Beat Box

If you are bored and have sound on your computer, check out this sweet little homemade music video. I thought it was rad. And nice hair man... nice hair.

Click Here to Watch Video

Episode 2

A Penitential Psalm

Week 5 -- Psalm 102
A Prayer in a Time of Trouble

GOD, listen! Listen to my prayer, listen to the pain in my cries. Don't turn your back on me just when I need you so desperately. Pay attention! This is a cry for help! And hurry--this can't wait!

I'm wasting away to nothing, I'm burning up with fever. I'm a ghost of my former self, half-consumed already by terminal illness. My jaws ache from gritting my teeth; I'm nothing but skin and bones. I'm like a buzzard in the desert, a crow perched on the rubble. Insomniac, I twitter away, mournful as a sparrow in the gutter.

All day long my enemies taunt me, while others just curse. They bring in meals--casseroles of ashes! I draw drink from a barrel of my tears. And all because of your furious anger; you swept me up and threw me out. There's nothing left of me--a withered weed, swept clean from the path.

Yet you, GOD, are sovereign still, always and ever sovereign. You'll get up from your throne and help Zion--it's time for compassionate help. Oh, how your servants love this city's rubble and weep with compassion over its dust!

The godless nations will sit up and take notice-see your glory, worship your name--When GOD rebuilds Zion, when he shows up in all his glory, When he attends to the prayer of the wretched. He won't dismiss their prayer.

Write this down for the next generation so people not yet born will praise GOD: "GOD looked out from his high holy place; from heaven he surveyed the earth. He listened to the groans of the doomed, he opened the doors of their death cells."

Write it so the story can be told in Zion, so GOD's praise will be sung in Jerusalem's streets And wherever people gather together along with their rulers to worship him.

GOD sovereignly brought me to my knees, he cut me down in my prime. "Oh, don't," I prayed, "please don't let me die. You have more years than you know what to do with!

You laid earth's foundations a long time ago, and handcrafted the very heavens; You'll still be around when they're long gone, threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes. You'll throw them away like a worn-out coat, but year after year you're as good as new. Your servants' children will have a good place to live and their children will be at home with you."

A Table for You

I was at a wedding recently. It was really nice and beautiful and all those things that weddings are. Since I'm friends with the groom I was asked to read scripture during the wedding, which was a great honor. I dressed up, read the scripture, sat down, enjoyed the wedding, and then went to the reception afterward. At the reception I noticed that the wedding party got to sit at this huge table at the front. And since I knew a lot of the people at the huge table, I would often stop up there and have a chat. But I knew that I wasn't really supposed to be up there, since I wasn't an official member of the wedding party. So, I'd go back to my table.

I think I used to think of God's table like this. Only for really special people who are invited to sit at it - only the wedding party - only the people in tuxes. The rest of us have to sit at our small tables and watch God in all His glory sit with the chosen few. The people who are good enough. The people who can cut it. The people who don't sin. The really spiritual ones. But recently I've come to know God in a different way. I've come to know a gracious God who wants us all at his table... who wants us all to sit with him and dine... who wants us all, no matter what baggage we bring along. I've come to know that God not only invites us to sit, but has an empty spot waiting for us at His table. It's as if we are all sitting down at our own tables, while God's saving a special seat just for us, to sit with Him, and all His friends, at His huge table. We are invited to be a part of the wedding party.

Don't ever think you aren't good enough to sit with God. Don't ever think you aren't worthy. Because that is the precise message of the Gospel - that you are worthy in God's eyes - that you are good enough for Him- that you are loved and that you are lovable - that you are invited - and that you have a spot waiting for you at the huge wedding table.

See you at the reception.

Peace,
ReN

A Penitential Psalm

Week 4 -- Psalm 51
A David psalm, after he was confronted by Nathan about the affair with Bathsheba.

Generous in love--God, give grace! Huge in mercy--wipe out my bad record. Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I've been; my sins are staring me down.

You're the One I've violated, and you've seen it all, seen the full extent of my evil. You have all the facts before you; whatever you decide about me is fair. I've been out of step with you for a long time, in the wrong since before I was born. What you're after is truth from the inside out. Enter me, then; conceive a new, true life. Soak me in your laundry and I'll come out clean, scrub me and I'll have a snow-white life. Tune me in to foot-tapping songs, set these once-broken bones to dancing. Don't look too close for blemishes, give me a clean bill of health. 10God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don't throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from gray exile, put a fresh wind in my sails! Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I'll sing anthems to your life--giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I'll let loose with your praise.

Going through the motions doesn't please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God--worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don't for a moment escape God's notice.

Make Zion the place you delight in, repair Jerusalem's broken-down walls. Then you'll get real worship from us, acts of worship small and large, Including all the bulls they can heave onto your altar!

A Penitential Psalm

Week 3 -- Psalm 38
A David psalm

Take a deep breath, GOD; calm down--don't be so hasty with your punishing rod. Your sharp-pointed arrows of rebuke draw blood; my backside smarts from your caning.

I've lost twenty pounds in two months because of your accusation. My bones are brittle as dry sticks because of my sin. I'm swamped by my bad behavior, collapsed under gunnysacks of guilt.

The cuts in my flesh stink and grow maggots because I've lived so badly. And now I'm flat on my face feeling sorry for myself morning to night. All my insides are on fire, my body is a wreck. I'm on my last legs; I've had it--my life is a vomit of groans.

Lord, my longings are sitting in plain sight, my groans an old story to you. My heart's about to break; I'm a burned-out case. Cataracts blind me to God and good; old friends avoid me like the plague. My cousins never visit, my neighbors stab me in the back. My competitors blacken my name, devoutly they pray for my ruin.

But I'm deaf and mute to it all, ears shut, mouth shut. I don't hear a word they say, don't speak a word in response. What I do, GOD, is wait for you, wait for my Lord, my God--you will answer! I wait and pray so they won't laugh me off, won't smugly strut off when I stumble.

I'm on the edge of losing it--the pain in my gut keeps burning. I'm ready to tell my story of failure, I'm no longer smug in my sin. My enemies are alive and in action, a lynch mob after my neck. I give out good and get back evil from God--haters who can't stand a God--lover.

Don't dump me, GOD; my God, don't stand me up. Hurry and help me; I want some wide-open space in my life!

PW

WHAT: PW GOPAL CONCERT
WHEN: Friday, March 24th @ 7pm
WHERE: Coralville United Methodist Church
HOW MUCH: $5 tickets - buy at the door

PW is coming this week! We hope that you can make it to the concert. PW is a singer songwriter who lends his story to us for one evening through his beautiful music. He's been described as inspiring, amazing, a blessing, raw talent, and awesome. The show is a great one to invite your friends to, your family to, or just to go to on your own. Plus our friend Chris Grebner will be opening for PW with some of his original music. Hope to see you there!

An excerpt from Remind Me by PW Gopal:
There I go on my knees again
I'm tired, I'm restless and bored
Of waiting for love to find me
As I sit still I find it hard to measure the span of an unseen world
Whose wheels are turning hard for me and I can't see...

Read more PW lyrics by CLICKING HERE
Download the Remind Me mp3 by CLICKING HERE

Peace,
FA Team

Goodies for Gopal

Hey!

We'd love to see you at the church this Saturday, March 18th for Goodies for Gopal - A Fresh Air Event. Starting at 6pm we'll begin baking in the church kitchen for our bake sale to raise money for the big P.W. Gopal concert on Friday, March 24th at 7pm (which will be at the church - buy a ticket, invite your friends and family). So, be sure to bring your own stuff (i.e. flour, Betty Crocker) to bake. See you there!

Peace,
FA Team

A Penitential Psalm

Week 2 -- Psalm 32
A David psalm

Count yourself lucky, how happy you must be--you get a fresh start, your slate's wiped clean. Count yourself lucky--GOD holds nothing against you and you're holding nothing back from him.

When I kept it all inside, my bones turned to powder, my words became daylong groans. The pressure never let up; all the juices of my life dried up. Then I let it all out; I said, "I'll make a clean breast of my failures to GOD." Suddenly the pressure was gone--my guilt dissolved, my sin disappeared.

These things add up. Every one of us needs to pray; when all hell breaks loose and the dam bursts we'll be on high ground, untouched. GOD's my island hideaway, keeps danger far from the shore, throws garlands of hosannas around my neck.

Let me give you some good advice; I'm looking you in the eye and giving it to you straight: "Don't be ornery like a horse or mule that needs bit and bridle to stay on track." God--defiers are always in trouble; GOD-affirmers find themselves loved every time they turn around.

Celebrate GOD. Sing together--everyone! All you honest hearts.

Gotta Light?

The results are in for our last soulfood poll: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have one item, what would it be? Journal and Banana got two votes each. iPod and Extra Underwear each got three. The Bible got four. But it looks like we have a lot of practical readers - Lighter got a whopping 13 votes! Be sure to vote on the new poll.

Good luck out there,
FA Team