BBQ this Saturday 4-5:30 p.m.

Our volunteers are amazing: Holly handed out nearly 300 invitations to neighbors and friends this week in anticipation of our weekend BBQ. 10 beautiful watermelon showed up today and more great food is on the way. Invite a friend or two and come see what God is doing in Portland Or.

This last week I met with Matt and his story was so remarkable that I asked him if I could share it. As a boy in Colorado he grew up going door to door sharing Bible texts he had memorized. Imagine his shock when he father was suddenly excommunicated and disappeared from his life. His father joined the gay community and then later died of aids.

Matt's life spun out of control as his mother soon left Colorado and moved to Rupert Idaho (the first town I pastored in on my own). Home and his friends turned dark and from there his life has been filled with multiple ways of attempting to hide the pain. Matt has filled his body with alcohol and many other drugs -Meth being the worst. He's watched his own children experience many of the prisons he has battled.

Sitting in my new office (Downstairs in the Burlingame church) I felt a strong sense of the reality of Jesus' passion - "To bring liberty to those who are beat up, hurting, and in prisons of fear." If you are reading this blog and are blind in some area of your life - Jesus will give you new eyesight. If you can't hear God repeatedly saying to you, hundreds of times every day, "I so madly in love with you!" then you can know He is right now in the process of healing your ears.

Matt has been clean for two years and was able to see his son baptized in the Rose Garden. He is anxious to join our team that is forming to build a Living Free Recovery ministry at Burlingame. Sitting here with my laptop, I'm still amazed at how powerful, and GOOD God is - always. Matt couldn't see His smiling face for so many years, but NOW HE KNOWS and it shows!

Matt plans to be at our BBQ - I hope you get to met him.

Religion is about rules, information, doctrine, and "being safe." God is about hope, laughter, healing, and changed lives that "love as He first loved us." Take a moment and read I John 4:7-12 (especially verse 12)! We can all say together, "Only God." See you at the BBQ.