So we approach the year’s end. Another year of life happening at even greater leaps and bounds especially as we get older. We face the ongoing challenges (and pressures) living out the “American dream” from an early age throughout adulthood- achieving academic excellence, advancement in our careers, acquiring material wealth, marriage, family and so on and so forth. We fret (and hover) as parents over our children’s development and well-being. As Christians at times we struggle reconciling those pursuits with what our Faith compels us to do.
This year NCFC endured profound change the likes of which it had never experienced before. Who could’ve ever imagined at the start of the year how different it would be for everyone within less than a year’s time? And yet despite the transition of such magnitude this congregation remains together steadfastly resolute as a local church body of Christ. Not all churches would respond to this kind of crisis in the same manner. But I would like to think God individually confronted us with this intentionally with a specific purpose in mind for each and every one of us.
It’s been my observation that it’s often in the times of crisis that we seek God. Whenever we suffer hardship- whether physically, spiritually or materially- we go to God in prayer. God loves to hear from us in all things- not only in times of need but also in times of thanksgiving and confession, for example. But as I have shared before, if God only hears from us in our time of need and crisis then perhaps indeed God obliges us with need and crisis in our lives as our means of communion and dialogue with Him. That is, until we realize and experience a better way. As we have discovered, being driven into a barren isolated “wilderness” in life is not a spiritual attack to be resisted. This may be God’s intentional way of stripping away the distractions of this world in order to get us to surrender to His will and purpose in our lives rather than our own.
Personally, the self-reflection and spiritual growth I’ve experienced in the last 6 months at church has been life altering for me. I am an argumentative realist/cynic by profession. It’s been brutally humbling but at the same time necessary and transforming for me in my pastoral ministry to have gone through these times in order to be broken to myself.
I wouldn’t wish stress and hardship upon anyone and none of you are as stubborn and foolish as I am to bring that upon yourselves. But if hardship is what it takes to bring about beautiful transformation God intends in your life then I applaud you for your perseverance. Amen to that.

From Pastor Mark’s Heart
December 29, 2013

I’d like share with you one of my favorite Christmas stories originally told by Paul Harvey.  I hope this story help bring forth a deeper understanding and appreciation for Jesus Christ, God incarnate, as you celebrate Christmas this year.  
A man was invited by his wife and children to go to the Christmas Eve service at their church. He refused to go saying, "I don't understand how a God who is supposed to be loving and kind can let mankind suffer so much. Why would He decide to become a man and be born as a baby in a manger, no less? There is no logic in such an absurd idea, and I just can't accept it." So his wife and children went to church without him.
Shortly after the family left, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair to enjoy a nice quite evening alone.  Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound, then another, and then another. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, were trying to fly through his large window.
Feeling sorry for the birds, he came up with a great idea. He would open the barn doors and let the birds spend the night there. He put on his coat and boots and trudged out to the barn, opened the doors wide, and turned on a light.  But the birds just kept flying against his window, trying to get in. 
He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house and sprinkled bread crumbs on the snow, making a trail to the lighted wide-open doorway of the barn. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them, waving his arms.  But to no avail, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.
“What’s wrong with these birds?” he thought. Then he realized that they were afraid of him. To them he was a strange and terrifying creature. “How can I let them know that they can trust me, that I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them?” he felt frustrated and distraught. “Oh, if only I could become a bird like they are and speak their language! Then I could tell them not to be afraid and show them the way to the barn.  I wish I could become one of them so they could hear and understand me!”
At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel," which means, "God with us." (Matthew 1:22-23)

From Pastor Sara’s Heart
December 22, 2013