Following Christ, being on mission, and impacting others demands a careful spirit.

People are easily offended.

We all are.

Egos are sensitive.

We can balk at this or we can embrace it as reality and decide to operate with great care when interacting.

In this week’s message, we continue our Unstoppable series about the early church by looking at two exchanges the Apostle Paul had, as described in the beginning verses of Chapter 23.

Both of these exchanges serve as interesting examples of human interaction.  The first paragraph in verses 1-5, Paul acts out of principle.  The second paragraph in verses 6-10 the Pharisees act out of preference.

Principle vs Preference, an eternal dilemma. The way Paul handles it serves as an example for all of us. I hope you enjoy this week’s message at http://woodside.tv.

We are excited by Easter week services on the Internet Campus.

Easter commemorates the greatest day in human history. The Empty Tomb speaks of an all-powerful God and the story from Luke 24 that we study this week tells us that Jesus meets us where we are. As Jesus appeared before his two followers on the Road to Emmaus that day we are reminded that no matter where we are on our spiritual journey, he is willing to open our eyes to the truth of his presence.

He is Risen!

It’s our prayer that many who don’t attend church would find us online this week and hear the story of God’s love.

Please help us spread the word. The schedule of our interactive online services are available at woodside.tv.

May you and your family have a wonderful Easter!

Oh, the webs we weave.

I’m talking about the World Wide.

I am daily amazed at the speed with which information travels, the bonds that can quickly develop and the relationships that are formed.

As we’ve had the Woodside Internet Campus going for 18 months now, there is hardly a place in the world we haven’t touched.

And it all is woven together by not just our Woodside.tv website, but our Facebook and Twitter accounts, too.

Connections.

I just started using a new app from computerized engine Wolfram Alpha  that does a remarkable analysis of my personal connections on Facebook. It shows 61.6 percent are male, 38.4% female.

Of them all, 17.3% are single, 57% in a relationship and 73.5% married. My oldest Facebook friend is 87, the youngest 14.

The most distant and southern most of my Facebook friends lives in Adeliade, Australia. The most northern in North Pole, Alaska.

Of my 2,084 friends, almost 1,200 are interconnected to other friends of mine besides me.

I can use the analysis to track what time most friends are online, what days of the week are most active and scores of other bits of data that convinces me that the Internet is so vast and yet personal that, like the universe itself, I will never get my mind around it.

Yet, lost in the massive amounts of data, is the bigger picture.

God knows each one of us so well that he could tell us the exact numbers of hairs on our head.

And every one of us matter to Him.

As we use our Internet Campus and our interconnected social networks to reach the world, I thank God for this technology and ask that each of our Internet Campus volunteers never loses sight of the fact that every login and interaction on our website is orchestrated by God.

They may be virtual friends to us.

But to God, they are his treasured creations. May we be used by Him to point all those who visit us to His Son.

Scripture tells us that we who follow Christ are called Friends of God.

That’s better than any Facebook friendship.

Thank you, LifeChurch.TV:
“Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God. Don’t lord it over the people assigned to your care, but lead them by your own good example. And when the Great Shepherd appears, you will receive a crown of never-ending glory and honor.” – 1 Peter 5:2-4 (http://bible.us/116/1pe.5.2-4.nlt)

If there was ever a doubt about how materialistic and self indulgent we Americans are as a culture, take a look at the video below that has a group of Haitians read Tweets posted with the “#FirstWorldProblems” hashtag.

The hashtag #FirstWorldProblems, of course, is supposed to be parody, used ironically, to indicate to readers that the person complaining about being unable to remember the last name of their maid is, indeed, really aware of how good they have it.

But those Tweets, irony or not, do show the vast gulf that exists between the world’s haves and have-nots.

And when we hear and see the Haitians read them our self indulgence is exposed for what it is.

The video is a public service ad, aimed at helping bring clean water to the people of Haiti and other third world places.

But for those of us who take technology for granted and the ease by which we live, it should make us realize that for those who have been given much, much is required.