Dave Bowman

God is Great, God is Good...or Is He?

We've all heard the prayer. We prayed it as kids. We taught it to our kids. "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food." Definitely a cute little children's prayer.

But as adults it doesn't take long for us to run into something that makes us wonder, "Is God REALLY good and great?" Life sometimes seems unfair. Bad people sometimes prosper and good people don't. Sometimes God doesn't answer our prayers the way we think he should. Things happen that just shouldn't happen.

So how do you have faith to believe God is great and good when those times hit? Beginning this Sunday we're going to unpack a little book in the Bible that can give us some lessons on how to keep believing in God's goodness and greatness.

And here's the deal - this is one you DEFINITELY want to invite your friends and family to. So, call up your unchurched friends and get 'em here!

How Can We Pray For U Again

During our 21 day fast the staff is joining together for prayer on Thursday afternoons. Last week we prayed for everyone who let us know that they were unemployed. This week we'd like to pray for you guys again. This time we're going to be praying for those who have physical illnesses. So, just like last week, if you want us to pray for your physical health/healing, send me a comment. (Just like last week, I won't post any of the comments to protect your privacy!)

Weekend Rewind

Yesterday was another awesome day at New Horizon. It seems like every weekend God just continues to do things to rock our world. Life change is happening every week! Here's an example: one of our staff members came to my office after the services were over and said, "Just wanted to tell you about a guy I met today. He got saved today and then he joined a serving team and a Community Group!" ALL IN ONE DAY! NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!

Other than that, here are some highlights from yesterday...

• We wrapped up the Religiously Transmitted Diseases series with a focus on some erroneous beliefs about sin:

1) I'm really not that bad - Are you kidding me? We're all bad! We're sinners! And until we realize how bad our sin is (it required the death of God's only son!) we won't realize how badly we need a savior.

2) All sin is the same - Not exactly. It is in the sense that it all separates us from God, but other than that the Bible clearly indicates that different sins lead to different outcomes and different levels of consequence, both in this life and in the life to come.

3. I've already done the deal, so I might as well keep doing it - Only if you want to cause yourself more trouble. The end result of sin is always the same - we end up tangled up, overcome and miserable. 

So what do we do? Take our sin seriously and repent...turn in the opposite direction.

• God has really used this series. Lots of responses during the prayer times and lots of people getting saved.

• We announced our new series that begins next week, God Is Great, God Is Good. We're going to rock the book of Habakkuk for 3 weeks. Habakkuk??? Yeah, it's in that section of your Bible where the pages are still stuck together, but it's an incredibly relevant story to our lives today. We've all had times in our lives when we wondered if God was really as good and great as we've been told. In this series we're going to learn to have faith during those very times when we question God's goodness and greatness. Looking forward to digging into this one!

• Handed out invite cards for the new series and we gave everyone a handful of cards. Let me encourage you to USE THEM ALL!!! I have a gut feeling that God really wants to use this series in a big way to draw people to himself. So, do whatever it takes to get your friends here this Sunday!

RTD's Pt. 4

This Sunday we're wrapping up the RTD series with a 3 for the price of 1 special! We're going to be talking about 3 of the most common RTD's about SIN. Yes, we're going to talk about sin but it's still going to be a great weekend to bring a friend! Why? Because the worship is going to be hot...the kid's ministry will be big, loud and messy...and most important of all, your unchurched friends will hear about Jesus! See 'ya Sunday!!

Want Us To Pray For U?

One part of our staff's 21-day prayer and fasting journey together is to meet each Thursday afternoon for prayer together. We pray for each other, our ministries, our church, our team members and just about anything else we can think of.

This Thursday we would like to spend our prayer time praying for something very specific - your employment/business situation. We're all aware that this is a tough economy and that some are losing jobs and/or business. So, if that's your situation we would like to pray for you specifically.

So, shoot me back a comment (I won't publish them, so don't worry about someone else seeing your comment) and we'll add you to the prayer list!

Weekend Rewind

Just a few random reflections on a great day at New Horizon...

• Awesome day at New Horizon yesterday! Energy was high...worship was intense...overall just a powerful day!

• Really proud of the fact that we were able to immediately send some Unstoppable mission funds to Samaritan's Purse for Haiti. Plus, we designated 10% of Sunday's offering for Haiti.

• Love what we're doing with the worship sets in the services lately. Jon, Dougie and the programming folks have been working on raising the worship environment and it's really changing the atmosphere of the services.

• We talked about what I think is the most dangerous RTD of the series, and probably one of the most dangerous ones infecting the church today - God wants you to be happy. Here are some key ideas we hit on:

- God cares way more about your character than he cares about your happiness. That means there will be times when God doesn't want you to be happy. He wants something greater than just your happiness.

- God wants us to be HOLY. God never wants you to be happy if it leads you into sin. He never calls us to live below his standards for the sake of our happiness.

- God wants us to be CONTENT. Fact is, our happiness is based on our "happenings." We're happy based on our circumstances. But God knows that the circumstances that make us happy come and go. So he wants us to learn what Paul had learned: to be "content in any and every situation."

- God wants us to be BLESSED. But sometimes the blessing of God in our lives doesn't look like we expect it to look.

- God wants me to be HOLY, CONTENT, AND BLESSED, but how do I get there? Two simple things - Delight myself in the Lord (Psalm 37:4), and seek God's kingdom (Matthew 6:33).  

– The big question of the day - What are you pursuing? The things you think will make you happy, or holiness, contentment and God's blessing?

• Personally, I struggled with this message more than you can imagine. But God honored his Word and it accomplished its purpose - PEOPLE GOT SAVED!

When we started this church (24 years ago this month!) I had no idea that we would see people come to Christ every weekend, but that's what we get to experience at New Horizon Church! What a great place to Encounter God and Engage in Community!

Let's keep praying, keep inviting, keep serving, keep giving and let's continue to BE THE CHURCH!

Next week -  Pt. 4, Boo Boos, Blunders and Bloopers. Bring your friends and family members who don't know Jesus!

This Weekend At NHC

It's Week Three of Religiously Transmitted Diseases and this weekend is a hot one! In fact, this weekend we're talking about what I think is the most dangerous RTD of this entire series. This one will cause dis-ease in your life if you don't deal with it.

And once again, this is a great weekend to invite an unchurched friend. So, who are you bringing to NHC this weekend? Awesome music...exciting kid's stuff...don't miss it and DON'T COME ALONE!

Effective Prayer

Are you joining us on our 21 day prayer and fasting journey? If you are, let me give you a few quick suggestions on how to pray effectively...

• Pray in Jesus' Name

Effective prayer is focused on and centered in Jesus. When it comes to praying, Jesus himself told us to come to the Father in his name. "I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name." John 16:23 God hears and responds to prayers that are lifted up in the name of Jesus.

• Pray God's Will

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1 John 5:14  When we pray according to God's expressed will, we can expect God to respond.

• Pray God's Word

This links to the previous point. The best place to go to understand God's will is God's word. So when we pray God's word we're on target in praying according to God's will. "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you." John 15:7   The more we stay in God's word, the more his word stays in us and the more we pray in line with his word.

• Pray With Faith

Jesus said that when we pray faith is an essential element. "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:22

• DON'T GIVE UP!!

In one of Jesus' most famous teachings on prayer (Luke 11:5-8) he teaches us not to give up until we get an answer. He ends the story with one of his most famous sayings: "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Luke 11:9  In the original language of the New Testament this would have sounded more like this: "Ask, and ask, and ask...seek and seek and seek...knock and knock and knock..." In other words, KEEP PRAYING!

Day 4

Well, we're 4 days into our 21 day journey of fasting and prayer. So far, so good! I think I've made it through the detox period intact. Everyone says the first few days of a fast are the hardest because your body is going through a cleansing process. You're literally detoxing. Fortunately for me, I had already cut out caffeine, so I didn't have to deal with that. But I still felt the effects - headaches and a little trouble sleeping. But that all seems to be over now.

What I've chosen for this fasting and prayer time is a Daniel fast. It's based on Daniel's request to eat only fresh fruits and vegetables, and to drink water instead of eating the king's food and drinking his wine in Daniel 1. Then again, Daniel does a similar fast in Daniel 10 where the Bible says he "ate no choice food" for a period of 21 days.

So, for four days now I've cut out all meat and I'm drinking TONS of water! (Which means I'm also making lots of trips to the bathroom. Somehow that just doesn't feel very spiritual!) I'm focusing more time on reading the Bible and journaling my prayer time. I'm listening to worship music during my reading and prayer time in order to keep my heart focused on worship.

And I'm focused on a pretty simple goal - I just want to draw near to God during this journey. I'm not asking God for anything big...I'm not fasting for some big breakthrough...I'm not asking for any miracles. I just want to feel God's presence in my life more strongly as we kick off a new year and a new decade.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death...  Philippians 3:10

So, how about joining us? If you need more information on fasting, check out Leah's blog. She has a list of links with more information about different types of fasts, Daniel fast recipes and pretty much everything you need to know to get started. Lets take the journey together!

21 Days

I announced yesterday that our staff is embarking on a 21 day journey of prayer and fasting. Actually, we are joining with over 700 other pastors, staffs and churches who are doing the same thing at the same time and I'm pretty pumped about that.

I'm also pumped about how many NHC'ers are joining us on this prayer journey. If you want more information about fasting, types of fasts  you can check out Leah's blog for more details. 

And if you didn't get signed up to receive the prayer devotional that the staff is using for this 21-day prayer journey, you can drop me a comment and I'll get hooked up.