While we believe that Eden was a real place, it is also representative of the human heart. Each of us has the responsibility to tend the garden of our heart – the garden of who we are. The four rivers represent principles that God has given to help us cultivate good fruit in the garden of our lives. The first river, Pishon, represents increase and expansion, a principal that Jesus taught repeatedly. To experience increase in our own lives we must believe that God is our source of all things, learn how to get into God’s flow, and avoid the things that cause us to get out of the flow.

Today we live in a society filled with self-help gurus. As a result, we often think we can will ourselves to success if we just find the right book to read. But the river comes from God and we can’t will or self-help ourselves into the life He brings. If we try to make it in our own strength, there will come a point when our human strength will fail us. When difficulties come, when we can’t take one more step, we must look to the God of the River of Increase to be the source of whatever it is we need. Whether it’s strength, peace, joy, forgiveness, grace, patience, wisdom….whatever it is you think you’re out of, God has it and wants to give it to you. We only need to plant our lives by His river and let Him be our source.

We all know that water is an incredibly powerful thing. Rowing against a strong current will quickly tire you out and make it virtually impossible to reach your destination. But, as humans, we often seem bent on rowing against God’s flow – trying to get to our destiny under our own power. The Holy Spirit is God’s river. He flows into our hearts and wants to branch out into every area of our lives and spill over onto others. But we have to get into the flow.

You don’t need to look hard to find examples of people who have fought their way to the top but have not found happiness. Rowing against the river of God will never get you to a place of contentment. We each must decide to turn our boat and stop fighting God’s flow. The river may take us to places we don’t understand, but we will find ourselves in a place of unending increase that will spill over and grow the Kingdom of God. So come on and jump in, the water’s fine.

After dinner, however, the mood shifts. Jesus took another cup, symbolic of the new covenant they were about to enter into between God and man. “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you…I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom comes to earth.” Last week we learned the depth of what those words meant, now we know that 50 days later at Pentecost, the Kingdom of God came to earth in the form of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist had told his followers, “There is one coming after me…who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” In the upper room of Acts 2, 120 faithful followers were filled with the Spirit of Jesus and begin to proclaim in other tongues the glory of God’s kingdom. Thus, the Kingdom is within us when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, and we are building His kingdom here on earth! It is now within our grasp, as we pray His will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.

In Luke 5, we read these words of Christ: “You don’t put wine in old wineskins; you get new wineskins for your fresh vintage wine. And no one who has ever tasted fine aged wine prefers unaged wine.” A wineskin was the scraped-out hide of a sheep or goat. The reason new wine needed to go into new skins was that the fermentation process was so strong, the skins had to be able to expand to hold it all in. New skins were pliable, soft, like our hearts need to be. We can always stretch out some more when we are being filled anew every day with the Holy Spirit! The symbolism of the Cup of the Covenant is a fresh touch from Jesus on our lives and hearts, the fermenting of our dreams & visions swirling around and being made reality. “I have to go so my Spirit can come live in you”, He said to those who begged Him to stay. We are the vessels that the wine is being poured into. It’s so easy to get stuck in the “once upon a time” experience. Old wineskins could be made pliable again by being immersed in oil – God doesn’t want the vessel (us) to burst or break from His new; wine of dreams & visions for our lives! Make it a priority to empty ourselves of what the Lord has given us so we can be filled with the next new thing He has for us. Be ready to live new experiences; God is going to challenge our mindsets and wants to change us to become bigger in all areas of our lives. Being filled with the Spirit means getting fresh vision, dreams that bring us joy, and not allowing our hearts to harden for any reason. When we keep our vessel full of the new wine of what the Spirit is calling us onward to do, we will find our dreams fulfilled, as Christ’s were after he drank from the Cup of the Covenant and did what His Father had called Him to do for the coming of the Kingdom. Come unafraid to the altar for a fresh touch, fresh oil and new wine!

Verses Used:
*Luke 22:17-20
*Matthew 3:11
*Acts 2:1-41
*Luke 5:33-39
*John 14:16-17

Continuing on the idea of veneer—that piecemeal pseudo-wood covered in a shiny thin layer of pristine hardwood—and how it can symbolize the Christian life, we return to the book of Matthew to read another account of Jesus’ challenging false authenticity.

Matthew chapter 6 deals mainly with the concept of one’s private versus their public life, those circumstances when the veneer is pulled back and the substance below is exposed. Jesus begins in verse 1 addressing good deeds. All Christians, once they have been regenerated, are called to what are often referred to as “good works.” (We’re not saved by our works, mind you, we are saved to our works.) But, more important than the works themselves, Jesus implies all throughout this chapter, is the heart of the worker. Jesus states in verse 4, for example, that it is better to give your gifts in secret. Why? When good deeds are taken out of the context of public adulation, they are left only for the Father to see. It will therefore being His affirmation and reward that drives our actions, and not the world’s.

Once again we find the teaching of Jesus in direct conflict from the deportment of this world. Our tendency is to reveal only the good in us and to hide those things—our shortcomings, mistakes, and brokenness—of which we are ashamed. In the kingdom, however, God asks us to conceal our good deeds and share with our fellow believers our messes. This may strike you as completely counterintuitive! Exposing our foibles, however, shining light into those places we’d rather keep hidden ultimately robs them of their power. And once these shackles have been removed, their powers zapped, that’s when real change can come into our lives. Another byproduct of exposing our baggage is the generation of trust within the Church. Jesus ultimately wants you to feel freedom in the very areas of your life you struggle most. Such a methodology is not always the easiest or the most fun, but it’s precisely the medicine that can begin to heal your heart.

Moving forward in the chapter, Jesus says in verse 5, “When you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them” (emphasis mine). Another word I have found for “hypocrite” is the word “actor.” Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t be an actor, pretending to be something that you’re not!’ (Again, this idea of a veneer.) Hypocrisy, Scripture shows us, is one of those hot-button issues that caused Jesus to go nuts! Just read Matthew chapter 23 and you’ll see Jesus lay down seven woes to the Scribes and Pharisees, calling them, in machine gun cadence, “Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites! Hypocrites!” In Matthew 23:27 he refers to them as whitewashed tombs—shiny and pristine on the outside but dead within. Indeed, if there’s anything that gets Jesus’ foot tappin’ a little bit, it’s hypocrisy.

These areas of instruction all lead into a larger idea, which opens chapter 7: “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.” A well-known adage, this revolutionary notion accomplishes two things: first, it instills in you a God-given grace for your fellow man; and second, it insulates you from incoming judgment as well. There is only one position in the universe whose job it is to call out our sins and screw-ups, and that’s the Holy Spirit. It is his job to convict us and it is his job to correct us. That is not to say that you can’t acknowledge sin in your fellow believers when you see it. Please do. And please pray for that person and, if you feel called, extend to them a hand of support. But do not judge them because, as Matthew 7:2 plainly states, that will become the standard by which you yourself shall be judged.

Jesus closes out this chapter speaking about worry—about money, shelter, food, and clothing. That these things are such basic necessities is what makes Jesus’ teaching here so bold. We need these things to survive, and yet Jesus instructs us not even to worry about them. I’ve found in my own experience that worry not only fails to help a situation, it most often hurts it instead. This is because worry sows the seeds of doubt into our very spirit and, if left unchecked, will begin to kill our relationship with God. The engine of our relationship with God—the engine of any relationship, actually—is trust. Simply put, God requires our trust to accomplish His work in our lives. And worry is the opposite of trust. Pastor Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life fame said it this way (and I’m paraphrasing here): “Worry is practical atheism. If you worry, why pray? And if you pray, why worry?” We need God to clean up our messes, to get us over our mountains, to walk us through our failures. And worry breaks our connection to Him by questioning or outright jeopardizing our trust in Him.

The truth of the matter is that, without God, we remain capable of getting ourselves out of our messes from time to time, but eventually our strength, wisdom, and self-reliance will tire and falter. We simply cannot rely upon our own cleverness to sort out the problems we face with any consistently. And we weren’t built to. But God is never short of an answer, never incapable of a miracle, never lacking in strength. He is infinite, and He alone is meant to be our source. So we needn’t ever worry.

I know this is hard teaching, church. Of course it’s hard! That is, after all, why Jesus spent so much time talking about it. And please don’t overlook the context of this sermon either. Within a year the disciples who were listening to Jesus would be asked to walk out his ministry in boldness. They would soon take his place to battle the Pharisees, heal the infirm, and build the Church. They would need to expand to encompass all that Jesus was handing over to them. And the weakness that comes with worry would have robbed them of the vastness God had placed in them and shortchanged the legacy they were charged to build.

It is no different with us. Therefore we need not, and should not, worry. God took care of them and He’ll take care of us too.

Are you hardwood or veneer?

They way that furniture is made is one of two ways. The best way is with hard wood, crafted together. The second way is veneer, which is made of particle board with three millimeters of hard wood over the top of it. Most businesses use veneer because it is fast and cheap. However, it does not last as long. When the particle board gets wet, it swells, and falls apart.

Many Christians live with Christ as their three millimeter hard wood board over their particle board, hiding the cheap, brittle parts of their lives. On the outside, we look very well-put-together, but when the storms of life come, our lives fall apart, just as the particle boards do.

One of the biggest things that this world is against is fake people. They have observed the world’s Christians on television and around them, and they laugh. If there is anything that appears fake to them, they will disregard it. What we have become is a show, something that looks good on the outside, but cheap on the inside.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus talks about the beatitudes, and what we should become. Sin is what gives us a veneer. Like a callous, a hard outer part that protects the soft inner part, sin becomes our veneer. In some cases, it gets so hard that God cannot get in. in this chapter of Matthew, Jesus talks about what it takes to be a Christian. Life gets harder as a Christian. The rules are complex. God does not want a callous on our souls. He wants a process of us getting better.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah talks about our being clay in the Potter’s hands. We put our entire lives into his hands, and God molds the bad things out of our lives. He takes the worst of our lives, all of our sin, and makes us into something great. The first step in this process is pounding the clay, kneading it to make it soft, and to get some of the bad things out. The second step in creating is putting it on wheel, and making into a shape. Water is added, and the clay is spinning. They clay is then put on a shelf to dry out. After it is dried out, the sand paper is taken out, and some more bad things are shaven off. The pot is put into a glaze, and then into the fire. This is the process by which we become something usable. This process is a hard one, and at times, can feel hard to bear.

Many Christians are not willing to go through the process of becoming something usable. We become veneers, so that it is easier. Are you hardwood or veneer? Are you going the cheap way or the right way?

1 Corinthians 3:10-11 (NLT): By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 4:16 (NLT): He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

You’ve heard it said that we are clay in the potter’s hands. Well, we are also the bricks in the builder’s hands. Have you ever watched a brick-layer lay bricks? It is very interesting. The brick-lay will pick up one brick, and put it back down, just o pick up another brick, and put it in the wall where the next brick is needed. Why does he do this? Because he knows which brick goes where. To the average human eye, each brick looks the same, but the brick-layer can feel in his hand, if a brick fits perfectly or not. He knows if a brick goes in a certain spot or not. Each brick has a place, but not all bricks fit together. The brick-layer knows which one goes where… he just knows.

God is the brick-layer and the brick-maker in our lives. We each have to go through the fire, and be laid out in the sun for us to be used. We get refined through the fire, and we get hardened, strengthened when we are laid out in the sun. We come to Jesus as wet, messy blobs. He shapes us into bricks, each one of us look the same on the outside, but no two are the same when shaped by his hands. As we allow God to form us, he then can use us. While every hand-made brick is different, they all fit together somehow. God forms us, then he puts us together, right where each of us belong.

There is a big difference between being a believer and a disciple. Most people probably don’t stop and really think about this. Most people probably picture a bearded man in sandals when the hear the word disciple. What’s more, most people probably tend to think that the end of their faith journey culminates in their belief, in their salvation moment. A lifetime spent away from God pivots upon the events of one morning, wherein a person’s heart becomes inexplicably soft—by a pointed sermon or a moment of worship or even the power withheld in the very name of Jesus himself—they respond to that altar call, confess their sins, give their life to Christ, and then for many, they’re done. Not so for the disciple.

Getting saved by Jesus is the easiest task one could ever hope to perform. One doesn’t have to accomplish anything by their own cleverness or effort. One doesn’t need to do anything period. Except surrender their pride and accept the gift. It is, after all, the Holy Spirit who is doing the saving anyway. It’s his work to his glory; not yours. Consider it this way: if salvation were the goal for humanity, if it alone was the charge of the Great Commission, then Scripture would read, “Go into all the world and save people.” Instead it reads, “make disciples of all nations.” Disciples, unlike Christians, are not born. They are made.

Concerning the passage from Matthew above, before the charge to his disciples to go make more disciples, Jesus commands the remaining eleven to go to “the mountain” in Galilee. Scholars have debated to which Galilean mountain he directed them. Some have argued that it was perhaps Mt. Carmel, where Elijah slew the false prophets of Baal. Others have suggested Mt. Table. I personally believe that it was Mt. Hermon, a coastal mountain overlooking Caesarea Philippi, where Jesus had once taken his disciples and proclaimed “I will build my church” (Matthew 16: 13-20). It is this same mountain that Peter, James, John, and Jesus ascend in Matthew 17, where the Lord appears transfigured and meets with Moses and Elijah. Mt. Hermon is, in short, a significant site to the disciples, and thus likely the one mentioned in this week’s passage.

So here Jesus takes all eleven disciples and, overlooking the pagan colony of Caesarea Philippi and all the sinners within, he commands, “Go and make disciples of all the nations.” What, then, is the difference between the saved and the disciples? For one thing, discipleship is necessarily beyond salvation. It’s the next, big step in one’s faith walk. Again, being saved is easy; becoming a disciple, on the other hand, takes work. It takes, according to this passage, first being baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, this naturally constitutes an actual physical water baptism by which one publicly and symbolically demonstrates their physical death and rebirth in Christ, but it also suggests that we are to be baptized in the name, or, in other words, immersed in the spirit of God. God has a hand in our salvation, to be sure, but He also guides us toward discipleship after He finally gets His hands on our lives.

We must get out of His way so that He may do so, however. One must never underestimate the power of his own will. As C.S. Lewis once suggested, the spirit of God “cannot ravish. He can only woo.” So if the God of Heaven, who merely spoke the cosmos into existence, can approach the door of your spirit but cannot (or rather, will not) force His way through, then we can conclude that a man’s will is a strangely powerful thing. So to become a disciple, finally, we must allow God to take our hand and lead us deeper into Himself. Once this happens, we’ll begin to feel convicted about our sin. We’ll begin to actually want to spend time in prayer, in worship, and in the Word. Getting saved, you see, cleanses our spirit but doesn’t change our bad habits or attitudes. Going deeper into God’s teachings and truths is what ultimately transforms our lives from believers to disciples. We begin to talk differently, act differently. We begin, in short, to live our faith as well as believe it.

A challenge facing Christianity today is that we have a great many Christians and too few disciples. We need more disciples in the kingdom, more Christians walking out, not just believing in, their faith. If the original eleven disciples multiplied and, in time, transformed the the Roman Empire from a land of unrestrained paganism to the site of the early Church, how much more of an impact will a kingdom of disciples have today? Certainly have we more than eleven disciples at the present moment. Our focus, then, as a Church should be to foster a community of discipleship, and not belief only.

You can’t do anything to win God’s favor. Those who believe that God loves them and believe they are His children are elevated into God’s presence.

Some people think that poverty equals holiness. John 10:10 says My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. (NLT)

How can the church help the poor if it has nothing to give? Charity came out of the church. If I am called to help people in need, how can I help if I don’t have anything to give?

The Good Samaritan was able to treat and care for the wounded man. How many of us can carry someone into a hospital and offer to pay for it all?

We are called to be the light of the world…be the church. Somebody better have some money…some extra so we can do these things. Living with “just enough” is not biblical.

God is the governor of the earth and He created the Church to meet the needs of the people.

There is a way to live that leads you into a life of abundance.

The Wheel is not The Answer. It is a basic tool that allows you to evaluate where you are so you can live in abundance.

God has this universal way in which He takes us through a renewal process spiritually. This happens when I connect with God. This is not when we get saved. That refreshing of the spirit happens instantaneously. After salvation, a renewing process begins. God knew us before we were born. He formed us. Before the foundation of the world, he knew everything about us. So when we finally come back to our Creator, to the Cross, spiritually, it begins the return to perfection, the state when God created us and knew us. When I was born I inherited sin because of the Fall, and I been disobedient until I came to the Cross but now I am being renewed…how I think, what is important to me…this renewal is reflected through new actions and new attitudes.

Before Christ, I was sowing selfishness, self-centered seed and a distorted, selfish love into the field that is my life.

After the Cross, God has plowed the field and given me a fresh field fertilized by the Holy Spirit so I am sowing different seed and reaping a different type of life. As a result, I am experiencing a life I didn’t know before…a life of abundance.

Abundance in God is not measured materially, how the world measures. That is the paradox of the Kingdom. God wants us to be blessed, but He is not going to measure us by what we have.

The biggest difference in living a life in the midst of the renewal process is that we don’t live by what we see. We live by what we believe. In our old life, we lived by what we could experience through our physical senses. Now, we live by hope, faith and love. When other hurt you, turn the other cheek. When you’re not getting any love, you love anyway. You don’t have to have love to see love. Even if I don’t receive what I need, I can still love because I believe that God is in control. (II Cor 5:7) Acts Chapter 7 talks about when Stephen was being stoned to death by the Jewish leaders and yet he still asked God to forgive them.

Jesus is the example of how to live in abundance. God’s abundance is immeasurable. Abundance means more than you ever dreamed so you can give it out when other hurt you, slander you. You give love to them and that is how you discover the life that Jesus wanted us to have.

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Faith & Finance

Matt 20:1-16 – NLT

We’ve been talking about the Wheel of Life for the past few weeks, and today we will continue finance & career. The most important thing is that we understand the proper place for our financial spoke, within the bounds of the kingdom of Heaven.

In the church, there has been a stigma related to money. People sometimes think that being wealthy and being a Christian cannot go together, or that we are not supposed to talk about money in church. God doesn’t want us to hesitate to talk about money, but we also need to realize the most important part of being in the kingdom of God is BEING in the kingdom of God. That is where our financial life HAS to begin…we also need to realize that our finances ARE a pretty big part of our life. There is a place and a purpose for your job and finances in the kingdom of Heaven.

What does Matt 20:1-16 mean to us? The first workers symbolize the jews – they were the first people that God reached out to. The second round of workers that were hired late in the day symbolized the Gentiles. Jesus was preparing the disciples for the idea that the Gentiles would be coming into the kingdom of God. The point, however, was not that the Gentiles were TAKING the blessing of God…the point was that they were all going to receive the same reward! God wasn’t holding anything back for the Jews – He gave them the same blessing as the Gentiles.

The next question that we always have about money is, “How much??” – that is our culture of living in America. The master did not tell the workers how much they were getting paid for the day – He told them it would be a fare wage. None of us would have gone! We would have demanded a written contract and made sure there was an overtime clause. )

Its not fair for us to talk about money and not talk about how much. In the kingdom, how much is too much? How much is not enough? That all comes for people’s perspective – not from God. The great thing about our God is that He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Our God has abundance, and He knows abundance. King David was very wealthy. God isn’t concerned about how much we have. He didn’t set us up to be in a rat race – always trying to get more and more. He set us up to live an incredible life and touch people’s lives. When He looks at us, He isn’t thinking about our finances – He is thinking about building His kingdom and fulfilling His plan. The Bible teaches us not to worry about money because we have no idea what tomorrow holds.

The real question is: Is it enough to move us along the path that God has cleared for us? God knows how much we need, and He sees it all. When Jesus had the perfume poured on His feet, He didn’t say, “You could have sold that and gotten the cheap stuff!” God has a kingdom perspective on our finances. He is telling us that it doesn’t matter what anyone else has! He has told us that He would take care of us! We shouldn’t care who has what. God has promised us an abundant life – we need to be happy for others. We aren’t about a socialist platform that preaches equality across the board. It doesn’t work like that in the kingdom of heaven. The bible says that God has an abundance for us! It doesn’t say that if we work harder, we will get more. It doesn’t say that if we receive salvation when we are 8, we get a greater blessing than if we get saved when we are 22. We are IN the kingdom of heaven, but we LIVE in the United States. We can’t forget that – it gives us our perpective. But, God doesn’t have our perspective. He doesn’t care about consumables. He cares about what it will take for us to accomplish His purpose on this earth and what it will take to walk out the destiny that He has for us!

Paul had joy overflowing even in prison because he was right in the middle of the path that God had laid out for him. Money doesn’t bring that joy to us. The only joy that will fulfill us is the joy that comes from knowing that we are doing what God has called us to do. In America, all we do is compare – clothes, cell phones, cars – whatever it is. Our real joy comes from the realization that we are in the middle of God’s plan for us and that He has provided for us! Its not about MORE – its about God’s plan for where you SHOULD be. When we are in alignment with the kingdom of heaven, our lives are fulfilled.

The blessings that God gives are the same today as it is for the people that have been saved for 20, 30, or 40 years. It is the BEST that He has for our lives. He is not holding back for any one of us. Look to God to find joy in your finances and in your career.

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Physical & Health
· Life Style
· Habits we create
· You are what you eat
· Don’t go it alone – Group accountability
· Perspective – what is your focus / what are you measuring against
· Adapt your perspective according to your age, body type, etc
· Know your #s (HDL, LDL, BMI, etc)
· Its not just for me / my health & fitness is for my family
· Obtainable & Sustainable – look at things realistically – (don’t set a goal of working out 5 hours a day when you don’t have 5 hours in your day to work out)
· Daily Choices
· Discipline
· Research – read books, get a mentor, etc

When you focus on an area for a period of time it begins to come natural – once it becomes a lifestyle it sustains there

Family & Home

· Live for them (Wife/Husband & Kids)
· Serve them
· Togetherness
· Talking
· Empathy (verbally describe the other persons position)
· Understanding where someone comes from & evaluate their position
· Accepting that position
· Forgiveness
· Recognition / Appreciation
· Edification / Building up
· Quality time not quantity
· All in perspective of the stage of life you are in with your kids
· Family Team – do things together (turn off the TV and play a board game together where there is interaction)
· Honesty / Trust
· Understand the temperament of your children
· Understand who deals best with each child / Mom or Dad
· Fun – Incorporate fun / enjoying each other
· Balance the extras – don’t do every extra curricular activity
· Common vision for family – then work toward that vision
· Security / Stability

(Input from staff meeting 4/5/07)

Social & Cultural

Social – Social Skills
1. How we communicate within our families, friends, and people we don’t know
2. How well your friendships work / How many friends do you have
3. Some have 1 best friend – not good…narrows your world
4. The Kingdom Mindset – you reach out

Social Skills:
· Considerate
· Positive
· Light – Fun
· Inclusive
· Not insecure
· Available
· Hygiene
· Focused
· Sense of Humor – Funny
· Not Demanding
· Encouragement
· Selfless – focused on others
· Welcoming

Sizing up the space
· Learn to size up what’s going on around you – big room or small room
· How close are you to other tables (if in a café or restaurant)
· Sizing up your environment determines how you speak – loud or soft
· Then size up the people

Totem Pole – know where you are in any situation
· There are different levels on a totem pole
· Know where you are and act accordingly
· If you are young you are at the bottom – respecting your elders
· There is leadership in every room – announced or unannounced. When you understand where you are shift accordingly:
o During worship – Johanna has the mic – she is on top (Steve D. would follow Johanna’s lead)
o Dean comes up and starts to speak – he is now at the top and Johanna shifts accordingly
o Where we are determines how we act

Social Setting – What happens when you don’t know the person
· KEY – read people
· Know how to read people
· Have self understanding
· It takes 30 seconds to size up the environment & the person

When you have good social skills you can control the environment to your advantage. You can be a chameleon & shift – become what the situation needs. You have to learn to adapt to every situation you are in.

Send a message through your interaction. At church what are the signals we send? (go back to the social skills list)

*Developing your social skills is about growing the Kingdom. People will connect on the human level before they connect on a God level – people come to church for social reasons – social skills create the environment.

Cultural

· Breaking out of your comfort zone
· The world is more than just where you are from
· When you are culturally boxed in you are very narrow – you won’t live life to the fullest without getting out of your culture.
· Look outward from your little world

Mental & Emotional

Emotional

A high scoring emotional person would have what traits:

· Balanced
· Stable
· Calm
· Confident
· Processing emotions properly / Self manage your emotions
· Guard against depression
· Manage the tough times

How do you stay balanced?
· When you start focusing on other people’s problems your problems will
be taken care of.
· Surround yourself with those friends that have access to your emotions
· Guard your heart
· Recognize symptoms and deal quickly
· Keep perspective
· Know your emotional capacity – know yourself
· Don’t wear your heart on your sleeve exposing yourself and don’t be all shut up with walls – learn the right people to open your heart up to

Communication is the key to emotional stability

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