Praying for Japan, New FREE Scripture Wallpaper, Current Events and From The Heart

Even though its officially spring here in our beautiful Okanagan Valley, my heart - our hearts as a collective are on the other side of the world.  As our many miles of orchard trees begin to bud and the peach and apricot and  cherry blossoms will force themselves open in the near future they cause us to think of a place which is known for its stunning scenes of cherry blossoms - Japan. 

With the recent 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami the Japanese have suffered a physical catastrophe  almost beyond human comprehension.  The scope of loss of life has not even been tallied - who knows how many 10,000's of lives lost it will eventually total. Add on the continuing concern and danger posed by the failing nuclear reactors and its right up there on a scale of what some disaster movies cannot even touch. 

What we do know is that we need to help in the ways we can and being a church family this means that we must all pray for the needs of the Japanese people, both their physical needs but as importantly to the welfare of their souls.  In this way won't you focus on prayer for the many missionaries who are located in Japan?  Though some may not be in the direct area which suffered this disaster the ripples are felt throughout the entire country and even globally.

As we at OCC  are a Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada church I am going to list and link to two missionaries who you may consider to donate to (donation link on the POAC links)  and pray for:

Damon & Kafi Ealey

(click on image to be taken to the POAC web page)
You will have to use the back button to come back here.

Jeffery and Akiko Sonnenberg



(click on image to be taken to the POAC web page)

Jeffery and Akiko have a "Pray for Japan" list posted there which will give you a list of how to pray for the needs in Japan.  

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Don't forget to check out our "From The Heart" section for a short message!  We also have this new FREE scripture wallpaper for your computer in "The Gallery" (both tabs located at the top of this page) 

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We will return with our  "Good Word" from Pastor Joseph next week! 

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Prayer at Kaye's Every Tuesday - 10:00 a.m.
7806 Gravenstein

Thursday Night Open Worship Every Thursday - 6:00
Osoyoos Christian Centre
42 Finch, Osoyoos
For more info: 250-495-2550

Mariposa Christian Ministry Mariposa Gardens
8816 97th Street, Osoyoos
Sundays at 2 pm
We welcome you to join us if you are able to assist with your musical talent or to help with fellowship! Email us for more info:  occwomenonline@gmail.com


Keep your eyes HERE for new events coming up for April for both our Women's ministry and Church Activities!

"Good Word" for March 13th, Recap Women's Sweet Night, New Music and Free Scripture Wallpaper

Welcome all!  Thank you for visiting our Women's blog, our online place where we can meet even if we have not had a chance to gather at church this week.  For those of you who do not live here in beautiful Osoyoos BC we hope what we've recapped here for you is of value.  There is lots of new ground to cover this week so please, draw up a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy! 

New entries for this week include:  (look under the various tabs, top of your screen!)

•  Pastor Joseph's "Good Word"  on this current page
• Julie shares her thoughts on "Praising the Lord" which she shared on our Women's Sweet Night in the "From the Heart" tab
• new FREE scripture wallpaper for your computer desktop in "The Gallery" tab
• 3 audio editions under the "Music" tab - the song "Believe" sung by Pheonix, Guest Speaker Bart from Park Drive church delivers his message, a few words of encouragement from Pastor Joseph
• a few photos from our Women's Sweet Night

Preview of this week's FREE scripture wallpaper:



Just a note - this coming week is Spring Break from school and so we are going to observe the break by skipping one week of posting to the blog here.  We look forward to returning to our normal update on March the 30th!

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As always, we welcome your thougths and feedback on this content - you can "comment" at the bottom of this post or you may email us at occwomenonline@gmail.com

God Can Transform Your Life - Pastor Joseph Fernandes

There are times in our lives when we look in the mirror and aren’t too impressed by what is staring back at us. Have you ever had this experience – it seems as if maybe you’ve exhausted God’s grace or simply can’t ask for forgiveness yet again. In that moment helplessness it is so easy to think that nothing good will come of your life. As we continue to look at our series in the first Book of Samuel – I believe what we see is hope – hope for a better day; we also see that God can bring about a transformation.

Now I want to identify two things before we proceed here,

1.  I recognize that I’ve stepped out our series order as we will be looking in chapter two at this time and last week we were in chapter three;
2.  as we look at this chapter I’ll just be providing you with my take on things based on a cursory look.

I am hoping however that you will be blessed by these simple observations.

In I Samuel 2:12-17 we read the story of Eli’s wicked sons – if you haven’t read it you should. One of the things that we see in this passage is that both of these individuals were very self-serving when it came to Lord’s offering. In so doing they engaged in practices that ought not to have occurred. One of the things that we see in verse 16 is that their servant would actually employ violent means to take what did not belong to them – see further in the Book of Leviticus.  What’s interesting is that in chapter 2:14 is says there, “So they did in Shiloh to all the Israelites who came there.”

Here’s the thing that I would like to bring to your attention, it is simply that, because of the sinful practices of Eli’s sons–God’s priests–Shiloh had a bad reputation. It was a reputation that was not flattering at all. It had an unflattering reputation because of wicked and self-serving priests. It had a reputation where individuals were mistreated and exploited. It had a reputation where simply anything went. Having this reputation was incredibly unfortunate given that this was meant to be a sacred place before God, as sacred place where individuals brought their offerings to be presented to him.

This is my take on the situation, but I believe that the actions of these two priests did not represent anything positive and may well have further contributed to the already practiced norm of “everyone did what was right in their own eyes.” I wonder if there were those who prayed that it would return to a place of true worship—a true place of sacrifice as it once had been.  I wonder if there were those who cried out to God, praying that his place of sacrifice would be all that it was meant to be. Maybe however, there were those who were very critical of Shiloh because of its bad reputation. These

individuals likely would have snickered or sneered at it with contempt. They may have even pointed to the hypocrisy of the priests whose lives were in complete contradiction given the office that they held. These individuals would likely have concluded that no good would every come from Shiloh, and for all intents and purposes they may have been right, however, it does not end there.

The story of Shiloh does end in chapter two but it continues and we see a completely different picture in chapter three – I Samuel 3:21 “Then the Lord appeared again in Shiloh.  For the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord.” Did you see that!!! God comes on to the scene and Shiloh’s reputation is changed!!  Where it was once known as a place where wicked and self-serving men who did as they pleased, it is now know as a place where God reveals himself. I think that this is absolutely amazing and it serves as a reminder to me that when we let God into our situation that his presence can bring about a significant change. Allow God into your place today, whatever this place may be: discouragement, disappointment, failure, helplessness, etc… let him in and allow him to bring about a reversal in your situation. You only need to invite him in because God can transform your life!

Today your life may represent a Shiloh of sorts. You’ve made mistakes and felt that your life was in a complete mess.  Maybe you have created a negative reputation for yourself and feel that it will never leave you. You may have even called out to God to change your situation, change your reputation because you truly want a change. Of course there are those who criticize you because of your mistakes. Their cruel hurtful words try to reinforce the concept that your life is never going to change. What do you do? Allow the words of God’s love, grace and mercy to enter into your life – your Shiloh – and begin to experience the transformation that only he can bring.

Blessings,
Joseph



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Prayer at Kaye's Every Tuesday - 10:00 a.m.
7806 Gravenstein

Thursday Night Open WorshipEvery Thursday - 6:00
Osoyoos Christian Centre
42 Finch, Osoyoos
For more info: 250-495-2550

Mariposa Christian MinistryMariposa Gardens
8816 97th Street, Osoyoos
Sundays at 2 pm

We welcome you to join us if you are able to assist with your musical talent or to help with fellowship! Email us for more info:  occwomenonline@gmail.com





"Something New" from Pastor Joseph, Recap of March Luncheon/AGM, a Beautiful Song, New Wallpaper, Addition of our Photos Section!

There is a saying that "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" though I am certain this was intended to refer to the weather.  It certainly has been lion-like here at Osoyoos Christian Centre - busy!   Nobody is lamenting the busyness because we have all been enjoying fellowship together and working hard to build new ministries.  Because of our flurry of activity I'm going to add two more pages onto our blog - these will be one for music, because our church is gifted in music ministry and it will be a great place to share some of that music with you.  The next page I am going to add is one for a few photos of our latest get-togethers.  I won't share ALL the photos I take, just one or two, though if anyone from our church family would like I can provide a private link to photo albums for you to view, download and print. 

To visit the other "pages" of this blog, simply look above this writing and click on the tabs that say "Home" "From the Heart" "The Gallery" "Music" "OCC Photo Album" and you can see what's new. 

Here's a preview of our latest desktop wallpaper for you which will be available for download in "The Gallery" today - available in almost every size to custom fit YOUR computer desktop!  Please, send your friends here to grab their own graphics to give your computer a "spiritual face-lift"  (hmmm is that a correct thing to say?)   

And you will not want to miss listening to  Pheonix singing "You Lift Me Up" over in our "Music"  tab... be prepared as this young man has a true annointing upon him in the area of musical talent. 

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And we especially thank our Pastor - Joseph, for providing us with weekly content, a recap of each week's sermon so that for those of you who were not able to attend you are still able to know where we are going in the Bible at this time.  We welcome your feedback here - we would like to think the Sunday message is an opening for conversation, not something just reserved for that short hour during the service.  Give us your thoughts, lets start a dialogue!  

If you missed this message and would like to hear it, let us know, we can provide an MP3 to you via email. 

Pastor Joseph Fernandes

Sunday,  March 6th 2011

Something New

I believe that there are times in our lives when we get so sick of and tired of things that we call out to God for something new – anything is better than the disappointments or the negative set backs in our present situation. I wonder though, are we truly ready for something new, especially when it may mean abandoning our suppositions or predefined categories? In our sermon series of I Samuel we recently looked at chapter 3:1-21 within this context of God doing something new.

What I find interesting here is that God does something that is unprecedented – he speaks to a boy within the period of the Judges. Let’s stop here for a moment and explore this further. When you go through the book of Judges you will observe time and time again that God used men and women as judges. If we wanted to take this a step further, we could, justifiably so, describe these individuals as warrior judges—look for example at Othniel or Ehud. Now admittedly Gideon wasn’t much of a warrior at first, but he definitely grew into the role. Finally we take a look at Samson who most would concede is a warrior judge. My point is this, that God uses individuals to judge Israel who, in our human perspective, just makes a lot of sense. However, God in his typical does something that does not make any sense.

Now, before I go any further it’s important that we try to remove our own biases from the text. What I mean by this is, if you grew up in Sunday school you heard wonderful and inspirational stories about the little boy Samuel. I remember listening to a song about Samuel and I remember one of the verses went like this: “if you want to do quite well be a Samuel.” Despite all of the wonderful stories, when you look at the context of the period of the judges—it just didn’t make sense that God looks to use a child. Although Eli is a judge over Israel this could be a de facto position because of his role as priest, the last real warrior judge that we see in the Book of Judges is Samson – the superman of sorts and then the book of Samuel opens up with the story of Samuel’s miraculous birth and then in chapter 3 where God speaks to this little boy and ultimately uses him and “not one of his (Samuel’s) words fell to the ground.” Imagine that!!!

I wonder if there were skeptics who questioned or even criticized Samuel for daring to speak as a Judge to them? Maybe given that Eli was a judge himself there were some who would have felt that it was out of line or disrespectful for Samuel to operate in this capacity. But the fact is – God was doing something new, he chose a little boy to lead his people. Yes, someone who was untested in battle; someone who had never seen war; someone who in many ways could not relate with the average Israelite because of his protected upbringing in the temple. All the these things could have defaulted him from being seen or accepted as a credible judge – but yet we that God was in fact doing something new and he was faithful as he did not let one of Samuel’s words fall to the ground.

Today, you may be in that place where you want God to do something new in your life and if you are that’s a good thing. Here’s the thing though, sometimes God does something new in our lives we just don’t realize it because it doesn’t look the way that we expect it to. We think that it will look a certain way or conform to our expected norms but this isn’t always the case. All the more reason why we need to abandon our suppositions or predefined categories and just accept that God will do something new and it may not fit these parameters as we think. In the end, he we can take confidence in the fact that he will be faithful to see it accomplished. 



Blessings,

Joseph

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EVENTS

Prayer at Kaye's Every Tuesday - 10:00 a.m.

7806 Gravenstein

Thursday Night Open WorshipEvery Thursday - 6:00

Osoyoos Christian Centre
42 Finch, Osoyoos
For more info: 250-495-2550

Mariposa Christian MinistryMariposa Gardens
8816 97th Street, Osoyoos
Sundays at 2 pm

We welcome you to join us if you are able to assist with your musical talent or to help with fellowship! Email us for more info:  occwomenonline@gmail.com



A Guest Pastor, Upcoming Events and new FREE Scripture Wallpaper!

Welcome Visitors! 

Osoyoos Christian Centre is a "happening" place these days.  The first thing one would notice if they were to visit after having been away a while will probably find their senses piqued with some new scenery and inhale the smells of paint and varnish etc.  As the Lord favours our church to move forward into the future with some exciting changes our family is drawing together to build strong core ministries.  Won't you drop in one day soon to see what all the buzz is about.

Be sure to check out new updates on the "From the Heart" tab, up top for an encouragement and then "The Gallery" where we also have two new FREE wallpapers for your computer.  I've been compiling some of my own photography and also joined it with professional photography from my friend JanMary http://www.janmary.com/ from Ireland, who has generously agreed to donate pictures for our "wallpaper ministry" Be sure to send your friends here to visit us and grab something attractive and uplifting to decorate their own desktop!  Here previews of these wallpapers:

Sweet Friendship - Romans 12:15

(recognise these faces?)

photo: Barb Derksen

1 Corinthians 13:7 - Love

Photo: JanMary

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GOOD WORD

Pastor Joseph will return here with a word in the following weeks but today we will take a moment instead to thank Pastor Peter Neave  who ministered to us, coming from our sister church, Park Drive Church located in Oliver, BC.  Pastor Peter brought us a word based on the topics of Hope, Love and Contentment - all in all very uplifting.  I have listened to his sermon once more (every bit as encouraging the second round) and have extracted the following scripture references. I have linked each so which you can click on each if you would like to read them for a review of what we learned, or to listen to them at the Bible Gateway site.  When you are at the site, look to the top and you should see a little "speaker" icon, if you press this it will read the scriptures to you.

1 Peter 1-3 

Proverbs 28

Joshua 1:8

Psalm 18-19

Joshua 1:5

His message can be summed up by what he said - your manner, demeanor should reflect the Love of Christ no matter where you are and who you are communicating with.  I believe that Pastor Peter's willingness to come and minister to us, and the generosity of Park Drive to provide Pastor Peter's presence (this is in danger of sounding like a tongue twister!)  We truly appreciate you.  

I will end this section with scripture which Pastor Peter ended his word with - about being contented.  He pointed out that negative behaviour can be attributed to discontent, always wanting more, better, new.  If we trust in the Lord that He has us where we are supposed to be right here, right now then we can know the essence of being content.   Read: (Philippians 4:4-7) 

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Lots of GOOD stuff happening this coming week! 

EVENTS:

Prayer at Kaye's Every Tuesday - 10:00 a.m.
7806 Gravenstein

Thursday Night Open Worship
Every Thursday - 6:30
Osoyoos Christian Centre
42 Finch, Osoyoos
For more info: 250-495-2550

Fellowship Luncheon & OCC Annual General Meeting

Sunday, March 6th

Osoyoos Christian Centre

42 Finch, Osoyoos

For more info: 250-495-2550

- bring a dish, bring a friend! 

Mariposa Christian Ministry

Mariposa Gardens

8816 97th Street, Osoyoos

Sundays at 2 pm

We welcome you to join us if you are able to assist with your musical talent or to help with fellowship! Email us for more info:  occwomenonline@gmail.com

Praise Report - Last Sunday saw 17 people in attendance, very positive turnout.  Thanks to Ralph, Krista and Moira for your faithful tending to this ministry.

March Women's Sweet Night

Tuesday, March 8th - 6:30 pm

Kaye's Place

7806 Gravenstein

- baking and beverage provided.  We will be doing a fun "gift exchange" - bring something wrapped, a hand made gift, home-baked or purchased for under $10.   Please email if you need more information:  occwomenonline@gmail.com  Bring a friend - RSVP appreciated but not necessary.