For many public schools in the DC area, today was the first day of classes. But before this weekend, many of the more than 150 public school facilities in DC were not prepared for students to arrive today. So on the morning of Saturday August 21st, nearly 500 McLean Bible Church and Frontline volunteers from all of our campuses – including 28 Loudoun attendees – served at more than 40 of the most in-need public schools across Washington, DC. Some planted flowers and trees, while others painted doors and walls, and still others helped teachers organize books and classrooms.

But the DC Schools Project was about more than improving school conditions. It was all about impacting our city with the gospel message of Jesus Christ. McLean Bible Church and Frontline volunteers came prepared to preach the gospel to the community members serving alongside them. Plus, they handed out hundreds of invitation cards that list all of our services at each of our campuses.

Here are just a few of the comments we’ve received so far:

“I spoke to a man about the tragedy and anger folks have, along with the reason that sin drives folks to do such things. I was able to pray with him and gave him an invitation card. I was able to talk about my life change story with Jesus!”

“I gave an invitation card to a student from Maine who is new to the area but had not yet found a church.”

“I got to share the gospel with a little boy from the neighborhood who came by to help us plant flowers at our school.”

And here is an article from The Georgetown Dish and a local blog post on McLean Bible Church’s involvement:

http://www.thegeorgetowndish.com/thedish/mclean-volunteers-recruited-hardy-beautification-day

http://frozentropics.blogspot.com/2010/08/volunteer-locally-your-services-are.html

We want to thank everyone from our multiple campuses and ministry areas for getting the word out, and for helping to make this year’s DC Schools Project a success. This event is not only a great way for our church to impact DC, but also to engage and equip our church family to live out the gospel every day!

In Christ,

Josh Cahan and Samantha Cave

Frontline Tysons Local Impact

This past weekend, Pastor Will Pavone spoke about how believers can resist temptation. He did a phenomenal job talking about the fall of Adam and Eve and what we as believers in Christ need to consider to resist falling into temptation ourselves. Feel free to listen at www.mbclive.org – but for now – one of his main points addressed what it meant to accumulate “fighter verses” for daily living. Basically his premise was this – When temptation comes (and it will) we need to be ready with appropriate scriptures to meditate on and appeal to as a defense. When Jesus was tempted in the Garden, the first thing He did was to appeal to Scripture as His defense. Three times He was tempted, and three times He responded using scripture – “it is written…!” (The temptation of Jesus is found in Matthew 6).

Will provided three really good examples: Ephesians 5:3 for purity – There must not even be a hint of sexual impurity in your life, 1 Peter 5:5 for pride – God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble, and Matthew 6:20 for dealing with material possessions – “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” I have a bunch of verses myself – committed to memory and some typed out and placed in strategic locations like my computer screen.

• I will set before my eyes no vile thing – Psalm 101:3
• Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind – Romans 12:2
• …we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ – 2 Corinthians 10:5
• Let no unwholesome talk come out of your mouths – Ephesians 4:29

And of course, we could go on and on. What are your “fighter verses?” If you don’t have any, you need to first identify the areas of greatest temptation for you. What are they? Gossip? Anger? Lack of Discipline? After you have identified your key temptations, you must then go on a search of the scriptures for the verses that speak to those temptations. Lastly, you need to commit these scriptures to memory so they are available to you at a moment’s notice for your protection. Then you can ‘resist the devil and he will flee’ – James 4:7. This is a critical discipline for every Christ follower to learn – and one that produces enormous fruitfulness in daily living. God bless.

Weekend Host Teams gathered together for a series of BBQs this summer. 82 people gathered together across four different weekends to hang out and fellowship together. Our goal was to help increase the feeling of community and the team environment, and the Lord was faithful in meeting that goal. Some people got to meet the others on their teams for the first time. Others experienced an increased feeling of community. As one woman said upon leaving this past Sunday, “Now I feel like this is my church. I know people, and I have a sense of community.”

Thank you to each person who came. Your desire to fellowship with others and get to know them was a blessing to them and to us. My husband and I were grateful for the opportunity to know you better.

May God bless you!
Dave & Susie

We just returned from an amazing missions trip to the Dominican Republic where we took 216 people to further the gospel in Santo Domingo. Out of the 216 people we have about 50 adults and 170 students. 35 of them were Loudoun ROCK students. One incredible story I have to share is the hearts of these students in their desire to be an accurate representation of Acts 2:42-47 church. One day we went to an orphanage where there was a boy Israel who was 15 and had deformities in his knees and feet. Crippled in a wheel chair his entire life, we quickly found out that he was supposed to have had 4 surgeries to correct his illness and prayerfully have him walking again but the money somehow was lost and got tangled in other expenses. So immediately one of our students said to me “hey mike, why don’t we just pay for Israel’s surgeries?” We added it up and we figured that if each student from Loudoun just gave $20 that could pay for the first one, and if they gave $30, that could pay for two. We got on the bus and I challenged the students with the task and hand, and told them to imagine what the Lord could do if he was given the ability to walk and how he could be used by the Lord. Less then 1 hour later I had almost $700 dollars in my hand! We gave the money to Giavoni who is one of the missionaries and he broke down in tears. He could not believe such young people would think less of themselves and give to help a child walk instead of spending their money on their own needs. We have paid for his first surgery and half of the second one. The students are excited to raise more this year to prayerfully pay off all four surgeries needed! Praise God for what He is doing in these students and their passion to be used by Him and to give to those in need.

I am just coming off of two weekends in a row of preaching in the church services at McLean Bible Church. It is the blessing of a lifetime to have this privilege 3 to 5 times a year when our Senior Pastor, Lon Solomon, is on break or traveling. Each and every time I walk out on the stage at our Tysons Campus, I feel the exact same way. I wonder in my heart “how in the world did I end up here?” As a seminarian who never intended to preach, who was terrified to stand in front of an audience of any size, and whose early ‘presentations’ were nothing short of pathetic (I have destroyed all preaching tapes from that time period), the opportunity to step on the stage of our church is nothing short of a miracle. Only God could do that. And THEN – to have people walk up to you with a tear in their eye and utter the words every preacher secretly wishes to hear – “God was speaking directly to me today.” – Wow!! (Certainly the primary hope of every preacher is to be true to God’s call and to His word – but if there is no impact, then what’s the point?) Having the opportunity is a privilege in and of itself. But when God decides to show up and do what only He can do by touching the hearts of the listeners, well – that’s humbling in a way I cannot describe. And truthfully there is nothing that compares to the experience of having gifts that were crafted by God Himself, that He then uses to glorify Himself and change the lives of other people.

No matter what a person’s calling or gifting for service might be – each of us needs to seek simply being a vessel. 2 Corinthians 4:6 makes this so clear – “But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.” And when God chooses to show up in our service to Him, well – what more could a follower of Jesus ask for?

And so I sit in amazement today, not just that I get to walk out on the stage of MBC, but that God chooses to be a part of the process and blesses others. May each of us in our own way always be willing to say – Honored to Serve.

Jim’s Presentation on Iraq Trip 6-27-10 from MBC Loudoun on Vimeo.

This morning during my time with the Lord I read a quote from a martyr of our time for God’s Kingdom, Jim Elliot. He said,

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

These words are quite powerful. There is no doubt that as a follower of Christ it is costing us something. We all drive around Loudoun County everyday and don’t have to look very far to understand that we are giving up a great deal of temporary satisfaction to live for Christ. In the midst of a given day, I often catch myself pondering too much on what I am giving up to follow Christ, versus focusing on gaining what I cannot lose.

1 Corinthians 2:9 – Paul quotes Isaiah saying, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those that Love him.”

I know that when I accepted Christ into my life it changed everything forever. I know many times I didn’t feel this change. I didn’t experience immediate flashes of light from the heaven’s, (that I could see!) ticker tape falling from the sky or trumpets (my favorite instrument) playing a fanfare. What I did understand though is the idea of what Paul talks about in Philippians (3:20) of the fact that we are citizen’s of God’s eternal Kingdom.

Lately, I have been so overwhelmed by the promises of God in my life. It is my desire to encourage/remind each of you today to hold onto the promises of God, which we CANNOT lose as a citizen of Christ. Here is a list of promises that I read this morning. He promises us:

• Forgiveness of our Sins
• A relationship with Jesus
• The Gift of the Holy Spirit
• Eternity in God’s Kingdom
• To See His Face
• A New Heaven and New Earth
• Freedom from Sin’s Rule in our Life
• Fellowship of God’s church
• Inclusion into God’s kingdom

Continue to seek Jesus and focus on being in a right relationship with Him, for it will not end in time.

Hope these thoughts encouraged you all as they did me today! Stay the Course.

It is funny what God will use to illustrate biblical truth and bring it to bear on our lives. He will try almost anything to shape us into his image and to shake us free from our love of sin and this world. So you’re thinking – ‘So what is God using to teach you this right now?’ Good question. First, let me say that I am a bit of a perfectionist and in most of life I like things just so. Everything has its place and it should generally be kept there. If it is broken it should be fixed or replaced. Tolerating things in an unfixed state brings a sort of dissonance that distracts from all of life. It just has to be made right. — So we have this 2008 Kia Sedona minivan. We got the deal of the century on it from a friend who was in the car business and it has everything. Leather heated seats, tilt mirrors when you shift into reverse, back up sensors, DVD player and on it goes – you get the picture. I never thought I’d get so excited about a minivan. The problem is that after we acquired this wonderful vehicle, God has decided, in very practical terms, to teach us what it means to ‘not store up for yourselves treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.’ I have always believed that I should store up for myself treasure in heaven – ‘For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’ (Matthew 6:19-21) Well, I have discovered how easy it is to say that until some of your earthly treasure starts to get destroyed. My wife and I have each taken our turn at inflicting damage. She drove into the garage with the tailgate UP and blew out the back window. I opened the garage door but proceeded to back out BEFORE the door was all the way up. For me the worst part isn’t the big stuff that you just get fixed and try to forget about. It is actually the little stuff that you struggle with whether or not to get fixed. Do I want to pay the big old deductible to get that little dent fixed, or do I live with it and let it irritate me every time I see it – which is every day. Later on in Matthew 6 Jesus says in verse 25 “isn’t life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes.” – or minivans. Yes, Lord, I hear you. I’m still not sure if I am going to get this latest dent fixed. I do know however that God is using it right now to teach me that I need to refocus on laying up treasure in heaven and not worry so much about stuff here on earth. God bless.

So I leave for Iraq this week. Aside from all of the preparations – travel size for everything you can think of – I have been trying to mentally and spiritually prepare for this journey. I have been out of the country many times but never to the Middle East – and certainly not a Muslim country in particular. I am abundantly aware that I have no data points in my history that will prepare me for what I will encounter. The news networks hardly provide clarity on what it will be like. This brings a little anxiety and a lot of excitement, even for a generally risk adverse sort of guy like me. I have really been praying about my heart and attitude as I prepare to enter this strange new place. I am keenly aware that although our team may have many valuable things to provide the people there, we are strongly cautioned to not enter this place with a haughty “we have so much to teach you about following Jesus, so step back and take notes” sort of attitude. Since our time together will focus on the book of Philippians I have been spending a fair amount of time there. As you likely know, this book is about finding joy in the midst of persecution. Reading this very familiar book has taken on a new flavor for me with the backdrop of my study being time in Iraq. I find myself looking in the mirror asking “So what do YOU know about that?” It is certain that there will be many at this pastors and Christian leaders’ conference who face true, life-threatening persecution on a regular basis. Persecution for me? Well, I’ve been made fun of a few times in 30 years of walking with Jesus. I’ve been harshly challenged a few times by self-proclaimed atheists. Do those count? Ah, but I know God is bigger than all of that. My primary job is to prepare the best that I can and show up with an open heart for God to do what HE wants to do. And that’s my biggest prayer – that God would do his thing – use me as He sees fit and mold me to be like Him in the process. Thanks for your prayers.