I’ve enjoyed sharing my discoveries from the book of Ecclesiastes. I hope all of us are finding more satisfaction with God in life under the sun. So let’s move on and catch up on a few other items.

Free & Clear
Thank you for all who have participated in Free & Clear. Free & Clear is our four year project to eliminate our church mortgage debt with gifts given above regular giving. Every dollar given reduces our mortgage expense by $2.21! We want to be Free & Clear in order to devote more of our resources to direct ministry. As of this week we have received $178,600 - Yahoo! This has already helped us to reduce our debt service from 15% of our budget to 11%. We still have over 4 million dollars to pay off. 89 people have made a commitment to get out of personal debt to be free and clear - YAHOO!

Mother’s Day
We’ll be honoring not just our mothers this weekend, but all women. The Bible is full of stories of women who made a huge difference for God. Our faith rests on the legacies of both great men and women who risked all for God.

No Compromise
After Mother’s Day weekend, we start a new 9 week series called “No Compromise.” This is a study from the book of Daniel. If you have joined us doing the Book of the Month (reading a book of the Bible a month) you might want to consider reading Daniel this month or next. You can see the resource on how to do the Book of the Month on our web site.

Kenya
During Lent, those who participated gave the money they would have spent on whatever they were fasting from to help out our friends in Kenya after the tribal civil war. We sent the money to Bishop Mark Kegohi. He reported that the biggest need they face is food shortages and starvation. The funds we send were applied to helping build a kitchen. The church has decided that it needs to prepare meals for those in greatest need. Mark has noticed that many kids quit going to school in favor of rummaging for food.

Sierra Vista
The Sextons have relocated in Sierra Vista. Hugh is our site pastor there. Jesse Colburn has joined the launch team as the worship leader and associate pastor. They have had 3 significant events to serve the community. Our launch date is set for August 17th. We hope to open with two services with about 400 in attendance. Keep the Pantano Christian Church Sierra Vista team in your prayers.

Toilet Paper
Hugh Sexton calculated the distance of the 2328 rolls of toilet paper we collected and gave to the schools of the 29th Street Corridor. If we stretched out the rolls end to end it would reach from the PCC - Houghton campus all the way to Sierra Vista (70.3 miles). Maybe not a coincidence!

Loving life under the sun;

Glen Elliott
Lead Pastor

Carl Jung (1875-1961), was a Swiss psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology and the first major alternative to Freud. He reported that a third of his clients suffered from no definable neurosis other than the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. He went on to name meaninglessness the general neurosis of the modern era. Not bad Carl!

Solomon, 3000 years ago said it first, under the guidance of the Spirit of God. He said that life under the sun is meaningless (vanity or “vapor”). He also said there’s nothing new under the sun (Eccl. 1:10). Sorry Dr. Jung, you were not the first to observe this.

Yet we know that life is not meant to be meaningless and the message of Ecclesiastes is that it doesn’t have to be meaningless. In fact, satisfaction (the opposite of meaninglessness) is already available to all.

You might have missed a simple word in my last sentence - “already.” Yet in the context of the teaching of Ecclesiastes, happiness or better, satisfaction is already here. Happiness and satisfaction are not things we hope for or strive for, it is something we embrace. God has already given us everything we need for life and for goodness. The blessed life is not future, but a gift given now.

God wants to bless us. He has blessed and wants us to enjoy our food, drink, spouse and work - the simple gifts of God (9:7-10). He wants to bless us so we’ll live a life of happiness and satisfaction in order to bless others! Here’s a simple but powerful equation: unhappiness leads to cursing (not just bad language but sucking life out of others) and satisfaction leads to blessing (enhancing the life of others).

Listen to the words of Thomas Merton: “To live well myself is my first and essential contribution to the well-being of all mankind and to the fulfillment of man’s collective destiny. If I do not live happily myself how can I help anyone else to be happy, or free, or wise? Yet, to seek happiness is not to live happily. Perhaps it is more true to say that one finds happiness by not seeking it. The wisdom that teaches us deliberately to restrain our desire for happiness enables us to discover that we are already happy without realizing it.”

So again the consistent refrain in Ecclesiastes: “A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” (2:24 & 25 - NIV)

Embrace God’s blessings ALREADY here!

Glen