Tim Harlow

Pray for Those in Kenya

I want to ask you to pray for Kenya. I thought about attaching a news link here, but they are all so disturbing. It’s not Rwanda yet, but it is going that direction. It’s the basic story of the Monsters of the Midsection. Someone is greedy, someone is jealous, someone is angry. Somebody is in power who is wrong to someone else, and all of the sudden you have people roaming through the streets looking for people from that tribe to kill. It’s no different than our country will look for the next few months during the elections, except that somehow we have all figured out that it’s not worth killing over. I think for the most part our country has learned its lesson about Civil War and now we just have political ads and late night talk shows to deal with our differences.

The problem is magnified in Kenya by the hopelessness. The young men don’t have jobs – they have nothing to do – so if someone says “I hate the _______, let’s go kill them,” they have no reason not to. And many of them have AIDS and are dying anyway.

There is my cheery blog for the day.

Actually I want you to pray for them. And so far, all of our contacts and missions people are safe. But it is hard to get anything productive done. However, here are some pictures of the toilet that is being built right in the worst slums.

If you remember, they didn’t have anything and it was so very unsanitary. So this is a toilet with a church building above it. I know, I know. But if you know these people you will know that their worship is a beautiful sweet offering up to God and somehow smells better to God than anything!

So in my personal reading I had Psalm 133.
1 How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity! 2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. 3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the LORD bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

i can’t take time to fully explain the symbolism, but the precious oil and the picture of the dew falling from Mt. Zion is a beautiful picture of God’s favor and of dedication and a baptism like experience.

There is not much of this in Kenya.

Honestly, there is not much of this in some churches I know. Please pray for them. I have one on my heart right now that’s close to me. They are not good and pleasant.

And if you are a part of this church. Dang. Good and Pleasant with oil on the beard! Count yourself fortunate and pray that God will allow it to continue. It’s so amazing here. I mean, it’s not perfect, but we do dwell together in God’s grace.

Dwelling with you,
Tim

Attached is my Day 25 TRAIN and the new TRAIN for Feb 3 through Feb. 16.
Download train_day_25.doc
Download train_day_25.pdf
Download TRAIN-Feb-3-16.pdf

Please Pray for Churches Today

I would like to ask you to pray for other churches today. I know that I always ask for prayer for this church.

And we need it now more than ever. So I’m not asking you to take some of your prayers “away” from Parkview and direct them elsewhere. :)

I’m asking you to add some extra prayer for the churches all around the world.

I just know that there are some churches that especially need our prayers this weekend. And some church leaders.

The church in many parts of the world is living in persecution and people are being killed for going to church. Pray for the persecuted church.

The church in many parts of the world is run by people who don’t get it. They are Pharisees’ who are keeping the prodigals from Jesus. And many of them have leaders in them who are suffering trying to change all of that.

The church in some places have pastors and leaders who are the problem. They are working against God by the sin in their lives, or the attitudes they portray.

Some churches are just having a tough time for no other reason than that Satan has worn them down. There are pastors and leaders who are worn down.

Please pray for them. Pray for the great churches and the ones that aren’t so great. Because the bottom line is that the Church is still the “Bride of Christ.”

Jesus died for his Bride. He loves his church so much. It hurts him when he sees it divided, worn out, persecuted, or just stuck.

I love being a part of this church. I guess I just sometimes feel like we have so much of God’s blessing here, and there are so many who don’t see it or feel it.

Pray for all of them for a moment – and NEVER leave us out of your prayers.

Praying for you,
Tim

(attached is my Train for the day)

• My Devotions Day 21 (MS Word)

• My Devotions Day 21 (PDF)

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (MS Word)

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (PDF)

• TRAIN Schedule for February 3-16
  

Let God Do It!

I’m going to deviate from the TRAIN scheduled scripture today because I want to share something with you. I was reading in the Psalms over the weekend and came to 127 which is the fairly well quoted “Unless the Lord builds the house” scripture.

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. 2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for he grants sleep to [a ] those he loves.

And the scripture really bugged me. Because I’m not a good sleeper. I never have been. I’m a light and restless sleeper. Like everyone, that gets worse when I’m busy or stressed. So there are periods of my life when I really struggle with sleep. So if you read this verse at face value it seems like God doesn’t love me very much, especially when I need it the most.

I guess I’d never really studied it too much before, but I saw the little “a” next to that part of the verse and realized that there was either a scripture reference or an alternative translation. It’s pretty easy when you are using the computer (I was just using Biblegateway.com on the internet- Biblegateway.com). So I clicked on it and this would be a different – and better- translation of verse 2

2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat— for while they sleep he provides for [a ] those he loves.

When you put both verses together it all makes sense. If God is building it – whatever the “it” is in your life – you can work yourself to death trying to do it yourself.

For me, that would be my family and the church. Sometimes I don’t sleep because I think I’m supposed to be working everything out. Like it’s all up to me. Do you ever do that? Even the good stuff. The growth of the church and the awesome opportunities we have in front of us can make us lose sleep. Even if the Lord IS building the house – we labor in vain if we don’t labor IN HIM and sleep IN HIS REST.

I ask you to pray for the staff and leadership of PCC. The Lord is building this house and crazy great things are going on. And Satan sees that and wants to distract us and trip us up. I can’t tell you how much spiritual warfare is going on right now.

The thing is that Satan is clever. He’s never blatant. He’s the father of lies (he sits on a throne of lies). He just wants to trip us; he doesn’t want to come with a full frontal attack.

And what a great lie this one is! “You’d better work harder and sleep less because God needs you.”

It feels right. Hey, there are periods when we have to deal with life and what it throws at us. Laziness is another lie from Satan.

Just remember this verse. If God is doing it, you can go to bed. You will still have to labor and toil, but the ultimate responsibility is NOT YOURS.

Peace, out.
Tim

Don't Miss This Weekend on Greed

Hey Parkview!!

You do not want to miss this weekend's "Monster of the Midsection!" Haydn is going to be sharing a life-changing message on GREED. Pray that God would give him the words, and also pray that all of us will be willing to take the magnifying glass to our hearts in this area. None of us are exempt - we all have to deal with this monster!

Not to sound like a broken record, but please come on Saturday, or make sure you shuttle on Sunday. As I said in Wednesday's blog, we had just short of 5,000 people last weekend, and the 11:00 service was nuts! (See posting below dated January 16.)

We're working on the parking situation...we actually painted more stripes this week, and will break ground on the new lot as soon as we thaw a a little. But please help in the meantime.

For our Ephesians 6 TRAINing, I asked my wife to share this one with you. Denise is one of the best qualified people I know for this one!

• Denise's TRAIN for Day 14 (MS Word)

• Denise's TRAIN for Day 14 (PDF)

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (MS Word)

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (PDF)
  

That's it for now...I sure am proud of this place!!

Tim

Classic Weakness

This blog is so boring right now. Every time I write – I say the same thing. It goes something like this, “Hi – please shuttle and don’t come at 11.”

You could take it as a shaded attempt for me to tell you how great we are and how great Parkview is. It’s kind of like when my daughter was filling out a form for something and was asked to write down her weaknesses. I told her to write, “I work too hard” because that’s the classic “weakness that makes me look good.

You know?

So after I pleaded with people to move – we had three hundred people switch to Saturday night! Awesome!

And after I pleaded for shuttlers (my computer tells me that’s not a word but I don’t care) we had 45 more cars in the parking lot at Horton’s. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

The only problem was that we had 500 more people than we had the last week!!!!!!. We had almost 5000 people here. That’s a thousand more than our 07 average. So we actually had a much worse situation in the parking lot and the 11 even with everyone who helped.

So…

Hi, please shuttle and don’t come at 11.

I know some of you have to come on Sunday because you serve, or your kids are in Student ministry. I mean – if you have an option – come on Saturday or Sunday at 9 and please shuttle. We are re-striping some stuff and doing whatever we can to make this work. And we will have 300 more spots in April.

What a great weakness!

Tim

Here is Day 10 Devotional:
Download spiritual_fitness_handout.pdf
Download spiritual_fitness_handout.doc
Download train_day_10.pdf
Download train_day_10.doc

Are You Still TRAINing?

Hope you're keeping up with a spiritual training program! Some of you have asked for the schedule to be posted again on the blog, so we're going to do that every time I post my devotions. We also had a request to put them up here in MS Word format.

So here you go!

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (MS Word)

• Spiritual Fitness Schedule (PDF)

• My Day 8 Devotions (MS Word)

• My Day 8 Devotions (PDF)

Love ya, Tim

Exciting Things Happening!

Hey,

I’m sorry I’m late on this today; the sermon just needed major surgery (would you rather read my blog in the morning and have an hour sermon?)

Thanks for your prayers for Rachel. She is moving into the permanent campus house on Monday so hopefully she’ll get her schedule figured out and be able to blog more. Here it is if you want to follow it. Rachel's blog

I wish you could know all the cool things going on. I’ll attach you a picture of Anolita who finally – after two years – is here to live with the Hirsh’s from Haiti. God is good!

We’ve had two vision dinners to prepare for our “Great Investment” capital campaign and they went really well. The excitement is building for what God is going to do through this place.

We really had a ton of people here last weekend so we’re on track to continue to need more space for those on the “outside.”

PLEASE come tonight – or at least shuttle tomorrow. We had people drive in and not be able to park and leave again. Don’t take their place!

I love you all, it’s going to be a powerful weekend – don’t miss it.

Tim

Here is my devotional for today. Download train_devotional_day_six.pdf

Please Let Them In!

Hey everyone – guess what? We need you to move to Saturday or Shuttle.

It’s crazy I know. You’ve never heard me say that before. Looks like there still are some people left out there who need a church home and unfortunately this past weekend at the 11 service we had 30 cars illegally parked and we had several cars drive into the lot – look around – not find a spot – and leave.

Please – that kills me. Let them in! Come on Saturday night or ride the shuttle. We had almost 4500 people this weekend and it was still the end of break.

If I can do 6 Christmas Eve services, you can shuttle!

Tim

P.S. – Attached is Day 4, hope your TRAINing is going well. Download tim_day_four.pdf

Unrest in Kenya...

First of all, I had every intention of putting up my devotions today for Day 3 of our 28 Day Workout. (I won't be putting up my devotions every day, but will do so often.) If you didn't get to hear last weekend's sermon on Spiritual Fitness, visit our sermon archive page and give a listen!

However, my good intentions we're foiled by an ongoing conspiracy that my computer has against me. When I went to post today's devotions, the file was nothing more than a blank page. Can you say "frustrating?"

I hope you're finding your workout to be beneficial...I pray that all of Parkview is training hard! Check back soon and I'll try again to share what God's put on my heart.

Now onto some important news from Kenya.

As many of you know, Parkview has partnered with CMF International to sponsor hundreds of children in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Kenya is in a state of civil unrest as a result of the tensions surrounding the presidential elections that were held on December 27. The tensions are not only between political parties and candidates, but have broken out into more widespread, violent clashes between different tribal groups. This unrest impacts the people that our missionaries love and work with, especially the urban poor in the slums of Nairobi. Because of the riots, work and business have essentially halted. Day laborers have no reserve food or fuel, and they need your prayers during this difficult time. (*Taken from CMF International homepage, cmfi.org.)

For more information, visit www.cmfi.org.

Parkview in 2008

As we begin this New Year, I’ll be preaching this weekend on “Spiritual Training,” about the importance of what Paul told Timothy,

1 Timothy 4:7b-8, “Train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.”

I’m going to be blogging some of my own journaling through the process I teach in church this weekend – so pay attention to this if you want to do it with us.

We’re attaching Sunday’s on here. Download day_1_devotional.pdf

What does the New Year look like for Parkview?

Well, with another 20% growth it means we have a lot of work to do to keep up. What a deal. I have to tell you the 20% growth at Christmas Eve really surprised me, I didn’t think it was going to keep happening. It’s freaking me out for Easter. But that’s another story.

2008 will bring more people that need a place to worship and park and put their kids. It will take Parkview into two locations instead of one as we plant another site in Lockport. It will bring more opportunity and responsibility for missions and helping others outside our church.