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Peter Gowesky

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Same Kind of Different as Me

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I have heard many stories in the course of my short life.  I know this to be true.  In fact I have heard some really great stories.  I have the privilege of being a pastor and hearing a whole lot of stories.  However, I just finished reading a story about two unlikely friends.  “A modern day slave, an international art dealer, and the unlikely woman who bound them together.”  That’s what this story is all about, so the cover says.  However, this story is deeply penetrated with theme’s on God’s grace, God’s sovereignty, God’s love for the lost, God’s desire for all to know Him.  This story is running from cover to cover with countless moments that break your heart to read about the injustice that we as human beings dole out to our fellow man.  My heart was intricately and delicately intertwined in the story of Ron Hall and Denver Moore. 

I was given this book by my mom for my birthday this past September.  After the home going of my dad, it was tough to read the last half of the book.   Yet this is an incredible book.  A story that makes me want to be more like Christ.  A tale that encourages me to reach out to the hurting, the ugly, the down and out, those who appear to have it all together yet actually don’t and anyone else God chooses to bring into my life.  

One of the most amazing lines in this book is from Denver, I pray that this rings true of our lives…  mine included.  “Just tell em I’m a nobody that’s tryin to tell everybody ’bout Somebody that can save anybody.  That’s all you need to tell em.”  

Seriously, if you are searching for that one last christmas gift… Here it is.  Search no more.  This in my humble opinion is a must read.  

Check it out…

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Old and Tired… ???

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It strikes me as interesting that every year Christmas rolls around and here we are doing the same things, over and over again.  You know… like traditions?  I just wrote a post about christmas traditions that I have/had.  But anyhow, traditions, they can become old, tired, boring, and even empty and lifeless.  

I’ve had the opportunity to  read through the story of Jesus’ birth several times this year already.  Thinking back on bible college, high school, church, sunday school, youth group, boys brigade, home, and all the other places that I have heard/read this story, it is amazing to think of the amount of times that I have read it and been exposed to it.  

One would think that it could get old or routine by now.  Yet it doesn’t.  It still proves to be an incredible story that honestly I can’t wrap my mind around.  God becoming like me, only so that He could die for me.  Weird!  I’ve been loving John 1 this year.  I know it isn’t our traditional donkey, inn keeper, wisemen, manger scene depiction of the Christmas story.  Yet at the same time, it is unbelievably amazing to think that Jesus is God, was God, never has not been with God, and all of a sudden He becomes the very expression of God to each one of us.  Unbelievable.  Check it out.  John 1.  

What do you think?  Do you find yourself tired of the story, or continually amazed?  What new insight have you picked up on?

Let’s hear your thoughts…  Continue the conversation…

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Traditions

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Growing up, I will never forget some of our family’s Christmas traditions.  Every year we would do certain things the same as the year before that.  For instance without fail I would get in trouble every christmas eve day.  I would be so wired up and ready for the big day that I would do something stupid and find myself causing stress in someone else’s life.  That was one of the unspoken Christmas traditions.  There were tons of other ones which we practiced every year faithfully.  One of them was setting up our families manger scene.  This is something that has become close to my heart.  I look back on those times with great memories.  As a family we would “open” up the manger scene and set each piece in it’s place.  I say open it up because each piece was carefully wrapped in tissue paper.  It was a grab bag of sorts.  You never knew which piece you were going to get.  However secretly inside, I always wanted to be the guy who unraveled the tissue and found a sweet little baby Jesus.  Anyway, once you unraveled your piece we would describe what part in the story the piece played.  This whole process got more and more theological as three of the four siblings went off to Bible College.  While I was in high school I can remembering coming up with different analogies and stories describing why the “ten thousand lambs” (It seemed like there were that many anyhow…) were at the manger scene, “The Lion and the Lamb”, “The sacrificial Lamb”, “Jesus was the good shepherd”, “All we like sheep have gone astray”, as I write this now, I am chuckling thinking about my sister Heather coming up with new and Biblical explanations of those little lambs.  Good times…  After the manger was all set up, my dad would open up his Bible, and the little ribbon would lay neatly open to Luke, and we would reread the gospel story once again.  What a genius’ my mom and dad were…  What a tradition.  

The other day I realized that without even thinking we began doing something very similar with our kids.  The manger scene is quite different, and the way it was done was also different, but the idea remains the same.  I suppose you can say that the tradition will be carried on in my house.  Here are some pictures of the “Opening of the manger scene” 2008.  

Here we are with my kids being 3 and almost 2 and I’m so excited to see what explanations they come up with when the donkey pops up, what do they do with that donkey.  I can’t wait to see where they theologically place the wisemen, or magi… or hmm… what were they?  I am looking forward to hearing if the angels sang or said, “Glory to God in the Highest”…  AH!  It’s going to be great… Did the magi/kings ride camels or horses…  (Thank you hallmark for all of your inaccurate images… but that’s another post…) We had a great time explaining the story of God, Jesus, coming to earth.  

What traditions do you have?

Merry Christmas!!!

~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

High Aspirations

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So, I guess you can’t blame them for having high aspirations.  The other day we were walking through Toy’s R’ Us to get a couple christmas gifts for our Christmas Gala Project.  Noah and Grace meandered around and found their way to the mother of all big wheels.  To the great kahuna of tricycles.  They found the power wheels.  Noah made sure that he sat in every single one, and that he checked out the interior, the radio’s, the door locks, the trunks, everything… He made sure that they were going to be as tricked out as possible, and then he settled on this one here below.  UNBELIEVABLE!  Grace saw pink and she was googly eyed!  She is such a girl…  Come on… no taste in Power Wheels.  AH WELL, there’s time to teach her.  

img_0774img_0771

What crazy thing are you asking Santa for this year?

~Peter

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Lyrics

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passion

There are certain songs that I can’t get out of my head. Some of them are good ones, and some of them are bad… You know, like this one is terrible… “I wish I were an Oscar Mayer Wiener…” But then there are some good ones. This week I can’t stop listening to and singing this song.
“God of this City” by Chris Tomlin. Here are the lyrics.

You’re the God of this City
You’re the King of these people
You’re the Lord of this nation
You are

You’re the Light in this darkness
You’re the Hope to the hopeless
You’re the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

It resonates with me this week. What about you? What can you not stop listening to?
~Peter

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In Faith in Real Life

Dream Job

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Okay, so go here… and watch the video called “dream job week 4”.  Then click back over here…  Go ahead, do it now…  I’ll be waiting here for your return.  

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I was with a good buddy this morning, and we were talking about God’s will and God’s direction for his life.  Immediately I thought of this video.  This is such a cool story.  Isn’t it?  It made me think.  What do you think?

~Peter

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Lets do this together

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This morning I was driving in my car with Noah and Grace in tow behind me.   We were driving from the house to the church.  Today was going to be a special day!  We were going to play at the church for the morning.  We brought their bikes and we were going to play!  It was going to be fun.  We all willingly put our coats and shoes on, and we headed to the car with excitement on our faces.  ALL OF US!  So, we get in the car and something magical happened.  We were descending the hill on West Street passing by Doyle Elementary school and I noticed what was happening in the back seat behind me.  We were having a little school lesson.  

This is the conversation I heard.

Noah- “Grace.  Say tree.”

Grace- “Twee”

Noah- “Good job Grace.  Say car.”

Grace- “Kar”

Noah- “Good job Grace.  Say Baby Doughnut.”  {In our family munchkins are known lovingly as Baby doughnuts…}

Grace- “Bebe Dowgnuts”

All of a sudden it hit me…  Shouldn’t this be what the Christian life is all about?  Shouldn’t we be helping each other grow in our faith?  Shouldn’t we be there living life along side of each other helping our peers out when they are struggling? In this situation, there was no paid teacher, there was no professional.  Believe me, Noah has lightyears to go in his sentence structure and word pronunciation. However, for whatever reason, he saw a need in his sisters life.  He stepped up to the plate and was there to help Grace develop in her speech, and her abilities to communicate.  I was one proud dad.  

This is what we are trying to do at Youth Group.  We are purposefully leaving 10 minutes at the end of every evening for students to spend that time with each other, praying, talking, counseling, laughing, and crying.  This has everything to do with helping each other.  

I’m a pastor.  True statement.  However, I don’t want to be the only one leading students.  I want to see youth leaders leading students.  I want to see students leading students.  There will be much greater growth in church’s, youth groups, small groups, and sunday schools if we would work together and follow the example of a 3 year old.    What if… What if we practiced this?  

What do you think?  Can you be apart of this type of a movement?  Who do you think that you can be reaching out to?  Or, have you had anyone do this in your life?

What do you think?

~Peter

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