NorthStar Church Blog

Got a tip that may help someone? Submit your ideas to Pam Wang at awang3@nycap.rr.com

Bible Verse:

“Life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about God’s mighty kindness and love.”-Acts 20:24 (LB)

Protect the Environment:

Use compact fluorescent light bulbs (expensive to buy, but saves money and energy in the long run). Use reusable bags at the grocery store as it reduces consumption of raw materials (especially petroleum) needed to make the bags and cuts down on waste going to landfills. Recycle your church bulletins, offering envelopes (unused ones can actually be reused the next week), and any inserts. Recycle (glass, metal, paper, magazines, cardboard) at the transfer station on Vischer Ferry Road (it’s free to drop off stuff)

-Submitted by Claudia Braymer

Exercise Tips:

Take a walk after eating. During work hours, walk with a coworker for a portion of your lunch break. Walk after dinner with your significant other or family. Don’t make it a habit to sit around and talk — walk around and talk instead. Can’t find anyone to go with you? Take a walk with your dog in the morning or at night.

– Submitted by Deb Darby

There are 5 components to physical fitness – cardio respiratory function, body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility. Fitness is a lifelong commitment and it should be fun. Find an activity you enjoy and just do it. “Know Pain, Know Gain”

– Submitted by Betty Cross

Life Tip:

Surround yourself with what you love: Whether it’s family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge. Be grateful for what God has given you.

Invite your family and friends, your neighbors and acquaintances, and anyone else you know to come to church with you. Invite them because in church they can be loved and given room to grow. Showing God’s love to others is one part of God’s game plan. The other part is telling them about the difference God has made in your life. God’s plan starts with us. We have to tell and teach others so they can learn about God. If you just show and don’t tell, it’s not doing what Jesus asked us to do. If you just tell and don’t show, that’s not doing what Jesus wants us to do either. We need to do both – show and tell. People have heard a lot of crazy stuff about Christianity and unfortunately, some of it’s true. This has led to people having pre-conceived notions about church and Christians. It’s up to us to show them how God’s changed us and our lives and to tell them about God’s love. Show them that we care enough about them to invite them to church to learn about Jesus. If we don’t tell others, we’ve decided heaven and hell for them. God’s game plan isn’t just to invite people to a service. Christianity and faith is not about spending an hour at church. It’s about finding a family of people who love you unconditionally. It’s about giving the love of Jesus and investing it in others. It’s about living your life as real, proof-positive examples of Jesus.

Billy Graham said, “God’s job is to judge, the Holy Spirit’s job is to convict and our job is to love.” There are consequences of sin and of not following God’s path. We’ve seen it in our lives as well as the lives of others. Love others enough to tell them about Jesus. Love them even if they don’t want to hear the message. Invite them to know Jesus.

Aaron Hammitt, March 2
Bob Desautels, March 3
Lori Gardner, March 23
Dawn DiLorenzo, March 26

Got a tip that may help someone? Submit your ideas to Pam Wang at awang3@nycap.rr.com

Bible Verse: “Be still and know that I am God.”-Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

Protect the Environment: Save energy by unplugging cell phone chargers while not in use; if the charger is plugged in it uses energy even when the cell phone is not attached.
-Submitted by Claudia Braymer

Ladies Book Club

If you enjoy reading and want to meet other ladies at NorthStar, this is for you! Come together to discuss each month’s Christian novel. This club will help you learn more about female characters in the Bible and will help you strengthen friendships. The first meeting will be Sunday, March 2nd from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. at Mocha Lisa’s. The first book is Francine Rivers’ “Unveiled”, a novella about Tamar, a female character in the Bible. Books are available at Amazon.com, CBD.com or walmart.com. For more information, contact Marla at Marla2socal@yahoo.com.

Communion

We will be partaking of the Lord’s Supper on Sunday, March 16, during the service. If you have questions regarding communion, check out the podcast online about communion under the “Experience Your Faith” category and also check out 1 Corinthians 11:23-32; Matthew 26:17-30.

Easter Sunday

The biggest Sunday of the year is only 4 weeks away. Easter is the perfect time to invite everyone you know to NorthStar. We will have tools to help you do that next week but start praying now and getting your list together of people you can invite to this special Sunday. We start a new series on Easter called, “Fearless.”

PALS (Parents and Little Stars)

The next PALS event will be held at Bounce N’ Party, Route 9 in Malta on Wednesday, March 19th from noon-2 p.m. The cost is $7 for one hour, $8.75 for two hours or $10.75 for a full day. Feel free to check out the website for pictures and more information at www.bouncenparty.com. Please email Toni at mamalyng@aol.com if you plan to attend. PALS is opened to parents with children four years of age and under and is a great way to meet people at NorthStar.

People want simplicity in this world because life is usually so complicated. So much information is being pushed at us on a daily basis that we crave less. Do you want to simplify your life? Jesus, when He talked about a simpler way, started on the inside – not the outside. Four areas that Jesus talks about tell us how to simplify our lives in this fast-paced world.

1. Simplify the way you speak. Don’t be sneaky or give partial truths with what you’re saying. A simple phrase has crept into our vocabulary “I promise”. Using this phrase usually means that you didn’t keep your word before. Let your yes be yes and your no be no. You should be trustworthy enough to mean what you way and say what you mean. You don’t have to double-think people when people live a life of integrity. It used to be our word was our bond. Trust was built into a single handshake. Speak the truth to other people and also speak the truth when you talk to God. God wants you to be honest with yourself and to be yourself when you talk to Him. In Psalms, we can read people’s heartfelt prayers to God. Sometimes we may think that God doesn’t have time for us or our problems. But God does want to hear and He wants to hear the truth. Start on the inside and be honest.

2. Simplify the way you act. We twist and turn and look at how people act in our lives, trying to figure out what they’re really trying to say and portray. Rather than take things at face value, we try to find the inner meaning. Remember the simple golden rule on how to get along with people – treat others the way you want to be treated. Don’t live by pre-emptive rules such as hurting others before they hurt you. Thinking you’re going to be taken advantage of if you follow the golden rule? Jesus says “Step down and serve and your life will count for plenty.” Be yourself. How do you respond if someone treats you like a servant? We normally get angry. The true test of a servant’s heart is how you act when you’re treated like a servant. Just be who Jesus made you to be. The key is not to try to make people like you and not to try to be like everyone else. Just be you.

3. Simplify the way you live. Time-saving devices have turned into time-slaving devices. They don’t allow us to rest. Jesus had three years to give us his message and to change the world. Did he work every hour of those years? No. He rested. He believed in the value of rest, praying, reflecting and spending time with God. We have lots of time to worry and get stressed out but we need to make time to bring God into our lives on a daily basis.

4. Simplify the way you believe. What are the most important commandments? Jesus was asked this and he said, “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength” and the next is equally important, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. To do these things, we need to become humble-like children. Children know that someone else is in charge. They don’t need to worry. How do we become like children again? Our trouble comes when we think we can only depend on ourselves. We lose focus when we think we can’t leave our lives up to God. Jesus says to trust Him and to not be afraid. God wants us to depend on him and give our worries to him. We just need to trust Him.

Make Jesus Christ the center of your life. Say what you mean and mean what you say. Stop jockeying for a position. Spend daily time reading God’s Word. Invite those in your life to Easter at Shen.

Our Add1 Youth Group has a new blog! Add1′s blog is designed to keep parents up to date with current news and a monthly calendar of events. As well it includes fun pictures from various events. Check out the Add1 blog often!

We’ve restarted NorthStar’s volunteer podcast. Podcasts will be posted each month and will feature interviews with different leaders at NorthStar. Interviews last for approximately 20 minutes and are a basic introduction to the person being interviewed. The first podcast features Maryanna Lilly discussing her early desire to “plant” a church and the history of NorthStar Church. Aubrey Tanner, NorthStar’s Office Assistant since 2006 and mom-to-be, is featured in this month’s volunteer podcast. When you have a moment check out the interviews and learn more about the many people who volunteer their time each week to keep NS running smoothly! VOLUNTEER PODCAST

Lastly, we’ve added a new picture gallery on our website. CLICK HERE to view photos of recent events and special days at NorthStar. Currently posted are pictures from 50′s Sunday.

How do you know what parts of your life to say yes to and what parts to say no to? How do you find balance? Pray for focus and clarity to know what you should do. Here are some questions to help you to begin filtering the decisions on what to say yes to and what to say no to.

1) What will be the center of my life? What are you going to live for? There are lots of options – you can choose your career, your family, money or even collectibles, for example. The problem is that these centers are constantly changing. What should be our center? Very simply – Jesus Christ. A lot of people think life is like a pie. Each part, even God, gets one slice. God doesn’t just want a piece of our life. He wants the whole thing. He’s the one who gave us the pie to begin with. If you find yourself worrying about losing your job, then your job becomes your center. If you worry about your kids, then they’ve become your center. Jesus needs to be the center of your life.

2) What will be the character of my life? The definition of spiritual maturity isn’t how many chapters of the Bible you can quote. It’s how much you’re a doer of the Word. Spiritual maturity is thinking and acting like Jesus Christ. It’s a process. God takes all the good, the bad, the ugly that you want to hide and uses it to mold your character so that you can grow to become like Jesus. If you pray for something, God will give you tests to help build up your character. Pray for patience, God will give you lots of red lights in traffic and long lines at the checkout. Pray for only people you love to be in your life and God will place people who are difficult to love in your path. God is much more concerned with your character than with your comfort. He will continually put tests in your path for your character to grow and strengthen.

3) What will be the contribution of my life? God has given us gifts, talents and abilities to use for His name and His fame. How are you using these gifts? Are you using them to get ahead in your life or are you using them to better God? God has given you your special gifts for a reason. There are no small people, no small gifts, and no small talents in God’s kingdom. Very huge doors still swing on very small hinges. Your gift is not something everyone else can do.

4) What will be the communication of my life? What does God want to say to the world through you? Maybe God wants you to bring a message echoing the Master’s Word. You are the message. You are uniquely gifted with your life experience and your challenges and, by sharing this with others, you are sharing God’s message. How do we begin communicating this message? Begin living it. It doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. You don’t. If you act like you have it all together, you’re fooling yourself and being hypocritical. When we mess up, we should be quick to own up to it and apologize. That is living the message of God. Do people know why you’re different? You have more credibility than your pastor does. People look at the pastor as a salesman. People look at the congregation as satisfied customers. Tell people that you care more about their souls than what they think of you. Tell people God’s message. Invite them to Easter.

Make Jesus Christ the center of your life. Choose character over comfort. Be a giver and not a taker. Use your life to communicate God’s love and promote Jesus instead of yourself. Invite those in your life to Easter.