Cascade Church Portland

Finding Fear:: Fear of Failure

Have you ever stumbled into something that you were good at?

When I was in high school we had a kind of trivia competition called The Knowledge Bowl and one of my teachers offered extra credit to those who competed. To be good at this competition you needed to have retained a bunch of seemingly meaningless information and you needed to be blindly confident enough to quickly buzz in your answers. 

Know a little about a lot of things and be arrogant enough to think you knew it all? That was teenaged Kurt's very lengthy and descriptive middle name. 

My team started off laying waste to the competition. With each bit of trivia that won my team another round of the event I became more and more engaged. I was teeming with confidence and I can vividly remember yelling, "I'm in your head, Doug!" after answering a question about the location of Custard's last stand to a member of the other team.  

My team ended up in the final round of The Knowledge Bowl against the smartest kids in the school. I was intoxicated with victory and felt invincible. I knew this last round was a mere formality to my coronation as the champion of all knowledge. 

It started off well and I kept pulling random bits of trivia from the nether regions of my brain. On a roll our team was asked, "How many teeth do adult human beings have in their mouth."

My buzzer was already lit and I instantaneously blurted out "55!"

Fifty-five. 

Teeth. 

In one person's mouth. 

There was a stunned silence in the room as everyone struggled to envision the size and density of a jaw that could support the weight of 55 teeth. I'm sure at least one person cocked their head like a confused dog at my decision to go with an odd number. 

The invincibility flooded out of me like a fully inflated balloon set loose in an empty gymnasium. I was suddenly very, very vincible. 

I failed. Impressively and very publicly I had failed. 

And even though that happened a long, long time ago there is still a part of me that feels like I'm standing in that room today. Completely embarrassed and exposed as a the fraud I felt I was. I had a good run and had fooled a lot of people, but now everyone knew the truth about me. 

Failures much larger and much smaller have kept people from trying any number of endeavors in the future. Some of us let the fear of failure keep us from stepping up or opening our mouths. 

I hope you'll listen in and discover the ways that God might be calling you to acknowledge the fear of failure and act anyway. 

Finding Fear:: You Don't Have To Run Anymore

When I was a child I had a crippling fear of swimming in the deep end. I used to have nightmares about getting into a pool and having the bottom fall out into an endless abyss. It was terrifying and I had more than a couple of nights where I would fall asleep crying thinking about going to swimming lessons the next day. 

Our fears are powerful forces in our lives that drive all kinds of behaviors. We can believe that fears are the kinds of things that just exist in our childhood. We used to be afraid of the dark, but we're ok now. I used to be terrified of the basement, but I'm good now. 

The reality is that our fears may have changed, but we still carry them. In this series we want to look at two of the biggest fears that we can hold; Abandonment andFailure. Abandonment deals with a belief that people in our lives will ultimately leave us or strand us when we need them the most. Failure is the belief that at some point in the future I will do something that won't be successful or that I will be exposed as a failure in life, career, or relationships. 

These fears are intense and can cause us to do all kinds of things that sabotage our lives and lead us away from being the people God created us and call us to be. Take a listen as we get started with a conversation about facing our fears and finding their hold on our lives released. 

Elijah:: The Sacred Now

If you were to ask me about sacred spaces I would go in a couple different directions. 

1) Holy Landmarks. 

The Jordan River. The Dead Sea. The Wailing Wall. Pancake and Steak House. These are the places where powerful and deeply spiritual things happened. We revere and protect these places because they help us remember when God was close. 

2) Holy Moments. 

Baptism. Birth of a Child. Hearing God's Voice. While these moments may have a place linked to them. it is usually an experience that we hold onto and remember. We can tell you what we felt, who was in the room, the sounds, the smells and what our insides felt like. 

These are both significant places to go with sacred spaces. They help us raise up stones of remembrance so that we don't lose the thing that was so important to us. We cling tightly to these threads in the tapestry of our life. 

But what if when you were asked about sacred spaces you thought of right where you are right now? What if sacred spaces didn't just exist in your past or a place in your future, but traveled with you in the ever-present now? That's what we're exploring this week. 

Elijah:: I Quit

I was raised in a family of board game aficionados.

During many years of family game nights, that would sometimes end in tears and tantrums, I developed two distinct personalities. 

When I'm winning at a game I'm having a ball! I'll be chatting it up, making jokes and trying to be gracious to those who aren't doing as well. There will be laughing and carrying on like I'm Captain Good Times. 

The losing version of myself is completely different. I'm sullen and withdrawn. The game won't hold my attention for very long and I'll be easily distracted. While I understand the value of being a good loser, I've spent too many years contemplating the futility of existence while being run off the Monopoly board to practice it. 

Basically, I'm saying you should never play games with me because I'm insufferable either way. 

The desire to quit when things go sideways is exactly what we'll be looking at this Sunday. Our look at the life of Elijah comes just after the amazing high when God shows up in a powerful way and justifies him in front of the nation of Israel. Elijah is at a devastating low and wants to pack it up and check out of life. 

Maybe you're feeling like you want to quit. Being a good employee. Being a parent. Being a spouse. Being responsible. 

You're not alone. When you're in a place of despair and want to quit and walk away you stand in line with a long heritage of those who went before you. I hope you'll explore what next steps could be and how God simultaneously sits with us in despair and invites us ever forward through this message. 

Elijah:: Breaking the Blame Game

Have you had something go wrong this past week? When something you thought would happen fails to happen we usually have 1 of 2 responses. 

1) Wallowing Sadness. I have been known to throw myself a pretty fierce pity parade. I get down when something goes wrong and don't want to talk, think or act on it in any way. I bemoan my own failures and the failures of others with similar gusto and live in a place that necessitates salty snack foods and Netflix. 

2) Misdirected Anger. This is when whatever has gone wrong is the fault of everyone and everything else except for me. 
Burned dinner? Oven's fault. 
Late for a meeting? Traffic's fault. 
Can't sleep? My pillow's fault. 

In this message we continue looking at the life of Elijah and how he held a mirror up for the Israelite people to see things that they didn't want to see. We'll wrestle with how we respond when things don't go our way. 

My hope is that we can all walk away contemplating who God is in the midst things going wrong and choosing something different than cycles of misdirected anger or wallowing sadness. 

Elijah:: Scarcity & Abundance

Confession time. I love sneaking candy into movie theaters. 

I've been resistant to taking out a 2nd mortgage on our home to afford a tiny box containing four Raisinets. So we invariably go to the bulk candy section of the local grocery store and stock up on the good stuff. The only limitations we face is the size of our stomachs and my wife's purse. 

Now, when the previews are running I am a man of great generosity. There is no limitations on the Runts and gummy bears I will hand out. What kind of husband and father would I be to withhold great candy from those closest to me? 

Get me closer to the bottom of the bag and I am a tightfisted scrooge. I dispense gummy bears one at a time and hoard banana Runts like they are golden doubloons from recently unearthed pirate treasure. 

Generosity and scarcity don't usually make a good duo. In this message we look at that dynamic through a story from the life of Elijah. Hopefully we will discover what the mirror holds when we see ourselves in scarcity and abundance. 

Elijah:: Holding Up Mirrors

Prophets and prophecy freak me out. I immediately get an image of an older man with a bushy beard grabbing my arm while I walk down the street, looking at me with blank eyes and telling me exactly how I'll die next month. 

We're starting a new series of messages this week looking at the life of one of the most famous prophets from the Bible, Elijah. We are going through the life of a prophet so we can investigate any misconceptions we may have. My hope is that we will learn the value of community living that is both grace-filled and honest. 

One misconception that we may have is that a prophet is functionally a sooth-sayer or a fortune teller. If you go and see a prophet they will deliver news about your future plans and destiny. 

While prophets certainly deal in the realm of the future it is actually a much more grounded look at where our paths are heading based on current trajectories. It looks a lot like a person who is an active part of a community holding up a mirror for everyone to see their reflection. 

That's where it gets scary. The community response to a prophet is rarely humility and a reversal of course after seeing an unflattering image in the mirror. More often than not the prophet is rejected so that the status quo can be maintained. 

So, how do we welcome in our prophets and prophetic voice? How do we face our fears of change and challenge our past assumptions about ourselves?

Fall Kick Off:: What We Value

Take a listen to where we've been where we're going and who we hope to be on the way. 

Rhythms:: Community

Kurt concludes the Rhythms series with a message on community. Discussing how important community is while also explaining how the messiness that drives many away from achieving real community is what we should all be embracing. 

Rhythms:: Solitude

A while back I heard about this thing called "floating". It remains to this day to be one of the more interesting experiences I've had. 

There are these sensory deprivation tanks in Portland at a place called Float On where you get in water with a super high concentration of salt that makes you float. These tanks don't let in light or sound and the water is heated to 93.5*, which they say is "skin receptor neutral". Basically, you don't hear, see, feel or fight gravity based on these factors and you float for 90 minutes. 

For some of you this sounds like heaven and for others of you this sounds like hell. 

The thing I most had to fight wasn't a fear of closed spaces or drowning, it was the pure isolation of it all. I don't often like to be alone. Being left with my thoughts feels like a punishment, not a respite. 

I've been really stretched recently to start exploring solitude more and more. In fact, I think God has something important for us without any other person or input around that is actually crucial when it comes to healthy engagement with community. 

I invite you to come out to Cascade this Sunday and hear from Colleen Millstein about this healthy rhythm of solitude and how we can allow God to shape and form us in that space in ways that aren't possible when we're surrounded by others.