Irrespective of how wonderful and powerful your lent was or wasn’t, it’s over. Now, the natural question is: “So, what do I/we do next?” No more reading and reflecting on Purpose Driven Life. Still, I will continue my personal daily devotional practices, which has been my habit for many years. Equally important, EBC, the people I’m privileged to serve and lead, will continue small group meetings, bible studies, weekly worship, sharing our faith, serving the needs of others in the name of Jesus Christ–locally, nationally, and globally, and giving generously and regularly to kingdom causes. In short, we will continue with the everyday business of enjoying and expressing Jesus Christ in life-enriching and life-empowering ways. That’s what we do!

Still, I have this nagging sense that there ought to be something extraordinary which follows Lent. After all, Lent was such a rich and rewarding time which for our church, my family, and me. I want to maintain the spiritual momentum. Therefore, we need to figure out: What’s the next thing we should do to keep us moving upwards and onwards? Recently, the Holy Spirit prompted to review and reflect on the gospels (see Matthew 28, Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 21) the Acts 1. From what I can discern, my expectations are off and should be altered. In every gospel story which describes the aftermath of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the writers show us that the disciples simply spent time with Jesus and each other–and, we can safely surmise, their family and friends, too. Nothing extraordinary! Just the regular, daily rounds and relationships! How anticlimactic! The disciples rode a wild roller coaster ride leading up to and through Holy Week, then they simply waited patiently and expectantly in the line of standard experience for the next mighty move of God. Yep, that’s all! So, let’s follow their lead. Let’s not try to do anything, but rather be teachable and reachable by God in our daily rounds, which is where we will continue to grow up and go on in Christ by simply being invested in community (See John 15). So, for awhile, I’m taking a sabbath from striving to grow. How about you? Can you merely relax in your relationship with Jesus, without seeking to please him but rather just enjoying being with him, both alone and in community?

Although you may not have asked, I anticipated you asking a question about how you can make this Lenten Listening Party work for you. So, here are my tips, which I hope will prove helpful as you struggle “to get your grow on”:

1. Let yourself be lead. Your resistance may be strong at first.  However, surrender control to Christ because victory is to be found in your willingness to be weak and meek before him (see I Peter 5:6-7).

2. Listen to God speak to you on the other side of silence.   Explore the wilderness within you and expect to wrestle with your doubts, destiny, and the demonic (see Luke 4:1-14).  Heed God’s word of truth, irrespective of how unpleasant or difficult, so that you can be freed (see John 8:32).

3. Look for God to send you angels to minister to you.  Expect God to meet you at your point of need, resourcing you with an ample supply of healing and hope, joy and peace, love and mercy.  As you look more and more to God, you will discover that Philippians 4:19 is a promissory check you can cash with God at any time.  

Whether you know it or not, it’s still not to late to join Jesus on this awesome journey to further spiritual discovery and development.  You can be who and what God created you to be if you are willing to start now.  In fact, amend your normal schedule and include some of the spiritual practices of reading and reflecting on the Purpose Driven Life, exploring and applying God’s word in bite-size pieces to your everyday experience, and thereby heightening your awareness of and responsiveness to Christ in every area of your life, personally and professionally.  Equally important, take advantage of some of the structured spiritual growth events which God has made available to you at EBC’s website (http://www.ebcconnects.org/Lenten2012).  If you do so, you will have partnered with God to experience the power of the Holy Spirit reshaping and renewing your life so you can live the life God has for you on purpose with purpose.

May you keep going and growing as you participate in EBC’s Lenten Listening Party. You heard! Peace!

–Pastor Trufant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FHVU3fKhsjI

Wednesday, February 22th, 2012 @ 7:30PM
EBC’s season of purpose begins with our Ash Wednesday Service. Our guest preacher for the evening is Dr. Ralph Douglas West, Senior Pastor of The Church Without Walls, Houston, TX.

Friday, February 24th, 2012 @ 7:30PM
EBC will be celebrating Black History Month with a presentation from the Sacred Arts Ministry (SAM), entitled The Legacy of EBC: 50 Years. Be enlightened as we rediscover and explore the heritage of this great ministry through song, dance and performance.

Saturday, February 25th, 2012 @ 8:00AM
A Day of Service: volunteers will assist several of our community based organizations. For a listing of service projects, please click here.

Sunday, February 26th, 2012 @ 8AM, 10AM & 12:15PM
African Diaspora Sunday: Rev. Brenda Harewood, Executive Director of the Lott Carey Convention’s Pastoral Excellence Program, will be our guest preacher at all 3 services. Come dressed for the occasion wearing attire that reflects your family’s place of origin or the worship service you will be attending.

8:00AM Service: Southern States
10:00AM Service: Caribbean
12:15PM Service: African

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This is the best packaged pasta in the world, gluten-free or not! But let’s show not tell: Specimen A: I am not gluten free, in fact, I crave gluten. I am that annoying person who has to have gluten at every meal, who claims that xanthan gum gives her a stomach ache, who snorts vital wheat gluten flour. Specimen B: My boyfriend won’t ever touch my healthy whole wheat pasta. No matter how creamy and dreamy the sauce, he always insists that the pasta tastes “wheaty.” But we both adore Ancient Harvest Quinoa Pasta! Especially the linguine. There’s something about it that actually tastes like homemade al dente semolina pasta. It’s got a really great bite and the taste is neutral enough not to have a 70s healthfood after taste, but also flavorful enough that it does add something delicious to the meal. I can’t recommend this stuff enough!

he release notes mention only .exe and .msi files as being covered, but the developers offer hope that this will be extended over the course of 2012. An earlier version touted improvements in malware-blocking, but other browsers still beat Chrome’s capabilities.

“Remember, no technical mechanism can ever protect you completely from malicious downloads. You should always be careful about which files you download and consider the reputation of their source,” said Google developer Dominic Hamon.

In other words, the effectiveness of the technology will always depend on the ability of the central Safe Browsing system to quickly detect which domains are suspect, and that’s never going to be perfect.

The feature will also be able to block downloads from domains identified as being sources of malicious files, which covers legitimate domains that have been hijacked to host malware.

The benefit of the new security layer is to protect against files the user agrees to download without realising the danger in doing so, a common element of many fake antivirus programs to pick one scenario.

The Chrome 17 beta also shows off the software’s new address bar which will in some cases be able to start loading web pages before the full address has been entered.