Check out this new service opportunity:

Reflect Ministries Breakfast program is a weekly outreach that serves breakfast to 200 kids in Zona Norte, the Red Light District and one of the poorest barrios of Tijuana. The breakfast not only provides nourishment for these hungry, poor children but is also an opportunity for Reflect to build relationships and impact the families on a deeper spiritual level. Zona is a place where violence, abuse, drugs and living on the streets is familiar to many of the children we feed interact with on a weekly basis.

Reflect is needing some financial support.

Reflect would like you to join them in their mission of impacting the lives of the children in Zona Norte, Mexico. Your Growth Group is challenged to adopt one Saturday and impact the lives of 200 kids! To do this your group will raise $400 to cover a Saturday breakfast. How do we get started sponsoring the breakfast program?

1. Sign up online www.northcoastchurch.com/service to sponsor the Saturday Breakfast program.
2. A packet will be mailed to you.
3. Once you receive your packet, write the date you will sponsor the breakfast program on the top of the enclosed picture display as a goal for your group.
4. Sixteen small envelopes are included, each envelope represents $25. Divide these amongst the group, each member will then return their envelope with either: cash, check or a Costco gift card (also available at the scrip booth in the plaza).
5. The picture display board may be used to show progress of returned envelopes.
6. Mail your money to Reflect Ministries using the enclosed manila envelope at least 2 weeks prior to the sponsorship date.
   

Military Picnic

We recently had a Military picnic out at Camp Pendleton. We served somewhere between 550-600 folks including an amazing crew of volunteers. We had two grills, the griddle and two BBQ’s all fired up, 40 gallons of lemonade, The King Bees, classic rock and blues band played the better part of the day, and had a pretty impressive sand castle contest.

We had a number of marines who just returned from Iraq, a few who are leaving this week and a ton of very happy and well-fed families. Thanks for all your prayers. God is so amazing to let us do a ministry such as this. We are so blessed by it.

Deb Bostwick

Team Leader

Beach Clean-Up

To kick off the summer many of the Growth Groups got together to clean up our local beaches. We provided the Groups with a "Beach Kit" to take along with them. The kit included: A bucket full of trash bags, gloves, trash pickers and a map with an area of beach to clean.

The Historical Jesus and the Shema; adapted from The Jesus Creed by Scot Mcknight.

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Deuteronomy 6:4-5
“…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18

Today we see loving God and loving others as the central command of following God. In Jesus’ time, the Shema was an integral part of Jewish spiritual formation. Jesus changed it for all time and it still has implications for us today.
The Shema is the most basic Jewish prayer. It is said every morning and every evening.[1] It really is the central prayer to Jewish spiritual formation and the essential creed of the Jewish faith.[2] It outlines who God is and how to love Him; mainly that God is one, and you love God by following Torah. Jews in Jesus’ time would have been very familiar with it. It is comprised of Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. These are the words God spoke to Moses just before the Israelites entered into the Promised Land. [3]
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
What you see here is the beginning of Shema. Most Christians are familiar with the second line of the prayer that tells us to love God with all of our heart, soul and might. This is what was considered the greatest commandment by Jews of Jesus’ day. The rest of the Shema goes on to outline a Torah approach to spiritual formation: memorize, recite, instruct, and write out the Torah. They would even wear tzitzit (fringes) to remind themselves of Torah. The central theme of this creed is to love God by following Torah. [4] This is the world that Jesus found himself in. It was a world of laws and rules and loving God by following all of them.
When Jesus came, he made two large changes to the Shema as it was known at the time. He changed it by saying that you love God by following me, instead of Torah. He also added to it by inserting Leviticus 19:18 “…you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The Jesus Creed, as Scot Mcknight puts it, is, “love God and love others.” This has become the central theme to the Christian faith.[5]
In Matthew 22 a Pharisee asked Jesus which was the greatest commandment in the law. Jesus responded to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40) This is the moment when Jesus added the second part to the Shema. We do not realize how revolutionary that was for the time.
Loving others was not unknown to Judaism. Jesus did not introduce anything that was not present in Judaism in the first place. After all, the piece he adds also came from the Old Testament, Leviticus 19:18. Loving others was central to Judaism but it was not part of the central creed of Judaism. When Jesus added this, he was acknowledging that loving others was part of the Jewish faith. He took it a step further, however, and made loving others an essential part of spiritual formation.[6]
The other change Jesus made to the Shema was that to love God was to follow him. There were many times that Jesus overturned a hard and fast rule to show that he knew best. One such example is at the end of Luke 9 Jesus asked a man to follow him. The man requested that he have time to go and bury his father. Jesus told him to “let the dead bury their own dead” and leave everything and follow him. It is highly unlikely the man’s father was lying dead on a bed at home. He was probably observing a Jewish custom designed to honor his father by taking a year for a burial ritual. Jesus overturns this man’s following of what he understood the Torah to say and instead told him to “follow me.” The spiritual life was now all about loving God by following Jesus instead of loving God by following Torah.[7]
For Jews of Jesus’, time spiritual formation began with the Shema. They recited it often and it shaped their view of how they became closer to God. Jesus changed the central creed to love God by following him and love others. This creed of, love God and love others, is the main message Jesus came to teach. Following it is the key to spiritual formation as Jesus saw it.[8]
Since loving God and loving others is key to spiritual growth how do we get there? What do we do? We can begin by doing the same thing the Jews of Jesus’ day did, saying the creed multiple times a day. The Shema is said every morning, “when you rise,” and every evening, “when you lie down.” It is my proposition that as part of our spiritual formation that we begin to say this creed. Start to get this idea, this saying, into the forefront of your mind. As you say it more and more often you will constantly be thinking of loving God and loving others.
One of the many things reciting the Jesus Creed will do in your life is to help take the focus off of yourself. To truly love is a sacrificial act. The phrase, “selfish love,” is an oxymoron. Selfish love cannot exist. If you are constantly reminding yourself to love God and love others you will begin to think of yourself less and others more.
When we take the focus off of ourselves, the gospel can seem more like good news and less like a scolding. Like the Jews of Jesus’ day, we can become wrapped up in the rules of the Bible. Christians and non-Christians alike can begin to see Christianity as a list of things not to do. We have become quite self absorbed and see the gospel as taking away certain freedoms that we “enjoy.” Promiscuous sex, drunkenness, greed, lust for power, and gossip are fun right? Constantly reminding ourselves to love God and love others will help us not to focus on ourselves too much.
As we take the focus off of ourselves, loving others begins to fill in the gap. We now begin to think about other people. This makes love personal. This love is not a corporate “the church should…” but “I should…” Reminding myself to love God and love others puts emphasis on what I do today to show love to other people.
This love for others can be seen at the local homeless shelter and AIDS house. As North Coast Church’s Pastor of Community Service I spend a lot of time thinking about how we, as a church, can show love to others. We spend thousand of dollars and hours every year helping the less fortunate of our cities. The love we have been able to show people is amazing. This is truly loving God and loving others.
There is another side of loving others as well. Church programs and high visibility projects are definitely an example of what Jesus was telling us to do. Sometimes the more difficult task is to wake up in the morning, recite the Jesus Creed, then change the baby’s diaper, take out the trash, and tidy up the kitchen. Loving my wife can be more difficult than running a program that feeds hundreds of people a day. Loving those we see every day like our family, friends, coworkers, and strangers we pass by is hard. Service projects are an important part of what it means to show love to others but we can never neglect the day to day love that truly transforms our personhood.
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams. Love in dreams is greedy for immediate action, rapidly performed and in the sight of all.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
My challenge to you, the reader, is this. Begin to recite the Jesus Creed during your day. There is some real truth to keeping your mind set on certain things. Say it when you wake up, at meals, every time you get in and out of a car, before and after a meeting, and as you lie down at night. Try it for at least a week and see if it changes how you treat other people, and where your thoughts go. Following Jesus and treating others as children of God and deserving of our love is what Jesus asks us to do when he said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25) Our minds are shaped by what we put into them. Reciting the Jesus Creed will put love on our minds and form us to be more like him.

[1] Kosofsky, Scott-Martin. The Book of Customs: A Complete handbook for the Jewish Year. San Fransisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. P. 27
[2] Hoffman, Lawrence A. The Way Into Jewish Prayer. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2000. P. 22
[3] Kosofsky, Scott-Martin. The Book of Customs: A Complete handbook for the Jewish Year. San Fransisco, CA: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2004. P. 28
[4] McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: loving God, loving Others. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2004. P. 7
[5] McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: loving God, loving Others. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2004. P. 7
[6] IBID p. 9
[7] McKnight, Scot. The Jesus Creed: loving God, loving Others. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2004. P.11
[8] IBID P. 11

Day of Service: Mini Home-Make Over

BEFORE...

AFTER...


The day of service at the Osborne Street home was amazing. To have the opportunity to spend time with people that know who's work they are doing gives us a peek at eternity.

A great job was done by several guys who worked on this project. It started as one task and ended up with many more. The home was built in 1930, so it made for some challenges. The outside of the home was scraped, primed where needed, then the windows needed to be papered and taped before Bay-Cal Master Painter sprayed the whole house. The volunteers painted all the window trim and removed the paper and tape. The trees were trimmed so they no longer hang over the neighbors property.

Thanks to everyone and God Bless

-Terry

North Coast Church Team Leader

Women of Faith Service Project

The Women of Faith Group meets each Tuesday morning for praise, worship, fellowship, and to study God's Word. This quarter the Women donated canned food items to help support The Angel's Depot a local non-profit organization. Over 1,000 pounds of food was collected and a total of 1,314 items.

Thank you Women of Faith for giving so graciously to this organization!

North Coast "Women Helping Women"

In the winter quarter of 2008 a small group of 13 North Coast Church women wondered what we could do to put a little "love into action" in our community. So we did some research, gathered some resources, put on our painting duds and with lots of gusto we transformed a resident room at The Family Recovery Center in Oceanside. The Family Recovery Center (FRC) was established to assist women with children in breaking the cycle of substance abuse.

Through FRC's "Adopt-A-Room" program our small band of women divided into teams and shopped for bedding & linens, paint & paint supplies, decorative room art and window blinds. On one Saturday in March we then loaded our SUV's and vans with all these supplies, some ladders, tools, snacks and an ice chest full of water and headed to FRC to tackle our project. While the resident and her two children were bunking with someone else for the day and evening, we went in and scrubbed the walls, spackled and patched the imperfections, taped off the edges and then put two fresh coats of paint on her room and adjoining bathroom. We then donned her bunk beds with new linens, blankets, pillows and comforter. We put new art work on the walls, a full length mirror at just the right height, some faux wood blinds on the window, a washable throw rug on the floor at the side of her bed and brought in a dresser and night stand.

When 3:30 rolled around that afternoon this resident room had been transformed from a sterile former hospital room to a warm, comfortable and beautiful transitional housing for a young mother and her two children. With paint under our nails and speckled through our hair, we went away that afternoon praying that God would somehow be able to use our efforts to encourage and improve the well being of that young woman and her children. I know all of us welcomed the opportunity we had to make a difference in their young lives, which in turn made a difference in our lives too.

Check out this web page to find out how your group can Adopt a Room at the Family Recovery Center!

Kathie Duncan
North Coast Church Team Leader

Click here to View all pictures from this service project!