The Inn has a new website?!

That's right! The Inn has a new website. You can now visit us at theinnoc.com!

I am currently blogging the Epistle of James, and you should definitely head over to see it!

-John

Celebrate!!

Repetition is a pretty obvious way to emphasize something. Today God repeated, pretty explicitly, that we as a body need to celebrate His goodness, for His sake and our own.

If you didn't know I volunteer in the high school group at OCEC, and over the last couple weeks Erin has been going over Holy Habits...spiritual disciplines that we can incorporate into our daily lives to draw our energy, thoughts, and actions towards God. Today's Holy Habit was Celebration: Openly enjoying God, and His goodness to us. Erin started by playing the "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang and we as a youth group proceeded to 'get down'. Then we went on to look at some good examples of celebration in scripture:

-Moses, Miriam and their songs/tambourine dancing in Exodus 15 after God's rescue of Israel's from Egypt.
-Deborah and Barak's song in Judges 5 after God's defeat of Canaan.
-David and Israel's rejoicing/dancing in 2 Samuel 6 after God's return of the Ark to Jerusalem.
-Jesus first miracle of making water into wine at the wedding in Cana as recorded in John 2.

The next urge to celebrate came from Andrew and the rest of the worship band today as we began with the song "We're going to sing like the saved". YOu can't help but enjoy God's goodness to you when you are singing that song and then screaming at the top of your lungs! It was amazing to be reminded of the spiritual discpline of celebration at the perfect time, and then to be able to practice it.

So did you get any reminders from God to celebrate today? How do you think the the Inn could better pracitice this dsicipline? What are you gonna do because of God and his goodness to you?!

-John Lusser

Funky Friday: Mystery Desert Theatre Edition

Hey I am blogging from the first annual OCEC Mystery Desert Theatre!

Our very own Aaron Babst is playing the role of Johnny the mechanic, while Melanie Erickson and Trisha Freitag MC the entire event trying to help determine who killed who! They've filled up the fellowship center with hungry theatre lovers in order to raise funds for the junior high and high school missions trips this spring break.

As you may be aware we at the Inn are helping out the high school with their mission trip to Oakland by sending socks their way. It's an amazing opportunity to help out the homeless of the city with a much needed gift of clean and new socks. When you are on your feet for the most of the day it's incredibly important to get fresh socks as much as possible. We're collecting socks throughout the month of march up until the team leaves on the 20th, so PLEASE GET THOSE SOCKS IN!!

Tonight's Funky Friday challenge, you ask? Bring in 4-6 pairs of new socks. Do this and whisper to me the secret code phrase "Andrew filters his beans with socks." And I will buy you a coffee at Breve Espresso this coming Thursday. So get those socks in and enjoy a coffee on me...err, I mean the Inn.

-John Lussier

This week I...

This week I...

am stoked about the sale of our home in North Carolina. This is something that has been a financial burden for us for about a year now. We are totally excited about being free from that mortgage payment. Now we look for housing in the great Northwest.

have spent a ton of time with great people. I love doing life and ministry together, so when there are weeks like this when I get the chance to be with a lot of different people, I feel great and seem to draw a bunch of energy from being together with them.

will spend intentional time and energy in the tasks that I have been procrastinating from (as if I procrastinate / lol).

hope to have a few books finished that I have been working through for some time, namely, 9 Things A Leader Must Do and Building Leaders The West Point Way. In light of finishing these books I am really excited to start a couple of other books.

am starting a new book of the Bible for my devotions and personal development. I have been working through Paul's letters in the New Testament. Today I started Philippians.

think that The Inn is gonna rock! We're starting a new series entitled, "Relationships 101" and I expect that it's gonna be life-changing.

desire to continue to develop into the best me that God has created me to be. Through times of intentional discipleship and accountability as well as exhaustive reflections and personal as well as leadership development, I am hoping to take one step closer to developing as a child of the Most High, a husband, a father, a friend, and as a leader.

~Andrew

Funky Friday!!

Well it's Funky Friday! I am not feeling too hot and I completely missed last week's edition, so for today's edition we'll take it easy and just update you on some of the happenings at the Inn and elsewhere....

#1 Tim's face got crushed by a girl.

As you may or may not know Tim Mroz ran into a girl's knee the other day at soccer and subsequently had a bad case of face-crush. He's going to be alright (his chin is fine), but he has to go in for surgery by the end of the week to fix the broken bones. Be praying for his swelling to go down, for the surgery, and for quick recovery.

#2 We are still collecting socks for the homeless.

The sock drive we started two weeks ago is still on, and so far we have a total of about 8-10 pairs of socks. If you were there last night at the Inn you met Jake's friend Carlos and you know just how important and needed socks are for the homeless so I hope you can get in on the party and bring some socks next Thursday or to Andrew throughout the week!

#3 We have a new president!

I hope you will join with me in praying for President Obama and the rest of the white house. Pray for protection, wisdom and discernment, and most of all a call and desire to live lives that imitate Christ.

Grace and Peace!
-John

White Gold

Throughout the next 4 weeks we are collecting new socks for City Team ministries. You wouldn't realize it, but socks are such a need for homeless men and women that they sometimes refer to them as white gold. Please join with us and purchase a pack (or two or three) of new men's white crew length socks.

We've been blessed so that we can bless others.

-John

Jesus versus... Twilight

This is a rant. Hyperbole, sarcasm, and blatant rudeness follow. You have been warned.

Jesus: 218,000,000 google results

Twilight: 133,000,000 google results

"Jesus Christ" gives even worse results, 34,200,000 hits.

If you are like me, but hopefully not, you haven't gone a day for the last couple weeks (or months) without hearing about the series Twilight in one way or another. In fact, I am so confident you have heard about it at least once I am not going to bother to describe it. I imagine that you have heard at least something like one of these examples:

"So-and-so was up all night reading Twlight." (From a facebook status update.)
"Have you seen the Twilight trailer yet?" (I was asked by a friend.)
"You have to read the books and then go watch the movie." (I was told by a young mom from church.)

On Sunday I listened to one of my high schoolers from the youth group I volunteer at tell me that she had read the entire series of Twilight 7 times. SEVEN TIMES. 

Let's take a little excursion here...

There are about 2,400 pages in the entire series of Twilight, and there are about 250 words per page in a modern novel. That's about 600,000 words in the series. Give or take 100,000.

There are about 800,000 words in a KJV Bible. (Someone actually counted and came up with exactly 783,137. How'd you like to be that guy?) About how many times could this young girl have read the Bible in the time she read Twilight? 3-4? (I do not recommend she read it from the KJV though. Try the New Living Translation, the Contemporary English Version, or the TNIV.) 

People are enthralled by this stuff, and it leaves me thinking some things about the Bible, Jesus, and people.

-I can't remember the last time someone told me they were up all night reading their Bible, and just couldn't put it down. I have never met anyone, except some of my professors at school, who has read their entire Bible 6 or 7 times.

-Which is better news: That the newest movie on the series will be out in a little less than a year (Nov. 20, 2009, OMG!!), or that Jesus Christ has risen. For some, I think that the latter gets their heart rate going more and is probably more on their mind during the day. (Okay, I might be exaggerating a little.)

But honestly, what drives this kind of passion for a series of books, and why does it seem to affect Christians just as much as nonChristians? How is it that a series of novels about the romance between a vampire and a girl has become so enchanting?

Now I understand that the passion someone has for Twilight might not last a lifetime, hopefully like a person's passion for God, but isn't it tragic if for even a moment we become more engaged with something, in thoughts, words, or actions, other than Jesus Christ?

We can readTwilight, we can go to the movies, but we can't ever let it become a passion that outshines God, inwardly or outwardly, even for a small bit of time.  

Next week I will be covering Harry Potter...

J/k.   

-John

(I hope you understand the enormous amount of sarcasm in this post, and realize I am not trying to hate on Twlight as much as look at how even very small things can sidetrack or delay us on the journey. If we all took a moment to reflect each of us would find the real "Twlight" in our life. That is the idol we need to smash and not Twlight. Although...)