Kirk Bowman's blog

It seems like the church in the book of Acts lived in a lifestyle of prayer. They especially responded to any challenges or difficulties with intense prayer meetings and prayer focus.

Suzette and I have been planning to do a Daniel Fast Nov. 1 – 21. It’s just a personal thing. We are hungry for God to move powerfully in our lives, in our church and in our world. We mentioned it to our staff and they jumped all over it. I mentioned it in church Sunday and a bunch of people acted very interested in diving in as well.

We are actually planning to do a “proper” church wide Daniel Fast to kick off 2009. That fast will have a lot more effort put into involvement and information. More info will come on that.

With all that is going on in our country and in the world, this is not a day to shrink back and find a corner to hide in. It is a day to rise up live powerfully with the help of the Holy Spirit. I want to encourage any of you who are feeling “backed down” to listen to my message from Sunday and jump in on this fast with us.

Here are a few links to gather some info on a Daniel Fast:

www.danielfast.elevationchurch.org
www.christ-web.com/missions/farho/daniel-fast
www.danielfast.wordpress.com/
www.hacres.com/recipes/recipes.asp

We’d love for you to join us.

This Sunday I will start a series called “Blessed”.

I believe, with all my heart, God is a God who desires to bless. It’s completely His heart toward us. It strikes me as so strange how many people struggle with that idea and want to have theological battles to paint Him in another way.

This is one of the reasons we want to prosper. To do things like this.

Awesome!!!

I voted today.

Then I burst into tears when I walked out of the polling place. I have never done anything like that before.

Politics is not my favorite thing. For a lot of reasons.
Not really into it. But I do vote. I think it’s important. I also wish it was Nov. 5.

After I voted today I started thinking about how awesome America is. We live in the greatest country on the planet.

I’ve had the opportunity to minister in 18 different nations. No question, all of those nations have their unique and beautiful characteristics. But no other nation gives the freedom and opportunity we have in America.

My friend, Chims Phiri, lives in Zimbabwe. Their president was recently voted out of office. He didn’t like being voted out, so he unleashed a torrent of persecution and violence on people he thought opposed him. Chim’s wife has just recently spent 3 months in a hospital as a result of a politically motivated attack. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate is totally out of control. Something like 1,000 per cent.

America is not perfect by any means but I feel incredibly blessed to live here. Our economy may be taking a hit right now but we still live in an incredibly amazing place. Plus, we all get to vote, in freedom, for whoever we think will do the best job. (Or at least vote for the lessser of evils.)

This may sound hokey but – God Bless America, land that I love!!

I gave my life to Jesus in 1974. That’s a long time ago. 34 years ago. By the grace of God, I have been a passionate follower of Jesus (and a lover of His church) the whole time. No breaks, no holidays, no backsliding. And I have loved every minute of it. I love God more today than I ever have. He is amazing to me.

My family never went to church. They still don’t. Out of 5 boys and my 2 parents, I’m the only one in my family that has followed Christ and been a part of church. As far as I know, I’m the only person in my entire family, looking back and through in all directions, who has ever given their life to Christ.

For the record – I love my family and don’t intend those observations to be any kind of condemnation. It’s just my story.

I mention all of that for this reason: I had no point of reference for church or Christianity to try and uphold.

To the best of my ability – my views of God and church have been formed out of trying to read my Bible and obey it the best I can.

My first encounters with God were in a “power of God” environment. I was miraculously healed of a life long struggle with stomach ulcers when I met Christ and started going to church. It’s kind of hard to convince me that God doesn’t still heal people when He healed me.

I have almost always been in Charismatic, spirit filled “tribes”. It’s how I started in church life 34 years ago. I still feel at home in some of those tribes.

Over the last 10 or 15 years I have struggled some (maybe more than some) with a lot of Charismatic church culture. There are extremes of style and “manifestation” that trouble me. I keep finding myself distancing from a lot of it.

I love the Holy Spirit. I believe in the power of God. Still think the gifts of the Spirit are valid and in operation today. I see it in the Bible. And my life experience

Starting this Sunday we are beginning a new series called “Spirit”. We want to explore the mystery and power of the person of the Holy Spirit. We want to develop a relationship with the person of the Holy Spirit.

For the next few weeks we’re going to explore the Bible and take a look at having a relationship with the Holy Spirit – with fresh eyes.

Is it possible to be spirit filled and weird free?

Come join us.

We are pretty excited about a fresh initiative we are launching in our church. The Generosity Experiment.

This idea is birthed out of our Larger Than Life series where we urged everyone to live larger than self maintenance and go to generosity in life.

God says “test me now in this …”. God urges us to bring our tithe and offering and test him to see if He will not open the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing we cannot contain.

We are encouraging our whole church to be generous to God, His house and others from now until the end the year. Take God at His word and see what He will do. Test this out.

So here’s the plan:
1. Honor God with your tithe - the tithe comes first – giving God our first and best
2. Christmas for Kids 2008 will be our big chance to give to (and serve) others
3. C2 is our way to give toward building the house of God

Then see what God will do.

You can log on to thegenerosityexperiment.com and tell your story or read about others experience.

No question, we are living in a day of economic upheaval. All the more reason we want to plug into God’s economy!

This past weekend was an absolute blast!

Suzette and I went to Kansas City to celebrate with our great friends Phillip and Susan O’Reilly as they held their opening service in their brand new building. What a treat.

Their church began 5 years ago and now they have led their church into a great new facility. The place was packed. The energy was great. So happy for them.

The future is bright for the O’Reilly’s and their amazing church - The Rock of KC.

A special bonus to the weekend – Got to see Jim Gaffigan live. So funny. An hour and 20 minutes of non-stop hilarious comedy. Completely clean. Then he stood out in the foyer and greeted everyone who wanted to see him. Stayed until the last one left. For 2 shows!

Hot pockets…..

When I was a teenager, Johnny Carson was the star of The Tonight Show. In one of his monologues he made a joke about a coming toilet paper shortage.

At the same time, I was working my way through high school and the beginning of college at a grocery store. Sure enough, the day after his monologue we sold out of toilet paper. We then went weeks unable to keep toilet paper on the shelves. Just because of his monologue – not because their was actually any tp shortage at all.

Fear creates shortage.

A fearful reaction to anything never creates a good result.

When I drive by gas stations and see lines of people and the reaction of some as they worry about gas shortage issues, I am reminded of Johnny and toilet paper.

This too shall pass. Toilet paper shelves will be full again.

Love building a culture of generosity in our church. Living big enough to make a difference for God and others.

We have built the whole idea around the revelation that there is a river that flows from God's throne. You have to get a revelation of abundance to really go to generous in life.

If we think resources are limited we will be hesitant to be a giver.

Here's the video we showed this past weekend. Enjoy!

Larger Than Life - week 3 Rocks from Rock Church on Vimeo.

Really love the idea behind our “Larger Than Life” series. It’s all about buying into living way bigger than self maintenance.

This past week we showed this video to help illustrate the value of letting great things flow through you – or the downside of getting stagnant.


Larger Than Life - week 2 Pond from Rock Church on Vimeo.

Some people hate meetings. I love them. Not all of them for sure but some of them are indispensable.

This past weekend we had several meetings in the life of our church. Guest service leadership meeting. Children’s ministry leadership meeting. Church on Sunday morning meeting.

I think meetings are essential to doing life together. You get out of the loop of communication when you don’t meet. You don’t get to hear from other voices when you don’t meet. You don’t get to be face to face and feel the other person when you don’t meet.

Some meetings are terrible because no investment goes into making them a great meeting. So make sure you have worthwhile meetings.

Make sure you keep meeting with the people you’re doing life with. It does matter.

Got to go. Got a meeting to enjoy.