The Thursday Update

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

This Sunday is Football Sunday at Lakeshore.  It is one of the most fun and yet inspiring Sundays of the year at Lakeshore, and I hope you’ll be here with your favorite football jersey or gear on.

I also hope you’re inviting people to join you here.  It’s an easy invite and I already have a group of friends planning to be here. 

"I NEVER HAD A CHURCH I FELT TOTALLY COMFORTABLE INVITING A FRIEND TO"

Before starting Lakeshore, with perhaps one exception, I never had a church I felt totally comfortable inviting a friend to.  I liked my churches in Florida and Texas, but they just weren’t places I felt sure about inviting a friend who was new to church and the faith.  I was always afraid that the message would be over their heads or the music would be less than high quality, to name just a few concerns.  While we are not perfect, we try to design all our Sunday services with both convinced and unconvinced people in mind.

That’s why I hope you’ll invite people this Sunday… and every Sunday.

Warmly,
Vince

FEBRUARY 2, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

The teams playing in the Super Bowl are now set.  The Philadelphia Eagles are playing the Kansas City Chiefs.  I realize that so many of you wanted the Buffalo Bills to play in this game, but alas they will not. 

I heard from a few of you last Sunday that you are upset that my “Go Bills!” chant for them to beat the Cincinnati Bengals the previous week didn’t work and that I was the reason they lost.  But don’t forget that I called for the Miami Dolphins to beat Buffalo the week before that (at my wife’s clear instructions!), and I called for my New Orleans Saints to be good this season and neither of those turned out too well either.  So clearly, I can’t pick winners this year (and no, I won’t give game predictions for the Super Bowl because that may tip you off on who will LOSE the Super Bowl!

On Super Bowl Sunday, we’re planning a great and creative service, fun activities around the building, and a day that will be easy to invite friends and family to.  More on that next week.

But as great as Super Bowl Sunday can be for football, every Sunday for people who love Jesus should be (and is) greater.  After all, being together to worship Jesus Christ should always top cheering on our favorite team.  And we get to do it 52 times a year for FREE, while the Super Bowl costs about $3,000+ per person to attend just once a year.

I love how so many people at Lakeshore look forward to being at church every Sunday.  They wouldn’t miss it for anything except unavoidable reasons.  Each week, I see people attend and have an encounter with the living God and leave better for the time they invested in worshipping Him, learning from the Bible, and growing in their faith.  Attending church faithfully pleases God for sure, but it also satisfies people who hunger for Him.

"AS GREAT AS SUPER BOWL SUNDAY CAN BE FOR FOOTBALL, EVERY SUNDAY FOR PEOPLE WHO LOVE JESUS SHOULD BE (AND IS) GREATER."

My wish for everyone is that they would see Sundays as a day to look forward to more than any other and that it would be “Super Sunday” every seven days.  That goes against the current trends in church attendance (which are spiraling downward faster than at almost any other point in American history), but I still wish it for every one of you receiving this. 

Israel’s great king David said it best: I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”  Psalm 122:1, NIV

How about you?  Are Sundays at church the highlight of your week?

Warmly,
Vince

JANUARY 26, 2023

Lakeshore Friends—

When I saw the headline, I thought it was clickbait or simply a quote taken out of context.  But it was neither.  I don’t want to single out the individual, so let me just say that a fairly well-known personality died recently.  And just one day before he died, he sent out a Tweet in reference to heaven that said, “I heard the place is overrated…”

Hmmm.

If he really meant that, and assuming his life meshed with that attitude, I guess he will be second-guessing that line for all of eternity.  How tragic!

That Tweet made me think that there are so many people who have such a cavalier attitude about the afterlife, about heaven, about hell, and about the reality of the judgment that awaits all people when they die (Hebrews 9:27).  There’s only two eternal realities on the other side, and yet so many people operate with either a smug arrogance that they know for certain that neither place exists (perhaps based on a few selective Google searches or whatever convenient reasons they may have) or, perhaps more insidiously, they reimagine some fanciful concept of each that differs markedly from what the Bible says each is like, along with what the Bible says is required for entrance into the more desirable one of the two (to be perfectly clear, that would be heaven).

And with every passing day, more and more people embrace this horrifying view.  They think heaven is overrated.

We have two choices.  We can talk about how awful this is.  And it is absolutely awful that people think this way, but that is a non-productive response.  The other choice is that we can help people discover the truth of heaven and help them seek and find it through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.

"...THE REALITY IS THAT JUST ONE SECOND IN HEAVEN WILL REMIND EVERYONE JUST HOW UNDERRATED HEAVEN REALLY IS."

That’s what Lakeshore is all about.  We try to focus more on shining the light of Jesus’ love onto the lives of others instead of simply cursing the darkness and remaining in some cloistered holy huddle of avoidance.  We can be in the world, and yet remain unlike the prevailing views of the world at the same time (1 John 2:15-17).

So let’s all show the love of Jesus to others and invite them to church and to faith in Jesus.  Because the reality is that just one second in heaven will remind everyone just how underrated heaven really is.

Warmly,
Vince