HAVE 2? GIVE 1 AWAY!

by Stephenie Carr, Missional Living Director

Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none… Luke 3:11

Every couple years, our church organizes what we call the “Garage Give Away” (no, we do not give away garages). If you haven’t been around for one of these in the past (and even if you have), I would highly recommend getting involved this year! In the simplest terms, it is a giant church wide garage sale, only without the money. It is a great invitation for us as a church to enter into a process of simplifying our lives of the stuff that we so easily and mindlessly collect, gather, let creep in and with open hands, detached from the results, give it away. Spring is commonly known as a good time for cleaning, and my encouragement to you is to let this event motivate you and help resource you to do that thoroughly.

One of the challenges that I find in living in suburbia is the world of “stuff” that surrounds us. Somehow, I find a way to fill every space I have with stuff that I may or may not need. I’m constantly surrounded by messages from the media, from society, from my own unsatisfied soul, that I need more, that what I have isn’t enough, isn’t new enough, isn’t fast enough, isn’t shiny enough, I’m sure you can fill in the blanks. And one of the wonderful messages of the Gospel is that we don’t have to live in that lie. We have access to Him who beyond anything else can satisfy our soul, sustain our existence and is the provider of all that we need. Sound cheesy? Unrealistic? Impossible? Not even close to as cheesy, unrealistic, and impossible as the lies that I too often live by that tell me that one more outfit would satisfy my soul, that one more bite of chocolate or Round Table pizza will sustain my existence, or that if I could get a juicer that was easier to clean that would be all I need. I’m not saying it is an easy journey to learn to live this way, but I am saying that we can all take a step in a good direction by engaging in the practice of simplicity. Sort through our stuff and sort out the things that we don’t really need. Loosen our grips on the material stuff around us.

I’ve been in a study lately that is going through the book of Luke and a few weeks ago was struck by this little verse John 3:11. Here we find John in the wilderness “Preparing the way for the Lord” and crowds of people are coming to him to be baptized. The whole scene is fascinating! John’s telling them they can’t just repent and not produce fruit that goes along with a repentant heart. He’s telling them they can’t just rely on their religious or ancestral connections. And when the crowd asks him, “What should we do then?” He responds, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” Really? This is the secret for producing fruit in our lives? This is the way in which we prepare our hearts for the Lord? You bet! Not that anything magical happens when we start this process of releasing our stuff, but it does help us to see things differently. If we fight our dependency on our stuff, we can then be free to depend on God. If we start to look around us and see those who are in need, it frees our eyes from ourselves and helps us see this world and the people in it the way that God sees them. There is an unending process of growth for us in these words!

So that is our campaign for this year’s Garage Give Away – it is an invitation to you, to all of us! If we have 2, give 1 away. If you have 2 hammers, give 1 away. If you have 4 jackets, give 2 away. If you have 20 books, give 10 away. Now, I hope no one gets caught up on the numbers, but you get the idea. Start ridding your life of the excess stuff that we have and let a community in need come and take what they can use. We’ve invited people from all of our local ministry partners to come to this event as well invite any of you who have a need for something come as well. Last time we did this was one of Travis and my first summers leading a team overseas with an infant, and I needed some kind of luggage to carry our porta-crib while flying. I ended up finding someone’s old golf bag and it has been a life saver every summer since! There are other stories of someone dropping off a bag of clothes that no longer fit them and up walks a lady just that size who was looking for clothes. Another person perusing the books ended up spotting their favorite devotional that they had been planning on getting for a friend. Another year, we had a Russian family who had recently immigrated fill their whole apartment with needed household goods. It is a wonderful event to see how God in His economy of stuff arranges for it all to be shared when we allow Him to move. Of course, not every item has such a significant story, but all that is left over at the end of the day will be donated to Hospice Thrift store.

Along with all of the stuff that you will be getting rid of, we also have a need for volunteers! See the list below – and contact me (stephenie.carr@oakhills.org) to sign yourself up!

FRIDAY…

Drop-off Sorters & Unloaders • 4-6:30pm or 6:30-9pm

SATURDAY…

Furniture Loaders & Unloaders • 8-10am or 10-12pm

Set up • 7-8:30am

Clean up • 12-1:30pm

Traffic & Welcomers • 7:45-10am or 10-12pm

Item Area Volunteers • 8-10am or 10-12pm

Donut & Coffee People • 7:30-10am or 10-12pm

And if you have questions, feel free to send them my way as well!

Alternatives

. . . A Conversation between Stephenie Carr, our Missional Living Director, and Susan Carr, a Client Advocate at Alternatives Pregnancy Center.

Who are you and how long have you been coming to Oak Hills, relationship to Oak Hills (used to be on staff, where you ser ve now, etc)? I am your mother-in-law and have been coming to Oak Hills for 16 years now, 3 of which I served on staff .

How did you first hear about or get involved with Alternatives? I have long been aware of Pregnancy Centers and been drawn to be of help in some way but finally gave in to God’s nudging when I heard the Sacramento Center was opening their first satellite office in Folsom.  I then went through the required training and became a client advocate.  Our office opened (with Pastor Kent providing the Invocation at our Grand Opening Celebration) in May of 2010.

What about this ministry made an impact on you? While going through training in the Sacramento office, I was deeply impacted by the men and women on staff, as well as the volunteers, who have such passion for this ministry.  Consequently, I too have become passionate about not only the unborn, but about educating parents and their teens in the area of prevention, and for those women who have had abortions and need emotional healing.  Alternatives have programs to help in all these areas.

How are you involved with them now? Currently, I serve as receptionist and client advocate for the Folsom APC on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  I also am the liaison (along with you, Steph) between Oak Hills and the Center.

What exactly is it that they offer the community? Alternatives serve the community in 3 areas:

PREVENTION: APC offers Sexual Health and Integrity seminars to combat the fast rise of STD’s,  promote sexual integrity, and empower individuals to make healthy life choices.

INTERVENTION: APC offers free pregnancy tests and a safe, non-judgmental, and confidential place to explore options on parenting, adoption and abortion (risks and procedures) so that informed choices can be made.

RECOVERY: APC offers a safe, confidential approach to healing after abortion.  (Please see our bulletin on an upcoming Bible Study and retreat.)

What is something you wish everyone knew about them? I want everyone to know that Alternatives is such a loving organization — non-political, and truly non-judgmental.  The staff and volunteers offer such care and support to all who enter their doors.   And if our clients choose parenting, our help just begins for them.  We support them by offering parenting classes (P411) where they can earn ‘Mommy and Daddy Bucks’ for purchases in our Baby Nook until their baby is one year old – invaluable for clients that find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy!!

How would you encourage others to get involved? First of all, spreading the word about Alternatives Folsom office would be so appreciated!  Next, we need Client Advocates!!  This requires going through a few hours of training but is so worth the education alone.  In addition we can always use items for our Baby Nook, especially diapers and wipes.  And of course, Oak Hillians can become Life Giving Partners by helping financially.  We have an annual Gala Dinner and Silent Auction held in the fall and in May, come join us on our Walk for Life at Maidu Park in Roseville.  For Info on these and other events, visit us online at www.alternativespc.org.  Finally, we need prayerful support for both centers, that we can make a difference for Christ through this ministry.

Other thoughts? A big thank-you to Oak Hills Church for spreading the word about Alternatives and making them a ministry partner.  I want to invite each and every one of you to come visit and tour our facility.  We are currently open Tuesday through Thursday, 9-4.  Our address is 381 S. Lexington Ave. Suite 102.   Hope to see you there!

“This Christmas is going to be different…”

by Stephenie Carr, Missional Living Director

How many times have I told myself that same thing, but before I start to even think about what that might mean for myself and my family, I’m already noticing that the dreaded glittery garlands are dangling from every corner of my life and it feels like it is too late.  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Christmas.  I love being with family, I love the traditions, I love the cold air and the Christmas cookies.  I love the gift giving and thinking back to what it would have been like for the characters of the 1^st Christmas story to behold God coming into this world.  But in all of that, it seems like each year, the season ends and I’m left wanting – that there was too much of some things and not enough of others.  Like too much hurry and pressure and money spent (and often times too many cookies), and not enough Jesus, healing, loving, worship.  I love the Candlelight service each year at church, but by the time we rush through the last minute gift wrapping, cut our kids’ nap time short and get everyone all dolled up to rush off to the 3 o’clock service and serve during the 5, then book it up to Placerville to celebrate Christmas eve only to shove all of the loot back into the gift bags and book it back to the Candlelight, it feels like the first taste of Jesus all season and I’m full of wishing I had stopped more and longer to find him at his own Birthday party.

Maybe that is just me, or maybe it isn’t.  Christmas has become a consumeristic monster.  The focus has become the gifts, not the real Gift.  Each year Americans spend billions of dollars on material things, all to celebrate the coming of our King who gave up everything to save us from this world.  I’ve been wrestling with this the past few years, ever since our church started participating in Advent Conspiracy, and I still have so many unanswered questions of how to do this in reality, for myself and my family.  I would love to invite you into the struggle as well.  Join Travis, myself, several of our Missional Living team members as we take four weeks out – before Christmas fast approaches – and intentionally think through some of this stuff.  We’ll be using a book and DVD study put together by Advent Conspiracy (link to the website: www.adventconspiracy.org) to guide our discussions, but are hoping some wonderful sharing of ideas, struggles and celebrations will come out of it.

“Understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  This is not about anger, disgust, or guilt – it is about entering the story of Jesus more deeply with a desire to worship more fully.  It is not enough to say no to the way Christmas is celebrated by many; we need to say yes to a different way of celebrating.”  From Chapter 1, Advent Conspiracy

The study group will meet during the 11:00 service in room M207 starting November 14.  Email me (Stephenie.carr@oakhills.or) or call to let me know if you will be joining us, and I’ll make sure to have a book for you.  We have several books available to borrow or if you would like your own copy, they are $10 each.  In any regard, I do wish you a merry Christmas, one full of wonder, excitement and deep celebration!

Bag-It Food Drive on September 26

by Stephenie Carr
Missional Living Director

Coming up on September 26 is our Annual Food Drive – our Bag-It Food Drive – you know, the one where we accost you at the doors of the church as you leave and shove brown paper grocery bags in your hand that have a list of non-perishable food items our local food bank needs.  And the same one where “mom” takes the bag home, it sits on the kitchen table or counter for a few days/weeks until she remembers it is Saturday night the 25^th, and the bags need to be turned in tomorrow.  After bed time that night, she quickly rummages through her pantry grabbing year-old cans of soup that no one has eaten and an extra bag of rice that she bought last month — oh yeah — and those granola bars that no one likes.  She quickly looks over the list stapled to the bag and notices they need toilet paper so she grabs 2 of the individually wrapped Costco rolls from under the bathroom counter and throws in a box of macaroni and cheese for good measure.  She puts it in the trunk of the car and then while everyone skips off to Sunday School, she takes it out of the trunk, puts it behind the car and runs to catch up with her family.  You know, that Bag-It Food Drive.

The Challenge

I want to challenge us to look at the Food Drive a bit differently this year.  When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I remember going to the store with my mom to do our weekly grocery shopping.  Outside the store was a woman who had gray wiry hair and a strange wrinkled smile.  She was standing in the parking lot asking people for money as they went into the store.  My mom told her she didn’t have any money to give but would buy her some groceries if she wanted.  So the lady walked around the store with us, pointing to various things on the shelves, and my mom would put them into the basket.  We checked out, the lady grabbed her few little bags of groceries, we grabbed ours, and we went our separate ways.  Now what is notable about this story is not necessarily that my mom bought this lady’s groceries – I think most of us would do that if the opportunity was clearly laid out in front of us – but what is notable is that I remember that shopping trip all these years later.  As a 10 year old, my view of people, the world, and my response to it was being shaped and formed.  Something happened for me in seeing my mom model what our response should be toward those in need.  It was a powerful moment.

In the same way, I believe there is an invitation for us to make the Food Drive something more for our families this year – I’d love for this to be a project where not just “mom” participates, but all of us.  Get creative and figure out ways to make this a hands on, experiential, heart involved project.  Use this Devotional, nothing profound or fancy, but hopefully a starting point for conversations with your family.  Pick a night this week to sit down and talk about this upcoming event.  As a family, plan out how you want to go about providing needed food for the Food Bank.  Maybe it is a family trip to the pantry, or maybe it is a family trip to the grocery store.  Maybe it even ends in a family trip to the Food Bank to sign up to serve or a family commitment to do a hunger challenge (where for 5 days you are allotted 3 cups of dried oatmeal, 3 cups of dried rice and 5 cups of dried beans per person – designed around what a refugee would receive in a humanitarian ration kit.  Regardless of how extreme you get with this – my hope is that we take the invitation to learn and grow our souls through this project.

The Need

The Twin Lakes Food Bank is serving more people than ever in the past few months and, therefore, needs more help than ever keeping its shelves stocked in order to meet the need of hungry families and individuals in our own neighborhood.  This past month alone, they served over 2300 people.  The recession is taking its toll on all of us, and leaving more people than ever vulnerable and in need.  In the United States alone there are nearly 17 million kids who live in “food-insecure” households (which means that it is a struggle to find enough food everyday).  In our local community, the numbers of those utilizing the Food Bank’s resources is rapidly climbing.  August 2008, Twin Lakes served 1,602 individuals. In August 2009, they served 2,102 individuals, and this year they are serving over 2,300.  These are our neighbors.  And we can help give, not just out of our “leftovers” but out of our plenty.  I looked up the definition for the word plenty.

¹plen·ty

[Button]  noun \ˈplen-tē\

1

a : a full or more than adequate amount or supply

I can’t answer for you, but even with all of the cut backs and penny pinching my family is doing lately, we still can describe our house as having a full or more than adequate supply of food.  We don’t go to bed hungry.  We don’t go to work hungry. So, if that is the case for your household as well, get creative in how you can best bless the Food Bank through the food drive this year.

How Does It Work

On Sunday, September 26, the Twin Lakes Food Bank will bring its big box truck to the church parking lot. Our  high school volunteers will pick up whatever food and other donations you have brought. All you need to do is place it behind your car during either the 9 or 11 am service.  They will then take it over to the Food Bank and unload it into their storage facility for volunteers to then sort and distribute.  It really is that easy.