New Curriculum for Children’s Ministry

By Lauria Baiz, Director of Life Kids Children’s Ministry 

Starting in the fall, we will be offering a new format of curriculum for our kids that are four years old through fourth grade. Here is how it will go: As the kids arrive at church, they will be engaged in a game or activity that will give them a clue as to what the story is going to be about that Sunday. Then they will go into a room that has been set up for the worship leader and story teller. During this time, the kids will sing worship songs and hear from the story teller, whose job is not just to come in and tell the kids the story. Their job is to make the story come to life, include the kids in the story by asking questions, have them act parts out, and share what they think about what they are learning.

This is a time that the kids are being taught in an interactive way that will also help them retain the lesson. After the story teller is done, the kids will go back into small groups with their leaders and discuss the lesson deeper. Small group time is a wonderful time where the leaders are able to connect with the kids, reinforce God’s Word, and build relationships. This format is so exhilarating because it is completely different from what the kids are doing during the week when they are in school. It is laid out in a way that we can take the tables and chairs out of the equation, sit down on the floor at eye level, and engage them with God’s Word. Having one curriculum for all the age groups is going to give families the ability to discuss the lessons altogether, since they are the same, just tailored to their age group. The memory verse program will also be connected to the curriculum, which will encourage them to memorize the verses that they will be discussing and learning about on Sunday morning.

With these changes there is going to be some new volunteer positions available and the dynamics of the current positions will be changing as well. If being a part of this ministry sounds interesting to you, join us for an informational meeting on Sunday, July 28, after the third service (approximately 12:30 p.m.) in rooms 102 & 103. I am looking forward to the fall and this great new curriculum!

This Weekend's Message: Undesired Outcomes

We live in a culture that baits us to do things we have no business doing and then sometimes even punishes when we do them. It’s crazy. There are times when we experience an undesired outcome in our life because we get caught up in this crazy culture. So the question must be asked, “How do I avoid this craziness?"

On a highway, guardrails keep a car from straying into dangerous or off-limit areas. They are an important part of keeping people safe on the highway. Without guardrails, many more people would die in car accidents. But did you know there are guardrails in our life with Jesus – personal guardrails that keep us from straying into living a life with those undesired outcomes? These guard rails are not designed to take something away from us but to keep us from harm. This week as we continue our study in Galatians, we explore Paul’s list of the things to be careful of so that we don’t end up with those undesired outcomes.

See you Sunday and don’t forget about the Second Annual LBF Car Show happening right after church!

Gary

Exit 83’s Current Series Explores the Difference Between Knowing About Someone and Knowing Someone

By Matt Sasso, Pastor of Student Ministries 

So you overslept, missed the bus, saw someone cute, aced the big test, and you’re mad at that guy. So how do we know? Because you gave the world your play-by-play for the day on Facebook, Twitter, and texted about it every five minutes. We live in a world where we know more about the people around us than we ever knew before. But have you noticed something? We can know a lot – too much – and yet not really know what’s going on. It’s so easy to let people know about us, and not really have a place where people really know us at all. We know that students need people pouring into them to help them discover who God is and what that means for them. In this series we want to challenge our students to really open up about what is going on their lives.

This Weekend's Message: The Battle Within

The scene is the White House. One adviser stands on each side of the President. Intelligence sources are reporting that a hostile nation is preparing a domestic attack against the United States. One adviser pleads with the President to order a pre-emptive strike. He passionately gives strong reasons why this is what the U.S. must do to protect itself. Meanwhile the other adviser passionately pleads with the President to hold off. A pre-emptive strike, he says, will lead to a massive conflict, while waiting may reveal that this intelligence is unfounded. The President attentively listens to both arguments. Ultimately, however, he knows that the decision is his. He must choose a course of action, and siding with one adviser will necessarily mean that he sides against the other. He cannot follow both courses at once; he must choose a side.

On Sunday, we will look at a passage in which Paul talks about two options each Christian must choose between: the Spirit and the flesh. The Spirit has one agenda for our lives, while the flesh invites us to something completely different. Because of these two agendas, we can only follow the lead of one of them at any given time.

Both the Spirit and the flesh invite us to freedom. According to Paul, however, only one can deliver on that promise.

Dan

Freedom Fighters Secure & Protect

By Dan Franklin, Pastor of Teaching 

As is often said, freedom is not free. It is expensive. It has to be fought for. And, once freedom is secured, there is often a struggle to protect and preserve that freedom.

Freedom is costly, and this is why it can only be obtained and protected if it is greatly valued. If freedom is not treasured, then it will be sacrificed.

Throughout Galatians 1-4, the Apostle Paul labored to make the point that Jesus paid the ultimate price to secure freedom for His people. If we value freedom, then we will value what Jesus has done for us. In Galatians 5-6, Paul calls the Galatians – and us – to be freedom fighters. This is not because we need to work hard to purchase our freedom; Jesus has already done that. Rather, he calls us to fight in order to secure and protect the freedom that Jesus bought for us. Paul gets very practical in Galatians 5-6, and he calls us to protect our freedom from two distinct threats.

Threat #1: Legalism. Paul warns us that we will be tempted to sacrifice our freedom in favor of trying to appeal to God on the basis of our good behavior and observance of rules. While this may seem silly to us, this temptation is deceptively appealing. It can feel good to come to God, saying, “I’ve been good this week. I haven’t yelled at anyone in my family, or slacked off at work, or broken any laws. And, to top it all off, I’ve given some of my money to people who are in need. Now, all I want to ask of you is that you keep me financially stable and healthy.” Legalism (following rules for the purpose of securing God’s blessing) is appealing because it makes us feel that we have done something to obligate God to do our will. It seems noble and commendable because we are following religious rules, but legalism is not godly. It is certainly not humble. When we practice legalism we put ourselves in the driver’s seat instead of yielding to God’s leading in our lives. Far from securing freedom, legalism only leads to a relationship with God marked by distance and slavish obedience. It does not reflect the sonship for which Christ set us free. This is why Paul begins Galatians 5 with the stirring call to “stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.”

Threat #2: Indulgence. We might think that the opposite of legalism is simply to follow every whim and do whatever we please. After all, if Christ has set us free, shouldn’t we just do whatever we want all the time? Isn’t this what freedom is?

Paul’s answer is no. He says in Galatians 5:13, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather serve one another.”

Freedom has a purpose. It has a proper use. And freedom will be undermined if we abuse it and make it an excuse for selfish and self-indulgent behavior. According to Paul, freedom comes not through indulging the flesh, but rather by following the lead of the Spirit. The flesh will lead us into all kinds of destructive and enslaving habits and attitudes (5:19-21), while the Spirit will lead us to life-giving ways of interacting with God and other people (5:22-26).

Now that you are free, Paul tells us, don’t waste your freedom by using it as an excuse to be enslaved to your whims and momentary desires. Instead, treasure your freedom enough to trust God and follow His lead.

If you are a believer in Jesus, then you have been given freedom. But remember that this freedom was not free. While you are not called to purchase your own freedom, you are invited to fight against any threats to the proper expression and enjoyment of that freedom.

New Service Times Start Next Month

By Gary Keith, Lead Pastor 

The old adage says that “no one likes change except a baby,” but I know some babies that didn’t like to be changed either! Change is difficult, but it seems change is also a current cultural reality.

There has been a lot of change at LBF over the past year. Last August we embraced a new mission and vision statement. And in April we started the remodel of the Worship Center. For people who like to keep things the same, this has been a challenging year with a number of big changes. In fact, I would like to extend a big “thank you” to those of you who are having a difficult time with these changes. I know it is hard and I appreciate the fact that you are adjusting to something that is new and different. Thank you.

However, as I reflect back on this past year starting with the change of the mission statement, I believe our church has experienced a healthy growth, both in numbers and in our relationship with God.

So now that I’ve talked about change, let me talk more about the change this article is introducing. It revolves around the attendance patterns we currently see in our three Sunday morning worship services. Many years ago the third service was our largest-attended service. It was the service that was packed every week. Over the past several years though, we’ve seen a decline in third service attendance and a dramatic increase in second service attendance.

We’re excited to see second service packed out each week, but running at capacity is also an issue. Nearly every Sunday at second service, families are forced to split up to find seats. First-time guests to our church drive through our parking lots trying to find open spaces – sometimes in vain. This isn’t the experience we want for our attendees – especially those visiting our church for the first time.

A few months ago, in an effort to learn more about attendance patterns, we launched a church-wide survey to help us better understand the motivations behind why people choose the Sunday service they primarily attend. With a better understanding of service attendance motivations and patterns, we believed we would be able to create service times that work best for our congregation. If we could better balance and spread out our service attendance, we would be able to make room for more people to attend our church.

One of the key things we learned in the survey is that people choose the service that “allows them to maximize their day.” We learned that third service is starting – and getting out – too late and as a result, many are not attending because it doesn’t allow them to maximize their day. And because of the third service’s late start time, people choose second service, which is packing it to capacity. To state it another way, our third service starts and gets out too late for many people to see it as a viable service option.

With this information our pastoral staff discussed ways we can facilitate a growth in the other two Sunday services. We are thankful that our 9:30 service is more than full every week, but we would like to balance out the three services, thereby making room for growth at all of our services.

We know that the service you attend is important to you and that any change in the service times will have an impact on your personal life. We do not take lightly making a change in service times. But we believe we need to move third service to an earlier start time to help make it more viable for a majority of people who desire to go to a service that “allows me to maximize my day.”

So we are going to move the start time of third service from 11:11 a.m. to 10:45 a.m. This will allow third service to start earlier and end by noon. As a result, we are also moving the second service from 9:30 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. This change is needed to allow enough time for second service to wrap up before third service begins. First service will start at the same time – 8 a.m. Exit 83 Student Ministry (jr. high and high school) will meet at 9:15 a.m.

Below are the old and new start times for our three Sunday Services.
    Current Times        New Times 
    8 a.m.                        8 a.m.
    9:30 a.m.                   9:15 a.m.
   11:11 a.m.                 10:45 a.m.

We are very aware that this change may be difficult for some families. Change is rarely easy and even though we believe this is the best decision and these are the best service times for the majority of our congregation right now, we understand it will be a challenge for some. It’s our hope that you understand our motivations behind these changes, which is to create more viable service times for the whole of our congregation and to help create room for more people to attend all of services.

We will begin these new service times on Sunday, August 4. You will receive more communications and reminders as we get closer to this date. We look forward to this and believe it will be used to impact more people with the truth of the Gospel.

This Weekend's Message: Free-for-All

What would happen if all laws were removed? Would this bring us freedom? In some ways we might want to say yes. After all, we would be free from speed limits and taxes and a number of other things that bother us. The removal of all laws sounds pretty good in some ways. In other ways, though, we would be terrified if all laws were removed. There would be no protection from theft and assault and even murder. It would seem inevitable that certain people would abuse their freedom and bring danger and pain to others.

Throughout Galatians Paul has been saying the Christians are free. We are free from fear and free from condemnation and also free from the Old Testament laws that directed the lives of God’s people for so many years. In some ways this freedom must have sounded wonderful. But in other ways, they might have wondered how it would all work. Wouldn’t people naturally abuse the freedom they were given? 

Some of us probably have this same fear. If God doesn’t give us a bunch of rules, won’t we just do whatever we want? How do we live in light of this freedom without making selfish and destructive decisions? This Sunday we will address this very question. Come prepared to be challenged and empowered by God’s Word.

Dan

Car Show Revs Up

Sunday, July 21, 2013, 12:30-5:30 p.m. 

By Phil Shahbaz, Pastor of Community Life 

The Second Annual LBF Car Show is only a few weeks away! We’ve been busy organizing registrants, lining up our vendors, ordering T-shirts, and recruiting volunteers – all in order to make this a great community event with the summer’s hottest wheels around. But don’t just come for the cars, trucks, and motorcycles (or the food or bounce houses). This year’s Car Show will also assist the GAP Food Bank in providing for needy families in our community as well.

The GAP started in the early ‘90s by distributing food out of a garage to local families. Almost 20 years later, the GAP is located in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse in Rancho Cucamonga, equipped with a truck for large donation pick-ups, a forklift, and walk-in freezer and refrigerator.

Today the goal of the GAP Food Bank is to provide food to the needy families in our community. GAP’s immediate goal is to increase the number of families fed to 500 or more by continuing to feed the families at their facility, as well as expanding the amount of food provided to other food banks, senior centers, and churches. The GAP’s primary source of revenue is free-will donations from local churches, businesses, and individuals.

So this year, as you get ready to head over to the Car Show with your lawn chairs and picnic blankets, bring along a canned good or two to donate to GAP Food Bank. Then your family can enjoy the live band, bounce houses, petting zoo, and an assortment of fun activities for the kids. Panera Bread will be providing all of the food, desserts, and drinks this year, so get your grub on and know that 10% of all food sales at the Car Show will go to GAP Food Bank. Meal tickets and T-shirts will be on sale this weekend between services.

Still want to register your classic, custom, hot rod, muscle car, chopper, import, or antique? Head to lbfchurch.com. Trophies will be awarded in several categories. Registration fee is $20 per car and $15 per motorcycle.

We also still need volunteers to pull this thing off! If you’d like to serve at the Car Show, you can sign up for that online too, or on the patio this weekend between services.