Living with difficult people

This is another part in our exploration of living life in community.

It's usually easy to live with people who are nice and quiet and helpful and loving and who don't eat loud or have smelly feet. Unfortunately that just describes two dimensional paper dolls.

Life and community can't be lived with just paper friends who don't ever offend or hurt you. If you are going to connect at deeper levels, you're going to have to learn what to do when sometimes they are difficult to live with.

Here we explore what it means to get the greater blessing, even when living with, pardon my french, "Stupid People" or people who are just going through a "stupid" phase.


Take a listen.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/Living%20with%20difficult%20people%2064.mp3

Made for Community

I think that if I were to recognize one sort of overarching theme of my life's work, I think it would have to be how passionate I am about community and especially the church as community.

It's amazingly driven into my whole being that we were not made to be alone, and until we can somehow become a part of a community that can know us, and whom we trust and respect and can be vulnerable and intimate with, I think we will just skim along the surfaces of life.

So it's talks like these that get me going.

Here is a talk I gave last Sunday, September 11, 2011 about how we were made to be a part of community.

Remember, the context here is unique and so the references and jokes may not fit where you are, but I hope it just gives you pause to think about the communities you are involved in.

Pastor Randall


Here is the link.


Made for Community

praying for leaders

You'd think that the world has enough poor national leaders who need a swift kick out of office, but Paul seems to say that the way we are to deal with them, is to pray for them, that there might be peace in the land.

Here we talk a bit about prayer in general, and then how we need to focus on prayer for our leaders. Considering the Middle East, and North Africa, and Canada's election right now, perhaps we need to think about our reaction to poor world leaders.

Praying for our Leaders


Sorry about the audio here.

How to pray in hard times.

There are times in life when we pray hard "Lord change my most difficult situation."
When we should possibly be praying, "Lord give me strength to live through this situation."

Perspective. Outlook. Attitude. They all play a part.

And did you know that when you seem weak and limited there is actually more room for God to work powerfully in and through you?

Yep. That's what we talked about this week.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/REFfeb28-1096.mp3

Learning the Art of Loving Well

You know that this loving others business is fine when the person we need to love is, well, not offensive to us. But what happens when they seem just completely unloveable?

A story about Anne Litaker gives us a glimpse into the art of loving and there are some things we can learn from scriptures about ways we can learn the art of loving too.

Take a listen to Feb. 14th's talk on The art of loving well.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/REFfeb14-1096.mp3

Apologies. Again.

Post modern technology has failed us again and the sermon on Sunday didn't record. My apologies for that. I know some of your small groups use them for the group studies during the week.

I have been working on a backup plan for times such as these and I'll try to work on that for a while.


Blessings.

What does a Saviour look like?

Ever wonder what a good saviour looks like?
We took a shot at exploring that last Sunday. From Mrs. Libowitz to a guy running into a burning house, you can relive the moment here:

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/REFjan31-1096.mp3

What happens when Christmas gets Crazy?

Well it took a bit of time but here it is.

Last Sunday pastor Natasha spoke about what happens when things get a bit out of control at Christmas time, and what better options we may have.

Take a listen, there's still time to slow down the mad rush before Christmas arrives.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/natashaDEC13-0996.mp3

What would you do if God came to you and asked you for something big?

In ways he does that to us many times.
Just like in the days of the New Testament, sometimes we respond well, and sometimes we don't.

That's what we were talking about last Sunday morning.


http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refDEC06-0996.mp3

Take a listen.

Cultivating a Rejoicing Heart

Why did Jesus tell stories about celebrations happening when what was lost, was found?

Certainly a few thoughts come to mind, but when he starts to compare the stories of lost things being found to the lost ones among us being found, there is a great celebration that happens.

And there are reasons for the great celebrations that happen.

Take a listen to the last in our series on Just Like Jesus.
Get an glimpse into the future, your future, and check out the celebrations.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refNOV22-0996.mp3

Cultivating a pure heart

The writer of proverbs tells us to guard our heart, for it is the wellspring of life. These days it's sometimes difficult to do just that, with all the different things we see and hear, in real life and the media. St. Paul says we are suppose to take every thought captive and make them obedient to Christ.

Every thought? Every thing that comes at us?
Every idea we think?

Well, yes, and that helps to protect our heart.

But how do we do that?

Last Sunday we took the time to explore that a little bit. Another talk in the series on Just Like Jesus.

Here is the audio.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refNOV08-0996.mp3

Cultivating an Honest Heart

Did you know that one thing the all powerful God cannot do at all, is lie?

Yep. Unable to tell a fib.

And he wants us to be just like Jesus.

That's what we talked about this past Sunday.


http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refNOV01-0996.mp3

Living with difficult people

This week we are exploring what it looks like to actually love people who are hard to love.

We all have people in our lives who are simply a challenge to care for, so what do we do with them and Christ's challenge to love the unloveable?

This Sunday we took a bit of time to explore that challenge.
Check it out.


http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refOCT24-0996.mp3

Developing a worship hungry heart

Worship is more than just singing some songs or praying a bit, there is something that is other-worldly when we meet God on his own ground. It is Holy and amazing and face changing.

Yes, face changing.

When we encounter the living God and our hearts are changed and come alive within us, our faces change too.

This week we talked about how that looks, and what it means to have one's countenance change.


Check it out here:

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refOCT18-0996.mp3

Cultivating a Hope Filled heart

The first message in the series, "Just Like Jesus."

We'll be using these messages as the basis for our small group studies.

This week is on cultivating hope in an often hopeless world.

Listen here,

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refoct11-0996.mp3

Foundations For Living

Last Sunday we talked a bit about what foundations we use for our lives, knowing that strong foundations will help when things get shaky. Good foundations also set the direction and the height of a good building, what do they do for us?


Here is the talk on Foundations for living.

Thinking about forgiveness

I’ve had a couple of people from the area ask if they could get a copy of this talk i gave a couple of weeks ago, so I’ll make it available here.

Some of my words throughout the talk get mixed up and are embarrassing, but the gist of it is real and true, and have been quite helpful for me in the past. Forgiveness is often misunderstood, but when you experience it’s powerful effects in your life, wow it can really help you to be free again.

Anyway, here you go. Thinking about forgiveness.

http://randallfriesen.com/sermons/refJUL5-0996.mp3

Talking about who is the older son

A couple of Sundays ago I was talking about what it meant to be the older son, when the younger son comes back home after partying his life away.

Sometimes we as the church need to be more like the father than the elder son.

You can listen here.

Today's talk

on the mile markers in our lives.
Places where we need to stop and recognize all that we've come through.

Listen here.