Breakwater Church

Important Scheduling Changes

2008-04-23T14:21:00.001-07:00

For the next two weeks we're going to be canceling the Thursday
morning prayer meeting. We also are going to be moving the date of
the Mozambique Informational Potluck. Originally it was supposed to
be on Sunday May 4th, but enough people can't make it that week that
we are going to reschedule. As soon as we have a new date, we'll let
you all know.

Mozambique Informational Potluck

2008-04-22T11:11:00.001-07:00

Hey Breakwaterites! Just want to let everyone know that on Sunday,
May 4th, at our regular service time (6:15) we will be having our
Mozambique Informational Potluck. We'll start with some food and
then when we're done eating we'll send the kids to Sunday School so
that we can talk more about our upcoming missions trip to
Mozambique. Now whether you are going on the trip or not, this
meeting is important as we will be talking about all of the roles
needed to make this trip happen, even for people that won't be
going. No matter what you can play a part in this mission! It's
going to take a complete team to make this thing work. You are
needed! So please make every effort to be at this meeting as we
start discussing and preparing for this mission God has called us to
and what your role might be!

Children's Ministry Planning Meeting

2008-03-27T17:15:00.001-07:00

Good Afternoon Breakwaterites!

Are you wondering what is going on with our children's program? Do you have cool ideas that you are dying to share? Do you like to eat? If you answered yes to any of the prior questions, come to our house on Sunday, March 30 @ 2:00. We are planning on making a calendar, having a "brainstorm session" and a time of prayer, and mostly fun!

Please bring your ideas, date books, and an appetite. Also, bring your kids, the Smith boys will be watching over them, so they are in good hands… I think

-Jason York

Thursday Prayer Meeting

2008-03-25T15:54:00.001-07:00

Just want to let everyone know that our prayer meeting this Thursday
at 9 will be held at Christ the King this week. Just meet up with
Tim McClellan in the parking lot and he'll show you where to go.
We'll be back to normal next week.

Easter Sunrise Service

2008-03-19T15:20:00.001-07:00

This year for Easter we're keeping it REALLY simple. This Sunday there will be a morning service at Marine Park at 7:00am. Sunrise is at 7:06am, so this will be an Easter Sunrise Service. It's going to be a shorter service; We'll sing some worship songs, read a scripture or two, have a short word, and meet the Lord together in His creation! Dress warmly. Everyone is invited!

This will be our only service during Holy Week this year; there will no no Sunday evening service on Easter. I know this is a break in tradition for us, but I believe it will be very meaningful. There will also be no kids program during the morning service, but kids are definitely welcome!

I'll see you at 7:00am at Marine Park on Sunday morning!!!

ps - If the weather is rainy that's ok; there's a covered area at the park and God will still be there!

Sunday's "Sermon"

2008-02-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

I was asked to post the scriptures that I used in tonight's service, so here's my "script":

[prorogue]
2 Timothy 3:16-17
1 Corinthians 13:11

[sermon]
Psalm 22
Psalm 23
Jeremiah 29:11-14
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Hebrews 12:1-4
Isaiah 40:31
Matthew 7:13-14
Matthew 18:12-14
John 3:16-17
Matthew 28:18-20

[epilogue]
1 Corinthians 13:11

"Let's pray..."
Psalm 25
(Substituted "Breakwater" for "Israel" in v.22)
"Amen."

Mens Group // Bowling Night

2008-01-29T14:48:00.000-08:00

There will not be a Mens Bible study this Friday morning. Instead we are going bowling Saturday night! If you like to bowl, put on your loudest fashion statement shirt and come on down to Park Bowl at 8pm Saturday February 2^nd. If you don’t like to bowl, put on your loudest fashion statement shirt and just come hang with the guys.

Prayer, Prayer, Prayer!

2008-01-28T11:29:00.001-08:00

As we were reminded in Rick's message last night, Prayer is important. We need to keep praying and Rick has specifically called us to focus on prayer this coming year. So this is a reminder to pray. It's so easy, and yet so effective!

And it's likely to make Satan mad...

So let's be sure to also pray for and encourage one another!

If you are a member of the Prayer Wall, please check the Prayer Wall web page and contact your prayer partners. It's easy and it's very helpful to know what to pray for people.
If you are not a member of the Prayer Wall, please consider joining! Just send me an email and I'll add you to the list and you'll get two people praying for you! It's the spiritual pyramid scheme that works!
Please continue to spend a short time in prayer each day and ask the Holy Spirit to put someone on your heart. Pray for their encouragement and protection, and then encourage them by letting them know you were praying or them. Let's grow our prayer culture at Breakwater!
Please continue to pray for Pastor Rick. Let him know that you're praying for him. I just can't stress enough how important it is that we cover Rick in prayer, and how encouraging it is for him to know that YOU are doing so.
Don't believe Satan's lies about how much time this will take, or how self serving it is to let someone know that you're praying for them, or how you'll be invading your prayer wall partner's privacy to ask them how you can pray for them. Those aren't just lies, they're silly lies. We're smarter than that!
And if you fail to pray, if you forget or Satan wins the battle for a day, don't let that discourage you from getting right back to it again! It happens to all of us, and God still loves you and still wants to have a relationship with you!

If you don't like any of these suggestions then please pray for God to reveal to you how He wants you to pray. However you can muster it, just please pray! Start small and make it a habit!

-Brian

New Couple's Study

2008-01-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

Hi Couples!

Our couples group has just completed the first chapter of our new study, "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith" by Rob Bell. Sound intriguing? You should totally join us! Not only are we doing an interesting book, but we're also offering Christian support for your marriage. And what marriage can't use some more of that?!

And you don't even have to pre-read a bunch of stuff before you come because we read it together, during the group! It's like getting something for nothing!

Mondays at 6:30pm at various homes (contact another couple to find out where we'll meet next).

Upcoming Women's Group Study

2008-01-11T16:44:00.001-08:00

I'm so sorry it took me this long to get the info into your hands, but here is a link to the workbook we will be doing. (Feel free to buy it used if you dare!) http://www.amazon.com/Experiencing-God-Knowing-Doing-Workbook/dp/0805499547

You will need to have Week 1 completed for bible study on January 22nd.

Manly Mens Movie Night

2008-01-09T15:12:00.000-08:00

Back by popular demand! 7pm on January 19th is Mens Movie Night. We
will meet at Jason Yorks house again and there will be plenty of food
and fun to be had by all. Bring a food, a movie and maybe a friend!

Women's group - Back On!

2008-01-08T09:54:00.001-08:00

The Women's Group Bible Study will pick up where it left off before the holidays tonight at my house (Anne Marie) at 7:00 pm. We will be continuing our survey of Old Testament prophets - it's gonna be great! If you haven't been in a while, there are hand-outs and everything!

I hope to see you tonight!

Fasting and Prayer for the New Year

2007-12-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

Breakwaterites,

As most of you know we're going to be fasting as a church for the first 21 days of 2008, the year of new beginnings! I'm really excited to see what God reveals to us all as we seek His will through prayer and fasting. The four things that I want everyone to focus on in prayer is going to be interceding for the lost, what is your role in the church, growth (specifically numerical growth for the church) and praying for a new location for Breakwater. I'll be sending out more things to pray about, but those are the 4 main things that we will focus on every day.
So far we've got quite a bit of the days covered for fasting but we still need a few more people to take some days. If you're wanting to know which days are available, you can see the calendar here. We also have the calendar here on the Breakwater website so you can check in the right sidebar as well. We'll have the sign up sheet available again this weekend at church.
I've also compiled a bunch of information and scripture about fasting that we should all read before we enter into this time of fasting. It addresses some of the basic concepts of why we fast, what happens when we fast, and all sorts of other questions that anyone may have about fasting. You can get it from Me or Brian if you send us an email.
That's it for now, I'll update you with more as we start fasting!

Pastor Rick

Next Mens Bible Study 01/04/08

2007-12-24T13:42:00.001-08:00

Just a reminder that we will not have Mens Bible Study this week 12/28. We are taking the week off for the Christmas/New Years holidays. That means that our next get together will be Jan. 4th of 2008. Yes I tried to make that sound dramatic. Have a great Christmas and New Years. We will see you in January as we finish up our study in Hosea.

-Dion

Christmas Eve

2007-12-07T12:22:00.001-08:00

As you may have noticed already, it's December. And some of you may be wondering what the plans are for our Christmas Eve Service. Well we've decided to do something a little different this year. We're going to have our Christmas Eve Service at the Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Fairhaven. The service time will be 4:00-5:00 (yep just an hour). We decided to do an earlier service so that way people could have the whole evening to be with their families or travel. The Firehouse is a really cool place, and I highly encourage you to invite friends and family to our service. We are even going to be doing a little advertising for the service. I know we just talked about attractional church vs. missional church, but lay off it's Christmas Eve service people! Let's see if we can get a decent crowd there! The atmosphere there is great and the service is going to be a little more planned out than our normal services and I'd like to get more people involved, so if you're going to be around please let me know. We will also need a little help before and afterwards with set up and tear down. It shouldn't take much, but if you are available for that, set up will start at 3:00 and we have to have the place cleared out by 6:00.

The main thing to remember from this is that the Breakwater Christmas Eve service is going to be at 4:00 at the Firehouse Performing Arts Center. If you don't know where the Firehouse Performing Arts Center is located, it's at 1314 Harris Ave in Fairhaven.

No Mens Group Friday 11/23

2007-11-17T16:10:00.001-08:00

Mens group will not meet on Friday Nov. 23 in observance of the
holiday week. Also this helps us to sleep off the tryptophan from the
Turkey a little longer. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

iiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIt'sss TIIIIIIIIIIIMMMMMME!!!

2007-11-13T11:18:00.001-08:00

What is it time for you ask? Excellent question. It's the moment you've all been waiting for since last year. These are things that legends are made of. It is times like these that create historic mile-markers and etch into stone the destiny of mankind, which he will follow throughout his remaining days on earth. Is it Britney Spear's new album release you ask? No. Terrible question. What made you think of THAT? Did they figure out a way to bring Perry Mason back to prime time? Wrong again, but slightly better and a little warmer. Alright I'll just have to come out and tell you since you can't guess. It is time for the 2nd Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Breakwater Thanksgiving Annual Potluck! That's right!!! This Sunday is the follow up to the extremely popular 1st Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Breakwater Thanksgiving Annual Potluck. Rather than have a regular service it will be a potluck service (if you hadn't figured that out from the title). Same time, same place as usual, which means 6:15 at the church.

If you're going to be there please bring a dish that can be shared with others. If you bring a dish and it can't be shared with others... Well now that's not very potluck-like and you'll be fined a heavy sum. If you plan on bringing a dessert please just check with me ahead of time so we don't have everyone bringing pie and then no main dishes. As much as we all love a good sugar high, it's probably NOT the best idea to have all desserts. Don't worry about drinks, plates, utensils or any of that stuff, we've got it covered. Also if you absolutely can't bring anything at all, don't let that keep you from coming, and maybe even consider bringing a friend. The 2nd Annual Pre-Thanksgiving Breakwater Thanksgiving Annual Potluck is a great time to come and meet people. I'm looking forward to this Sunday! See you there.

Pastor Rick

Women's Group!

2007-09-18T15:27:00.001-07:00

Hey ladies!

Our biking season has come to a close, but our bible study will be starting again soon! Coming this October we will be starting our fall study with a look at the Book of Ruth. We will meet at my house on Tuesday nights at 7:00. Everyone is welcome to come - the more the merrier. Come early for tea, bring a bible and a prayerful heart! (Cheesy - I know, but I couldn't resist...)

First study will be Tuesday, October 2nd - so mark your calendars!

Stay tuned for the updated web page!!

Mens Breakfast/Mens Group

2007-09-18T10:23:00.001-07:00

Can you multi-task? How about eating and talking at the same time. I know your mom said not to do that, but she's not invited. (No offense)

We are having a Mens Breakfast this Saturday at 8am at Cafe Toulouse in Bellingham. Brian assures me the food is good.

So check your schedule and if you are busy...change it. We would love have you join us.

p.s. This will be our Men's Group meeting this week, so no Friday morning Bible Study.

Couples Group starts up this Monday!

2007-09-10T21:04:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wished that you could have a complete understanding of your spouse? That you could understand why it is that they do what they do and be able to perfectly meet their needs? Yeah; so do the rest of us.

We're not offering complete understanding in our couples group, but we are offering an environment where we can build trust with other couples and try to make better sense of this wonderfully frustrating gift God gave us called marriage.

Our first meeting of the season will be this Monday (September 17th) and we'll meet at the Bowker's house. We're planning to do round-robin style meeting locations after that.

We will be studying a new book by a couple of our favorite authors: Your Time Starved Marriage: How to stay connected at the speed of life by Les and Leslie Parrott. There is a book and two workbooks (one for men and one for women). Please get them as soon as you can if you plan to join.

We'll see you there!

[Side note to the men: Chicks dig it when you put effort into your marriage.]

BBQ on Sept. 22

2007-09-03T12:59:00.001-07:00

BBQ at the Norris home - Hot dogs and Burgers provided!

Sat., Sept. 22nd from 12-3 pm

Bring a side dish to share with everyone!

Join us as we say goodbye to summer....

Mens Movie Night - The Sequel!

2007-09-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

Hear ye, hear ye. Do you ever wish you could pick a truly stupid movie to watch without the women in the room rolling their eyes? Well do we have a night for you! Saturday September 8th we are having our Mens Stupid Movie Night....The Sequel! Bring a stupid movie and a snack and we'll provide the laughs. This month it will be at the Terry house.
Show up about 7pm so we can pick a movie and have some time to fellowship before the movie. We only have one rule for the movie selections. Under no circumstances can anyone bring "The Star Wars Holiday Special" from 1979. All other movies will be fairly considered. Hope to see you there.

-Dion

Prayer Meeting Cancelled

2007-08-08T14:33:00.001-07:00

The prayer meeting for this Thursday morning has been cancelled, but
if you can find time, please be praying for the church. We want to
keep the prayer coverage going! We'll be back on schedule next week.

Pastor Rick

Building Search Committee

2007-08-02T12:26:00.001-07:00

One of the things that we've had on the back burner was finding a
new location for our church to meet in. We felt it was important to
pay off our debt before we moved into a different building. So now
that we are debt free we can now start to turn our attention towards
the next phase for Breakwater, which means a move to a new place!
In order to find the right place and the right time we really need
to explore every option that is out there. It's a fairly big job,
one that we don't want to put entirely on the board to figure out, so
this is where we need your help. I am putting together a team of 5
or 6 people that would be willing to investigate what options are
available to us. Rather than having the board check out every
option, it would be more efficient if there is a team that could
explore the possibilities, filter out the ones that won't work, and
then present the best options to us so that the board can further
investigate the most promising locations. There would be a weekly or
every other week meeting that would take place with the team to pray,
present ideas, discuss game plans, locations, and keep records of
what is found. The people on this team will NOT be responsible to
make a decision as to what location we will move to. This team is
all about gathering information and as much of it as possible. So if
you like doing research and have a little time to look into some
possibilities, please let me know as soon as possible. I want to
meet with the team and give more specific details as to the the role
of this team, how things will work, and give some guidelines for what
needs to be done.
If you don't want to be a part of the Building Search Committee, I
would ask that you at least lift this move up in prayer. We all have
a part to play in this, and if you part is not being involved in this
aspect, then it is definitely up to each one of us to be praying for
direction and wisdom for this team.

Pastor Rick

The Post Announcement that was Announced at the Announcement Potluck

2007-08-02T11:47:00.001-07:00

So many of you were there for The First and Only "Big Announcement That is to be Announced" Announcement Potluck. Some of you geniuses even figured it out ahead of time, but for everyone else who either isn't a prophet, a genius, or just haven't heard, the big announcement is that Breakwater Church is finally a DEBT FREE CHURCH!!!
As many of you know we ran into some rough financial times a few years ago in our old location we ended up owing our landlords a substantial amount of money. The landlords were VERY gracious to us, but we had a strong conviction about paying them back as soon as possible. Through the generosity of many of you, several outside individuals, Cornwall Church, and the landlords (they matched every dollar we paid them for 2007) we were able to pay off the debt! Many of you had pledged to give above and beyond your normal tithes to help pay off the debt. Well in cased you missed it, we got to BURN the pledge cards, and I've attached a picture to prove it. In addition to paying off the debt we now have enough in our budget to buy a children's curriculum, so in September we'll be kicking off our new children's program! God's provision in this has been amazing!
This situation is great testimony to how God honors even the smallest act of obedience. Just over a year ago, the trustees decided to take a step of faith and give away one tenth of the remaining amount of the debt to an outside ministry. We did this out of obedience to what we believed God was leading us to do based on Luke 6:38 which says - Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back.
It didn't make much sense to give away money when we owed money, but we believed it was a faith step that God wanted us to take. From the day we decided to take that step until the day we paid off the debt was almost exactly a year to the day. When you see God's provision like this it's such an encouragement. He takes our mustard seed of faith and even our smallest acts of obedience and turns them into so much more. Praise God! We definitely want to take this time to remember to thank God for his goodness, faithfulness, and provision! God is doing some great things at Breakwater and I hope you all are as encouraged as I am!

Pastor Rick