This Grand Life Theological Collective is a Fellowship based on the belief that there are many paths to God. Life is an adventure that we all learn from. We hope that we can experience it and learn from it together.  find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected] To often do we strive to find peace and happieness from the wrong places.  We seek it from everywhere and this is part of human nature, to seek pleasure.  Money, power, professional success.  Things that we think will impress others and convince them that we are happy.  But that doesn’t actually make us happy.  To find true happieness we need to look inside ourselves.  Because true power and true happieness can only come from within ourselves, from understanding who we are, understanding why we feel that way we do and practicing self love and self care. In this era of stress and always running, political division, and mass media it is very important for us to learn to love ourselves. But the truth is loving yourself is a hard thing to do. We beat ourselves up constantly. Whether we are complaining about our looks, our intelligence, our mental state…many of us put ourselves down daily. I know I’m guilty of it. “You’re so fat, that was so dumb, you are messing up as a father as a husband, You. Do. Not. Matter….” So what can be done? Where do we go or who do we go to? What is the saving grace when we find ourselves down in the valley and about to deal ourselves that final blow with our negative thoughts and words?  Well first we remember that we are at the starting point for the rest of our lives, we have created the foundation and will continue to build the wonder that is us. Self-love also goes beyond treating yourself with kind words. Find time to do and enjoy the things you love. Do not force yourself to do things you do not want to (unless it is necessary of course). Get rid of toxic people and surround yourselves with positive ones. Read that book, go on that vacation, watch that movie…whatever you have been putting off because you are either too busy or do not have the will to do, do these things for yourself.

To find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected]                         With everything going on in the news right now, in our backyard and around the world it makes we wonder.  Wonder if we have any hope, wonder if there is a reason for everything we do.  Our neighbors to the north and the east right now are dealing with large fires.  Both the Dixi Fire and the Caldor Fire are currently growing in size with little containment as neighborhoods and entire towns are evacuated.  Our neighbors throughout California dealing with evacutations and fires need to stay in our prayers.  We need to do more than pray though we also need to offer a hand to those that are currently affected by the fires.  We need to let us neighbors know that we are there to assist as they need.  I have done so and will continue to do so as long as our friends and neighbors are affected.  On the east coast we see our fellow Americans facing tropical storm henri with flooding and destructive winds.  In Afghanistan we are finally pulling out and while I’m happy we are leaving the war zone, I find myself disheartened to see the Taliban take the country back so quickly.  It makes me wonder what the last 20 years and the thousands of Americans and countless Afghani lives were lost for.  As a veteran myself I find myself torn between being happy that our Service Members are leaving the area and upset that the country is going back to how it was 20 years ago.  It’s definitely enough to discourage and anger many. That is when I have to remember that Problems, large and small, will always present themselves to us throughout our whole existence. Regardless of how sharp, clever, or happy-go-lucky we are, we will encounter struggle, challenges, difficulties and at times, heart wrenching moments.  That is one of the greatest reasons that we have religion. Think for a second what is the essence of religion?  “Religion is people telling stories of hope.” When we are discouraged about personal concerns, health issues, or national and world events. When you face difficult challenges, when your heart is broken, what gets you through it?

There is no doubt that life can be challenging.  This is because life is not something that comes with an instruction manual.  Instead it is a puzzle to solve. It is something to work through, something that will give you challenge after challenge to solve. But when you finish if you do it right you end with a beautiful picture of a life well lived.  Life would be very boring without it’s challenges.  The question is, are you up for it?  I believe we all are. The first step though is to accept life as it is. Accept life’s challenges as they are and prepare yourself to go ahead in life by solving them one by one.

To find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected] Win Arn, a church consultant, surveyed members of nearly a thousand churches asking this exact question: "Why does the church exist?" Of the members surveyed, 89 percent said, "The church's purpose is to take care of my family's and my needs." For many, the role of the pastor is simply to keep the sheep that are already in the "pen" happy and not lose too many of them. Then, the pastors of the same churches were asked why the church exists. Amazingly, the results were exactly the opposite. Of the pastors surveyed, 90 percent said the purpose of the church was to win the world and 10 percent said it was to care for the needs of the members. Is it any wonder we have conflict, confusion, and stagnation in many churches today? If the church members believe that the role of the church is to look after them but the pastor sees the members as already won and they need to only worry about building the church is it any wonder why many feel that the church is failing.

This Grand Life Theological is based on the belief that there are many paths to God; God is the creator of the universe and intelligent enough to speak to all his people in diverse ways, and there are lessons from all Religions that we can all learn. To find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected] We all want to be welcoming, we all want to bring others in to our Church Family because that is what a church is it is a family. A family that works together and one that supports each other. I like to see it as a family where we can sit down and discuss things and learn from each other. We all want to be welcoming. But, what does it mean to be welcoming?

Happy fourth

Visit our Facebook at www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected]. Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!” “Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” Like the professor that claimed to be seeking enlightment from Nan-in only to be to full of opinions and speculations to learn from someone else many of us find that we claim to want to learn and are willing to change as needed but find that we are our own barrier to learning, to changing. How can we open up to others?

As we did with Mothers Day today I would like to speak about the orgins of Fathers Day. Unlike mothers day there is not a lot of controversy over how it was started. It all began when in 1906, in Spokane Washington, a woman listening to a Mothers Day sermon felt it was incomplete to honor only one parent. She had been one of six children raised by their widowed father. And so she resolved to honour fathers, also. In time, the third Sunday of June became Fathers Day around the world. Let us be mindful of all fathers this day—the fathers we have, the fathers we wished we’d had, and the fathers we found along the way.

Thank you for joining us. To find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected] If we would be successful followers of his then we must be servants as well. The foundation of Christian life is service to God that is lived out in service to others. The focus of ministry is love of God that is fleshed out in love for others. There is simply no way around this and we ought to be ashamed if we try to find one. Being a disciple means being a servant. Being what God regards as a great disciple means being what God regards as a great servant.

Thanks for joining us again. To find out more about us, please visit us at our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/thisgrandlifetheology/ or email us at [email protected] How shall the garden grow in our congregations? What will we plant? What will we do with the parts that are rocky ground or where the thistles grow thick? Are you willing to get some dirt under your fingernails so that we can enjoy the Great Feast together? This is our little patch of ground East of Eden. It is our hopeful sign of Paradise. It will soon be time to plant and harvest follows close behind.