Hesed

"I will sing of the 'hesed' of the Lord forever, with my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations." Psalm 89:1


What does it mean to sing of God's loving kindness, His mercy, His grace forever? Does it mean we sing on Saturday night, or does it mean something more than that? I know what it's like to "go to church" on the weekend then live my life the rest of the week. I know what it's like to wonder, God where are you in the midst of everything going on right now. I have played that game before-wanting the God of creation to come in and fix my situation so i can get back to "my" life. To pray to Jesus because things aren't going the way "I" had planned them, only to find myself still stuck in the same problems, just a different day.


Maybe if I were to sing of God's hesed, I would be reminded of the mercy He has shown me. Maybe if I were to sing of His hesed today I would be reminded that He is involved in my daily activities right now. Maybe if I were to sing of His hesed, I would be reminded of the grace He has shown me which I do not deserve. Maybe if I were to continually sing of His hesed I would be reminded to show hesed to others. To give grace to those I want to judge and condemn. To give mercy to that one person who I want nothing to do with. To give steadfast love, to actively love my neighbor not only with words of kindness, but with action. 


May we be a community that sings actively of God's hesed in our lives. 


Grace and Peace,
Matt   

Connections, Connections, Connections

I continually find it amazing the more I dig into scripture how I see more and more connections that I never saw before. Hopefully you've been reading your homework from two weeks ago when I asked everyone to read Malachi. I said that there was a tremendous amount of nuggets that come glaring off the page after reading Yeshua in context for the past few years. Verses like "Behold i will send my messenger and he will prepare the way beforeme." Malachi 3:1 or "For I the Lord do not change"...3:6, then there is the same voice saying "Remember the Torah of Moses my servant, the statutes and rules I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel." 4:4

We then moved to last week where Yeshua himself says, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would also have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." John 14:6,7 Here we see Yeshua doing a few things that if you only see the surface, you can easily miss the depth of this statement. First you should see the connection from Malachi. Who did God say would come after the one to prepare the way? Himself! God the Father would come. Yeshua says if you knew the Father you know me, if you know me you know the father, why? Because "I and the Father are one" John 10:30. 

Now let's go even deeper. Yeshua says I am the way, the truth and the life... As we have pointed out before, Yeshua is a Rabbi of the first century. He speaks in a way the people in his day would understand and he teaches as the rabbis did. Rabbis would often quote scripture or allude to different texts often by just using a sentence and sometimes even a word. Here we see the Rabbi Yeshua quoting three different passages of scripture in just one sentence. "For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life."Proverbs 6:23; Your righteousness is righteous forever and your law is true." Psalm 119:142; "In the path of righteousness is life and in its pathway there is no death." Proverbs 12:28 Here are three different passages proclaiming that the Word of God, The Torah, are the way, the truth and the life. We shouldn't be surprised at this statement because doesn't John himself tell us at the beginning of his gospel that "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." 1:1 and also "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us..." 1:14.  Yeshua is the word of God, the walking talking Torah in the flesh. He is God and He is Father.  

It's pretty significant to notice that Yeshua was raised in the Torah, lived by the Torah, taught others how to live their lives according to the Torah and who himself was the Torah. Our first question should then be, how important is the Torah in our daily lives? Do the words of Torah (i.e.. the words of God/Yeshua) play a role in our daily decision making?

May we be a community that lives following what is true, what is life and what is the way...

Grace and Peace,

Matt

2011

First let me apologize for not posting in a while. Since project 52 ended and the volunteers stopped coming we as a staff have been putting all our spare time into working at the Gathering Place. We have been doing anything from grout, concrete leveling, HVAC duct work, drywall and all kinds of projects in an effort to complete the building. This weekend we will be having a stucco party with our community to try to complete the outside of the building.
I was hoping that the end of January or even the beginning of February we would be able to start meeting inside the GP. Unfortunately after getting together our last punch list, it looks as though we are about $30,000 short to complete the building. So once again we are cinching our belts a little tighter and rolling up our sleeves as we work on what God puts before us. We have several little projects that will cost a couple thousand then a bunch of projects in the hundreds. So we are pulling together as a community and doing what we can to finish the construction. We will be doing everything from collecting cans for recycling to collecting spare change. We also will be looking for anything we can put our hands on to refurbish what we may be able to use for the final punch list.
Below is a list of everything that is needed if you are interested. Please keep us in your prayers as we wait on the Lord and obediently work as hard as we can for His will to be done. We know that this building will be opened in His time frame not ours, but we also know that apathy gets nothing done.
Thank you for all your prayers and support.
Grace and Peace,

Punch list:
Fire Alarm panel installation $3000
Carpet install $3000
Closet doors $2100
Restroom partitions $4000
drywall $500
Stucco $1000
Exterior Handrails $1000
Paint $1000
HVAC finish $6000
Exhaust fans $500
Thermostats and wire $400
Parking lot stripping $100
Large assembly room lights $500
Fire Suppression test $5500
Cove base $1000
MISC $2000

Project 52

Wow, after several weeks, many volunteers and thousands in donations we have come to the end of our 52 day time frame. We are so close to finishing and we couldn't have come this far without you. For those of you who came to NOLA, donated or prayed for us, we greatly appreciate all of you.
Our last volunteer group for the year left last week, so we as a community are rallying the troops and working on some of these projects as we speak. This weekend is our community work week in which we typically work in the community serving as the Church instead of having a traditional teaching service. This weekend we will have the bulk of our community working on the Gathering Place trying to get even closer to finishing. Our current projects that we will be working on are tile, insulating duct work, plumbing, drywall touch up and a few small projects.Please keep us in prayer as we are so close yet still have a few things to complete.

Joyful apology

OK i must apologize, it has been over a month since our last blog. As you can see the past three weeks have been consumed with something more precious to me than the building of project 52.
Not to take anything away from the project but we have been enjoying the birth of our little baby girl, Kennedy Eliana. I will make sure and get out another update on the building
later this week. Once again we want to thank everyone for your prayers, encouragement, generosity and energy in what God is doing here in New Orleans.

Grace and Peace,

Update on Project 52

Really, can words sum up these pictures. It is amazing to see what has happened in just a few days. Who would have thought toilets would have been such an exciting picture.
I will have a lot more pictures to show next week.
By the grace of God, we are moving so quickly in the completion of this
building. It is amazing to
watch the church in action, being
used by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Praise God, all Glory to HIM.

week 2

Wow, after a good start last week we have continued the momentum and the GP is progressing beautifully. With the help of our friends from Fern Creek in Louisville and some Gathering peeps here we have been able to accomplish a lot this week. So far we have three bathrooms tiled (the fourth may be done before Friday), ceiling grid wire hanging from the ceiling, a slab was poured this morning that will hold the HVAC units outside, outlets and emergency exit lighting were installed and the fire suppression sprinklers were completed in phase 2 and 3. It is amazing to see how much work is being done each day and we thank our God and King for everything that he is providing daily to complete this project. We have been blessed with tremendous people who have come to serve, others who have donated materials and others who have sacrificially given. We praise you Father for what you are doing.
Below is an updated list of the materials still needed for the completion of the building. As we have been asking we have found that some people have a lot of these things lying around in their warehouse or garage not being used. If you have a minute we appreciate you looking around.

Project 52 Materials Needed

HVAC

-5 ton split package system-3 phase (either 208 or 480)
-ductwork

-copper line sets

-wire

-refrigerant

-disconnects

Ceilings

-$3,000 to buy dropped ceiling material

Entry Door

-$2,500 to buy roll-up door

Interior Doors

-$5,000 includes handles, frames, hinges, and closers

Flooring

Epoxy

Cove base

Cove base glue

Fire Alarm

Wire

Panel

strobes