Munger Old Testament Parking Lot Campout

September 12, 2021 by Andrew Forrest in Munger

This is going to be fun: we are going to do a campout in the Munger parking lot inspired by an Old Testament holiday. Seriously.

Sukkot

The Festival of Tabernacles (also called the Festival of Booths) was “one of ancient Israel’s three giant annual feasts, celebrated in autumn” (from The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary). Every fall, the Israelites would build temporary shelters (or “booths” or “tabernacles”) and live in them for a week to remind them that when they came out of Egypt, they lived in tents on their way to the Promised Land. (See Leviticus 23:33-43.) In Hebrew, the word for a single shelter is a sukkah—plural sukkot—so the holiday was called Sukkot in Hebrew. (Pronounced “soo-COTE”.)

It’s such a cool holiday: every year you get to stay outdoors with your family in a shelter you build and be reminded that all of life is temporary, but that you are heading toward the Promised Land.

(Did you know that Jesus celebrated the Festival of Tabernacles? Read about it in John 7.)

Sukkot observance in modern-day Jerusalem.

Sukkot in Nehemiah

The Festival of Tabernacles is one of the holidays that Nehemiah and Ezra got the returned exiles to observe in 445 BC—you can read about it in Nehemiah 8:13-18.

The Munger Old Testament Campout

Since we’re really into Biblical literacy at Munger, and since 2021 has been such a downer, we though it would be fun to do a campout at Munger as a way to make the connection to what we read in the Bible. That’s the whole point: something fun.

When: 6 PM Friday, September 17 to 9 AM Saturday, September 18.

Where: The Munger main parking lot. Campsites are every other parking space around the perimeter of the lot. We’ll keep the center of the lot free so folks have lots of room to spread out and leave plenty of space for hanging out, fire pits, etc. Church bathrooms will be open, but the entire event will take place outside. Pray for good weather!

Cost: Free! And we’ll provide dinner Friday and breakfast Saturday.

What to Bring: Tent/sleeping bags/chairs, etc—basically whatever you want to bring to make yourself comfortable. Bring your own fire pit and wood, s’mores, games, etc. Because Sukkot was also about hospitality, bring stuff to share with another family. Who knows?

Who’s Invited: Anyone who wants to come! If you’re not a camper, so what? You’ll never have an easier camping experience. All ages.

What About Security? We’ll have a police officer on site all-night.

What’s the Program? I’ll teach a brief family-friendly Bible study lesson on Friday evening and lead a brief morning prayer time on Saturday morning. Otherwise, we hope folks just hangout and play games and have fun. Think of it as a giant tailgating experience. We’ll set up our Gaga pit, 9-Square-in-the-Air, and other outdoor games, but bring whatever you have that seems like fun.

Register Here:

So we know how much food to order, please register here.

This is going to be fun, and we all need some more fun these days.

Are you in?

P.S. Watch this movie beforehand

Jake Porter on our staff lent me the DVD of this movie several years ago. It’s an Israeli movie called Ushpizin (“the Guests”) that’s about what happens to one family celebrating Sukkot in modern Jerusalem.

The movie is available to rent for $2.99 on Amazon Prime. It’s probably a bit over the heads of little kids, but I’d recommend it for middle-school aged kids and up. I just watched it again and really like it.

Munger Old Testament Parking Lot Campout

September 17, 2020 by Andrew Forrest in Munger

This is going to be fun: we are going to do a campout in the Munger parking lot inspired by an Old Testament holiday. Seriously.

Sukkot

(Did you know that Jesus celebrated the Festival of Tabernacles? Read about it in John 7.)

Sukkot in Nehemiah

The Festival of Tabernacles is one of the holidays that Nehemiah and Ezra got the returned exiles to observe in 445 BC—you can read about it in Nehemiah 8:13-18.

The Munger Old Testament Campout

Since we’re reading through Nehemiah, and since 2020 has been such a downer, we though it would be fun to do a campout at Munger as a way to make the connection to what we’re reading. That’s the whole point: something fun.

When: 6 PM Friday, October 2 to 9 AM Saturday, October 3.

Cost: Free! And we’ll provide dinner Friday and breakfast Saturday.

Who’s Invited: Anyone who wants to come! If you’re not a camper, so what? You’ll never have an easier camping experience. All ages.

What About Security? We’ll have a police officer on site all-night.

Register Here:

So we know how much food to order, please register here.

This is going to be fun, and we all need some more fun these days.

Are you in?

P.S. Watch this movie beforehand

Ushpizin (roughly translated to "holy guests"), is a revelatory and humorous look at the daily lives of ultra-Orthcdox Jews in modern-day Israel. Disarmingly...

Let Us Rise Up and Build

September 11, 2020 by Andrew Forrest in Munger

Friends, it’s time to rebuild.

If ever there were a time for rebuilding, it is now:

It’s time to rebuild our lives;
It’s time to rebuild our families;
It’s time rebuild our communities;
It’s time to rebuild our country.

This pandemic has been apocalyptic in the sense that it has been revealing, and what what’s been revealed about us has been ugly. There is a lot of work to do.

And yet, I can tell you that I personally have more energy for the season ahead than I can remember having before.

Let me tell you how I got here.

(And share some pictures from our summer.)

43 Weeks Straight

Every spring, it’s the same: by the end of May I find myself getting weary and worn out from preaching.

The pattern I generally follow is to take summers off and then basically preach every Sunday during the school year. For example, I preached a sermon every week from August 18, 2019 through June 7, 2020—43 weeks straight!

The hardest thing about preaching—by far—is doing it every week. No matter how good last week’s sermon was, you start at zero at 6 PM every Sunday evening. After a while of preaching every week, you find that you have nothing to say worth hearing.

After 43 weeks straight, I needed a break.

This year, of course, we had the added stress of a worldwide pandemic this spring, so I really needed a break.

Summer Break 2020

One of the many great things about Munger is how kind our folks are to me and my family. When we leave town for the summer, no one complains (at least to my face!); folks understand that if I am going to be in the pastoral ministry for the long haul, I need to pace myself. The most important thing I have to offer as a leader is my energy, and if I don’t steward my energy well, I have nothing to offer.

And so we pulled out of town on July 2 and returned back into town on August 13, exactly 6 weeks later. 5,500 miles! Now that’s a road trip, Clark.

But Wherever You Go, There You Are

We were in beautiful places this summer—from the Outer Banks of North Carolina to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and we spent time with family.

And yet, wherever you go, there you are.

Just because I was in beautiful places with people who love me didn’t mean that I was immediately renewed and on fire for the task ahead—I was still carrying my worries and frustrations with me. About halfway through our summer break, I was feeling pretty discouraged and not looking forward to coming back to Dallas. In prior years, we’ve been excited to get back to church, but this year, there was no church to get back to, at least not in the normal sense, and so I was dreading coming back—like so many other people, I was sick and tired of the changes the pandemic has placed in my life.

Lifeguard Stand Prayer

One of the places we went this summer was to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was clear that I needed God to give me a sense of hope and direction for the future, and so I got up early every morning and walked down to the beach and sat in the lifeguard stand, read my daily psalm, and prayed.

Let Us Rise Up and Build

After a couple of days of lifeguard stand prayer—”Lord, give me something!”—I felt really drawn toward the story of rebuilding in Ezra-Nehemiah. “That’s what we need to be about!” My wife had the idea of pulling a small group of folks together in the Munger sanctuary so I could have some friendly faces to preach to, to make things are normal as possible. It all seemed good.

I know it sounds like a Sunday school story, but it’s true: after a few weeks of committed prayer, I felt like I had a new fire for the future and a clear direction in which to walk.

“Let us rise up and build.”

(That’s from Nehemiah.)

I decided that in the immediate future, my task is to (re)build, and inspire others to do the same.

I couldn’t wait to get back home and get to work.

“This Was Filmed In Front of a Live Studio Audience”

So, for the past 4 Thursdays, I’ve filmed my sermon in front of a small “studio audience” in our church sanctuary, and it has been so life-giving to me!

The story of Ezra-Nehemiah is fascinating and filled with wisdom, and I think we can learn a lot from the stories of those great men about what it will take to rebuild in our own time.

#1 “When You Can’t Figure Out What God is Up To” [August 23]

#2 “Even the Swiss Family Robinson Got This Right” [August 30]

#3 “What If You Don’t Want What You Think You Want?” [September 6]

“When God Needs To Change You Before He Changes Your Circumstances” [Coming 9/13]

Will You Join Me?

Starting this Monday, September 14, at Munger we’ll be reading through the book of Nehemiah (more info to come—this past Wednesday we finished up reading through all 150 psalms! ); I’m continuing to preach through the book (last night’s sermon really got me fired up).

I hope you’ll join me in reading and I hope you’ll watch any sermons you’ve missed—we are releasing each week’s sermon every Sunday morning.

I don’t know when we’ll all be back in church together again, but I know this:

we’re one week closer.

Friends, It’s time to rebuild.

Who’s in?

P.S.

I took this picture at church 2 weeks ago as I was getting ready to lead evening prayer. Something about it just gives me hope.