Amazing Family Race

I cannot tell you how excited I am for Amazing Family Race. At the end of July Highland Church is hosting this great event for families in our community. The two race days are Friday, July 31 for OT Rush and August 1 for NT Pursuit. 10 challenged Friday and 10 different challenges on Saturday. It's going to be amazing! Families will create a person out of mud, push their teammates across the Red Sea in a wheelbarrow and build the heavenly city out of toothpicks and marshmallows. All taking place at our beloved Highland Church! Trophies, prizes, food, raffles and the race, all for FREE!!!

Things are really coming together well for the event. I'm looking forward to seeing the event take place. It's going to be really neat to see families competing together!

Registration forms and more information are available at our Highland Kids website. Sign your family up!

Heaven and Home

I keep thinking about the verses in 1 Corinthians 15 and Hosea "O, death, where is your victory? O, death, where is your sting?" What amazing poetry that is more than a poem. It's a promise. A promise I get to live in and, someday, die in. And the verse that precedes it, echoing Isaiah, "Death has been swallowed up in victory." That fills my heart with praise to God.

I read in Revelation 21:4, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away, " and my heart longs to be in that place. It's a heartache for a place I have never seen or touched, but that I know in the depths of my heart.

There's a song on the latest Hillsong United album entitled Soon and it is an echo of this same longing in my heart to be with Christ. "I will be with the One I love, with unveiled face I'll see Him. There my soul will be satisfied. Soon and very soon." The entire song sings out what I feel when I read those verses throughout the Bible about life on earth being temporary and the promise of the place He has prepared for me where I will worship Him forever.

I am a blessed woman, with a beautiful life here and I know I will do the work He has called me to do, working with children and worship and serving Him, but I am looking forward to the day He returns and calls me home to my real home.

Rick Rack Fabulous

Once when I was in 2nd grade I sewed a dress for my Barbie out of black felt and I put white tulling around the top edge for trim and a bow. The dress was very ... fashion forward. It inspired the same quizzical look that I wear when I watch runway shows and see extremely expensive clothing and think, "Hmmm..." I never thought that I myself, would be a costume designer or seamstress. But today, yes, today all that has changed. Today I pulled together costumes to transform two pastors into two superstars.

I researched, cut cardboard, magic markered, glittered, measured, cut, pinned and sewed to turn Pastor Dan from Highland Church and Pastor Al from Evergreen Church into Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock. I am dead serious.

Pastor Nathan, the movie making genius, has written a script and storyboard for "Star Trek: Movies in the Park" the intro movie for the summer's movies at Pfiffner Park. Filming took place today at 3pm. I finished the costumes this afternoon and I must say I was proud of the finished products. Of course, I only created the Star Trek insignias and sewed gold rick rack onto their sleeves and drew eyebrows, but I am proud nonetheless.

Behold: Rick Rack Fabulous, look at those sleeves! And that science officer insignia! Wow.

Cardboard Testimonies

A couple weeks ago we finished up a series entitled "The Road to Recovery". It was an excellent series, highlighting the 12 steps to recovery used in the Celebrate Recovery program we just kicked off at Highland. Celebrate Recovery is a 12 step program based on the 8 principles found in the beattitudes. It's designed to help individuals overcome the hurts, habits and hang-ups that come with addiction. Our group meets at 6:30pm on Tuesdays.

It was a great series and with it we introduced the song "God of This City" to our congregation. We used the song in various ways throughout the series, but my favorite way was on May 17th when we used the song as the background for cardboard testimones. Individuals from our church wrote out their testimony in two phrases, where they had been in life and where God's brought them, on a piece of cardboard. Then they displayed their testimonies to the congregation. It was so beautiful.

Ron, Jen and Olivia DeWitt were the ones that got me the most. Oh my goodness. I was doing all right during practice and then when little Olivia walked out I started crying so hard that I couldn't keep singing and could barely see the music to keep playing. Pastor Dan walked up from the front row with his testimony; that was an awesome moment too. It really showed the reality of who we are at Highland Church. We've all been broken and are saved by God's grace.

For sound quality purposes, we had to use the Chris Tomlin recording of the song in the video. I wish you could hear the response from the congregation. Their clapping grew and grew until it was tumultuous applause for the great things God has done for people in our church. Enjoy the video. This is a great idea for any church. Everyone has a testimony to share. What would your cardboard testimony be?

Video games and Jesus

The height of my video gaming career was somewhere around 3rd grade when I was playing Super Mario Bros. 2. Then my brother, who is almost 6 years younger than I am, started mercilessly beating me and I gave up on video games.

But a while back, I thought I’d give a new game a shot. So I sat down with a few others to play Halo. Don’t ask me which version, I don’t know. In Halo you are a character and that character walks around and shoots the other players’ characters. No need to worry, I never injured any other characters. I was too busy inadvertently walking off of cliffs, or getting stuck in corners or confusing my quarter of the screen with someone else’s. However, the biggest problem I had playing was not being able to get the hang of the controller. I spent the majority of the game staring either at my feet or the sky, hopping or shooting as I spun in crazy circles. I am not welcome to play with the teenagers again.

This morning my Halo experience came to mind and I thought about this, how often in real life does God look at me and say, “Oh no, she’s spinning around in circles again staring at her feet.”? Probably every time, I take control of my life out of His hands. When I think I can take control and do it on my own, I start questioning everything becoming dizzy with the possibilities, responsibilities and decisions to be made. When I'm trusting God with my life, I still have responsibilities and decisions, but it’s different when I know the one directing me has a bird’s eye view of eternity. He knows my life’s plan even when I feel like I'm wandering aimlessly. When I’m relying on Him and His direction, I can know that wherever I go, He’s watching out for me. How often the Bible reminds us to rest in God, to give Him our burdens, follow His plan.

So this is just a friendly reminder for all of us: put control of your life in God’s hands so you don’t have to spin around in circles or walk off of cliffs.

City Council

Tim Michalski loves Stevens Point City Council meetings. There was a time when we couldn't go out on the third Monday of the month because he wanted to be home to watch the city council meeting on channel 3. That was before he found out that they air again on Tuesday. We often go to Belts and then walk with our ice cream to the river and on the way we pass by 1516 Church St, the courthouse where the meetings are held and Tim gets excited every time. I love that he is so into this!

Tim's birthday was just a couple weeks ago and I surprised him with a plan I'd been forming for months. I gave him two tickets to the Stevens Point City Council meeting. Of course there really aren't tickets, I created them. Lovely, aren't they?

I was not a big fan of city council meetings. Tim can tell you anything about city council and all that takes place at the meetings, the key players, the city officials and directors and their major actions and plans. I was going because I wanted to see Tim's big dream come true. But let me tell you, last night was riveting! I am dead serious.

They voted on building a new sign in front of the fire station and it was a close vote; all the residents from Lorraine Blvd. showed up to speak against the ditching and swailing projects going on in that area of town. Afterwards I made Tim drive me around to see the different locations affected by the decisions that were made. I really enjoyed it, maybe not as much as Tim, but it was fascinating.

New Highland Kids video

The New Highland Kids video is finished! Nathan did an excellent job putting it together. The rest of the website will be finalized and updated very very soon. Exciting! The summer's already off to a great start for kids ministry!

Watch and enjoy!

Welcome to Highland Kids from Highland Church on Vimeo.