Happy birthday, sister!!!!

A very awesome birthday to our lovely lady, Mrs Kiki KaoooooOOOOOOOOOooo!!!!

May God bless you and your family!

'Hooray for food, good company, laughter and memories!

Another lesson in Matthew

First off, thank you to Kiki and Marina for the taco/burrito fiesta! yummalicious! Secondly, a very happy (and now, belated) birthday to Arthur! (wooot!).

This week we studied Matthew 7: 1-6:

1"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

6"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

We discussed what it meant to judge others. "Judging" implies putting yourself in a higher position of others and pointing out how bad that person is versus "rebuking" in love which points out the sin or the wrong action that's taken.

We noted that we always make mistakes, we are not sinless-- but does that mean we should never rebuke others to avoid being hypocrites? I hope not! I feel like this passage is a reminder to be careful when we rebuke others. Do so in love, always!

Announcements:

November 19 (Wednesday) -- NO SMALL GROUPS

November 21 (Friday) -- LSFG LARGE GROUP. Bowling. Let me or Marina know if you need more info. Pebbles activity.

Week of November 23-29 -- HUDDLES!!! Quarterbacks-- please work with your groups to come up with what you will be donating to for Harvest of Hope. Remember, there is matching involved. This is a great opportunity to bring some hope into people's lives around the world. Contact Bonnie for more info.

October 31st (Halloween)

Happy Halloween, friends!

What a great time to hang out and enjoy each other's company.

Be safe! --and see you at the next small group!

Reminder of upcoming events!

October 31, 2008: Halloween!
@Ben and Marina's club-house.
time-- 7:00pm
other info-- there will be food and dessert! come in your best costume!

November 2, 2008: Operation Christmas Child
@Crowne Plaza Hotel after service
Bring shoe boxes, $7 and toys for a girl or a boy. We'll wrap together and pray over the gift.

First week of November: HUDDLES!
Meet with your huddles groups. Your huddles lead should contact you regarding when and where.

Matthew 6: 25-34 Do not worry.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Thanks to Ben and Vincent for cooking their delicious salmon and veggie dinner! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture but that's because it disappeared before I had time to bust out my camera! ;p

At this small groups we tried something a bit new-- ice breakers!

"What is one blessing you can share this week?"

Some people shared their victory in condo and apartment cleaning! Another shared a prayer answered after years of keeping the faith! And yet another shared a victory at work. Thanks for sharing!

This time around we talked about what it means to worry. The Bible tells us not to worry because God has us covered! He will provide us with the basic means of life.

Worrying is pointless, not beneficial! We'll end up spending our time in on the problem and fretting instead of working towards solving that problem.

Note verse 33-- this reminds us that we need to seek Him and His kingdom first!--then God will provide. --All things will fall in place.

He knows that we must get overwhelmed, as humans, too, as he tells us to take things one day at a time in verse 34.

What encouragement!

After the study we shared root beer floats with our birthday boy of the week, Ben!!!! Happy birthday! Thanks for being one cool kat!

Matthew 6:19-24 (Oct 15, 2008)

19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

This evening we talked about treasures--both earthly and heavenly. We discussed the differences between the two. One is perishable, desirable, storable. The other is imperishable, eternal. The problem and danger with earthly treasures is the pride, joy and comfort that comes with it and how it takes away our focus from God and His promise. While money/treasures can be used to further God's kingdom we must be wary of our intentions and not let personal greed tempt us into accumulating wealth for personal gain. Serving wealth is to want more wealth which is used to accumulate more wealth... what a vicious and futile cycle!

We cannot serve two Masters! Choose your adventure wisely, traveller.

Announcements:
- We'll be having ice breakers going forward to get people talking! Don't fret, we won't ask you to solve calculus problems.
- Halloween for SJ is at the clubhouse at Marina/Ben's complex. Dress us and invite some friends. Keep in mind that we can't have too many guests due to space, though!
- Oct 19 (Sunday) = Men's Meat and Greet at Cheasapeake. Contact Sam K. It's a great time to meet people and scarf down on MEAT!
- Oct 19 (Sunday) = Women's card making at Acacia. Contact Yukari. Come and get crafty! We'll be making nifty cards that you'll have a hard time giving away because you'll want to keep them for your own enjoyment!

And now for your enjoyment -- pictures of the food crew!

Thanks to Sam and Justin for cooking up some awesome apple chicken and veggies! MMM MM good!

LSFG - San Jose game night (10.01.08)

This time Jeff and Tak made us yakisoba. mmmmmmm Japanese noodles!
Thanks to the awesome chefs for our delicious meal!












































*******************
************************************************************
**************At this meeting we continued our journey in Matthew 6:9-15:

9"This, then, is how you should pray:
" 'Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.^[a]'
14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.

Matthew shares with us that when we pray it should be real, personal and honest. The old-schoolers of prayer would regurgitate words and called it prayer. It lost it's point. God wants to hear us; He wants us to have a conversation with us. Note that Matthew suggests verses 9-13 as a format to pray, but we do not have to pray this word for word. What's important that we do pray to Him. Recognize that He will always provide for us. And that we should share His love to others.

LSFG - San Jose game night (9.26.08)

This past Friday was Ansel's scheduled monthly activity. Thanks for putting it together! We had a game night at Yukari's place. Will so graciously picked up some select Chinese dishes from "King Eggroll" to satisfy our hunger pains. Afterwards, we played a hilarious round of Cranium. So many jokes and memories.

Thank you, Jesus for such blessings as simple as friends gathering together to share a meal and laughs together. May we continue to strengthen our relationships with our family!

Matthew 6:1-6; 16-18 discussions...

When you fast, pray, share the gospel or serve at church-- what are your intentions and motives?

On our last Bible study we studied how we need to focus on God when we live our lives. The focus should never be "me" centered.

Where is your heart when you do those "church-y" activities?


When you give food or money to the poor are you offended when they complain at your gifts? Remember, the only One you need to please is the Lord. He sees what you're doing even though others won't. So be obedient to Him! :)

Happy Birthday to Yuk!

Happy Birthday Yukari! Thank you for sending out weekly evites and emails to keep LSFG SJ on track! We appreciate all your support and hope this coming year will bring many blessings. Good luck with wedding planning!

P.S. Enjoy your freedom while you can. ;)

LSCC Outdoor Service!

Don't forget everyone, next week, Sunday Sept 14, we're having outdoor service for Sunday worship with sport, BBQ and mayhem, so invite your friends!

Happy Birthday Jeff!

Thanks for all the time and energy you've put into Bible study leading. Hope you had a great birthday and we look forward to sharing this new year with you!

Stats on Divorce Rates

Quick Google Search led me to this site:

http://www.divorcereform.org/rates.html

Basically, it's hard to come up with a single number, unless you really refine the question. Roughly 1 in 5 people will be divorced. If they have multiple divorces, it doesn't show. Roughly 40% of marriages, on a long enough time scale (50 years) will end in divorce. However, you need to look at the number of marriages and their length for this to make sense.

Here's an interesting article on the flawed reasoning behind some of the numbers:

http://www.divorcereform.org/nyt05.html

Leviticus 20:10

Bible Study - August 20, 2008

I hope everyone's been having a good week and had a wonderful time during their huddles. It's important to stay in touch with our brothers and sisters and while it's not imperative to make it relevant to the study we had, I do hope everyone had an opportunity to reflect on the nature of sin and that even our thoughts can betray us, just like Luke Skywalker's did in Return of the Jedi. This week, we'll be studying Matthew 5:31-37. We're going to be talking about divorce as well as oaths and vows (partially related to marriage/divorce). If you get a chance, please read the text ahead of time and come prepared. See everyone on Wednesday!

Huddles!

This week is huddles week! Our huddles met for some good fellowship and sharing and the total annihilation of 2 costco roasted chickens. Delicious!

This is creepy

Nothing like wearing a head on your head. This is the Raider foamhead offering at the NFL store.

Flee from Adultery!

Ansel led us through Matthew 5:27-30 where Jesus explains that sin is not just a matter of the act, but the intent or the heart of the person, which raises the bar for everyone. And given the rather small percentage of Christians with eye patches and hooks for hands (my apologies to any Christians with eye patches or hooks for hands), we're not to take verses 29 and 30 literally, but understand both the difficultly in removing sin from our lives and the gravity of having sin in our lives.

Thanks to everyone for rolling with our new schedule, thanks to Ben for a wonderful worship set and to our wonderful cooks, Sam and Justin for yummy curry! A big thank you to the Mo's for the 6000x growth gifts they brought for the fellowship group. I'll post pics of my dinos when I get a chance. We were able to stop at 9:30 to break up into huddles and pray for one another and for our upcoming retreat this month.

Next week is huddles! Please speak to your quarterback if they haven't spoken to you yet about next week.

Leftovers @ LSFG SJ

This is what we do with leftovers at LSFG SJ. MMMmmmmMmmMmmm....

Fruitpicking in Brentwood

Thanks, James for organizing a fun day of fruit picking! We had a good time picking peaches, plums, and crab apples. Next year, we'll go earlier in the season so that we can get some cherries and strawberries, too. We'll also look for that lollipop tree and, of course, the money tree...

Link to pix:

James' LSFG SJ Activity - Fruitpicking in Brentwood

We're back!

The LSFG San Jose blog is back. Ansel and Yukari are very excited at this announcement. We'll post tidbits of information, Bible study follow up and announcements made in fellowship group so you have a place to get your LSFG:SJ fix.

We will continue to use evite to get head count and as a reminder to everyone, but the blog is back. Be a part of the peanut gallery.