Dear Family,

We are less than two weeks away from Easter. It is the day in which we celebrate the greatest single fact in the history of the universe and that is that Jesus Christ was crucified, was buried, and on the third day rose from the dead and He is alive! What an amazing thing for us to celebrate!

This year we will be having two services at the beautiful CCk:WestCampus located at 15900 SW 56 Street. Service times will be at 9AM and 11AM. There will be an awesome kids program as well. You won’t want to miss this! And you won’t want your friends and family to miss it either. Easter is always a great opportunity to invite folks that normally won’t go to church.

I pray that God would use you to step out with boldness to call and invite everyone that you can think of to join us for one of the services. We have some cool flyers available at the info center for you to hand out. Grab a stack and get to work! I am looking forward to what the Lord is going to do.

Let the lost be found,
pedro

As we keep learning about the apostle Peter, we come to the most tragic incident in his life. But let’s do a little re-cap. Who was Peter? He was the successful fisherman who left his nets to follow Jesus. He was the disciple who recognized Jesus as the Messiah in a powerful confession of faith. And he was the one Jesus called Rock because he would become a building block for the church. Peter was a faithful follower. But there was a time when he faltered, when it looked as if he would not live up to the strong name that Jesus had given him. Just after claiming that he would never desert Jesus, even if it meant he must die, we see Peter at an all-time low. When Jesus was arrested, Peter denied knowing Jesus, not once or twice, but three times.

When Jesus ate his last meal with the disciples, he predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crowed the next morning. Peter protested, saying such a thing would never happen!

As we see in the Scriptures, the next hours were full of turmoil for Peter. He fell asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane after Jesus asked him to stay awake and pray. He saw Jesus arrested and taken away. Peter followed at a distance and was in the courtyard of the building where Jesus was being question. Three times people asked him if he was a follower of Jesus. All three times he denied even knowing Jesus. And then the rooster crowed.

It’s hard to imagine how Peter felt both when he heard the rooster crowed and afterward. We know from the Scriptures that he wept bitterly. We can only imagine the depth of his despair at failing his friend and Lord. Of course, in the following weeks we will see that story does not end there. We will hear Peter declare his love for Jesus, and Jesus will tell Peter to feed and care for his flock. Peter will become the rock after all. And once again we see how Jesus loves us and is ready to forgive our failures.

This week help your children think back to experiences of forgiveness in their own lives. Invite them to celebrate the wonder of God’s forgiveness. Consider ways that you can provide your children with meaningful opportunities to work on God’s behalf.

“We have found the Messiah”. John 1:41

I wanted to invite you to join us this Easter as we celebrate the wonderful promise of eternal life we have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This year we will be celebrating with two services at 9am and 11am at the CCk:WestCampus. You won’t want to miss this! Be sure to invite all your friends and family.

Pick up flyers at the information tables.

The passages in our previous lessons have shown both the devotion and the humanity of Simon Peter. He is devout and passionate. Yet he is also imperfect and without understanding. The lesson this weekend showed the kids the real humanity of Peter, who God used mightily no matter how many times he (Peter) failed.

God chooses us too. God wants us to love and follow Him, even when we make mistakes. In the lesson this weekend, Jesus calls three times for his disciples to pray with him. This was a very important time for Jesus. He knew He had to give up his life as a sacrifice. Jesus didn’t want to be separated from God, but he wanted to do the will of his Father. Jesus asks his beloved disciples, especially Peter, to pray with him to help him in this important time.

Anyone walking in Jesus’ shoes could have used much prayer and support in those final hours. Even as Jesus asked Peter to keep watch, it seemed sleep would instead be Peter’s choice. On three occasions, Jesus pleaded for his followers to keep watch and pray, and on three occasions he found them asleep.

Did this mean that Jesus’ followers were lazy? Well Jesus didn’t think so he says “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” Mark 14:38. And this is the lesson we wanted the kids to learn this week. For children learning the importance of prayer is crucial to their faith development.

This week as you interact with your children, be honest with them about the lesson they learned, but place your focus more on the importance of prayer. Prayer was important enough for Jesus to do it. Prayer was important enough for Jesus to ask his disciples to do it. Take time this week to pray with your children and to let them know that God listens to their prayers.

“We have found the Messiah” John 1:41.

In the last few lessons we have learned about the apostle Peter and we have also explored why we follow Jesus. Jesus is our leader, our Savior, the annointed Son of God. We have learned that Peter followed Jesus with strong devotion, but with occasional lack of understanding. Before we criticize Peter lets realize that he was not unlike any of us. It takes a lifetime to learn of the ways and wisdom of Jesus, all the more reason why we should regularly share God’s love and understanding.

In this weeks lesson we saw how Jesus washed His disciples feet. In our modern, Western culture, we may not see as quickly the significance of washing our feet or especially washing someone else’s feet. We wear shoes and socks and travel on pavement usually on two or four wheels. For most of us, our feet do not get as dirty as often as they did in Jesus’ time. If you walked miles a day on dirt with sandals or bare feet only, you would see what it was like in Jesus’ time.

So back to the lesson, Jesus started washing His disciples feet and this bothered Peter. It wasn’t that Peter’s feet needed washing that bothered him. It was the fact that Jesus the master, would do the work of a servant. Peter loved Jesus. He did not want Jesus to stoop to such a low level.

Peter did not understand what Jesus was doing. He failed to recognize that Jesus was teaching them how to serve others. Jesus saw the importance of serving others. Peter did not understand this at first, but one day he would grow to understand this well when he went into much of the world to make disciples of Jesus.

This week as you interact with your children help them realize the importance of being a helper to others. Caring for others is paramount to following Jesus. Accepting God’s love ia also crucial in following Jesus. God’s love is greater than anything we deserve. As your children grow in the faith and understanding, this can be hard to comprehendand accept. Therefore, encourage your children to accept the fact that God loves them very much even if we cannot easily understand why.

“Anyone who belongs to Christ is a new person. The past is forgotten, and everything is new”. 2 Corinthians 5:17

We wanted to take the time to invite you to our weekend services at Calvary Chapel Kendall. On March 14-15, Dennis Agajanian will be sharing special music with us at all services.

Dennis has been called the fastest flat guitar picker in the world. He has been traveling with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for many years, is a featured performer in the Franklin Graham Festivals, Harvest Crusades, and plays over 200 concerts a year. He has also received ICMA and CCMA top awards multiple times.

You won’t want to miss this! Be sure to invite all your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you!

Dear Family,

I pray all is well. I just wanted to give you an update as to what has been happening. Services were amazing this weekend! We saw many make commitments to follow Christ.

I am so excited about the new CCk West Campus. The team members are doing such a great job in creating a great place to experience God. We are blessed with a tremendous team of people that make it happen. Thank you so much! Again, I believe we are living in some desperate times. People are looking for hope. People are looking for bailouts. People are looking for help. And folks, we have the answer. The answer is Jesus! And with the start of the new CCk West campus, we have an amazing opportunity to reach a new neighborhood of people with the gospel that has impacted our lives. There are thousands upon thousands of people that could literally walk to church at the CCk West Campus. I am looking forward to all that God is going to do.

Back at the main campus things were buzzing as well. All 3 services were very well attended this past weekend and many took the step to walk with Jesus. As awesome as all that is, as long as there are people in our city that don’t know the Lord, our work is not finished. There is much work to be done. Jesus said, “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” Let’s pray and jump headlong into the harvest! Reach out to your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers and invite them this weekend to one of our services! I am looking forward to seeing what God is going to do this next season at CCk!

Wednesday Night
On Wednesdays I started a new series of studies through 1 Peter. This is a very relevant book in light of the times that we are living through. I pray that all of you can join us for these studies.
See you all there!

Let the Lost Be Found,

Tomorrow, Wednesday March 11, Steven Claunch who plays the bass with the Kidz Worship Band and who is the son of pastor Scott and Lynn will be going in for surgery. We are asking that you please pray for him and the family. The surgery is scheduled for 6 am at JMH.

This week we continued learning about the apostle Peter, and we learned about one of, if not his greatest moment while following Jesus.

“Who do people say I am?” Jesus asked his disciples. The disciples answered that many people believed Jesus was a great prophet, perhaps the greatest of all prophets. Then Jesus asked the even more important question, “But who do you say that I am?”.

Peter, in a moment of divine inspiration, replied, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter often blew it, but this time he got it right! Peter’s confession of faith was one of the high points in his life. And it must have been a great moment for Jesus to know that as the end of his ministry was drawing near, at least one person was beginning to understand the message He was bringing.

Peter recognized Jesus as the one annointed by God to establish God’s kingdom. Jesus confirmed Peter’s words, and told Peter that God had revealed this truth to him. Even so, Peter still did not understand the full implication. Although Jesus acknowledged that Jesus was the Messiah, he knew that people would not understand. Jesus told the disciples not to tell anyone.

“Who do you say that I am?” is the most important question that any of us will ever answer. This week help your children learn and understand what it means to say, “Jesus is the Messiah.”

“We have found the Messiah”. (John 1:41)

I wanted to remind you that Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am on Sunday, March 8th. Don’t forget to turn your clocks forward one hour before you go to bed on Saturday Night, March 7th. See you at church.