UP Church Concert Series – 3^rd Sundays from 1-3 PM

Sunday, September 20, 2009 – featuring Sisters Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse

First Lutheran Church 600 W. Queen St. , Inglewood , CA

Bring a friend to praise and worship with us at our first Sunday Concert on September 20^th.  Every 3^rd Sunday we will feature a different choir, ensemble or soloist.

UP Church Annual Picnic

Saturday, September 26, 2009  -  10:00 AM to 4:00 PM

Rustic Canyon Park , 601 Latimer Rd. , Santa Monica , CA

$5 per adult.  Children are FREE! (Must pay by September 20^th.)

Join us for a wonderful day of games, food and fun for the entire family.  Payments can be made at the Men’s CUP table on Sunday or reply to this email to make other arrangements.  We strongly encourage carpooling, it’s good for the environment and ensures that everyone will have a close place to park.  Invite your friends!  Directions to the park are at the end of this email.

Register for Fall Classes

Classes are held on Sundays from 3 PM to 4:30 PM

September 27 -  December 13, 2009

Basic Truth Principles II – Lessons In Truth

You can only demonstrate to the level of your understanding. To demonstrate a more peaceful, joyful, purposeful and prosperous life, you must understand the Truth principles to create that experience.  This course is an in-depth study of the basic principles one should learn to live successfully.  Learn the truth that will set you free.

The Love Experience

Discover the Laws of Love.  Students explore their concept of love and how it reflects in their relationship with God, themselves and the world.  Through study and application students develop a mastery of the Love Principle that brings unparalleled harmony and unspeakable peace to their lives.

All Classes Held At:   600 W. Queen St. Inglewood , CA .  2^nd floor

Cost:  One time registration free of $10; Love offering accepted each class

Sign up at the Education Department table before or after Sunday service or email upchurch@upchurch.org.

Khadijah Williams graduates Jefferson High School

We started the month by saying that the imagination is the forming power of the mind. What you imagine today, will become your tomorrow. You can think of your imagination as the hands of your mind. With these hands, you can create any type of life you want.

Last week, we talked about protecting your imagination. We said we must keep our minds in a place where the impossible is possible for us.

This week, I want to talk about catching God’s vision for your life. God has a plan for you. As a spiritual being, your responsibility is to “catch the vision” of that plan. To catch the vision, we must figure out what makes us different and then nurture those differences until they draw to us the magnificent life that each of us was born to live.

I want you to imagine a ball – a big rubber ball. If I toss the ball to you, what must you use to catch it? Your hands. You catch the ball with your hands. Now, think of God’s vision for your life as that ball. Spirit “tosses” the ball to you and through the hands of your mind – your imagination – you catch it. It is through your imagination that you catch God’s vision for your life.

Let me share with you a story about a remarkable young woman from Los Angeles named Khadijah Williams. Khadijah is 18 years old and this year she graduated from Jefferson High School. Next fall she will enroll as a freshman at Harvard University.

Khadijah is an unusual student because for most of her life, she has been homeless. As long as she can remember, Khadijah has floated from shelters to motels to armories along the West Coast with her mother. She has attended 12 schools in 12 years; lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. Every morning, she upheld her dignity, making sure she didn’t smell or look disheveled.

In her college essays, Khadijah wrote, “I have felt the anger at having to catch up in school…being bullied because they knew I was poor, different and read too much.” Khadijah was in 3rd grade when she first realized she was different. Her teachers marked the 9-year-old as gifted, a special category that Khadijah, even at that early age, vowed to keep. Khadijah says, “I still remember that exact number. It meant only 0.01 students tested better than I did.”

Everyone in this sanctuary has something that makes you different. Whatever that is, it’s your clue to God’s vision for your life. The first step in catching the vision God has for your life, is to figure out what makes you different. Tonight, I want you to make a list of everything that makes you different.

Your list will probably include some things that you’re embarrassed about. It may consist of some things that others have called odd. It will probably be filled with character traits that you’d kept hidden because no one around you would understand if you expressed it. Perhaps there will be something on your list that you tried to squash because you didn’t want to be considered different or weird. Think about those qualities that your family or friends tease you about. Each of us has something that makes us different. It’s that thing that we can’t help but to express.

You are a unique, unrepeatable expression of God’s excellence. These qualities that seem weird or unusual are actually clues that point to God’s vision for your life. The first step in catching the vision God has for your life, is to figure out what makes you different.

In the years that followed, Khadijah’s mother would pull her out of school 8 more times. When shelters closed, money ran out or her mother didn’t feel safe, they packed what little they carried and boarded buses to find housing in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Ventura, San Diego, San Bernardino and Orange County. Khadijah finished only half of 4th grade, half of 5th grade and skipped 6th. 7th grade was split between Los Angeles and San Diego. 8th grade consisted of 2 weeks in San Bernardino. At every stop, Khadijah pushed to keep herself in each school’s gifted program. She read nutrition charts, newspapers and 4 to 5 books a month, anything to transport her mind away from the chaos and the sour smell.

God has placed something special inside each one of us. Like Khadijah felt when she learned that she was gifted, I know you’ve felt it, too. Maybe it’s come to you while you were taking your children to school – as you dropped them off, you felt this twinge that there’s something more you were meant to do. Maybe you were at work going through your regular routine and that old feeling resurfaced – there’s something great that I’m designed for. Very subtly, very softly, something inside you hinted at a bigger, grander vision for your life. This afternoon, I’m urging you to catch the vision. It is through your imagination that you look past what is and grasp the possibility of what can be.

Like Khadijah, you must transport your mind away from the chaos and the sour smell of current conditions and focus on developing the things that make you unique. The vision for where you’re going may be far removed from where you are right now. In fact, you probably cannot see the ultimate outcome. You just know that there’s something more out there for you.

The things that make you different are the things that will create your greatest success. Think about it. There’s no way this young woman could have known that the things that made her different would one day lead her to one of our nation’s top universities. At 4th, 5th and 6th grades, when she was being pulled from one part of California to another, she didn’t know that Harvard existed. She only knew there was something that made her different and perhaps there was value in cultivating it. The second step in catching God’s vision is to cultivate the things that make you different. These are your gifts. Tonight, when you make your list, I want you to imagine ways to develop these qualities. Although you cannot know how the things on your list will ultimately play out, you can rest assured that if you have them, there’s a divine reason why you have them.

Perhaps you want to write but were told most writers don’t get published. So, you put that interest aside to take up something more practical. Tonight, imagine simple ways to cultivate yourself as a writer. It’s quite possible that the ultimate vision for your writing isn’t as a novelist or playwright or screenwriter. You really do not know how God intends to use your gifts. And, quite frankly, it’s none of your business. Your responsibility is simply to develop the gift.

Often we get sidetracked or discouraged because we want to know how everything is going to play out before we get started. We’re told “begin with the end in mind.” So, most of us don’t get started because we can’t see the end; or, we see the end but can’t see how we will get from where we are to where we want to be.

Your attention is misplaced. When you live a life led by Spirit, your only responsibility is to develop your gifts. God will take care of the rest. The mere act of developing the things that make you unique will function as a magnet that will begin to draw to you opportunities that you could not have previously envisioned. The second step in catching the vision is to cultivate the things that make you different.

At school, Khadijah was the outsider. At the shelter, she was often bullied, “You ain’t college-bound,” the pimps barked. “You live in skid row!” Once you get a handle on what makes you different and begin to develop those differences, then the real work begins. The experiences of life will come in to distract you. So, you must keep your mind focused on the idea that something greater is possible for you. Isaiah 26:3 tells us “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on thee.” The third and final step in catching God’s vision for your life is to stay focused.

In 10th grade, Khadijah realized that if she wanted to succeed, she needed to focus. She began to reach out to organizations and mentors. When she enrolled in the fall of her junior year at Jefferson High School, she was determined to stay put, regardless of where her mother moved. Graduation was not far off and she needed strong college letters of recommendation from teachers who were familiar with her work. This soon meant commuting by bus from an Orange County armory. She awoke at 4am and returned around 11pm and kept her grade point average at just below a 4.0 while participating in the Academic Decathlon, the debate team and leading the school’s track and field team.

When her college applications were due in December, James and Patricia London of South Central Scholars invited Khadijah to their home in Rancho Palos Verdes to help her write her essays. When they went to return her to skid row, her mother was gone.

Developing your gifts will require incredible focus. The distractions you face may not be as life threatening as pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers or parental abandonment but they’re just as compelling. Failed relationships, job transfers, unexpected pregnancies, downturns in the economy, sudden or prolonged illnesses, job losses, pay cuts, natural disasters, and bad hair days – all of these things are distractions that compel the imagination to turn away from the vision God is giving you for your life.

Once you know what makes you different and you develop those differences, that’s when the real work begins. It’s quite possible that the bottom may fall out. All of us are familiar with stories of successful people who were once homeless. Tyler Perry lived in his car while he developed the plays that ultimately made him a millionaire. Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame was once homeless, living in his friend’s basement. The third and final step in catching God’s vision for your life is to stay focused.

No matter what, hold your gaze steady; keep your mind focused on the idea that something greater is possible for you; and develop your gifts. Remember Isaiah 26:3 “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on thee.” Whatever happens, the Spirit of Absolute Good will provide for you.

When her mother disappeared, the Londons’ invited Khadijah to spend the rest of her school year with them. This past Friday, Khadijah graduated with honors, 4th in her class. She was accepted to more than 20 universities nationwide, including Brown, Columbia, Amherst and Williams. She chose a full scholarship to Harvard and aspires to become an education attorney.

Spirit is waiting on you to catch the vision. Every little nudge is Spirit tossing you the ball. Will you reach up with the hands of your mind – your imagination – and catch it? Or will you allow your imagination to drop the ball once more – being pulled this way and that by life’s distractions? Keep your imagination focused on Spirit. Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose imagination is stayed on thee.

Sunday, June 14th, UP Teacher Sherri James continues to break down imagination.  Here is the text from her lesson:

Last week, I shared with you that the imagination is the forming power of the mind. Through this faculty the formless takes form – the invisible becomes visible. We said that your imagination functions as the hands of your mind. It takes the ideas that God gives you and shapes them.

This week I want to talk about protecting your imagination. There are no limits to your imagination. Imagination is a gift from God. Any gift from God is like God.

God is limitless. Your imagination is limitless. God is perfect. Your imagination is perfect. God has no beginning and no end. Your imagination has no beginning and no end. Whatever you imagine you can do, you can do.

As a child, you believed anything was possible. Raise your hand if you remember what it was like to believe in the impossible. You had no concept of what you could not do. So, you believed you could do anything. You felt like you’d live forever and that everything would always be good. Anyone remember that feeling?

All of us are born believing we can do anything. We believe we can fly. Over time different experiences clip our wings. Sometimes life clips our wings.

You pulled out all the stops for that promotion, gave your very best effort and came up short. Or, you married the man or woman of your dreams and not only did they let you down but they also betrayed you. Maybe you invested all you had into a business venture only to discover it was a scam. Perhaps you had a well-meaning teacher who thought they were helping you out by saying things like “Math just isn’t your subject honey.” Experiences like these shape our imagination in subtle ways. Often they clip our wings. I call people and events like this wing clippers.

The wing clippers are the people and events that take us down a notch. In school, they show up as bullies and well-meaning but misguided teachers. In life, they show up as bankruptcies, foreclosures, pink slips, failed businesses, unexpected pregnancies and failed marriages. Wing clippers present very convincing evidence that we’re not as hot to trot as we think we are. Sometimes the evidence is so compelling that it will make us put our dream on a shelf. Anyone ever put a dream on a shelf?

We get tired and frustrated and begin to settle for less. We stop putting forth effort toward our dream. We start believing we were foolish or misguided for going after our dreams. Or we believe we can’t have our dream until things get right in our lives. Anyone have a dream you’ve deferred until things get right in your life?

The only reason the wing clippers have had an effect in your life is because you have allowed your imagination to be shaped by something other than God. With God all things are possible. Whatever you imagine you can do, you can do. Only the world will tell you that your dream is impossible. God will not. The wing clippers have had an effect in your life because you have allowed them to influence your imagination.

You have taken the lies they’ve told about you, and made it your truth. On Sundays, you come here and say I am a Spiritual Being and you sing I can have as far as I can see, but you know that you’re not actively living that Truth everyday. How do I know this? Because I’m a teacher and I don’t always live this Truth. Sometimes I forget that I’m a Spiritual Being and that I can have as far as I can see.

We must protect our imagination. As spiritual beings we have a conscious mind that thinks and reasons and makes decisions. This conscious mind can pull information from God or it can pull information from the wing clippers. We must constantly go to God in prayer about our dreams. Seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. The best information we will ever get about what’s possible for us is going to come from the quiet time we spend with the Father. Through prayer, God will help you put life’s disappointments into proper perspective. Through prayer, you can be healed of the shame of past mistakes. Through prayer, the thing that once looked like your greatest failure will become the stepping stone to your ultimate victory.

It is this regular communion with God that protects our imagination and renews us. In this quiet time, the areas that the wing clippers have torn down are built back up.

You’ve heard the phrase “pray without ceasing”? What it means is keep your mind connected to God. When you come out of your quiet time, keep your mind stayed on God, stayed on the Truth about you – you are created in the image, after the likeness of a loving, all-powerful God.

We must protect our imagination because the wing clippers creep in, in subtle and unsuspecting ways. Check the music you listen to. Does it remind you that you’re able to accomplish anything or is it just one more sad love song? Check the television programs you watch. Do they remind you that you have a Divine Power inside of you? Or do they fill your mind with horror stories about the world we live in? Check the people you hang out with on a regular basis. Do your conversations reflect a belief that anything is possible for you? Or are they little pity parties disguised as authentic talk about the “real” issues of life? The wing clippers creep in, in subtle and unsuspecting ways. We must be vigilant about keeping our minds in a place where the impossible is possible for us.

Now, let’s deal with those wing clippers. Anyone seen a duck lately? Do you know what happens when water gets on a duck’s back? They shake it off. That’s how I want you to handle the wing clippers. Shake them off.

Shake the Water Off Your Back

When the wing clippers show up, do not argue with them. Ignore them. Arguing with them means you agree with them on some level. In fact, the harder you argue with them, the more you actually agree with them. Let them have their opinions – their opinions can only impact you to the extent that you agree with them. But when you ignore it, you turn it into water on a duck’s back. And, you can just shake it off.

If the wing clippers need a bad economy, ignore it and shake it off. If the wing clippers need to catch whatever bug is going around, ignore it and shake it off. Your dreams are too lofty, ignore it and shake it off. Getting older means getting physically weaker, ignore it and shake it off. There are no more good men or good women available, ignore it and shake it off. Too old to be discovered, ignore it and shake it off. Too young to have your dreams come true, ignore it and shake it off. However the wing clippers show up – as people, as events, as mistakes, whatever – ignore them, turn them into water on a duck’s back and shake them off.

We must protect our imagination. Within each of us is a great reservoir of untapped potential. The impossible can be yours…as long as you pull your information from the right source. Are you drawing your inspiration from God or are you taking your cues from the wing clippers?

Whatever you imagine you can do, you can do. Start by believing the impossible can be possible. Most of us haven’t done this since we were children. We’ve forgotten how good it feels to imagine the impossible. Do it anyway. In His sermon on the mount, Jesus tells us to become like a little child. This wasn’t a commission to run wild and act like you have no home training; rather, it is an invitation to return to that mindset where you believe the impossible can be possible. Whatever you imagine you can do, you can do.

Are you ready to learn to live the prosperous life taught by Jesus?  Here are a list of new classes starting this week:

Millionaires of Genesis – Instructor: Barbara Kimble
Class starts Tuesday, January 6th
Class time: 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Location: First Lutheran
Class Length: TBD
Cost: $10/class

Millionaire of Nazareth – Instructor: The Rev. Dr. Della Reese Lett
Class starts Wednesday, January 8th
Class time: 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Location: Call the Church for the address 310.641.7991 (upchurch@upchurch.org)
Class Length: 4 weeks
Cost: $10/class

The Game of Life – Instructor: Tommie Milner
Class starts Tuesday, January 13th
Class time: 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Location: First Lutheran
Class Length: 7 weeks
Cost: $10/class

Old Testament Interpretation-Instructor: Sherri James
Classes have already started…but feel free to join us
Class time: Immediately after Sunday Service (approx 3 p.m.)
Location: First Lutheran
Class length: 14 weeks
Cost: $10/class

First Lutheran Church of Inglewood
600 W. Queen Street
Inglewood, CA 90301

Dear Readers,

UP Church has moved!  Come worship, learn, love and laugh with us as we praise and raise God in our lives.

SERVICES HELD AT:

First Lutheran Church of Inglewood

600 W. Queen Street

Inglewood, CA  90301

WHEN:

Sundays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

Blessings,

Sheree

PS:  I’m playing catch up and promise to blog on part 3 of the Jesus series and catch up on a few other sermons as well.

Jesus the Christ

The Son of Man

Jesus the man found the Christ inside of him and he became more Christ than the man.  Her referred to himself as the son of man until he changed.  At each stage in his life, just like in each stage of your life, he made changes.  By referring to himself as the son of man, it shows that he recognized that he had not yet been fulfilled.

Matthew 8:20  The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.

Matthew 9:6  But that ye may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.

Jesus showed us the way by living the way.  He’s telling us man has power to forgive sins.  (A sin is a mistake.)  So if you have something that you’re holding against somebody, you have the power to forgive that and get it out of your mind.

The name Jesus

The name Jesus means:  savior, deliverance through Jehovah (God), I am, the self-directive power, the power raised to divine understanding, safety, salvation, savior, deliverer, helper and prosperer.  That’s why saying the name Jesus can be so powerful.  Because just saying the name calls forth all the meaning of the name.

I AM is your personal piece of God.  No one can claim that identify for you or from you.  Jesus represents God’s idea of man in expression.  Christ is that idea in absolute.  Jesus was God in expression.  Christ is God absolute.

The Christ is God-created, the real self of all of us, the image-likeness.  Jesus the man brought forth the Christ self into manifestation.

Why did Jesus come?

He came to show us the attaining the Christ consciousness is possible for all of us.  He came to awaken us to the possibilities of our own nature.  He came that we might have life and that more abundantly through the piece of God in us already.  He gave us the attitude of being.  Instead of ‘thou shalt not’ he said, ‘blessed are they that.’

And it’s not about money.  Is having money and no peace a measure of abundance?

He came to show that everyday is Sabbath and that you can do all things in a spiritual light.  Think of someone cutting you off in traffic.  You can curse them or bless them-which is really cursing and blessing you.  The offender is unaware of your curse.  You get to live with that energy.

The Christ

Christ is the title given to the universal idea of divine sonship.  Joshua was a Christ.  Throughout the book there are Christ-acting spirits.  God has never left us alone.  David.  Solomon.  Job.  All of them were teaching us how to use the Christ inside.

Jesus came to get rid of death and to teach us how to really live.  The Christ in you is the image of God.  Christ is the composite idea that includes all divine ideas.  The Christ inside of you knows everything that is, has been and will be.  Have you ever gone to sleep with a question and woke up with the answer?  The Christ inside gave instruction to your subconscious mind and now you know.  (Come to Basic Truth Principles class to learn more about the subconscious mind.)

When it is written that Jesus went up into the mountains, it means that he went to a higher level of thinking, a higher level of attitude, a higher level of consciousness.  He had to go to the Christ inside of him to be buoyant over the water.  You have to do the same.  Before you do whatever you have to do, speak to God first.  You can’t have a better partner.

“I have this that I have to do, Father.  And I need you to guide me.  Because you know that I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m coming to you to guide me through this.  I need to do this.  And I’m coming to the mountaintop, I’m raising my level of consciousness so that you can work through me.”

Jesus had to do this so he could reach the height of the real mountain, the height of his spiritual consciousness.  He did this often. He had to do this to show us how to raise our level of consciousness.

Raising your level of consciousness to the Christ level is recognizing what and who you are.  Your problem is that you don’t think enough of you.  You think others are wonderful and never include you.  You’ve believed that saying you are wonderful is conceit.  You need to tell yourself who you really are.  Accept.  Put God first.

Affirm:

God is spirit.  I cannot be separated from God.  God expresses himself as me.  God needs me to express through.

Jesus taught grace, which is the activity of God’s love which is constantly at work in us and through us.  Grace is the divine favor of God that you can’t buy or earn, it’s a gift.  It works beyond and in addition to the law.  It fulfills the law in terms of sustaining you in spite of some of your choices.  It’s like the buoyancy of water even as you try to push yourself down.  It keeps you afloat.

Affirm:

“The Father and I are one.  I am the activity of God in manifestation.  My unity with God is the very foundation of the abundant life which he promises me.  I want and I claim his promises right now.  And I ask that his will and not my will be done.”

Peace and blessings!

If you’ve ever been to Understanding Principles Church in Los Angeles, you know that we only greet you as a visitor one time. After that, you’re family. So if you’ve happened upon this blog, know that you are now part of the UP Church family. And who are we? We’re a diverse group of people who are living life consciously and growing in our understanding and experience of Christ.

Practical Christianity.

New Thought Christianity.

Metaphysical Christianity.

Or just plain ole Christianity.

All of these labels apply. But we believe that you can’t demonstrate what you do not understand. And so we seek first an understanding of the Truth principles taught by our wayshower, Christ Jesus. We praise the Lord. We raise our consciousness. And we experience and express God.

Family, let me hear from you. How do you describe UP Church?