massive children’s ministry at World Outreach. In addition to this, he is personally leading the high school ministry, which meets on Thursday nights.

Spending time with Jim in his context was a great way for us to be stretched in his areas of his expertise, and to increase our vision for reaching the young people of our community.

We are thrilled that Jim Wideman will be doing a training event for all our children’s and youth workers on the evening of Sunday, August 26. This is a huge opportunity for our church! If you care about kids and teenagers, mark your calendars for that evening.

This Sunday, she’ll be sharing a message called Parenting with Purpose.    With our crazy life with three kids, that should be an interesting talk.

You can connect with her on Twitter and through her blog called Poison & Fruit for spiritual insights, cultural observations and simply fun stories.

Male of female, parent or not, you will enjoy this Sunday’s service.

Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.

If you have had a negative experiences with prophecy, it would be the natural reaction to despise this gift.   Evidently, that was happening among the church at Thessalonica.  Paul encouraged them and us not to despise prophesy, but simply test everything.

If the prophecy is good, hold on to it!   If the prophesy is not good, let it go.

We’ll be discussing this during our teaching tonight, so plan to attend at 6:30 p.m. so we can grow in the Spirit.

A saint’s life is in the hands of God like a bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God is aiming at something the saint cannot see, but our Lord continues to stretch and strain, and every once in a while the saint says, “I can’t take any more.” Yet God pays no attention; He goes on stretching until His purpose is in sight, and then He lets the arrow fly.

-  Chambers, Oswald (2010-10-22). My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition (p. 129). Discovery House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

In high school when I was balancing my call to preach and my love for football,  I used to say “I want to preach like Tommy Barnett and play football like Junior Seau.”   I never did either.

Seau seemed a lot older than me then, so I was surprised to discover he was only 43 at the time of his apparent suicide on Wednesday, just seven years my senior.

Seau appeared to live a charmed life.  A high school star in San Diego, he led his team to a state championship, then received a scholarship at nearby USC.  He then played the bulk of his 20 year NFL career in his native San Diego.   He played the game with passion and excitement that was beautiful to watch.  He was a living legend in his hometown.

However, his story ended horribly.  Whether it was from multiple concussions or personal demons, its hard to imagine that someone with his advantages would take his own life.

Or, did he have advantages?  Does the way we idolize athletes make any sense?   Do we allow athletes to be human?    Do we truly understand the ramifications of the modern day head trauma from American football?

I was reflecting on this tragic death at my boys’ elementary “field day.”   My boys both did well, but they certainly weren’t the fastest or strongest.   As dads, many of us wrongly  believe the ultimate dream would be for our sons to play major college football and have a 20 year NFL career like Seau.   But, 43 years is way to short to live.

There is so much more to life than athletic success.  Friendship, love and time together are the most treasured reasons to live in this world.