The following blessing was spoken over our church and our people on Sunday, March 11 at Trinity Life Center. This blessing was spoken at the end of a sermon focused on Isaac speaking a future blessing over his two sons Jacob & Esau. Hebrews 11:20, "By faith Isaac invoked future blessings on Jacob and Esau." I believe this blessing was given to me by God for this church for this time!

"I speak over your families today, health and blessings, salvation and grace. I speak that your children, your grandchildren and your great grandchildren will fear the Lord,  love the word, being obedient and respectful.  May your children & grandchildren be blessed and provided for.

I speak over your job’s today, favor with all those who you come in contact with, favor with your co-workers and boss’s alike, may you be an example in work ethic, kindness, love, and ability.

I speak over your marriages today, may their be romance, love, laughter, joy, and fun. May you treat each other as you would want to be treated. May the cycle of divorce in our country be broken in this church, in this body, in these relationships.  May we maintain purity in our mind’s and body’s for our spouses.

Finally, I speak a blessing over this church, may there be a mighty outpouring of the spirit of God in this church like few have seen, may the presence of God be so real and tangible that we leave knowing we met the savior. May we be a part of “a new thing” that God does, may we see miracles, healings, and salvations. May we reap the harvest that is plentiful in a church where the laborers will not be few, but many. May we believe that the best is yet to come for Trinity Life Center. I speak a blessing that the Spirit of God will move in this church so greatly that the city of sacramento will be transformed."

I recently read a quote from the book Total Church that said this,

"Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality."

I loved this quote because I believe we have complicated or shrugged off what it means to be a part of the Great Commission. We have reduced the sharing of the gospel to the job of pastors, or missionaries. We've made the gospel something that we share for one week a year while we are on a missions trip. Perhaps the church has been challenged regularly to share the gospel, but little has been done to equip them or train them how to do it. Maybe we've taught the church that the only way to share the gospel is to have their non-christian friends over for a small group bible study.

That's why I love this quote, "ordinary people, ordinary things, gospel intentionality." It seems so simple when I think about it this way. If I were to put it in my own words, I'd say this,

"Do what you do with Jesus on your mind, heart, and tongue, see what opportunities to share the gospel come."

Simple, yet missional. Jesus said, “as the father has sent me [on mission], so I send you [on mission]" (John 20:21) To the church today I believe God is saying, do what you do and allow me to use you.

This Saturday, September 24 from 9am to 1pm we are having a special event here at Trinity Life Center called "The Big Giveway". The name describes it perfect. We will be giving away 2,000 bags of groceries, free haircuts, and having a free flea market. Also, there will be free lunch for everyone that attends.

We're believing 2,000 people will attend from North Highlands and Sacramento. I cant wait to see what God does through this event on our lawn here at Trinity.

We already have 150 volunteers signed up from our church to serve our community on that day, amazing! If you want to volunteer it's not to late. Email me at calebc@tlcsac.org.

Love, Live, Give!

Are you new to Trinity since January? This coming Sunday we would like to invite you and all your family out to our VIP Connection. This will be a free, relaxed event, where you will have the opportunity to meet our pastors, learn more about our ministries and get a tour of our campus.

Dont miss it, Sunday, August 21 at 5pm.

This Sunday we will only be having one service at 10 a.m. Don't miss out on this awesome Independence weekend celebration here at Trinity Life Center.

Recently I sent a text to a missionary friend of mine out of the blue because I hadn't talked to him in about a month. I just wanted to say hello and see how he was doing. He is a missionary to Japan currently living here in the states for a year of itinerating (this means he's traveling to churches with the goal of raising enough money to meet his budget). His plan is to head back to Japan in August for the next three years straight.

So after sending him a text, I immediately receive a response. The response was not what I was expecting.

"I'm doing alright. BTW, I have meen meaning 2 tell u it seems like ur support hasnt been coming in. I know u just want 2 say whats up & im like SHOW ME THE MONEY. Sorry about that."

That was his exact text. At first all I could think was dude, I say what's up and the first thing you ask me is why my monthly support hasn't been coming through. But I quickly conceded that thought only to realize I was actually glad that I have a friend that will keep it real with me. No pleasantries, just "I'm a missionary and I need my money so I can win people for Jesus." I couldn't help but laugh, and laugh hard. But I was mostly grateful for friends that keep it real and missionaries who see the kingdom of God being preached as the most important thing in this world.

Proverbs 27:6 says, "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

Now, obviously I wasn't wounded by my friend here, but when I read this scripture I become appreciative of the friends who speak the truth, keep it real, and challenge me in my life. Too many of us are engaged in surface relationships with people who just want to blow multiple kisses at us when really we need a good kick in the butt.

Choose your friends wisely, be real, get rid of the fluff and see it as a blessing when your missionary friend asks you to SHOW ME THE MONEY.

This past sunday I preached on "the power of a perfect pattern." I know, it's alot of p's.  I talked briefly on the pattern of power. You see I believe that the church should be a place of dynamic presence. By that I mean a dynamic presence of God in every one of our services.

 We live in a church culture that is all about the presentation, consumer christianity is what many people have labeled it. People hop from church to church until they find the church with the most skilled communicator, most sleek and cool looking building, most gifted musicians and worship leaders, the best kids & youth programs. There's nothing wrong with all of these things, in fact, we strive to make all of these areas the best they can be in our church. I wonder though, do we spend as much time inviting God's presence to be in our worship services as we do planning & promoting a sleek service.

My prayer for our church and for all churches is that they would be a place of dynamic presence, a place of power. A place where people step in to the building and the power of God is already at work on peoples hearts. My fear is that one day we will put together a sleek service with all the desirable things people are looking for all the while lacking that which is most important, "God's power." May we always be mindful that the presence of God is what changes people, not our manmade and facilitated service schedules.

Lord, give us the same power in our services that we see in Acts 2 when 3,000 people came to the saving knowledge of your son after one sermon.

WE NEED YOUR POWER!

If you're like me you enjoy a regimented schedule. You may get ready the same exact way every day, eat the same breakfast every morning, drive the same route to work day after day. If you're like me you enjoy the comfort level of your schedule, the safety of that pattern.

While there is much good in having a regimented schedule and importance in making sure we accomplish our daily to-do lists, sometimes our pattern can have us bound by the schedule and enslaved to our next check mark. We get so locked in that we miss things God may be trying to show us or asking us to do.

We must follow Jesus' example in handling our daily schedules. Nothing was too small or too great for Jesus to take interest.

Luke 4:40 says, "When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them." 

Jesus was a man on a mission, He was led by the spirit, so essentially He had the most regimented schedule of any of us.

After finishing a long day of preaching in the synagogue, Jesus heads to the home of Simon, probably hoping to rest and recover. Instead, Simon's mother-in-law is sick so he heals her. The next thing He knows, people bring all their sick from the area to Him.
 
I love that we see Him take the time to lay his hands on every one of those who were brought to Him, every single one. It also mentions that the sun was setting when this happened, meaning that for a while Jesus was laying his hands on individuals, healing people in the dark.

We must be people who learn to get over our schedules and busyness and are open to being used by God. It makes it really hard to serve others when we are always focused 100% on serving ourselves. Today I am praying against my regimented schedule and for the Holy Spirit's leading in my life, will you join me?

When I was younger I grew up thinking that Church was something most people attended just to make themselves feel better about all the bad stuff they'd done during the week. The more I watched people's lives as I grew up, the more I thought "people don't really want to live for God, they just want to live for themselves and hope God let's them into heaven."

It wasn't until high school that I realized I didn't want to live for myself. Romans 12:1-2 hit me one day while I was reading my Bible and to this day it has been one of my favorite verses.

"Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."

At that point in my life, I realized that we are called to worship God with our lives ... every aspect of it. I also realized that I wasn't very good at it because naturally I wanted to live for myself. I've always wrestled with the idea that most people live ordinary, normal lives and don't feel like their lives are worship to God. I preach that their lives are worship, I challenge them to make every aspect worship, but that doesn't mean it always clicks. I'm reading a book called Total Church by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis and I came across a quote that I think is perfect for those of us striving to live a life of worship to God.

"Most gospel ministry involves ordinary people doing ordinary things with gospel intentionality."
 
My prayer is that we all realize we are all ordinary people out there doing ordinary things, but that we can do those things with intention. That intention is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Living your life for Him is so much better than living your life for yourself. It's not about you, it's about Him. When you strive to live that way there's no way you're going back.

Just thought I'd let you all know what kind of Easter we had here at Trinity Life Center. We are praising God for all the guests, lives changed and people impacted by the power of our risen savior this past weekend.

Here's a recap:
We had a total of 1740 in attendance at our services this past Sunday morning.
We had our biggest ever contemporary service attendance.
We had 267 kids in attendance at our Kidsquest.
We had 62 first-time guests in attendance.
We had over 20 salvations between the two services. (Many more raised their hands and prayed the prayer, but those were the actual commitment cards we received.)

We are just praising God for his surpassing greatness. To think that 3 years and 4 months ago this church was averaging 150 total people in attendance and here we are with an Easter Sunday that was pushing 1800. We can't do anything but praise God and stand in awe of his miraculous power. I'm so proud to be a part of what God is doing here at TLC.

The best is yet to come!