Just a reminder, this Sunday, November 22 will be our last class for the fall session.  We’ll take a break and regroup in January.  To give everybody a chance to hang out and discuss everything you learned (ha ha, I’m sure that’s what you’ll all be talking about), we’ll be having a grill-your-own pizza party at the Donner’s house after the 11.11 service this week.  Please RSVP at adonner@glenkirkchurch.org.  Bring your own toppings and some drinks; crust, sauce and cheese will be provided.

Just a quick poll…we may be having “Dinners with 8″ sometime next year, where we’ll ask some Glenkirk members to host 6-8 young adults for dinner so that we can get to know our church family.  How many of you are interested?  Please email me at yowassup@gmail.com.

Also, we will be having a party in December…we’re just not yet sure if it will be pre-or post- Christmas.  Hope you can join us and have a wondrous Advent season!

The name implies multiple meanings that convey some of the hopes and dreams we have for our group: the cross as a symbol of what Christ has done for us, a crossing into adulthood, an crossroads of faith and everyday life, even the sacred ritual of crossing oneself in prayer that some traditions engage in.  We hope you’ll join us if you haven’t already! Email Adam at adonner@glenkirkchurch.org if you have any questions!

Calling all college students and young adults!! Join us on Saturday, October 17th after the service for “Stirred”….live music, drinks, and delicious food! Enjoy the musical talent of Jess Pinner, Vinyl Siding, and John Brasell. We will meet in the Center and the bands will go on at 7 pm. Hope to see you there! For question, contact Adam Frazier at afrazier@glenkirkchurch.org or call us 626-914-4833 ext. 145

STIRRED exists to provide a place for college students and young adults to connect and enjoy some great music and fellowship over coffee and food! Join us in the Center at Glenkirk Church at 7 pm, Saturday, October 17th

ALSO, we need your help!! If you can volunteer, we would SOOOOO appreciate it.  This is the first Stirred event and we want to make it the best kickoff ever!  Please contact Adam at the email address above.  We could use folks to help setup at 4.30pm, some to help serve food and drinks during the event and others to help with teardown and clean up.  Remember, many hands make light work!  Hope to see you there!

“The Sermon on the Mount is not some unattainable goal; it is a statement of what will happen in me when Jesus Christ has changed my nature by putting His own nature in me.”

There’s this weird tension throughout the New Testament when it comes to transformation, that is, becoming more like Christ:  me vs. the Holy Spirit.  I like the notion in today’s devotional that it is Jesus who creates in me a better me, yet at the same time, where does my own effort come in?  James makes it clear that I can’t just lie back, do nothing and expect to see my nature transformed into what God intended it to be.  How do you resolve this tension?

“But if you only try to worry your way out of the problem, you destroy His effectiveness in you, and you deserve whatever you get.”

I love the title of today’s devotional: “Are You Ever Troubled?” Ummm…YEAH!” Read this one, it’s good and I totally needed it. I almost quoted the entire devotional above, but that would’ve been overkill, I suppose.  So I chose the zinger above. What do you think?

OK, it’s not the second coming of Christ, but He will be coming in a sense…on September 13, Kickoff Sunday, our new weekly class for young adults will be premiering in Room 24.  We hope you’ll meet Him there, as well as some of us.

So join us every week during 2nd service (9.45 am) for an hour of Fight Club.  Just kidding, just checking to see if you’re paying attention.  We’ll hang out, get to know each other and have a little teaching and discussion, nothing too scary.  Like punching each other in the face.

Since the fall season at Glenkirk always focuses on the “A” of “ABC’s”–”Ask”–we’ll be doing a series on questions about the faith.  We’ll even take suggestions about questions that y’all would like to have addressed in our class.  See you there!

A lot.  So we’re taking suggestions for names for our budding young adults group.  So far, we have collected the following for potential monikers (yes, I’m serious):

• The Screaming Martyrs
• Hoi Polloi
• Kevin
• Are We There Yet?

Surely, you can do better.  PLEASE post a reply (so we can have some better options to choose from).  Ideally, the name would communicate something about who we are, what we hope to be or where we’re headed (which eliminates the last one listed above).

"Summer Breeze" by Alice Dalton Brown

“The voice of the Spirit of God is as gentle as a summer breeze— so gentle that unless you are living in complete fellowship and oneness with God, you will never hear it. The sense of warning and restraint that the Spirit gives comes to us in the most amazingly gentle ways. And if you are not sensitive enough to detect His voice, you will quench it, and your spiritual life will be impaired.” (Click here for link to reading)

Do you hear voices?  I do.  Not in the need-to-check-into-a-mental-health-facility sense (well, at least not yet), but I hear them.  I hear voices telling me that I’m not good enough, that I’m not smart enough, that I’m not pretty enough.  I hear voices telling me to be afraid of the future, to choose my own path, to rely on my own strength.  It’s not surprising that the whisper of God is hard pressed to make it through all that crap to reach my ears.

But once in awhile, it does. And the beauty that it brings is captured in the phrase, “as gentle as a summer breeze”.  When I allow it to waft through my spirit, its gentleness has the power to sweep away those voices and to fill me with truth instead.  There are times when God’s voice spoke something specific to me and other times when He just wanted to let me know He was there.

Have you ever had an experience where you felt like you heard the voice of the Spirit of God? What was it like?

“The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . .” ( John 15:16).”

Man, is anyone else getting their butt kicked by this dead guy?  Do you agree or disagree?  His entry here.