Tiger's Game

Here are some pictures of us at the Tigers Game. Obviously at the Big Boy Resturant in the Park.

Don't worry it's only a statue! (I think!) I wonder how many people tried to get a picture with this dude?

When in Rome...wear a Tiger's cap...but only backwards. (Sorry METS!)

All in all there were 50 of us in attendance that day and we had a great time and only missed White Castles by three blocks (Thanks Jason, sorry Carl).

ET Ramblings...

(GAPP) Youth Room is Finished - Michigan

The youth room is finished thanks to the trustees and David Engle. We are ready to rock the gates of Heaven with worship tonight from 6pm to 8pm.



Here is David in the sound booth!

Sound booth and snack bar:

Come and hear us worship : Come and fill me up

You're worthy of my praises

More love more power

Holiness

The Message: Life in the Spirit - The Joy Filled Life (John 15)

The colors OF THE WALL are actually COOL: Maroon and Blue...

Et Ramblings

Michigan house needs to GO!!!!

One Month...Two Months?????

We have opened the pool and are ready for our last couple of weeks in Michigan, however, we need someone to buy our home. We have already lowered the price by $10,000 and would listen to any offer.

Shadow, our dog, is Lovin Summer!

Please pray that God would bring in a buyer or we will have to sell one of our kids to pay the mortgage in Michigan and live in NJ. I am leaving with Peter for NJ around June 12th. Doreen and the kids should meet me later in the week to be in church on Father's Day (Installation Sunday for us). Then Doreen, Peter and Matt will come back to Michigan until we have a place to live in NJ. Me and Brianna will be staying at Doreen's mom's house in PA. God has a plan...

ETRamblings...

PK WEEKEND

This is our annual East Michigan Pastor's Kids retreat weekend so Peter and Brianna are off to a destiny unknown with other PK's. Last year they went to a Tigers Game and then had devotionals.

Matthew, Doreen and I opened the pool in an overcast day and it was not as bad as last year!

We went to eat at Texas Roadhouse ("NY STRIP"...STEAK BABY!)

and then went to see Shriek 3.

We woke up and Matt was out on the deck

playing with Shadow.

What A day!

Grupido Funeral

Today I am officiating the funeral of Larry Grupido who accepted Christ at the age of 59 on April 29th. I just thought I would praise God for what He has done in chasing Larry and providing Grace for a hurting soul to find rest.

Excerpts from the Funeral Sermon:

Phil 1:21 – “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

When I read this verse I can’t help but think of Larry.

When the Apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church at Phillipi, the circumstances of his life weren’t exactly ideal. He was in prison - under house arrest in Rome – chained to a Roman soldier as his guard. Paul was a prisoner and yet this entire letter shouts with triumph. In 2 Corinthians 4:16 - 5:10, Paul tells us “do not lose heart, though our outer man is decaying . . ."

Here is the threat he is dealing with:
· His body--"the outer man"--is decaying; it is wearing out.
· He can't see the way he used to. He can't hear the way he used to.
· He does not recover from beatings the way he used to.
· His strength walking from town to town does not hold up the way it used to.
· He sees the wrinkles in his face and neck.
· His memory is not as good.
· His joints get stiff when he sits still.
· In other words, he knows that he, like everybody else, is dying. His outer man is decaying.

That's the threat to his courage and joy.

Although diagnosed on August 2005, Larry lived the last couple of months of his life a prisoner in a body that was filled with sickness – eventhough he asked WHY? He never really complained. He showed an appreciation of his loving, caring wife, ever protective of his children and trying to understand this God that he now believes in.

Ill: 1980’s Triathlon, Julie Moss (swim 19 miles, cycle 100 mi, run 26 mi). She was leading by over seven minutes when she hit a wall and colapsed. She fell again within ten yards of the finish line and crawled accross the finish line in second place.

A writer once wrote: Intense is the agony when the eye begins to see, the ear begins to hear, the heart begins to pound and the fact that the soul can feel the flesh and the flesh can feel its chains.

On April 29th, Larry walked the isles at our church and accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior by faith! I quoted Romans 10 and he took communion and said to me “ I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.” He asked me to come and talk to him about this God that he now believes in but does not know. He had questions!

He was a doer! He felt if he was a good person that that would be enough. I shared with him about the godliest person I ever read about “Mother Teresa” She admitted that she had mistakes in her life and had not treated some people the way she should have and needed the Cross of Jesus to make up for the gap between her and a holy God. Same with Bi8lly Graham.

He said he felt like a hypocrite, but I assured him that god had been chasing him all his life (Like He cahsed Adam and Eve). He said how can I believe in Jesus if I have not been with him. The early apostles wrote about Jesus but they were with him. I told Larry that God had been showing him unconditional love through his wife who had been faithfully praying for him since they met as young teenagers.

He also said that He did not understand why he was sick. He thought he had done something wrong in his life. That is why I chose 2 Cor 4:11 - 5:10 as the scripture today.

He loved his children the most and wanted His kids to love him.

I can hear Larry now saying Ed, make it quick! In the end, Larry chose God’s plan for the gap between him and a holy God.

...His wife of 37+ years said "The last 3 weeks of His life were the best three weeks of our marriage!" Praise God!!!

ET RAMBLINGS...

MEMORIES OF MICHIGAN (EXCERPTS FROM MY ANNUAL REPORT)

Leaving CWC was a hard decision but one that has been confirmed by God in both my and my wife’s spirit. I will never forget the love and kindness shown to our family from the first day I came to Michigan. I have learned and grown in my walk with God as both a follower and a leader.

I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve learned here. Being on staff here for five years has felt like getting a Doctorate in ministry! I feel that I have been the one who has been developed. My heart goes out to the staff and the church people for their investment in me and allowing me to invest in them.

I will miss the teens the most! Memories of smelly teens, weird hair, attitudes, yearning for love and understanding, looking for someone who cares, bumming a dollar for a pop, complaining, wild worship, did I say teens are smelly! Overnighters, Jason losing a kid in Indiana, young adults playing with my kids in my home, Delbert trying to rap, trying to talk to Steven McCoy after an all niter, crying with kids when their parents divorce, being the heavy (not the fat guy) the disciplinarian, speaking with parents/police, wishing parents would love and pay attention to their kids, Rita fixing Brianna’s room as she cried, telling teens the truth, messing up and asking for forgiveness, WHITE CASTLES double cheeseburgers, praying with Rod, the look in a teens eyes when they get it, the look in their eyes when they don’t get it, pure excitement to know God, getting Ordained, praying in nursing home with a 75 year old man to accept Jesus for the first time, the way teens want and need adults to mentor them and give them boundaries, teens embracing holiness and being with God, teens yelling “Pastor Ed…Dude” in the school hallway, having science teachers mad at me about creation questions, worship on the Romeo Peach Parade float, watching Janise standing on the counter aka “The Evangelism Linebacker”, Baptisms at Stony Creek, watching Dan and Riley play video games during a message, knowing Kristy will be fashionably late due to Belizean time, swimming in the mud at Wesleyan Woods, seeing Jason Fullum and Peter healed before our eyes, doing the Hokie Pokie in the office, feeding the homeless in Detroit, prayer and fasting, thanking God that Ruth finally will change her last name, working alongside teens in Pontiac and hanging with the Discipleship group! Having Cheri yell at me, that sweet feeling when you connect spiritually and musically with Larry Whitcomb on the Guitar, seeing Kris Johnson serve and worship, seeing friends rise above the hurt, GRACE, how I hate country music (thanks Jason Bailey), slapping Jacob Haupt and Austin Stulz in the back of the head, seeing close to 400 people accept Christ in five years, dodge ball, Kylasaurus and Cubasaurus (enough said), meeting Jon in the emergency room (over and over again), getting thrown out of the hospital, Gibbie’s broken arm…ouch, Peter’s ability to remind me what God saved me from, Brianna’s innocent heart, Matthew’s slick smile, Doreen’s strength and watching God show up and save the day over and over again! I pray God never takes these out of my memory.

In all, I pray that CWC continues to obey God!

“But your hearts must be fully committed to the Lord our God, to live by His decrees and commands…”1 Kings 8:61

God wants our Obedience…Not our Opinion!

ET rambalings...

Christian Missionaries Killed!

IZMIR, TURKEY — When Necati Aydin accepted Jesus his Muslim family rejected him. His boldness as a pastor led him to pass out Bibles in villages throughout eastern Turkey – and two trips to jail based on fabricated charges. After he played the role of Jesus in a passion play, he shared in the Lord’s sufferings and untimely death.
Aydin, 35, was one of three men martyred for their faith on April 18 in the city of Malatya, following a gruesome attack that involved several hours of torture partially recorded on their young assailants’ cell phones. Also killed was a 46-year-old German missionary, Tilmann Geske, who was preparing notes for a new Turkish study Bible.
The third victim, Ugur Yuksel, 32, also arrived that bloody morning for what he thought was a Bible study at the offices of Zirve Publishing. Zirve prints and distributes Bibles and other Christian literature throughout Eastern Turkey. As early as February 2005, a local newspaper warned that Zirve was under threat due to its activities.
Ugur YukselAydin felt the sting of rejection from his earliest moments as a believer. His family —staunchly Muslim — rejected him outright after his conversion. Disheartened that he married a Christian, they failed to attend his wedding. True to their convictions, they even rejected him in death and refused to attend his funeral.
“He was a very gentle man, very committed to the Lord,” recalls a long-time friend from his former church in Izmir. “He knew what it was like to love the Lord and put his life on the line.”
Chosen to play Jesus in a passion play at his church in 1999, he jumped at the chance, but the production faced obstacles. Local police conducted a mass arrest of the entire church a few months before the play began. “They said we were meeting illegally,” recalls one church member. While the church prevailed in the ensuing court case, police sealed-off the church, and no one could meet there for three months.
When they finally put on their first performance, the seats were jammed, and word about the successful production spread to other churches.
Tilmann & Susanne Geske & family
The following year, a church in Ankara requested the play. A month before it was set to begin, police arrested Aydin a second time, as a result of his Bible distribution efforts. Local authorities held him for a month on charges that he defamed Islam and “forcibly” sold Bibles. Finally, police released him after several accusers confessed they fabricated the charges.
The passion play moved to Istanbul in 2001, and this time it was filmed, with the video informally distributed to other churches throughout Turkey. The cast of 40 – mostly Turkish believers – knew this could be costly for them. Indeed, as their own video equipment recorded the event for church use, the secret police were also there filming the participants.
“He was not hiding his face,” recalls Fikret Bocek, pastor of the Izmir Protestant Church, and a close friend of Aydin’s. “He was open and courageous about sharing his faith,” he says. “Aydin was receiving threats in Malatya from ultra-nationalists and Islamists for distributing Bibles.”
Widows Susanne Geske & Shemsa AydinAydin became the pastor of the Malatya Protestant Church after he moved there from Izmir in 2003. Its 22 members met mostly in his living room, according to Bocek. Of these, eleven left Malatya after the killings, he said.
Malatya is far-removed from the cosmopolitan, European influence of Istanbul. Nationalistic and religious passions form a turbulent undercurrent in Malatya, which is also the hometown of Mehmet Ali Agca, who attempted to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981.
In 2001, the political climate throughout Turkey changed after the National Security Council made statements implying that Evangelical Christians posed a threat to national security. A campaign began in the media, as leading commentators and politicians railed against missionaries who “bribed” young people to abandon Islam.
Entering this poisonous atmosphere were a group of impressionistic teens who joined a group of “faithful believers” in Malatya known as a tarikat. “Tarikat membership is highly respected here ; it’s like a fraternity membership,” notes Darlene Bocek, the pastor’s wife, in a letter she sent out about the killings. “In fact, it is said that no one can get into public office without membership in a tarikat.”
Two of the assassins from the tarikat feigned interest in Christianity to gain the trust of Aydin and Geske, and even attended an Easter service some weeks before their crime.
The autopsy report has not been released, but various reports describe anywhere from 16 to 156 knife wounds as gruesome confirmation of their torture. The Turkish Daily News quoted Dr. Murat Uğraş, a spokesman for the Turgut Özal Medical center. He described the hospital surgeons’ fruitless efforts to save Yüksel, the only one barely clinging to life when he arrived at the hospital.
“He had innumerable scores of knife wounds,” Dr. Ugras said. “It is obvious that these wounds had been inflicted to torture him," he said. “His fingers were repeatedly sliced to the bone lengthwise. His buttocks, his testicles, his rectum, his lower and middle back had dozens of cuts. There was a very long and open cut on his neck from ear to ear.”
When Aydin’s wife arrived at the morgue to identify her husband, the attending official urged her not to remove the sheet covering his body from the neck down. “You don’t want to remember him that way,” she was told.
Despite Aydin’s sufferings, his face had a beautiful expression — frozen at his passing — as if he beheld heaven’s open embrace.
In a culture marked by an endless cycle of revenge killing, German missionary Tilmann Geske’s wife, Susanne, shocked many Turkish commentators when she offered the grace and forgiveness of Jesus Christ to the perpetrators. In one of her first statements to the press she quoted Jesus on the cross, saying to surprised reporters, “Oh God, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Pastor Bocek affirms this attitude. “Overall, the reaction in our church is forgiveness,” he says. “There really is not fear, but a little more caution in the way we bring people to church. We already feel we are ready for whatever comes. We continue to evangelize, do our Bible studies, and have prayer.”
He sees evidence that God is already turning this horrible offense around for good. “Over the last 10 days, we’ve had four commitments to follow Christ,” he notes. Even a Jewish man in Jerusalem received word of the Turkish martyrs, contacted Pastor Bocek, and gave his life to Christ. “They didn’t die in vain,” he says. “God is really going to use this event. We all sense that something is coming.”


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THIS IS HAPPENING TODAY!~

ARE WE READY!

ETRAMBLINGS...

Home Plate 2007

For the 21st consecutive year, SCORE Ministries and Baseball Chapel for the Detroit Tigers hosted an exciting outreach event called HOME PLATE on Saturday, April 28
The program included an autographed baseball give-away, souvenirs, and most importantly, the sharing of salvation in Jesus Christ through the personal testimonies of several professional athletes.
Program participants included: Detroit Tiger pitchers Mike Maroth, Todd Jones, Jason Grilli, and Nate Robertson, Tiger outfielder Marcus Thames, Tiger first baseman Sean Casey, Tiger coach Andy Van Slyke, Tiger broadcasters Rod Allen, and former Detroit Tiger Frank Tanana. Each person clearly explained when he trusted Christ and shared Scripture as part of his testimony. To close out the program, former Detroit Tiger pitcher Frank Tanana boldly and compassionately shared Gods plan of salvation.

8,020 people representing 258 groups from Michigan, Ohio, Ontario, and Pennsylvania participated in HOME PLATE 2007.

134 people indicated making a decision to receive Jesus Christ as Savior (62 adults, 44 teens, 28 children).

1,320 people indicated making a decision to renew their dedication to live for Christ (820 adults, 340 teens, 160 children).

ET Ramblings...

YOU HAVE RIGHTS!

YOU HAVE RIGHTS!

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

2 Peter 2:9


We are Sons and Daughters of the King, a Chosen Generation, A royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a people belonging to God and when you are the king’s kid you have superior rights, when someone infringes on those rights they literally have offended the King Himself. In history, if the King didn’t invite you into their presence you could not appear before them or else it was death that you faced. When the devil infringes upon you, he has done so without permission from the King and therefore must be put to death. You have the RIGHT to put that devil to death in your life because you are a Chosen Generation, A royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a people belonging to God.

STOP being violated by the Devil, Know your Rights:

1. You have the right to have life and life more abundantly.

2. You have the right to Praise the Lord.

3. You have the right to be Healed.

4. You have the right to be delivered.

5. You have the right to eternal life.

6. You have the right to be more than conquerors.

7. You have the right to be called the Sons & Daughters of God.

8. You have the right to be FREE.

When you understand your rights then the devil will not be able to make mince-meat out of you anymore. Remember you are a Chosen Generation, A royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a people belonging to God...ET Ramblings