Semper Vita

An announcement from Semper Vita:

Semper Vita Launches Today!

Today is the day! We are announcing Semper Vita to the world. 

The booth is ready! Bring on the people and the partners! Today we start the process of creating a volunteer community made up of non-profits, churches and individuals. Together we will do more serious good.

At the show, we will be giving away five $100 bills to winners of our drawing. We hope that each winner will use the money to do serious good in their community. Hopefully, they will share their stories on the Semper Vita website and inspire others to go do more serious good too.

We will be presenting six workshops at the conference - four of them directly relate to Semper Vita:

1. “Missional Volunteering: Let’s Take the Church out of it’s Box” - about intentionally and missionally volunteering to show Jesus’ love in action.
2. “You Want Me To Do What?” Missional Living Your Way” - about connecting with others to demonstrate Jesus’ love in action.
3. “Improve Your Missional Impact: Connecting Churches to Reach the Least of These in our Communities” - about churches and non-profits partnering to reach their communities with the love of Jesus.
4. “I Want To Follow But What Am I Supposed To Do?” - about discovering your wiring, purpose and focus.

Semper Vita is the first organization to combine missional volunteering to intentional connecting and personal discovery. We desire to help each individual to live missionally intentionally. 

We also are pioneering the idea to partner with churches and non-profits to create a missional volunteering community that demonstrates the love of Christ through action. 

Semper Vita is about providing quality and tailored volunteer opportunities rather than providing large quantities of volunteer possibilities. 

Partner with us today! If you or your organization are in the Greater Seattle area, contact us to be part of the Semper Vita partner network.

One Month Away From Our Launch!

We are nearing the date when we will see Semper Vita become a reality. This is so exciting! After three years of dreaming, planning and working, the day is getting close. Next month, we will have a booth at the Northwest Ministry Conference in Redmond. We’ve ordered banners and booth wear. We have also ordered pens and water bottles to give away. Now we have materials to print and partner packets to assemble.

At the show, people can discover how the can do more serious good by partnering with Semper Vita. We will have presentations that illustrate how Semper Vita will work with volunteers. We will also make clear how we will partner with churches and non-profits.

These are full and intense days. The software won’t be fully ready and that’s frustrating, but we are moving forward in faith. God knows how he wants this to play out. We have prayed diligently and worked steadily.

Watch for us next month!

Following the Semper Vita Vision

It is amazing to see an idea slowly but steadily become a reality. Our vision remains the same. We want to partner with churches and non-profits to impact every community for Christ. We want to see everyone experiencing life through service in community. To make this happen, we need partners and we need volunteers!

A small team of people have been giving hundreds, and some thousands, of hours to make this vision a reality. Semper Vita has been a labor of love. Why do we invest our time, energy and money in this endeavor? It's all about sharing the love of Jesus with those who do not yet know him. It's exciting that now, as we are nearing our launch date, more people are stepping up to volunteer to make this vision come to life. 

As a team, we believe that we are following God and answering his call to produce a ministry that allows people to easily and simply impact their communities through intentional volunteering and connecting. Semper Vita is one of the ways that God wants to reconcile people to himself. It will take all his people intentionally and missionally volunteering and connecting.

Jesus made it very clear: People will know that we are his disciples by our love for each other, for God and for our neighbors. How can we show that love? We believe it’s through spending time with people - in relationship and through serving together.

Won't you join us?

This Is The Year We Launch Semper Vita

Semper Vita has been a dream and vision for over three years. We have talked about the possibilities, worked behind the scenes on the software and written about the ideas involved.

This is the year that we are launching Semper Vita. We are unveiling this non-profit and missional ministry at the Northwest Ministry Conference held at Overlake Christian Church, March 18-20, 2010.

There have been lots of ups and downs along the way. The team that is making Semper Vita happen has faced personal challenges of all varieties - including financial, relational, emotional, and spiritual. God has used each trial and obstacle to grow our character and strengthen our resolve. 

The ups and downs were not limited to just our personal lives. We have had set backs in the software development. The alpha version of this web-based software was supposed to be ready at the end of December 2009. Things did not go as planned but we are still going strong!

What is the software? As a building is to a church, so the software is to Semper Vita. It will allow us to provide people with the opportunity to quickly and easily connect to volunteer activities, other like-minded volunteers, and partner organizations that that desire to have an impact in the community. It's the online expression of Semper Vita. The physical reality will be lived out by partners and volunteers in local communities.

The vision is exciting and the mission worthwhile. We know that we are following God's call. All in all, we are still very sure that we are following God on the mission he has for us. We might have had delays and challenges but we absolutely know that we are not behind according to God's time table! 

Stay connected to us and watch our progress as we get ready to launch this organization.

Happy New Year - 2010!

Semper Vita wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

May 2010 be your best year yet.

Merry Christmas from Semper Vita!

 ⁶For to us a child is born,
       to us a son is given,
       and the government will be on his shoulders.
       And he will be called
       Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
       Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

 ⁷Of the increase of his government and peace
       there will be no end.
       He will reign on David's throne
       and over his kingdom,
       establishing and upholding it
       with justice and righteousness
       from that time on and forever.
       The zeal of the LORD Almighty
       will accomplish this.

Isaiah 9:6,7

Merry Christmas!

We wish you peace and joy this Christmas! It's been an adventurous, busy and tumultuous year for all of us at Semper Vita. Overall, it has been good! How about you? Was your year exciting, tumultuous, busy, good or a combination of these? Whatever it was, we hope you've had a great year!

Peace on Earth

As we celebrate Christmas, we wish you joy and peace. Jesus came to give us life, hope and peace. He is the Prince of Peace. May you experience His peace, joy, love and presence this season and throughout the coming year.

The entire Semper Vita team wishes you a very Merry Christmas!

Do Good Live Right

"God did not call us to be impure but to live a holy life."  1 Thessalonians 4:7

It's my life...

That's what people all around us seem to say. It's my life and I can do whatever I want...

• as long as it doesn't hurt anybody
• as long as I don't get caught
• because I have wealth, fame or power
• because I'm an adult
• because...

But is it true?

We do all get to make choices. And, all of us just get one life to live. Since it is my life, I want to do good and live my life right. But, what is living right?

I believe that God wants us to live in such a way that we stand out. Not based on bad or flamboyant behavior but rather on an honorable and holy life. He calls us to live holy. His kind of holy isn't "holier than thou" or hypocritical - nope that would just be bad behavior.

Live holy

What does this kind of holy look like? It stands out because it's set apart - not separate from people but set apart to God. Set apart to God means doing and living as he directs. So what does God say about how to do good and live right?

The Apostle Paul interprets it for us. He writes to the Thessalonians that this type of life means not being given to lust, jealousy, fits of rage, slander, greed or sexual immorality.  It keeps from wronging others or taking advantage of them. It's a pure life without being judgmental or exclusive. 

Sounds phony?

It's easy to assume that the only way to get there is to fake it. After all, who can keep from doing all those things? It seems that daily, we're bombarded with news about leaders and celebrities failing publicly at these very things. Tiger Woods is just the latest example. Is it really possible to live a holy life?

Be real

Well, luckily it's not about being perfect - or pretending to be perfect - but rather intentionally living for God and putting him first.  Doing good and living right requires us to be real - with God, with ourselves and with others. We can only live a holy life when it flows out of our relationship with him. That's when we are changed and will live a life that pleases God.

The final remarks are sobering:

"He who rejects this instruction - to live holy - does not reject man but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit."

1 Thessalonians 4:8

Thankful for Hope

"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see."

Hebrews 11:1

Giving thanks for the good things

Let me start out by wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! May this day be filled with gratitude for what God has done in us and for us.

Though this year has been filled with challenges, tests of faith and difficult times for me and my family, there have been so many good things that I am thankful for:

• Great friends - you really get to know who your friends are during the hard times. I am so blessed with awesome friends who have supported us and prayed for us. Their prayers have lifted us up and carried us through the hardest of times. "Thank you dear friends...and please keep praying!"
• Wonderful family - while you can choose your friends and not your family, I wouldn't have chosen anyone else. My husband, son, mother and sister are wonderful. "I love you and am so grateful for you."
• Beauty and provision - living in the Northwest is an opportunity for daily gratitude. It's so beautiful here. And, God has provided for us in all the various ways. I love my house and surroundings. I'm grateful for God's provision.
• Meaningful work - having a purpose and worthwhile calling makes my life worth living - without it I feel only partially alive. (Of course I would never want to be without my friends and family!) Semper Vita is that call for me. I am beyond grateful to God for inviting me on this journey with him.
• God - well, what can I say? There would be no life, real life or hope without God in my life.

Thankful for hope

This year really has been amongst the most difficult. It's been challenging on all fronts - relationally, spiritually, mentally, physically, financially and emotionally. So much so that earlier in the year I didn't feel hope. Of course I still had the hope given by Jesus but I didn't have hope for my everyday life. In fact, I would have been happy to learn that my expiration date was coming up. Now I'm glad it didn't!

God has taken me on an immense growth journey. He's allowed me to experience the depths of loneliness. My faith has been tested. And, most significantly, he's invited me to learn about his great love, deep comfort and powerful presence. God showed me things about myself I didn't know and revealed things about him I couldn't have imagined.

Now I'm overflowing with hope. God is so good. He really, really does work in all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).God is good - all the time. He knows just what we need (even the hard stuff) to get us to where we need to go. 

Blaming God?

In the midst of the turmoil I did have very honest conversations with God. At times I told him I could not go on. Other times I told him that this was not the script! (He reminded me that it was his script and we were right where we needed to be.) I told him I didn't like it. I told him that I could not do what he was asking of me. And, each time, after I poured my heart out, I re-surrendered to God and told him that "of course I would follow." After all, who else is there? Who do we have but God?

These experiences and conversations did lead me to think about the fact that so often we blame God when things go wrong. We might even be tempted to turn our backs on him or decide there cannot be a God. Are you there now or have you been there? Can I challenge you to a new thought? I dare you to persist through the hard times. Trust God to get you through it. And then watch...just watch and experience how awesome God is. He restores our life. He gives us back our hope.

Thank you God - for the hope!

Life is not totally back on track and we still have challenges...but we are not without hope. God will see us through. I rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (Romans 5:2)and remember that the source of my hope is Jesus. As Colossians 1:27 states, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

This Thanksgiving, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Romans 15:13

Do Good - Endure Suffering

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can."

John Wesley

Do good - it's rewarding

As Thanksgiving is approaching, it always prompts in me a sense of wanting to do some extra good. Of course I believe that doing good should be part of every Christian's life - but at Thanksgiving it seems like we should do more. This started me thinking about doing good...

When I do good I associate it with reward - not monetary but the intrinsic reward of feeling good and having helped. My particular brand of this often comes as people face their last chapter of life. I know it is not the norm but it's how God wired me. I love to come alongside a family when they've lost a loved one and do the memorial service. Tamara Dull jokingly calls me the "Last Chapter Pastor."

Now, rest assured, that's not my ultimate focus. In fact, it's because God's called me to be missional and serve beyond the walls of the church that serving families in time of need appeals to me. People without a church want a pastor to come alongside them and do the memorial. I get to love them and be Jesus' hands and feet. I get to share God's comfort. To me that's an honor and privilege.

How about you? How do you do good?

Suffering for doing good   

It is better, if it's God's will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil...So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good."    

1 Peter 3:17; 4:19

Doing good when there's a real cost and even pain is a lot harder. We don't often hear sermons about suffering for doing good. I suspect that's because pastors might fear that the people wouldn't continue attending their church. But suffering is mentioned a lot in the New testament. Obviously Jesus suffered and he made it clear that we shouldn't expect any different. He told his disciples, "No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also" (John 15:20).

Paul talks about the need and normalcy in suffering. Peter also makes it abundantly clear that suffering is part of the package. However, it should not keep us from doing good!

Wow. How does that change my view of doing good? Do I still want to do it? I've been tested this year and many times I wanted to walk away. Sometimes I hid for a while. I like the "doing good and being rewarded" idea better. And yet, we are called to do good and be willing to suffer. It's a tough call. But Jesus bids us to follow him.

Semper Vita and doing good

As we get ready to launch Semper Vita this coming March, we are asking people to step into a life of doing good. We will make it easy through our software. We believe that people will benefit and be rewarded as they do good. Are you ready to do good regardless of the cost? Will you follow Jesus?

Sustainable Volunteering: Give What You Can

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Jesus

Please volunteer to help those in need.

The needs in the world are overwhelming. Everywhere you look - in your community, online, on television and around the world - there are appeals for help. People need our time, money and service. Last week I drove past a food bank and the line wrapped around the building. It tugged at my heart. The commercials for starving children and abused animals tug at my heart. People in hurting relationships, parents of at-risk youth, and abused children tug at my heart. The need is so great. I want to solve the needs but what can one person do? The temptation is to either serve too much and get exhausted or hide and pretend all will be OK somehow.

Come away and rest

Jesus and his disciples faced all these needs in his day. On one occasion he sent out his twelve and they went around the villages healing and teaching. After a successful trip they came back and reported to him all they had done and taught. As a result many people were coming and going - so much so that they didn't even have time to eat.

As I read that story, I think about the fact that he could have done it all - solved every need. And yet....

In Mark 6, the account of the disciples tells us that they had been serving and ministering to those around them. And they were tired! I can understand that - since I lean to the side of over-functioning and trying to do it all. Jesus recognized their need and didn't give them a visionary speech to inspire them to keep going.

Instead he said, "Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest." So they went with him. However, the people followed. As they arrived at their quiet place, the crowds were waiting. Jesus didn't turn them away but had compassion. Then he tells the weary disciples (now they had just rowed or sailed across a big lake) to feed the masses. What? I thought we were going on a much needed retreat.

Probably a bit stunned, they point out to Jesus the fact that they don't have the practical resources - not to mention their emotional and physical condition. Unfazed Jesus tells them to bring what they have. They really have nothing to bring, but Jesus uses it to feed over 5000 people.

Jesus is more than enough.

The disciples had no resources but Jesus didn't need anything from them. God has been showing me that I need to live at a sustainable pace. It's not up to me. All I need to bring is what I have - though it is not much as far as time, energy and ability - it's more than enough. When I show up and rely on Jesus, he will provide and take care of all the needs.