God is moving in deep ways in our community - I hope you can feel it. He's changing us inside to move us outside into the lives of others. As we head to Easter week we have a great opportunity to help others come home too. It is one of the few times of year that people are willing to go to church and listen to the story again. Every year, in those moments, Jesus draws people to himself. So this year, pray about whom God wants you to bring to our Easter services at 9 and 11. We will be focusing on new life, with baptisms and stories and getting to re-tell the story of our living Savior. God wants all of us to come home and we get to help others come home too.

After Easter I will be starting a series called "Next." I am excited about it because it will help us see how we can help shape the city with the love of Christ and we all get to be in the middle of what God is doing. In the meantime, as people with a real need for Jesus, his great death and powerful resurrection, we set our sights on the Passion Week. It will be a great week. Be praying for your brothers and sisters that God wants to bring home this Easter.

Going through the story of the prodigal son, I get struck time and time again at how counter cultural and counter intuitive grace is.  I know that a lot of you struggle to feel accepted by God - a feeling that stems from various places but is rooted deep within a system of living that approves production and shuns personhood.  Every person is somewhat reduced to a product in a culture that is built on consumption.  So we seek ways of proving that we are worth investing in, being with, loving, liking or just keeping on the planet another day.

Then Jesus comes along with a radical picture of people who are unworthy and unable to “make something of themselves” any longer.  They can’t contribute to the social order any longer because they have been damaged by their own “prodigality.”  They have divorced themselves of relationship and at best are looking just to be related to as an employee in the cosmic plan of humanity.  They are wounded, broken, perverted, and depraved.  But there is a longing for something…something beautiful. They are homesick for Eden in a very real way.  They are imprinted with something that is deeper and better than all the other imprints that seek to tell them who they are.  They remember they have a Father and they turn toward him.

The shock comes when we are invited to a party that God is throwing for his repentant sons and daughters.  Becca Burch and Joe Barker sang about it on Sunday in a beautiful way.  A banner with your name in capital letters, a smoke machine and angels rejoicing as heaven opens up and God wraps us up in his embrace.  It’s an incredible contradiction to the way we are taught to live and find value and an incredible hope for those of us who still carry deep wounds from life in the “distant country.”  We’ve a great promise that God who has come to us in Christ has a new beginning and another dream for us - that we would know the joy of being sons and daughters of God.  It is great to be on this journey to the Father’s house together.

It is always a humbling experience to sit and talk with Celestin, our brother from Africa. His insights and perspectives are so incredibly refreshing. He is really a gift to our community. I hope some of you can take time to hear him speak this week at Multnomah Bible College. The schedule should be posted on our site soon. Take advantage of his story.

As we enter this next season at Imago I can't stress how much God has loved you in Christ. I know we all have certain road blocks to receiving that love. Sometimes we run away to sin and other times we run away to religious duty. God patiently waits for us to be still and receive his love. Going through the story of the Prodigal son over the next four weeks, we will have the chance to discover ourselves in the story and beyond that to discover Gods love in a transformative way. I get excited when I think about how many of us will come home to that love during the next few weeks, some of us for the first time and some after a long season away from home. Either way God calls us to celebrate with him when people come home to his love.

We also enter the Lenton season this week. Lent is a time to give up something so we can anticipate something greater, namely the love of Christ displayed in the story of his death and resurrection. We sacrifice certain things that we find comforting to our flesh. We fast from what is the norm so we can pay attention and listen in a way that is not drowned out by our desires. I hope you will think about what you might give up for forty days so you can experience His story in a deeper way.

Lastly, I wanted to share a need with you. Though we finished the year strong in giving, as we entered the New Year giving has dropped off. Right now we are about fifty thousand dollars behind budget. God has been so faithful to us over the years it is pretty mind blowing. He has met our needs as a church family through the generosity of his followers in our Imago family. When you give your money to Imago it goes to serve the needs of the community within the church as well as taking the love of Christ to the least of these in Portland and around the world. I am simply letting you know that we have a need at this time. I ask that you would consider giving faithfully, consistently and generously to Imago. I hate asking for money, but I believe so much in what we are about as a church family that I don't mind giving you this invitation. I know that when you honor God with your money and partner with him with your cash, you get blessed in your own life, spirit and faith. So I invite you to give and help us meet the needs of so many people in our church family, our city and our world.

Thanks again for the welcome back today!

R

Ok... the first entry.

Three months ago I was given a really great gift. To go away, unplug, disconnect, rest, dream, play, create, be bored, and connect with God and my family. It was pretty sweet. The first month I thought I would go crazy so I was still in production mode. After that we got into the holidays and I began to get the rhythm of it. Above all it was time for me to enter into a bit of self discovery.

We realized pretty quickly into it that we live here in Portland because we love being at Imago and serving in this the city. We truly felt loved and cared for. We missed being with you all especially during Advent.

God really met me along the way reminded me of who I am in him and gave me deeper conviction for what we are doing at Imago. I believe so much in the Kingdom of God and the love of Jesus; and it has been a beautiful thing to partner with God in loving the world. Sometimes people try to down play that or even be cynical or critical of it. We have made a ton of mistakes and course corrections and have a lot of maturing to do, but at the end of the day God is building a beautiful church in and through us all. Don't quit believing that.

One of my great fears is that I would waste my life. God keeps reminding me that investing my life with you all at Imago and for the world is the greatest thing I could be doing and it is worth everything.

I am going to be starting a series Feb. 25th called Re-entry. We will be spending four weeks exploring the story of the Prodigal Sons. It is an amazing story that Jesus told and connects with our story in significant ways. I hope you will make it to all four weeks. It really has a life changing message.

Finally special thanks to Eric, Jeff and Luke for carrying the bulk of the leadership while I was away. It is so great to have a staff and elders who love you.

We love and missed you all and thanks again for the great gift.

R

p.s. I had a delightful bowl of oatmeal this morning.