Our Saturday Seminar, “How to Study the Bible: Epistles,” is this Saturday, from 9AM – 12PM. If you haven’t registered, you can do so here.

We should read the Bible, meditate on the Bible, and memorize Scripture. We should also study Scripture. This seminar will help you do that with the letters of the New Testament.

Here’s the outline for how we’ll spend out time together:

9:00 AM – 9:50 AM Ryan Kelly will introduce the genre of New Testament letters (using Philippians) and demonstrate online tools for studying the Bible.

10:00 AM – 10:50 AM Ron Giese will facilitate a “Sherlock Holmes” style interactive session in which he gives you a text, shows you what to look for, and lets you find it.

11:00 AM – 11:50 AM Trent Hunter will teach about context using a tool called “tracing” to show how parts of the letter of Philippians work together.

In coordination with this seminar, several helpful books are available at the Book Nook, including Tom Schreiner’s, Interpreting the Pauline Epistles.

On most evenings during the year, DSC’s building is pretty quiet. Last week it was not quiet. Last week we had over 300 children with us each evening to sing songs, play games, and learn about our king, Christ, at Vacation Bible School (VBS).

More than 4,000 hours were invested by more than 200 volunteers, and all of this for the sake of God’s praise in the salvation of children and the encouragement of their faith. And it’s wonderful when our children join us in spreading God’s name as well. The children raised $3,175 for church planting in North Africa. Many thanks to those of you who helped make this happen.

Here’s the VBS recap video we played in yesterday’s service.

Blood drives are one of the ways that DSC is invested in our community. With DSC’s next blood drive around the corner (June 8), we asked Ian Byrd, DSC’s Facilities Supervisor, to share the story of how donated blood was used to save the life if his wife, Alyssa.

If you think that giving blood won’t make a difference, think again.

In November 2007, we lost our daughter Sydney to stillbirth at 31 weeks gestation. As we waited for my wife to go into natural labor we learned that the cause of the stillbirth was a concealed full placental abruption, meaning that the onset of preeclampsia and spike in blood pressure caused the placenta to tear away from the uterine wall effectively cutting off blood flow and oxygen to the baby. Because it was concealed there were no tell tale signs that there was a problem. Complicating matters was a genetic blood clotting disorder called Factor Five Liden, that we found out she had a month prior.

So as we waited all day for delivery, my wife was bleeding internally and not clotting as efficiently as the rest of us. At this time the doctors decided to perform an emergency C-section, not to save the baby as that was too late, but to save my wife. During surgery she required 14 bags of blood and we nearly lost her.

The average human body contains around 5.5 liters of blood. In terms of a bag or unit of blood given that would equal around 11-13 bags/units. My wife had her blood effectively replaced once over and then some with blood given by donors like you. So If you think that thirty minutes sitting comfortably while a liter of blood is exiting your body isn’t worth it or won’t make a difference, think again.

I give blood every chance I get because it will save someone. We may have lost a child that day, but my wife was spared because people gave. I give blood to honor my wife, and I give in memory of our little girl.

Our next drive will be held on Saturday, June 8 from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM. Sign up at the Information Center or online by clicking here.

With DSC’s Men’s Retreat just one  month away (May 3-4, register here), here’s an interview with DSC’s Men’s Ministry leader, Marvin Gibson.

1) Tell us a little about your new role over DSC’s Men’s Ministry. 

I am the deacon that has been charged with developing our Men’s Ministry at DSC and Ron Giese is my Men’s Ministry elder. In our DSC Men’s Ministry mission statement, it says, “The Men’s Ministry of Desert Springs Church (DSC) exists to challenge men to live for God’s glory and not their own”. I will be the first to confess, I am not an expert or someone to point to as a man consistently living for God’s glory and not my own. But I have a desperate desire to seek His will in this area and I have many brothers in DSC that have told me they have this same desire. So, I want to be used by God to develop a men’s ministry where our faith is strengthened, where we can invest in each other, and live for God’s glory.

I also want to mention that I have a team of men working to help guide and shape this ministry, including, David Gidlow, Jason Mancini, Lee Scott, and Jim Tate.

2) We’re looking forward to the Men’s Retreat at the beginning of May. I know you are leading the charge for this retreat. Where did the idea come from?

Hah! To say that I am leading the charge for the Men’s Retreat might be a bit of an overstatement. Before Ron talked to me about working with him on men’s ministry, he talked to the men in my huddle group who endorsed me enthusiastically. And after Ron and I prayed about this opportunity, I was eager to jump in and lead in this area of ministry to men. And as soon as my huddle group knew that I was committed, the first thing they said was, “Marvin, when is our Men’s Retreat?” So, I cannot say I had the idea for our Men’s Retreat but I do hope I can be part of increasing the frequency of our Men’s Retreat to once a year rather than once every three or so years.

In terms of the theme, I surveyed all of our men’s huddle groups and other men in DSC and about 80% of the men said they want spiritual leadership to be the theme for this retreat. And this can be spiritual leadership in our homes, at our work places, at DSC, and in our lives. The crucial question for every man is, how may I live for God’s glory as a man in my various roles?

3) Tell us about our speaker, Michael Kelshaw. Who is he and what will he speak about? 

Our speaker, the Reverend Michael Kelshaw, is the teaching pastor and the men’s ministry pastor at Trinity at the Marketplace in Albuquerque.  He was a speaker at our DSC Man Conference in 2011 and you can listen to those sessions here.

As I said earlier, Michael will speak to the theme of spiritual leadership. The title for this retreat is “Walk This Way”, and our foundational scripture is Joshua 24:15, “… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Michael will teach three sessions. The first session will be based in Psalm 1:1-6, the second session will be based on Joshua 24:14-28, and the third session will be based on Ephesians 5:22-6:4.

4) What are your hopes for this retreat in the life of our church? 

My hopes for this retreat are that the men of DSC, and Redemption Church, and Trinity at the Marketplace have fun, are challenged as men, and come away with a better picture of what spiritual leadership looks like. I also have a hope that men will find other men to do one-on-one Bible reading together and develop deeper relationships where they can continue to build each other up.

Our DSC Men’s Ministry mission statement speaks to our need to live for God’s glory and not our own. It continues: We do this by putting men with other men in (1) retreat settings, (2) small-group settings that we call “huddles,” and (3) accountability settings of 2-4 men. In these settings we seek to learn truth from the Scriptures, confess sin, and encourage faithfulness and purity in all our relationships.”

We have our men’s huddles today, and we will have a retreat. But I don’t want this retreat to be a peak experience that we forget. My hope is that this is a retreat where men can get together, side by side, as we men find that most comfortable; but by the end of the retreat, my hope is some number of men want to continue face to face in biblical relationship where they read the Bible together, hold each other accountable, build each other up, and seek to live for God’s glory together. Even as I write this, I am all the more convicted that this is exactly what I need. But I am encouraged that I have many brothers with the same desperate desire.

Some have asked if this is a father-son retreat. To clarify, this is not designed to specifically be a father-son retreat, but that is not to say father’s should not bring their sons. Some sons are already men, and all sons are being groomed to be men. If you have a son that would benefit from being with us, then they are welcome to attend.

5) Okay, I’m sold. I’m a guy and I want to go on the retreat. What should I do?

First, you should find ten other guys, get them to go, and take advantage of the group discount that does not exist for this event; just kidding, of course . . . kind of. I do encourage you to talk to other men, encourage them to go, and even go as a Community Group. As far as registering, you can register at the DSC Men’s Ministry page. You can opt to pay online or to pay in person, but registration is required.

Eat first or bring snacks (part of our teambuilding) for the first night, and breakfast and lunch are provided on Saturday. Sleeping is in a large bunkhouse (more teambuilding) but if you have special requirements, there are some apartment rooms available.

Last of all, the location is Oro Quay Retreat Center in the east mountains and our retreat will be the only event on the property from May 3-4.

This image is the top of a new invitation page for this weekend’s Good Friday and Easter Services.

This is something like a digital version of the invitation cards we have made available for years. Those cards are especially useful for the people we meet in the course of our day around town. But for the people we socialize with on a regular basis, this should come in especially handy. The digital space is where so much of our communication takes place already.

So, use it. Use it to invite friends, family, co-workers, and neighbors to catch a glimpse of heaven in the singing, celebrating, and preaching of Christ’s resurrection this weekend. Link to it in an email, or use the little buttons at the bottom of the page to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Google +.

Some things are meant to be shared. The resurrection is one of them. See you this weekend!