Freedom in Jesus, Together

Happy Friday Washington Cathedral!

I'd like to start this blog by sharing a delightfully giggle-worthy video about leadership with you. Take a look:

First Follower: Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy - YouTube

Official transcript at https://sivers.org/ff --- If you've learned a lot about leadership and making a movement, then let's watch a movement happen, start to finish, in under 3 minutes, and dissect some lessons: A leader needs the guts to stand alone and look ridiculous. But what he's doing is so simple, it's almost instructional. This is key ...

www.youtube.com

I hope that gave you a good laugh like it did for me. I love that someone is just taking a video of this guy dancing by himself with no inhibitions- full of joy just by himself. It's so infectious that someone else comes to join him. The two are dancing with complete freedom, unconcerned about anyone else and then they get another person to dance with them. And then another, and then a crowd. The person narrating the video says, "And now we have a movement."

I've seen this video a few times shown as an example of leadership and as encourages you to do in the video, to have the courage to be the first follower- but I want to focus on the crowd, and this "movement" part. 

There was something so infectious about the freedom in which this person was dancing that when someone came to join him, it gave other people permission to experience the joy of dancing freely as well. 

That is following Jesus.

Jesus' love is infectious. The presence of Jesus is freedom. When we follow Jesus, we get to experience that freedom. The type of freedom that makes you want to dance like David did in 2nd Samuel. SO let's go back to the "movement" part of this. When we worship God together- whether that be through singing, serving people, praying together, and even dancing together, we are not only following scripture- when Jesus says in Matthew 18, "where two or more are gathered, there I am also"- we are giving each other permission to experience the very presence of Jesus. Freedom. Joy. Healing. Peace. That's a movement of God. 

So I say to you, dear friends, yes, individual spiritual practices to connect with God are important. BUT don't you want to experience that type of freedom together? That type of permission to encounter God? I will tell you, I do. 

On Sunday Pastor Mark Nsimbi will teach more from Acts 2 about this type of spiritual aliveness, together in Jesus. Join me in listening to him and worshiping together. 

Chelsea Maitland

P.s. And I'll see you tomorrow for dinner at 5:30pm at Rockin' the Dream!

The Power of We

A deep dive into the power of We.

Unity is a central theme in Christianity. The Bible teaches that all believers are united in Christ and are members of one body, the Church. This unity is not based on external factors such as race, social status, or nationality, but on the shared faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

In John 17:21-23, Jesus prays for his followers to be united: “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

This unity is not just a theoretical concept but has practical implications for how Christians live their lives. In Ephesians 4:1-6, Paul urges believers to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Unity among believers is essential for the Church to fulfill its mission of spreading the Gospel and serving others. It requires humility, patience, and love for one another. As Christians strive for unity, they reflect the love and unity of the Trinity and bear witness to the world of God’s love.

Is there anything else you would like to know about this topic? 

I wrote this weeks devotional in 15 seconds. It's true, I asked the Microsoft search engine bing to write a 33 word devotion on unity from a Christian perspective and this was all done for me. I could write in French, Portuguese or with a valley girl accent in just 15 seconds. It us full of should with precise language from the Bible. I wonder if Artificial Intelligence is a Christian?  

Come on Sunday and you will find what AI CANNOT TEACH YOU. How to build honest, authentic, real relationships around you and your family. It will be a deep dive from a personal experience with a God who is there that extends to our entire community. We were all designed by God for such relationships. That is why we all have a vacuum in our hears for a mother figure.  Let's turn “should” into a real experience with Jesus today.  Meet me Sunday at 10:30 am.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

The Power That Fuels Community

 Tomorrow morning we’ll dive into what it looks like to be powered by the Holy Spirit, as a community.

We human beings have the ability to create organizations and communities that have the potential for huge success, at the same time there’s also the potential for failure. Organizations and communities can fail or breakdown due to poor decision making or wrong timing or change of seasons, culture and other unpredictable events.  

The church and Christian communities are no different they can experience failure because of human leadership is imperfect. However, what makes Christian organizations and community different from their secular counterparts is that they are empowered by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the power that fuels Christian community.  

Despite our brokenness, Christian community will continue to thrive no matter what changes or challenges come, because the Holy Spirit is the power behind our community. A powerful community is not a perfect community, a powerful community is a broken community that is led by the Holy Spirit.

Let us therefore take up Jesus’ invitation in Acts 1:4 to wait on the Holy Spirit, so that we can learn how to pray in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, and be led by the Spirit on all occasions.  

See you tomorrow in-person or online for our livestream service!

-Pastor Mark Nsimbi

Leadership

It takes leadership to build a healthy community.

I was going through the many items of family history that my mom is passing on to me. One of the items that I was looking through today is a journal kept by my Grandpa White that- in his hand writing- listed all the lay leaders that he was honored to work with through the 55 years of his ministry. It is a list of each of their names, obituaries and other details of their accomplishments. It is an inconspicuous item unless you understand the heart of Rev. Floyd Edward White. He loved the lay leaders that God gifted the churches that he had the privilege to work with throughout his lifetime.

No matter what community organization you study you will find there wouldn’t be a healthy community without strong, gracious leaders who hang in there through tough times.

Acts chapter six and seven points out how the early church went about developing new leaders to guide the church.  We’re forming a plan based upon this wonderful biblical concept. Join us Sunday at 10:30am either in-person or for online for our livestream service.  You will be inspired.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Good News

My Grandpa White used to tell an old story about a pastor driving to town and in his Model T car. Or as they used to call old cars like that, a "jalopy".

He passed a family pushing their jalopy to town. Like the gentleman the pastor was, he stopped and asked if the family needed help pushing their jalopy. They refused and said that the jalopy runs but it breaks down so often that they decided to push it- because sooner or later it was going to break down. Remember, when my Grandpa was young cars were just finding their way into our society and people had to change their thinking to get used to the automobile. So the pastor said, “Well I have a rope in the car so I could pull you to town!”  They all laughed and said, “What would be the use? The car runs- if we wanted to, we could drive to town!”

His point was that many times we like our problems better than the solution so nothing is going to change until we change our ways.

We need to rebuild our lives, families, church, nation and world and we can start right now.

The Bible teaches that human beings were designed to be in community with other human beings.  God put it this way, “It is not good that man should be alone.”  Genesis 2:18

Yet the world has been pulling away from community for the past few years.  Marriages and families are pulling apart because without Christ at the center of our lives, we do not have that center of love from which we draw the resources to make our relationships really work.

Last week, a sixteen-year-old boy who is black was trying to pick up his siblings to take them home. The boy accidentally went to the wrong address and the homeowner shot him twice because of the homeowner’s own racial bias toward the boy.

A 20-year-old girl was driving up a driveway in a car with her friends. It was the wrong driveway so they turned around and the owner of the home came out and shot her in the car.

In Texas this week, two cheerleaders accidentally opened a car door and when one of them started to apologize the owner of the car shot them.

There was another mass shooting this week in Alabama and it’s Wednesday as I’m writing this so we don’t know how many more crazy things are going to happen this week because we have four more days left.

Evangelical Thinker, David Brooks, who writes for the New York Times and has hosted programs on PBS- discussed an article in the New York Times about how Evangelicals can save themselves from themselves.  He points out that the times we are in represent a mental health emergency.  The number of people who don’t have close friends has quad tripled in this generation. Fifty four percent of Americans say that no one knows me well.  Car accidents are increasing even though we are driving fewer miles. Depression is dramatically up, teen suicide is sky rocketing, political division is up, the potential for world war is increasing dramatically, divorce is increasing, kids leaving home to live on the streets is up, and the symptoms of breakdown of community in the world are so rampant that it is hard to statistically report them all.

He is arguing that we need to not just try and patch our communities back to the way it was prior to 2013 but to build our churches, families, nations and world community better than it ever was. It is a moral problem, and we need to turn to Jesus.

I have good news for you.  God has the power to heal the world, our nation, our church and your family. He does and it is our choice to admit when we are wrong and change our plans to line up with his ways and experience it.

Join us this Sunday morning at 10:30 as we work together on building community with Spirit. Let’s stop pushing the old Jalopy and get in and drive. Come to church as a family - Gods way is better than whatever plan we are trying to make work.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

I have great news from Easter: Our church is growing! Especially at the birth of Pastor Mark and Anne Nsimbi’s newborn boy on the day after Easter. 

This note is from Pastor Mark, “Hi family we thank God for the birth of our baby boy, Tamale Tiitany Nsimbi - 4/10/23 born at 2:14pm, 8lbs 1oz, 19.5 inches. Thank you for your prayers and support“ 🙏🏾

Tamale means, "Can’t get enough" and his middle name- Tiitany- means, "Bringing good news".  He is a very handsome boy and will bring a lot of fun to his two adorable older sisters.

We are so excited as a church to raise our amazing children and grandchildren to find and achieve Gods plan for them.  And we are going to do everything we can to assist them through Sunday school, summer and winter camps, retreats, play gyms, STEM camps, mission trips and prayer support. Every new child brings hope to the church and we have several that are going to be born this year.

This week we begin a new series from the book of Acts on the power of community.  Helen Keller was an inspirational author, disability rights activist and political leader.  Many remember her from the book, The Miracle Worker.  She said, “Alone we can do little but together we can do much.”

I think this series on the Power of Community will bring a landmark moment to our church family.  Join us Sunday morning at 10:30 either online or in person.

Your friend for the rest of my life

Pastor Tim White

Easter Sunday

The whole world needs Easter in 2023!  Every grandparent should bring their grandchildren to an Easter service this year. Sometime in the future our grandchildren will have to contend with loss, loneliness, and grief as their loved ones pass away. Why not make it a priority that they celebrate Easter this year to lay a foundation for their own mountain-moving faith.

How many people are struggling with grief right now? Help is available if everyone could just reconsider the claims of Jesus Christ.  Because Jesus has good news for us.  My dad used to continually say, "What if death is not the end but instead, is just a beginning?".  He had almost died during his birth in New Meadows, Idaho on February 14th, 1932.  This contributed to his thought that he was living life backward. He used to say, "What if this life is just the kindergarten for the real thing after death that would last for Eternity?". 

We all miss someone, and Easter is a time to balance grief with the greatest news ever announced. The Kingdom of heaven is coming and its power begins right now as we follow Jesus Christ.

I miss my dad, Pastor David Gerszeyne, Elling Halvorson, Connie Wahlin, Jack Tuttle, Jean McVay, Gary Carlberg, John Eaton, John Hosley, and the list goes on and on. I don't do any of them good if all I have is sorrow on Sunday.  But we have more than just discouragement this Easter, we have a promise of eternal life.

Great praise music from our amazing Easter band. A garden of flowers and waterfall all around us as we worship.  Tiny kids carrying flowers to the altar, a dramatic replacement of the first Easter in all of its excitement and beauty, a powerful positive message for 10 minutes- which will be my last Easter sermon. Dynamic worship will be led by Seattle Opera soprano Ellaina Lewis, and our worship leaders- Eliot Stone and Chelsea Maitland- harmonizing new tunes that glorify Jesus.

It’s going to be a great event and you are invited at 10:30 AM this Sunday . Either in-person or online.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

P.S. Don’t forget Maltby Cafe cinnamon rolls and a spectacular Easter Egg hunt for the children.

So let's celebrate this Easter!

Join us for Palm Sunday this Sunday at 10:30 AM for what I am calling “Practice Easter”. Hi, this is Pastor Tim White here asking you to join in this Sunday morning, either online or in-person.

Easter is at the center of life for any Christian Church. There can be no Christian church without recognizing this accomplishment of Jesus Christ. We would not be involved in the church without our own Easter experience. How do could we help our family and friends for Christ’s triumph over death in our lives without Easter?

The first Palm Sunday was an event that Jesus scripted to remind the people who he was and how God is King. Many churches take a leap of growth in numbers at Easter that is greater than any other time. So, they have a “practice service” so the people can sing praises straight to God. The Sunday School teachers get ready to inspire kids. The greeters, the ushers, the pastors practice Easter on Palm Sunday. Why?

This Palm Sunday we will conclude our series from Nehemiah on Rebuilding. We complete the acronym for REBUILD, with the letter “D” for discipleship. Life begins when we become a disciple. This concept will change our lives if we have the kind of experience God wants us to have on Palm Sunday.

Because Easter is our Super Bowl, we want to get it right. I know for me after losing a loved one, I need Easter. I think we can say, the whole world needs Easter in 2023. So why not join us?

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Do the Dishes

During a visit to see my sister in Los Angeles a few years ago I had the privilege of partaking in a meal called Iftar- which is a meal consumed after sunset to break the fast during the month of Ramadan. My sister's church had partnered with the local mosque to invite people to sign up to be hosted by a family observing Ramadan, and who was willing to host people for the meal of Iftar.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. During this time, those practicing Ramadan fast, pray, and reflect individually and with their community in the Islamic faith- and at the end, they celebrate together. 

At this Iftar dinner my sister, her husband, and myself were welcomed into the home of a family who was from Turkey and received incredible hospitality and delicious Turkish food. We laughed together, learned about Turkish culture, what Ramadan is about, and just got to know each other. It was beautiful and memorable. At the end of our dinner together we sat and talked and shared about what each other believes about God- not to convert each other- but actually just to know each other better. We listened to each other's story, each other's heart, each other's life. This family sang a song together and actually asked us to sing a worship song as well. My brother-in-law and myself- being worship leaders- we sang the song, "All the Poor and Powerless".

Why am I telling you about this significant experience in my life? 

Because I learned that night what it means to love a neighbor just to love them- with no agenda. And to be loved back, with no agenda. 

I had a choir director in high school who used to say to us all the time, "Do the dishes, just to do the dishes." And what he meant was, don't do something to receive something back. Do the dishes without expecting a 'thank you', or a favor to follow what you've done- just do the dishes to do the dishes. 

Love people because you love God. Serve people without agenda. 

That's what Jesus did. Jesus loved and loves us with a desire to draw us closer to Him so that we would know deep, life-changing, radical love. The kind of love we can only find in Jesus. What joy. What good news.

This Sunday Pastor Mark will be preaching through Nehamiah 5, teaching us about what the heart of a leader looks like- and how it reflects God. He says in his summary,

"Everyone created in the image of God is a leader. God invites us all to pursue biblical leadership in our lives by stepping aside and letting Him lead our lives so that God's Kingdom can be established on earth as it is in Heaven." 

Join us this Sunday online or in-person and we'll learn about the "Heart of a Leader", together. 

See you soon,

Chelsea Maitland 

Innovation

Have you ever heard of the Marshmallo Challenge?  Look it up! It is an amazing insight into creativity and innovation. I love to study innovation because it teaches us to think outside the box. Thinking outside the box is important because God is outside the box.  No theologian, or tradition, no council can box God in. God is so much more than our little minds can capture. We have to listen, study scripture, history, science, and  humanities to begin to understand the revolutionary ideas of God. Throughout our lifetimes we have so much to learn and put into practical growth to really follow Christ.

The ideas we have about God are not God. Any idea, thought, or concept never was and never will be God. They may be helpful symbols that point to God, metaphors, analogies, allegories, images, but they are not God as God is. They will inevitably conflict with one another and be fallible, as every symbol eventually fails at actually being the thing it is supposed to represent. The symbol is never thing being studied it is only a representation of something else.

The Marshmallow Challenge is a study of practical innovation.  A team-building activity in which teams must compete to build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one meter of tape, one meter of string, and one marshmallow. It emphasizes group communication, leadership dynamics, collaboration, innovation and problem-solving strategy.

The interesting thing about this group exercise used for students in MBA programs around the country is that when given to kindergarten kids they are almost twice as successful as the MBA students.

To my point God has a lot to teach us about innovation because sometimes education reduces innovation instead of increasing it. The book of Nehemiah has a lot to teach us about innovation that we will be able to use immediately in our rebuilding projects.

Let's invite God to teach us about innovation this week at 10:30 am.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Relationships

Empower

Believe

Unity

Innovation

Leadership

Discipleship