National Day of Prayer: 7 to 7 @ Garnett

Thursday, May 7 from 7 am to 7 pm the Mall, Prayer Center and Worship Center will be open for the National Day of Prayer.

Everyone is welcome for coffee and fellowship in the Mall, times of focused prayer in the Prayer Center, and prayer time in spontaeous groups in the Worship Center. Printed and displayed prayer helps will be provided.

We are not signing up for times but opening from 7 am to 7 pm for come and go times of prayer. Garnett staff and shepherds other people of prayer will be on hand to facilitate, but everyone is also welcome to these three areas for the different activities of fellowship, personal prayer, and group prayer. All Garnett partners, community guests, Green Country Event Center community are all welcome.

This Garnett 7 to 7 event is registered at the National Day of Prayer web site: http://www.ndptf.org

5-7 pm today building 6 Garnett is celebrating a great partnership with Union GED/ESL with pizza and open house so more in East Tulsa can see these great programs offered at Green Country Event Center.

Larry James coming to Garnett April 19

We've invited Larry James, CEO of Central Dallas Ministries, to return after three years and speak to our congregation April 19, 10 am.

Larry and his right hand attorney, John Greenan, gave us the spark and imagination three years ago to launch the Green Country Event Center, a "business as mission" effort to be good stewards of the Garnett Church facility and partner with God in pursuing our community.

Since then, we've been learning and enjoying rubbing shoulders with people from all walks of life, from five different churches that meet regularly, several schools including Union GED/ESL, dozens of businesses and people of peace who have come to use our place. We're on an amazing journey, and Larry is coming to help spark vision again, this time for another phase that includes land around our church as another part of the mission to be good neighbors and make disciples of Christ in East Tulsa.

Your view of life, the poor, the economy, and the kingdom of God will be challenged by what Larry James has to say Sunday, April 19 at Garnett, 10 am. We'll have a lunch after worship to talk more about our vision and show a video that Lance Newsom is working on that asks a couple dozen people around Garnett and event center, "What's God up to in your life and this community?" Please join us for worship and lunch!

Update

• Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop is next week, March 26-28 at Tulsa Fairgrounds. The theme is Evangelistic Explosion.
• Wednesday, March 25, 5-7 pm come for a free meal and fellowship called Neighborhood Kitchens. We'll also be hosting visitors coming for the workshop (item above), and we'll have a time of worship and telling of good stories about what God is doing in East Tulsa and beyond.
• For student ministry events and news, check out the student blog (click student link above)
• We're hiring a full-time children's minister at Garnett. If you know of a qualified person who may be interested, please contact Greg Taylor, gtaylor@garnettchurch.org.
• Jessica Rogers was baptized Sunday, March 15 during our worship. What a great day together and to end with a baptism brought great joy to the congregation.
• Want to sign up for email updates that are send daily at 3 pm? See link on right navigation bar.
  

Hello from Lubbock!

I'm staying with a high school friend and his family and enjoying reconnecting with them. I'm here for the ZOE Conference at the Monterey Church of Christ. I'm involved with ZOE because we help people break free from legalism and experience a new journey with Jesus Christ.

We help people with stepping stones like articles on Wineskins.org, conference experiences in worship, great speakers such as Mike Cope, Jeff Walling, Randy Harris, Scot McKnight, music in CD and printed sheet music for fresh approaches to worship, and a Growing Deeper Spirituality program. Check all this out at www.wineskins.org and www.zoegroup.org

Plans are to return to Tulsa Saturday night, and I'll be preaching Sunday on Matthew 5:38-42.

May our love with God grow deeper and passion for our world go wider.

--Greg

P.S. Here are the small group questions for this week:

Small Group Questions

Read Matthew 5:38-39

Tell about an experience you've had in your family, work, church where you've seen someone living out Jesus teaching.

Have there been times when your punishment or "justice" exceeded the wrong done? For example, for parents: can you tell about a time when the punishment you gave your children inappropriately exceeded their wrongdoing?

How can we live this teaching out in our homes, work, church, neighborhood?

Read Matthew 5:40-42

Tell about an experience you've had in your family, work, church where you've seen someone living out Jesus teaching.

How can your small group give to those who ask, share your "two coats" with someone in need, go the "extra mile"?

How can we pray for you?

Daniel Mwaza Fast

During Lent I'm on a Daniel Fast. No, not Daniel in the Bible.

My friend, Daniel Mwaza, in Uganda told me how to lose weight . . . He said, "Stop eating so much."

So I'm eating half of the normal American calorie intake (which about matches intake of half the world), with about 4 oz of protein a day.

I lived seven years in Uganda, and this fast helps me remember those days when I saw children in villages eat their one meal for the day, a handful of beans and some cassava (yucca root).

Fasting can heighten your awareness of God, lead to deeper prayer and discernment. It can also lead to poor brain function. I could barely make it through a seekers Bible study last night after our Neighborhood Kitchens meal, but God gave me the power to finish when we discussed from Mark 3 the way the evil spirits bowed down in the presence of Jesus. We saw that nothing can prevail against God, nothing.

The last few weeks have been a bittersweet whirlwind with my move to lead minister of Garnett Church of Christ and the exit of my friend and co-worker, our former lead minister Wade Hodges.

I'm very happy to preach and help lead this church under the guidance of our shepherds, the teamwork of a great staff, and in partnership with an incredible congregation that is seeing before us the greatest opportunity in decades--probably since the bus ministry--to reach out to our neighbors through Neighborhood Kitchens, Angel Food, Food Pantry, where we see hundreds of guests and fellow servants seeking the Lord, community, life.

We're also looking for a full-time children's minister and rebuilding a great ministry to children as well as continuing an incredible student ministry that Lance Newsom and Deanie Johnson and a band of volunteers run so very well.

Last night, a Garnett teacher taught class, filled with both children from families currently at Garnett and children of adult guests who are checking out what this community is all about. She was headed home and said she was hungry. We had fed more than 200 guests and our beloved Chef Roy was not there to stretch food like he normally does (he was home recovering from surgery). So we ran out of food, and this teacher had been last in line. She was heading home with her boys, hungry but smiling, another kind of fast for the sake of the kingdom and the mission of this congregation.

Preaching at Garnett

I've let the news of Wade Hodges leaving Garnett to plant a church in Austin, Texas settle in for a while and now want to tell you a little about how I'm feeling about preaching at Garnett Church of Christ in Tulsa.

I love Garnett Church of Christ more today than ever before, and I'm very happy to preach and help lead the church alongside very capable and loving shepherds, staff, and other servants in the church.

I grew up in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, so I've known of Garnett for decades. The Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop was a rite of Spring, and I have fond memories of my mother, Charlotte Taylor, and my aunt, Karen Williams, spreading out picnics in the Expo when it was cold and rainy and at Woodward Park when it was sunny and the azaleas were about to bloom.

For twenty years I've wanted to preach and help lead a church going through a neighborhood transition, and Garnett has been doing that. East Tulsa was growing with new housing when the church built near 31st and Garnett many years ago. Now the neighborhood is revitalizing with new stores and active neighborhood associations and Community Schools that we partner with, including Briarglen and Cooper Elementary Schools. What I mean by this is that some churches either grow old and die or they move to the suburbs, but Garnett has stayed put through neighborhood transition economically and ethnically, and this has been a dream of mine to help a church like this transform to serve God right where we are.

In the past several years, the church has declined in attendance but has grown stronger in other ways, including the ability to dream again, creatively use our resources, stop gossiping and speak face to face with people and not behind their backs. Other areas of growth are Garnett's outreach to the community, continued small group participation, and an element that has been true of the church for a long time: joyful worship and good preaching.

With God's help and illumination of his word and gospel, I plan to continue that tradition of good preaching. In the weeks leading up to Easter we will finish the Sermon on the Mount series, and we will have special events for youth, for families, including a showing of the film, Fireproof, and ongoing classes such as Single Parenting led by Jo Morton and Robert Garland, Better Life 101 led by Jim Roberts, Hebrews led by James Lawrence, and Following Jesus led by Greg Taylor.

We have classes both Sundays (9 am) and Wednesdays (7 pm) for cradle to high school and for adults. We also have a free meal called Neighborhood Kitchens, and all are welcome from 5-7 pm. Just come in the West entrance and we'll welcome you there. We'd love to see you come to our worship at 10 am Sundays, and we'll welcome you and show you around and enjoy worshiping God with you.

Greg Taylor
Preacher, Garnett Church of Christ