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I circled, highlighted, underlined and put in quotes this little statement in John Ortberg’s latest book, Faith and Doubt.  He writes,

“I do not know why tragedy,

which destroys faith in some people,

gives birth to it in others.”

I like that statement because it’s the essence of our struggle.

This year some of us will face tragedy. 

It may come in the form of sickness.  We will have some type of cancer that no one can pronounce. Or some other malady that can’t wait to get it’s sick little hands on our immune system.

It may come in the form of loss.  Someone we love who is near and dear to us will depart this earth.

It may come in the form of difficulty in finances, parenting, work, relationship or school. 

We don’t get a crystal ball to see ahead in anticipation and preparation for the challenge.  We only get God and His Word.

Paul said, “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39

Whatever the challenge the new year brings allow, “…the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” to give birth to faith in your life.

God bless and Happy New Year!

Pastor Ed and the GateWay Staff

I feel very self-conscious and inadequate writing today but I’m compelled to address the Newtown Connecticut tragedy.  I hope this is accepted as I intend it.

In the 1980’s Karen Burton Mains toured the refuge camps of the world.  Camps where adults and children were held for political crimes or famine related issues.  The camps were excruciatingly inhumane and ultimately chaotic. From her experiences she wrote a book that is incredibly meaningful to me entitled, “The Fragile Curtain.”  She chose that title because she came to realize that in the U.S.A. she was living behind a black curtain that kept her blind from the traumas the people in the rest of the world encountered.  There was a phrase she used toward the end of the book to describe the horrific conditions she experienced.  She wrote this, “My fragile curtain has been torn.”  That is how I feel today. 

Without the hope of eternal life in Christ, where there is no more crying or mourning or pain, where there is no more death, my hope in comfort and consolation would be shredded.  There is an insidious evil in our world, even in the supposedly safe areas of America, which defies rational explanation or logical understanding.  Evil has seeped into the lives of the naïve and innocent with a raw intensity that will defy psychiatry and counseling for years.  It will lift its horrendously ugly head in dreams and feelings in those who have endured their horribly traumatic day and they will never fully heal.  PTSD and other syndromes will be discussed and encountered for lifetimes.  There will be no opportunity for denial.  There is no reason “why” that will open the door of insight and personal healing.  Irrationality has no definition and this kind of childhood violence has no justification, therefore finding a satisfying explanation is impossible.  Healing the brokenhearted and binding their wounds will be slow.

The only option for us is love.  To love those who have lost someone they love. To love them so that possibly one day they might be able to encounter a day that has some normality to it with no high definition memories.  Every Christmas will force the facing of a holy day milieu that will be oppressive and dark.  

We desperately need to feel the grief of fellow humans who are just trying to take their next breath.  Who will get to that point of exhaustion and hope for some brief period of sleep so the hurt can be held at bay for an hour or two.  If I sound morbid and defeatist it’s because I, in a very very minor partial way, realize how long and painful will be the healing from emotional grief for a 5 year old child.

My fragile curtain has been torn.  I thank God my children are alive and enjoying life. And yet I fret.  I worry selfishly because I don’t want to be a grieving parent.  I don’t want to be the one who loses someone they love.

Praying for the community of people in Newtown with tangible expressions of love is our only option.  It won’t allow anyone to escape the psychological damage, and the process of grief that these poor people will have to endure.  But we can at least expend sympathy and some small acts of love.

If you have the gift of mercy or compassion why not write down the name of a parent who has lost a child today and send a card every month for a few years.  See if God can use your concern and love to, in some small way, help someone to heal.  

One other thing, hug, forgive, call, love your kids, parents, family, and thank God for the privilege of having them in your life.

So, for your Pastor, tonight, if you have young kids, do what was my favorite part of being a dad of young kids.  Give them a bath and afterward pull their little wet, warm, naked bodies wrapped in terry cloth close and inhale the sweet scent of shampoo and soap.  Then throw them down on the carpet and put your mouth on their bellies and blow out as hard as you can, making what Bill Cosby used to call "zerbets!"  Which are really just giant fart noises made with your mouth on their belly!  And while their laughing hysterically and asking you why you're crying just say, "God has filled me so full of love for you it just leaks out."

God bless,

Pastor Ed

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As a young girl Agnes had great trust in God.  Her heart was on fire with God’s love for her and she responded to Him like a daughter would a doting father.  She described her relationship with God as, “rapture!” 

Agnes thought the way to respond to God was through service to Him.  So she became a Bible student and ultimately a missionary.

But then everything changed, she felt her trust in God, and even God Himself had somehow left her.  The spiritual, psychological, emotional ecstasy she had felt through her connection with Him disappeared.

“What has happened to my trust?  There is nothing but emptiness and darkness in my soul.” she thought. 

Agnes began to write letters to a confidante and pour out her fear and darkness.  She asked that the letters be destroyed so that no one would know of her struggle with her trust in God.

But the letters weren’t destroyed and have become a monument to a woman who served God for over fifty years in spite of her struggle.  She continued on because she knew GOD was there but she lost HER sense of connection.  Agnes intellectually knew one day she would meet Him and at that moment all her emotional agony would vaporize.

A wise spiritual counselor told her that her struggle in feeling God as absent was a sign that she was becoming more like Jesus when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

Even someone like Agnes or as we commonly know her, Mother Teresa, could struggle with trust in God just as we do?  Mary, the mother of God, struggled with trust as well.  But she responded, “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)

This week at GateWay we celebrate one of the Miracles of Christmas Mary’s miraculous trust in God.  Join us Thurs. at 6:45p or Sunday for Traditional worship at 8:45a or Contemporary worship at 10:30.

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I’ve noticed, as I’ve shopped around town, that everyone is skipping Thanksgiving and going right to Christmas.  I don’t see any Thanksgiving decorations.  In fact, this is the first year that Black Friday is beginning Thanksgiving night.  It seems there’s a big build up for Halloween and then we go right to Christmas. No pause.

President Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of the Civil War,  decided the nation needed a pause.  He wrote the Thanksgiving Proclamation to create a national holiday to remember from whom our blessings come.  

He writes:

“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.”

GateWay will pause the next two weeks to review what the Bible has to say about being thankful.  Prepare this week by reading Psalm 100, it is a Psalm of Thanksgiving, the attitude not the holiday!

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2 Important announcements!

#1.  What if you arose tomorrow morning just as the sun crested above the Sierra Nevada mountains, pulled a flashlight from a drawer, walked in your front yard and aimed the full illumination of your flashlight at the sun?!  What difference would it make?  Absolutely none. 

But what if you walked into a windowless warehouse at midnight that had a power outage and you were looking for a black cat?  The flashlight would make all the difference in the world! 

Acts 2 records the arrival of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers who lived in a world of darkness and what an illuminating difference He made!  The Church came alive.

This Sunday we start a new series entitled “Network.”  The next 3 Sundays we’ll talk about how the early followers of Jesus accepted God’s mission of being light in the darkness and changed the world.

#2.  We have some really positive exciting news to share on Sunday morning so please come and participate in the life of your church!  Are you curious?

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This week is our Combined Service at 10:00 am!  Traditional and Contemporary gathered together.

I hope you’re prepared to gather with all Gatewayers to worship together and proclaim Jesus Christ the Lord, CEO, Savior and Coach of our lives.

We’ll be finishing up our Family month message series with, “5 Commitments Found in Healthy Families.”

As a preview to one of those 5 commitments Dr. George Crane says this, “Appreciative words are the most powerful force for good will on earth.” 

What do you think? Will Sunday’s message help the health in your family?  I hope so.

October is Family Month at GateWay!

I hope you’ll join us this weekend for a challenging message, “Winning @ Marriage!”

If you’re single I want you to know that you can take these principles and use them for any male/female friendship.

Join Us!!!

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In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus makes it clear that the first act of obedience as a follower is to be baptized!  What a privilege to witness over 50 people being baptized for Jesus Sept. 30^th and to encourage them in their next steps of faith.

What is the next step of faith?

Attitudes.  This Sunday we’ll be looking at 8 key elements of attitude for every follower to incorporate.

Actions are important but we don’t live in a legalistic environment dominated by actions.  We live in a Spirit led environment dominated by attitudes.

Attitudes create actions.  Before any person takes any action they’ve been infected by attitudes.

Read Romans 12 before this Sunday and pay special attention to the attitudes listed in 12:9-13. 

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Guilt has been called the place where psychology and theology most often meet. 

When Adam and Eve believed the serpent and rebelled against God the first thing they experienced was guilt!  They demonstrated this emotion by hiding from God.

Most people hid from what makes them feel guilty. 

Adam and Eve could have faced God and said, “It’s true I sinned, I feel embarrassed, God will you forgive me?”

They didn’t do that, instead they hid.

This week we’re going to talk about guilt and most importantly, what to do with it!

If you can’t make it to church this Sunday, don’t feel guilty, just listen to the sermon on our web sight.

God bless,

Pastor Ed

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At times I really hate the word grace.  It’s a word which implies that I must forgive people who’ve treated me with injustice.  I like gracious connecting people that say, “I’m sorry, I was really wrong, will you forgive me…please?”  “Sure, no problem.” 

It’s the others that never notice and therefore never ask that irk me.  I really don’t like forgiving them.

Grace is a word that can be tremendously unfair.  I stand in line at the DMV for hours and hours doing my Christian best to be patient. I’m about to speak to the attendant inside the window another person rudely cuts in front of me.

That’s when I lose it!  I justifiably grab them by the collar and throw them out of the way and take my rightful place at the window.  This may be the very circumstance where legal minds came up with the idea of justifiable homicide.

I’ve never done that, but I’ve wanted to!  Why? I really don’t like grace.  I want justice, I’ve waited, I’ve earned this spot at the window, I’ve faithfully shuffled, fully committed to my chain of humanity, valiantly defending the laws of our civilization, even when my bladder has screamed, “Run!”  When someone cuts in front of me, I dislike, I even detest, grace.

But when I’m the one that’s in a rush and late for 20 things and I need to cut at the window, it’s at this moment that I lose my commitment to civilization and say, “Grace, grace to all, thanks for allowing me grace at the window!”

Why this frustration between grace and justice?

Eugene O’Neill says, “Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.”

I know O’Neill’s first sentence is true, I am broken.  I know his last sentence is true, God is grace glue.  It’s the middle sentence I dislike because mending is such frustrating work!  

It’s hard to be committed to the kind of grace to which God is committed.

This Sunday we’ll discuss the depth of God’s grace from Romans 5 and why it’s so important to connection.

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Isn’t it amazing how people you connect with have greater influence on your life?  Want an example?  

My dad died when I was 14 years old.  When I was 31 years old my mom got remarried and moved to Missouri.  When she was making preparations she asked me if I would drive her and her car back there.  

As we were going through Texas we started taking about where she had met my dad and how they got married.  At one point I said, “Isn’t it funny how kids don’t know a lot about there parents unless they ask!”  She turned to me and said, “You sound just like your dad!”  

I had only known my dad for 14 years and yet 17 years after his death my mom is saying this to me.

People influence us and we absorb particles of their personalities. 

This week we’re going to discuss how we connect.  At the very beginning of time Adam and Eve had a decision to make, do we connect with God or with the serpent?  Guess what happened!  Read Genesis 3 to prepare for the message: The Big Disconnect…and how to fix it.

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Charles Schwab said,

   “Leaders should be hearty with their approval 

          and lavish with their praise.”  

I really like that idea.  Individuals love an environment where others are committed to building up people.  When someone notices your action and says, “I really appreciate your effort!” it influences you to pass on the encouragement. 

Read our passage this week, Ephesians 5:15-21, which says if you’re filled with the Spirit of God you’ll be a person who is thankfully appreciative of others around you. 

Come on Sunday to find out how to be an influential leader through appreciative thankfulness.  

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A few years ago I read the New York Times Best Seller, “Execution, the Discipline of getting things done.” I thought, “Hey that’ll be a good read and be good for me in being a “git er done” kind of Pastor!”  

I can’t tell you my disappointment when I came to the chapter titled, “The Leaders Seven Essential Behaviors,” and found that essential behavior number four was…are you ready?... “Follow Through.”  

Really?  I paid $27.50 to be told to … “Follow Through.”  Is there someone out there that doesn’t understand that getting things done means you have to, “Follow Through?” 

But isn’t that our main difficulty in living the Christian life?  

God says, “Love one another,” and I struggle with, “Follow Through.”  

God says, “Pray,” and I struggle with, “Follow Through.”  

God says, “Read my Word,” and I struggle with, “Follow Through.”

You get the idea. I’m bogged down with spiritual procrastination syndrome.  

How do I break the syndrome and get better at, “Follow Through?” 

That’s the destination this week as we continue on the Journey:

Committed to being Solution Focused.   

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Timothy Egan piqued my interest a couple of years ago when he wrote the National Book Award Winner, “The Worst Hard Time.”  It’s a book about how the American government recruited settlers to claim their 320 acres on the Great Plains in the early 1900’s. 

The government wrote and circulated a brochure that explained the new concept and success of “dry farming.” The “nesters” came in droves, and with the new invention of the tractor, plowed up millions of acres.  

Severe droughts hit and as the “wind came sweeping or’e the plain,” dust that originated in the panhandle of Oklahoma ended up on ships in the Atlantic Ocean 300 miles off the east coast!  More dirt was removed from the great plains on “Black Sunday” April 14, 1935 than was dug to create the Panama Canal.  The canal took 7 years to dig, the dust storm lasted one afternoon and hoisted 300,000 tons of topsoil into the air. 

Twelve million tons of dirt fell in Chicago.  

Cattle went blind and suffocated and when farmers cut them open they found their lungs and stomachs filled with dirt.  

Children died of dust pneumonia.  

It has been labeled the United States of America’s worst prolonged environmental disaster of history.  

All because of a brochure!  Words on paper.  Ideas that had never been tested.

Be careful who you listen to, their words may have tremendous consequences.

As we continue in our series, 

“The Journey: what’s your next destination.”  Paul has some crucial words of advice for the inhabitants of the church of Jesus Christ: Eliminate Divisions.  The importance of healthy and harmonious relationships is vital.  Building relationships with time tested spiritual principles from the pages of the New Testament is crucial.  It can be the difference between a relationship living or dying.

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Many have probably heard of truck driver Larry Walters who on July 2, 1982, took 45 weather balloons, filled them with helium, attached them to his lawn chair, and successfully flew at 16,000 feet from San Pedro to Long Beach.  He flew close to LAX airspace and flew through Long Beach Airport’s airspace.  He was arrested and fined $1,500.00 but was invited to appear on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman.  He also received the top award from the Bonehead Club of Dallas.

But very, very few remember Father Adelir Antonio de Carli who on April 20, 2008, lifted off from Paranagua, Brazil, suspended by 1000 brightly colored party balloons filled with helium.  He was attempting to fly 450 miles INLAND to Dourados, Brazil.  When he reached an altitude of 20,000 feet he discovered he had not checked the weather forecast, was caught in a storm, and was headed in exactly the OPPOSITE direction of his intended destination. He had a GPS but didn’t know how to operate it. He was last heard on the radio eight hours after lift-off approaching the Brazilian coast.  Unable to give his position he crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.  His body was found 2 weeks later by the Brazilian Navy near an offshore oil platform. The act won him a 2008 Darwin Award (look it up! http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin2008-16.html)
As we continue our message series, “The Journey; What’s your next destination?” Some people have a very interesting definition of a journey.  Some journey’s end well and some tragic.   Paul tells us in Ephesians 1:15-23 to journey through life with wisdom, revelation and knowledge.  Before I preach on this section on Sunday take some time to read this scripture and remind yourself to attain wisdom for the journey!  Also, stay away from helium balloons, the only place you’ll go is Taft.

God bless,

Pastor Ed

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Why study the letter of Paul to the Ephesians? That question sounds like a psychological punishment devised by sadistic communist gulag guards! “Break them down with the Ephesian technique!” There are some that think of sermons in a church this way, sheer torture!But let me give you three reasons I believe taking a “Journey” through the New Testament book of Ephesians can literally be life changing.

#1. If you had the guts to be a follower of Jesus Christ in Ephesus you could be a follower anywhere in the Roman world. 

Ephesus was one of the most populous, multi-cultural, accommodating crossroads of sin in the ancient Roman world. It was first rate tough to live for God in Ephesus. It was life being a 49er fan at a Oakland Raiders home game. Today, our own culture is shifting and becoming more and more challenging to followers of Jesus Christ everyday. We are developing and adopting relaxed fit morals on a deeper level all the time. If you’re going to be a follower of Jesus Christ in the 21st century memorizing the book of Ephesians would be my recommendation.

#2. Paul used some of the greatest word pictures with real life applications in the book of Ephesians. Ideas like: You were dead, Walk this way, Let no unwholesome talk, Be imitators of God, Break down the barrier of the dividing wall, Be filled with the Spirit, Put on the armor of God. Ephesians will stick in your head! Word pictures help us remember important truths much easier.
#3. Understanding Ephesians will help you achieve success!
That sounds trite. Yet Paul says, “…be strong in the Lord, in the strength of His might.” Success in living for God in His way is the greatest success we can have while on planet Earth. We can have financial strength, family cohesion, and intellectual achievement but without God’s strength success is self-centered instead of Christ-centered. Come join us this Thursday and Sunday as we launch,


“The Journey, what’s your next destination.”