Empowering Encounters

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." St Augustine

Empowering Encounters from God and the Holy Spirit are something I crave today in my faith. To be newly awakened to His great love and divine presence in my every day living. To experience the supernatural and be freed from the traps of a boring, lazy and mundane faith.

Do you resonate with this? Are you finding yourself with the same desires? Restless for more of God? You're in a good spot, my friend!

Here's what I've learned whenever I crave new and empowering experiences with God...

1. Receiving this fresh revival of faith almost always begins with worship. Intentional worship that sets my heart and mind in their rightful position where I'm more aware of, and open to receive God's presence.
2.  My worship cannot be dependent upon feelings. My feelings are in constant flux, therefore, making it almost impossible to experience authentic connection with God who is always unchanging and unwavering.

The unfortunate reality for many of us (myself included) is we have become convinced that worship is music and the worship music needs to make us feel connected to God for it to be good worship.

Eugene Peterson, in his book: The Pastor - wrote these prophetic and convicting words regarding worship:

By the time I arrived on the scene as a pastor, the American church had reinterpreted the worship of God as an activity for religious consumers.  Entertainment, manipulation and cheer-leading were conspicuous in high places.  American worship was conceived as a public relations campaign for Jesus and his angels. Worship had been cheapened into a commodity marketed by using tried and true advertising techniques.  If so called worshippers didn't "get anything out of it," there had been no worship worth coming back for. Instead of calling people to worship God, pastors all over the country were inviting people to have a "worship experience".  Worship was evaluated on the satisfaction scale of one to ten. 

It struck me as a violation of the holy, a secularization of the sacred.  Taking the Lord's name in vain. I determined to reintroduce the idea: let us worship God. I knew this wasn't going to be easy.  The entertainment model for worship in America was pervasive.

Tough words, huh?

If you're craving a more empowering faith and find yourself desiring God to move through you in fresh, powerful ways; I strongly encourage you to join us this month as we dive into the topic of worship.  Our aim is to explore the Bible and the many stories of genuine worship from regular, every day people AND to help provide you with a guide for living a life of worship.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to learn how much God desires it and how we were made for it.  See you this weekend!

Grace and Peace.

Pastor Rex

The Lost Evangelical

When I was 16 years old, I joined a 6-month youth discipleship class which met every Saturday for the entire day to pray, study the Bible, memorize scripture and do various outreach projects. It was a long, tough class!

One of our “outreaches” was something I will never forget. We had to go to downtown Tacoma and join other churches in a anti-abortion protest. I hated every minute of this experience. It just didn’t feel right to me and the contrarian in me kept wondering, “how is this considered outreach?”.

While I always have and always will believe that abortion is not part of God’s plan for humanity, I’m also not proud of the fact that I once took part in protesting abortion, and the kind of witness I was for the women who walked in and out of that clinic.

In today’s culture, we see and hear the trending topic of “evangelicalism”...the “evangelical vote”...the “evangelical church” so often. Its come to the point where I’m certain too many Christians aren’t even sure what the word evangelical means anymore.  Frankly...the word has been hijacked for political purposes and the Church faces a tough decision. Do we keep going along, or take the word back and start over?

The word evangelical is over 2000 years old and it means “good news”. When the early Christians confessed in their Roman occupied lands that Jesus is Lord, they were proclaiming good news! When the church feeds and takes care of the poor, this is good news!  When churches rally together in their communities for the sake of unity, this is good news! 

In John 10, Jesus describes himself as the gate. The gate by which his sheep have complete access to the Father. I believe this illustration is a crucial reminder for us today. Access to God has always been through Jesus. He is the gate...yet somehow too many Christians have positioned themselves to be the gatekeepers. Jesus never once taught that we are to be guardians. He taught us to be bringers and inviters!

This weekend, I will bring a close to our Trending series as we explore this complicated and sometimes controversial term - evangelical. We’ll look further into Jesus’s illustration of being the “gate” and ask ourselves...”have I become a gatekeeper?”  “How can I take back this word evangelical so that my family, neighbor and community can once again see it as Good News?”  I hope you’ll join us this weekend!

Grace and Peace.

Pastor Rex

Cecie's Story

God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.  James 1:12

This morning, I sat in the room of Cecie Doucet, as her good friend Tom and I shared stories of our sister-in-Christ and how much she meant to us.  God so blessed Cecie with fellow Seattle Police Officer, Tom Sacco. Tom, who is Sicilian and a retired police officer, was sent to be her guardian angel.  God has blessed Cecie and she, in turn, has been a blessing to her church family.  James 1:12 proved itself to be absolutely true in the impact of her life. 

This week Dr. Rey Diaz will be preaching in all the services and sharing the dynamic story of the Good Samaritan.  It is so good to have Pastor Rey home for the Festival of Miracles Auction on Saturday night where we raise money for a place of refuge for the street kids in Honduras and in Kenya. 

Cecie cared so much for those children as we all do.  Being a child who was put up for adoption at birth, Cecie lived a life that would make a great movie.  How God reached someone who had gone through all of the hardships, and became a prominent Seattle Police Detective for 38 years and an on-fire Christian since the 1970s when she gave her life to Jesus Christ in the Jesus People Movement.  It was due to all of the difficulties and all of the ups and downs that prepared her to be the angel that she became.  So it is with you and me.  God is working a project in our lives, and be assured of this, that He who began a good work in you will see it to completion. Philippians 1:6. This is the miracle that causes us to believe in the potential of every life of every street child who is considered the least of these.  Which ones will have stories like Cecie or me or you? We don’t know, but we can be a church that believes in this miracle - that there awaits a crown of life to those who endure.  We are in the business of helping those who struggle to endure.  But we can’t do it without God’s help.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Risen Hope!

It been a few years, but we are going to have Pastor Dale White narrate the resurrection as we enjoy an Easter morning passion play at 11:00 am in the Randy and Rod ReCreation center.  This is a historic moment of faith you won’t want to miss.  We need you and your friends to help us pack out this splendid auditorium that was designed for theater and to accommodate a large number of people.  Join us as our church family gathers a new momentum for a new start in Easter 2017.

Happy Holy Week,

It almost sounds a bit funny to say “Happy”, but it is true.  One fruit of the Spirit is Joy, and are we ever experiencing joy! We are having fun this Easter watching God move mightily in our presence as we experience springtime in Washington Cathedral. (Or using other terminology, experiencing “revival” in our church.)   Last week Sally Jo Holmes and Marilyn Biggs had to be just overjoyed as they led our prayer wave for this Easter. Most of us signed up to pray 10 minutes a day for the last few weeks and then on the Friday night before Palm Sunday, we began our 24 hours of prayer for renewal in our church and community. I can’t express how it felt to have tears streaming down my cheeks at each of the Palm Sunday worship services, as hundreds of people came to the cross to dedicate or re-dedicate their lives to Christ.  I just wish I could have seen the face of our two prayer captains in those precious moments. I could, however, see the face of Pastor Becca after delivering a soul-filled message. This had to be have been the greatest response to a message she has ever seen in her ministry career.  After those Palm Sunday services, there was just a joy in our church as we met new friends - laughed and visited. Later, on Tuesday at our staff meeting, when Pastor Jackie shared with us the touching response of those who wanted to meet with a pastor a spontaneous cheer rose up.  And that was just the start of Holy Week.

Pastor Rex and his team have an awesome Good Friday service planned in the beautiful Spirit Falls Sanctuary in front of the waterfall and the three crosses.  The flow of the service, the moment of communion, the praise music and the message - I can’t wait to see what God has in mind for us on Good Friday.  Our youth pastor Josh and I were sharing about the cross as he prepared for the Wednesday night youth group and we both teared up discussing that holy moment.  Our prayer together after our meeting was such a joy-filled experience.

Saturday at 4 pm there will be a Easter egg hunt in the recreation center pool.  How cool is that! The kids never forget it and it is back by popular demand. After our big 11:00 Easter Service on Sunday, there will be a huge Easter egg hunt on the beautiful grassy hill with a view of the whole valley.  Mark Thompson, the famed ventriloquist, will be there. Spread the word and bring friends to either or both of these one-of-a-kind events.

And who doesn’t love Pastor Linda’s enthusiasm at the Sunrise Service in Spirit Falls at 7:00 AM?  What a way to start off the greatest Easter of our lives. The music will be beautiful, with our very own young soprano, Dani Burke, closing out the service. (I know sunrise is at 6:17 am, but in the Puget Sound area the sun is rising off and on until 7.) You’ll enjoy the birds, the wildlife, the light off the flowers and the waterfall. We have seen, ducks, geese, a bald Eagle, a red-tailed hawk and doves, who all join us for this tremendous moment.

Someone in the staff meeting was teasing Pastor David about his cooking and Pastor Josh took exception to it saying, “Hey I’ve been eating his cooking at church since I was a baby.”  Our beloved Single’s Pastor is working hard to prepare an Easter breakfast for the community. On the menu are delicious pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, potatoes and juice.  It will be served from 8:00 am to 1O:30am.  What a great event to bring your neighbors to.

The featured event of the entire Easter weekend is happening at 11:00am in the Randy & Rod ReCreation Center. We have canceled all the other regularly scheduled services in order to bring our entire church together for one amazing moment of renewal. You will experience the Easter story first hand -- from Jesus being removed from the cross, portrayed by our amazing actors in this kid-friendly presentation, to his resurrection from the Garden tomb, originally designed by a Hollywood director.  The actor playing Jesus is our own Raffael, whose Christ-like enthusiasm is spreading throughout our church. Pastor Rhonda and the choir will be at an all-time high as they sing Easter hymns. I will have a short, positive Easter message that I promise you will be the most inspirational I have ever delivered.   Our worship leader, Eliot Stone is bringing together a peak performance by our worship team.  He has even recruited his dad (a famed guitarist) to join him.  The praise itself will be so authentic it will express the cry of your heart.  They will all be joined at the end by children choirs, teen choir in a moment so wonderful that it will impact the rest of your life.

I have been going door-to-door inviting people to our church this Easter and icing my knees at night. I have had so many amazing Godly experiences.  But today I went to get my hair cut and they asked me if I had any plans for Easter. I basically told them just what I have told you.  My stylist, who is new to our country from Vietnam, told me his testimony with enthusiasm. Coming from a background of no faith, he prayed to Jesus that he could get his family and himself out of Vietnam and after being stabbed in the back he promised while in the hospital that he would find a church for his wife and children.  He said, “Pastor your inviting me to church is an answer to prayer of several years.”  Well the rest of the barber shop asked me what the meaning of Easter was and I got to do a practice run on my sermon only with questions and answers. It must have been okay because everyone there committed to come to church this Easter.

I’m thinking about just getting my hair cut all day rather than going door to door. It was a lot more fruitful and my knees don’t hurt as much.  But, unfortunately, I don’t have that much hair.

I dare you. Surprise us by your attendance this Easter. I have given my life to building this great caring network and your presence at that 11 am service means more to me than you will ever know.  I can only imagine what it will mean to your family and to God himself as we all join together in this moment of miracles.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Think Spring

My wife Jackie, bought a decoration that said ‘Think Spring’ and it is the first thing we see when we walk through our front door.

 In Seattle, meteorologists tell us we have only had four days without rain since November, so yes, we are ready to think spring. On Sunday we had a spring day. Day five on the count-down for nice days this winter. The birds were singing at dawn. I had not heard them sing with so much gusto! Maybe Seasonal Affective Disorder affects song birds too. The day was just rejuvenating for all of our community. I like to think we all need renewal or springtime in our soul. Artists, authors, CEO's, grade school children, athletes, marrieds and singles. Springtime is not only a phenomena of nature, it is a state-of-mind. So let’s think newness, sunshine, realistic optimism, and enjoy the beauty that we are surrounded by. Let’s think spring.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim

Power of Presence

If you know me, you know that one of my great passions in life is baseball. Specifically coaching baseball. The other day, while helping a group of catchers practice different mobilities for blocking pitches, I thought to myself...”I could be here all day.”  I just love coaching youth players!

Well, my team (Bothell Rockies) has a short list of values that we constantly review. One of them is the value of “togetherness” and the other day, I read them this quote from Babe Ruth who said, “the way a team plays as a whole determines its success”.  If you’ve ever played on a team, or work within a team at your job...you know these are true words.

Not only is togetherness crucial to a team, it’s crucial for every church. It’s something every follower of Jesus should value if they desire to have gospel-effectiveness in their community and the world. But this value of togetherness isn’t as easy as some may think.

We live within a culture that is quickly losing its grasp of togetherness and leaning more and more towards celebrating individualism. The cost? Too many have wandered into the desert of isolation where all sense of team, unity and community go to dry up and die.

One, if not the best reason a church should value togetherness is because the Bible has a lot to say about it. Jesus said...”wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there.”  The Apostle Paul speaks to the church being like a physical body made up of parts that rely on each other for proper function and effectiveness.

One reason I believe some find togetherness hard to commit to is because they think they somehow have to be just. like. everyone. else.

Not true!

Our differences, when not looked upon as right, or wrong...better, or worse - but actually celebrated, are what make the Church so valuable to the world. A City on a hill kind of church like Jesus described!

I’m excited to talk more about the real power of being present this Sunday, and to look closely at some of Jesus’s teaching about why it’s such a crucial value for us who make up Washington Cathedral, as we live in these urgent times.

Will you join me, and maybe bring a friend? See you Sunday!

Grace and Peace.

Pastor Rex

One Ditch At A Time

When I was in high school, I went to work part time for a contractor who built luxury homes in the Tacoma area. I was excited to learn the trade of building and even bought a really nice tool belt, framing hammer and square. I showed up to the job site on my first day- ready and eager!  As I approached the contractor, he did something that completely caught me off guard. He handed me a shovel and said, “You’ll need your gloves...”  Suddenly, my first day went from genuine eagerness, to a bit of fear as I knew a shovel and gloves meant I wasn’t going to be building much of anything that day.

He instructed me to dig a ditch. A large one. He said it was for drainage and it needed to be 8ft long, by 3ft wide, by 3ft deep. At this point, I had to look around and make sure I wasn’t working at a cemetery! Was I digging my own grave out here?!?

Upon giving me the instructions, he left to another job site. Suddenly, I was all alone. Just me and my shovel. I began the long and painful task of digging the ditch. It was hard work!  A few hours later the contractor returned to look at my progress. He offered some “atta-boy” sentiments, which was nice, but I was really wanting to be done with this job!

Later, I finished the huge ditch, got into my car and drove home dirty, exhausted and hoping I didn’t make a huge mistake taking this job. Well...it wasn’t a mistake at all.

The next day, he had me come back to the same site, except there were no shovels. It was a day spent learning the basics of home construction! The contractor told me that while the ditch was indeed for drainage and very important to the house, he had me do that job just to see how well I would follow his instructions. Those listening skills my parents had taught me as a boy had paid off!!

In the book of 2 Kings, there is a story of people who were instructed to dig ditches. A lot of them! The reason for the ditches was quite simple: Listen to what God was telling them to do, then do it in a trusting way and see what happens. The Bible actually has quite a lot to say about faith and action. Psalm 37 tells us to “trust in the Lord and DO good...”

I hope you’ll join me this Sunday, as we explore this story of ditches and trusting God in 2 Kings 3. This will be a conclusion of our series on Trust and I hope that if you’ve heard any of these messages, you’ve grown in your understanding of trust and faith. It’s never something we will perfect. No one does. This is a long journey of progression toward growth and maturity. The key is in not giving up. God is with us and He’s always good and faithful to prove Himself trustworthy!

Grace and Peace.

Pastor Rex

Hurry Up and Wait

In the military, they have a saying “hurry up and wait.” That’s because there is a lot of waiting when you serve in the military - and because the military is serious business so they hurry to the points, then they wait.  So it is with life.  We rush to the hospital to wait and wait and wait for a child to be born.  We wait for those we love to pass on to heaven because it is the right thing to do.  We rush to the doctor and we wait in the waiting room.  We rush to fill all the forms out for a new job, a new house, a new car, a loan, a refinance, a college application and we wait.

 Last week, one of my hero’s – (even though he is younger than I am, he is still my hero) – Matthew Barnett  sent me a note.  He has a spiritual gift of prophecy and from time to time I get these odd notes from him.  One time he commented on my Facebook page “you need to be the first one to the conference you are speaking at and the last one to leave and visit with as many people as possible”.  I received his word and wow! what a blessing that conference turned out to be.  This week, he left a note for me that said, “You need to preach on Psalm 37”.  I have only spent a few times with him so I cannot say I know him well.  I think I know his dad better.  But I do consider him a friend – especially after watching God work so mightily through his life at the Dream Center.  I don’t know if he sent that note to  a lot of people or just to me, but after his comments about the conference I took his note literally and I am preaching on Trust so it is Psalm 37 this week.   As many of you may already know – this is a powerful passage and it is one of the “Trust in the Lord and Wait upon the Lord” passages.

 As I drove to work for an appointment this morning there was some construction. I let someone merge into my lane and the person behind me started to make all kinds of gestures.  Some of them were clearly not favorable.  She was not cheering me on for my act of kindness, which slowed us down for maybe 3 seconds.  She kept pointing to the man sitting next to her.  I (and my 135 pound dog Gus, who takes these kind of threats more seriously than I) looked at her and the man setting next to her and he shrugged his shoulders in timidity.  She kept yelling at me – I could not hear her, but it looked like she was going to bust a blood vessel back there.

 I would like to say this is a ‘one-in-a-million’ occurrence in our world, but we have all had experiences similar to this – right? Our whole community needs to learn to Rest in the Lord, Wait on the Lord, Trust in the Lord.  Well, it turns out that Psalm 37 has some fresh, innovative, practical solutions for all the pent-up restlessness in each of us.  As we all know, trusting God and waiting on God and resting in God is much easier to say than to do.  Psalm 37 is a birds-eye view from the mountain-top of our little world and shows how we  need God’s perspective to really develop that inner peace, strength and poise in order to act rightly in following God. Won’t you join me this weekend as we are all blessed by an encouraging Biblical message right from God to each of us?

 Your friend for the rest of my life,

 Pastor Tim White

Trust: Discovering Healthy Faith and Relationships

I am very excited about the new series we begin this weekend.  I can’t think of another topic more important for our church family than developing Trust.  It is essential in building a healthy congregation and healthy families.  Real communication and collaboration is impossible without the two-way conversation that comes with Godly trust.

Last week, it was Fernando Fox’s birthday. He is one of many amazing kids growing up in our church.  He is “one-in-a-million,” so much so, that his Sunday school teachers turn into his biggest fans.  He has a great sense of humor and an amazing imagination. His parents, David and Rosanna Fox, are doing a wonderful job of raising this masterpiece of a boy.  I think you could credit his sensational big brother, Andres, with helping in this project also.  As I was praying for him and the other kids growing up in our church, I was moved to tears asking God to help us learn more about trusting in a Biblical way. 

As you know, we live in a society which tends toward being cynical and pessimistic – learning to be suspicious and to rush-to-judgement of situations and people. We learn this through a survival response to the deep hurts in our lives.  If someone goes through a divorce, they often become really good at breaking off relationships and refusing to allow them back in their life.

A more difficult way of living is the Christ-like way. That is holding no grudges, lovingly asserting our understanding of what is true, and simply loving the whole world like Christ would. Admittedly, this is the much harder way. It means leaves ourselves open to criticism, judge-mentalism, gossip and to enemies who have no interest in our welfare.

I choose to trust God.  I choose not to wallow in self-pity or exaggeration. I choose to communicate as best I can.  I also choose not to be a door mat, but to speak the truth in love and humility.

This week I am going to start our series, “Trust – Discovering Healthy Faith and Relationships” by showing us the New Testament concept of Trust as the fulfillment of the profound concept of Trust found in the Old Testament.  One of my Rabbi friends once had a long discussion with me about the differences and I learned so much.  I believe that we cannot understand the New Testament Christ-like Trust without understanding the rich meaning of our Old Testament heritage. If God can allow me to communicate how to trust the Father and the Son, then I believe each of us will be better for the time we have spent exploring this critical concept of Trust.  It is going to heal a lot of our wounds and make us a healthier church family.  Please join me as we kick off this new series.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Anticipating Christmas

I love the scene from the classic Christmas movie, “Christmas Vacation”, where Clark Griswold has spent an entire day hanging an obscene amount of lights on his house. He’s gathered the entire family outside in the freezing snow to witness the glorious display of his lights. The Griswold family, like most everyone’s has their fair share of characters and bits of dysfunction, and it’s on full display out on the front yard as Clark excitedly plugs in his cords.

The Griswold’s don’t quite share Clark’s excitement and anticipation about the light display. Some are angry because they have to stand out in the cold...most are indifferent to the whole experience. But Clark...Clark is gleaming with anticipation, wonder and excitement over his light display!

Most people are a little bit familiar with the story of the 3 wise men who visit baby Jesus. The story (Matthew 2:1-12) begins with them seeing the bright star and and asking “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” Their anticipation and excitement is met with anger from King Herod and indifference from others.

Sound familiar? Not everyone gets excited about light at Christmas...

Sometimes it’s challenging to anticipate and be excited for Christmas. Many times the busyness of the season causes us to miss the light all together. Our post-Christian society generally looks upon the light of Christmas with general indifference as sort of an “it’s just another Christmas season” belief.

Are you seeing the light this Christmas? Are you able to slow down enough to let the anticipation of the story reach deep into your heart and renew your hope and faith in the Messiah?

Upon following the star-light with great anticipation, the wise men came upon Jesus and they worshipped him. What happened next is not to be overlooked.

Join me this Sunday as we explore the story of the wise men, the experience they had in worshipping the “light of the world”, what happened next and how we can experience Christmas in a fresh, transforming way.

See you Sunday and make sure to invite your friends!

Grace and Peace.

Pastor Rex