FEBRUARY 2006

Mission: The Timothy Project is a Christ-centered San Francisco based nonprofit organization striving to impact the spiritual formation and development of San Francisco high school and college aged youth.

Our Approach: Our model of formation is holistic and based on the relationship between Paul and Timothy from the New Testament (2 Timothy 1:2).

Our Vision: Our hope and prayer is that God will raise up a core group of San Francisco youth who will become the next Pauls to disciple a new generation of Timothys.

NMI Update

by Rev. John Wilcox, Santa Cruz

Do Your Dimes Count For Anything?

During a recent Hispanic Mission Rally, Dr. Bob Prescott shared what the Dimes for Africa had done this past year, with one-dime feeding one person for one day in Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Sudan. In this past year in the Sudan alone, 3,000 people were fed and lived and accepted Christ as their Savior and now there are 35 new Churches of the Nazarene in the Sudan. Have you sent you Dime offering into the General Church? If not, remember the code has changed, use ACS-1011 on the memo line.

Alabaster is Coming to a Church Near You!

Have you saved your pennies, nickels and quarters? Show how much you really do care by giving to help purchase land and construct buildings for worship.

Nazarene World Week of Prayer: February 26-March 4

It is a tradition in the Church of the Nazarene to focus our prayers on a different area of our world each day of one week. A united time of prayer for Nazarenes around the world. Sunday: Africa, Monday: Asia-Pacific, Tuesday: Caribbean, Wednesday: Eurasia Thursday: Mexico/Central America, Friday: South America, Saturday: Canada/United States.

Just A Reminder....Tools for Ministry... Books for Pastors

This was the special project that our District Mission Council chose to support this year. Have you sent your pledge in? The end of the church year is the end of the month. Your pledge is important to get Books and Bibles into the hands of our National Pastors. Do your part, send in the pledge to the General Treasurer, and mark the memo line: Pastor’s Libraries.

Prime Time Summit

June 3, 2006

Olivet Nazarene University, IL

Prime Time Retreat

September 12-15, 2006

St. Charles/St. Louis, MO

Call 1-800-221-6317 or email primetime@nazarene.org for details and to register.

NYI Corner

by Rev. Donabel Martin, Vallejo First

Hey everyone! There are lots of great things happening with NYI on the NorCal District. We believe and can see that God is moving in the leadership of our NYI Council. We know that he is directing us together as we make decisions for the coming church year. This past Saturday, January 28, 2006, fourteen and a half of us (one person on a cell phone conference call) got together in Concord and had a meeting discussing the direction of this coming year. So here are the highlights!

The first event of the year is the Multi-Cultural Day to be held at Concord Christ Community Church of the Nazarene. This year Joy and Madonna from the Filipino New Life church in Vallejo is spearheading this event. On this day we will be having a potluck, talent and sports competition, worship and information from Point Loma Nazarene University Reps. The Potluck starts at 11:30 am on February 18th. Bring $5.00 for dinner. Any questions call Pastor Donabel at 707.648.1986.

NYC (Nazarene Youth Congress) is just around the corner! I know that it’s not ‘til 2007, but there are so much to plan for. NYC is an event where all Senior High Students gather every four years to worship and serve. We will be officially launching NYC in two places at two different dates. A rally will be held on March 18th in McKinleyville (contact Marny Hulbert at 707.839.5163). The San Francisco Bay Area rally will launch on March 4th with a sports day competition (contact Pastor Curtis Lillie at 925.449.5256). Watch for more information coming your way ASAP! For updates on NYC 2007, you can also visit www.WaterFireWind.com.

The 2006 NYI Convention will be held at The Point right after the Missions Convention and District Assembly. Dates for the convention are May 12 & 13. We will kick off the convention with passionate worship on Friday evening followed by practicing compassion in the streets of San Jose. Call Pastor Donabel at 707.648.1986 or Matt Cunningham at the Point at 408.258.7842 for details.

Some of you know this event as RAD Days, others as Southwest Extreme, but those who are really in the know, know it as Elev8. This annual competition will once again be held at Point Loma’s campus from May 26 - 29th. For more information call Pastor Joel at 707.396.7640.

When Pastor Donabel thinks of Mid-High Camp’s Rock-n-Water, her knees begin to shake and those of you who were there last year know why. Mark your calendars for this year’s Mid-High Camp on June 26-29, 2006. This year’s camp director is Pastor Kim; she can be reached at 831.444.6064.

Senior High Camp: HouseBoats!!! Dates are July 24 - 28, 2006. Every Senior High Student on our district needs to experience these five days of worship and discipleship, rest and relaxation, fellowship and making friends, and activities galore. Sr. High Camp Director is Pastor Drew and he can be reached at 707.226.5551.

September 8th is our annual District All Nighter will take place in Livermore. Contact Pastor Curtis at 925.449.5256

Bonus: At this meeting we also talked about a few of things that we would like to see happen in the near future. We believe that training is important. We would like to bring in someone who can help train our youth workers. We see that there are many churches in our district that do not have “youth pastors” but you have dedicated people who want to make a difference in the lives of our teens. For those of you who live online, we would like to apologize that we have not kept our website up to date. We are proud to announce that in the VERY NEAR FUTURE, you will be able to get online and find out all you need to know with NYI on the district, regional and global levels. And something to think about... we need leaders on your local zone/group/clusters to lead your particular area in activities and fellowships. If you are interested, shoot me an email (donabelcmartin@sbcglobal.net) or a call me at 707.648.1986. I look forward to hearing from you.

Pray for us, your teens, your youth leaders, youth pastors. And if you would like to join us for our next meeting it will be on April 1st. Really, seriously, no kidding. Time and location to be announced.

How Healthy is your Church?

by Rev. John Calhoun, District Superintendent

Sometimes we are so concerned about the fruit, we forget about the root. Church Health is vital to long term growth. We are diagnosing the heatlh of the District Church by having each congregation do a Church Health Survey. The results will be reported at District Assembly in May.

NAZARENE WORLD DAY OF PRAYER

FEBRUARY 26-MARCH 4

Pastor’s Resource Day

Dr. Brad Kelle, Professor of Old Testament at Point Loma Nazarene University, will be the featured guest speaker at the annual Norcal Pastor’s Resource Day Feb 17. He will focus on the subject of Preaching from the Old Testament. Pastor Tim Isbell will also add a session on Preaching from the Lectionary.

This is a day set aside for the ministers on our district to improve their service. We will gather at 9:30 am for fellowship and worship and begin the teaching around 10 am. Vallejo First Church is our host and the cost will be $5 for lunch. We will plan to be finished by 3 pm.

Is This a Time for Information or Transformation?

by Rev. Nancy Clayton, Palo Alto

This question has been ringing in my ears ever since I heard it at our January ’06 Sunday School Ministries board meeting.* God used these words to help me describe what has been happening in several of my current relationships-one being “The Sunday Dialogues” that I participated in this past fall. As I contemplated “information vs. transformation” I visualized Michael, Linda, Lee, Tom, Barbara, Helen, Jean, Jim, Charlie and I gathered around the conference table at our Palo Alto CrossRoads church. We have gathered in different combinations of 5 for an hour and a half, committed for three weeks at a time, sharing from our personal life stories and learning the power of questions. God has been “transforming me” as I have received “information” from people who have set aside time and shared themselves with me in a very meaningful way.

Each participant has their unique story regarding faith. In our group of 10 there are atheists, agnostics, seekers and believers. Through a wonderful series of events our life journeys have intersected at the CrossRoads Community Church on Sunday mornings as part of the adult Sunday school hour! I believe Jesus meant what He said and John recorded in John 12:32: “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” Jesus was telling His disciples about His coming death on the cross. Two thousand years later, we are discovering that when His disciples put Him first in everything, we will find “the foot of the Cross” engaging non-believers and believers in places we never expected!

Through the intentionality of our dialogue times the CORE of my personal faith continues to grow. Through my relationships with non-believers in the group, repeatedly I see the truth of John 12:32. This is totally a God thing. With my fellow believers, I am learning to intentionally listen to them. I’m trying to learn to “reign in my compulsion to make statements, to advise, to share my unsolicited ideas,” as Michael expressed in one of his directive assignments.

Here are comments from several of the other participants:

CHARLIE: Openness brings intimacy; Intimacy comes from the level of sharing not from the faith structures of the participants; Have to intentionally trust God to work in others lives.

HELEN: Believes that you can only show God through yourself personally; the structure helps you “discover” as you go.

LINDA: Believes this is what “fellowship” should be; Questions help trigger the thinking of the other person.

LEE: The “culture” of the table is dynamic; we need to allow God to DO His own work in people. Too often we play the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of others.

It has been an exciting journey for me personally to be a part of “transformation” during the Sunday school hour at our church. God isn’t through with us yet!! He has much more for us to learn and experience for His Kingdom’s Glory.

* This question was part of a report given by Carol Van Buskirk at the Sunday School Ministries meeting, January 14, 2006.

Encouraging Words from Ukiah

by Rev Jack and Rev. Barbara Cobbs

Something that has nothing to do with the Quest. This morning I sent our last check to Kansas and this means our budgets are totally paid. We are praising God over this. We overpaid district. Really we didn’t overpay. We tithe to the district and we are faithfully giving our tithe. It has nothing to do with budgets. If our people on the district would begin seeing budgets as tithe to God we would turn around our giving throughout all our churches. But, as God’s people serving God we want to love Him enough to tithe. We ask our people to tithe to the church. Are we as a church also suppose to tithe? I believe we are. I believe it is biblical. Read Leviticus! It tells us that the Levitical Order (which is the church) is to tithe on the tithe that they receive.

I want to tell of the exciting things God is doing in our group. The Quest is really great. But, we all know, that a program is no good unless God is in it.

We took some pictures of the sanctuary with our banners. The reason? Because anyone could do what we did. We looked into buying banners. I took my “pattern drafting” paper and made banners. I painted the paper blue (just used tempura paint) and Jack did letters from the computer. We spent $58 for color ink cartridges and made 5 banners. It was amazing how much they have added to the feeling in our services. God’s Spirit has been soooooo there!!

We are meeting on Sunday afternoons. Last week was our first week. We served sandwiches and soup. Kept it simple. Fed the people and then went into the sanctuary and had our Bible study. The people came.

Last Sunday a lady came into the service about 20 minutes before we closed. She was able to hear most of Jack’s sermon. After church I went back to meet her and speak with her. She was crying. I do not know what God was doing in her spirit but I do know that God is in this. She talked and she stayed for soup and sandwich. Then she came in and listened to our Study. I am leading the study and we had a good time in the Lord. I am praying for her. She filled out her address and phone number so I will be contacting her this week. She is Greek and from the Greek Orthodox church.

If anyone asks you about The Quest, tell them that it is good. It can be used in small churches as well as large churches. For once, someone has put together a program that really can be used in any size church. This is really good news for the little churches.

Letter from the Editor

This will be my last issue as Editor of The Bridge. Thank you for taking the time to read the newsletter month after month and for taking the time to write to me with your comments. It has been a pleasure to do my part to support our District by sharing the news and encouraging us all to reach out and befriend those in other Churches. I pray that we will all continue to share with those in our immediate community as well as those in the larger Community of God.