Being Honored in God’s Book

October 9, 2014

Want to read a boring chapter in the Bible? Go to Ezra 2. It’s everything you DON’T want to find when you open your Bible in the morning.

“Those who came with Zerubbabel were Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai, Bilshan, Mispar, Bigvai, Rehum, and Baanah. The number of the men of the people of Israel: the people of Parosh, two thousand one hundred and seventy-two; the people of Shephatiah, three hundred and seventy-two…" (Ezra 2:2-4)

Want more?

“…; the people of Arah, seven hundred and seventy-five; the people of Pahath-Moab, of the people of Jeshua and Joab, two thousand eight hundred and twelve; the people of Elam, one thousand two hundred and fifty-four; the people of Zattu, nine hundred and forty-five; the people of Zaccai, seven hundred and sixty" (Ezra 2:5-9)

Had enough yet?

To Our Extended STSA Family

October 7, 2014

A special message from me to all the "extended" STSA family - our friends, followers and supporters from all over the world. Take a look at this short video clip and please consider lending a helping hand as we seek to BUILD GOD'S KINGDOM.

For more information, check out this blog post from last week.

FOCUS ON BRICKS, NOT BUILDINGS - Build Your Kingdom Part 4

October 6, 2014

ONE WEEK LEFT in the Build Your Kingdom campaign! As we approach the end and our goal seems nearly impossible, this week we got a reminder of what a true Kingdom Builder mindset looks like. Focus on BRICKS, not BUILDINGS. Or as Solomon put it "The horse is prepared for the day of battle, but deliverance is of the Lord.” (Proverbs 21:31)

And keep laying those BRICKS!!!

More than Just a Building

October 3, 2014

Over the past few weeks, you've heard me talk a lot about our Build Your Kingdom campaign and about how we're trying to build a house for God here in Arlington, VA. You may be asking yourself "Why? Why do you need a building? Why do you need it now? And why this particular building?" Well here's your answer!

Below are three videos that will answer your questions: Our Story,Our Need, and Why This Building (this third one is the longest but it's my favorite because in it I tell the story of how we came to know that God wants this building - very personal, very moving, don't miss this one!).

Enjoy!

I (Fr. Anthony) NEED YOUR HELP

October 1, 2014

Dear loyal blog reader and friend,

What I’m about to do isn’t something that I do very often; those who know me can attest to how rare it is. I generally don’t like asking for help (remember this post?); it’s not something I’m good at.

I don’t like asking for help because I know that everyone already has enough on their plates. The last thing you need is some priest to leverage his spiritual authority to make you feel guilty about not doing more or giving more. Am I right?

But that’s why I don’t want you to take this as a request for help. Instead, I hope you see it as an invitation to be part of something great…really great!

WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH - Build Your Kingdom Part 3

September 29, 2014

Discouragement: we've all been there. We've all faced it. We know how it feels and how paralyzing it can be. The only people who avoid discouragement are people who never attempt to do anything hard/great in this world.

So what happens when a kingdom builder gets discouraged? Is that even allowed? Aren't the "spiritual" people always supposed to be upbeat and positive? What happens when the "good guys" get down?

That's this week's topic in the Build Your Kingdom series. Check out the video above and watch as I share how I personally went through some discouragement recently and how I dug my way out of it. Trust me, if you're feeling down or discouraged, you MUST watch this message.

And I pray that God uses it to pick you up as He did me as well.

Living With Intention

September 26, 2014

Imagine getting on a sailboat, sailing for 25 years and then stopping all of a sudden. You've forgotten where you came from… you have no idea where you are… and you don’t have a clue where you’re going. All this time you’ve sailed aimlessly with no clear direction and now it’s too late to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, that’s life for too many of us. In a generation where distractions couldn't be more numerous, this is where many of us find ourselves.

But that is NOT what God wants for us. That’s because unlike us, God is intentional. Everything He does is intentional and done with purpose. Everything.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” (Proverbs 29:18)

What's harder: PRAYER or WORK?

September 24, 2014

“The great people of the earth today are people who pray. I do not mean people who talk about prayer; nor those who say they believe in prayer; nor yet those who can explain about prayer; but I mean those people who take time and pray. They have not the time. It must be taken from something else. This something else is important. Very important, pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer.” -- S.D. Gordon

Which is harder – to pray or to work? Be honest. Which comes more natural when you have a problem that you can’t solve: to get up and try to fix it? Or to kneel down and spend some time praying about it?

For me, it’s a no-brainer. The harder task is prayer...by far! I know it seems counterintuitive, but it's true.

UNLESS THE LORD BUILDS THE HOUSE - Build Your Kingdom Part 2

September 22, 2014

"No praying man or woman accomplishes so much with so little expenditure of time as when he or she is praying." A.E. McAdam

Part 2 of the Build Your Kingdom series and this week we looked at our most important tool when it comes to building God's Kingdom. Not money, not manpower, not experience or intelligence... our most important tool is PRAYER.

Why? Because "unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127:1)

In this week's message, we look at Nehemiah - a man who led God's people to accomplish an incredible feat - as a model of the kind of prayer that builds kingdoms. We'll see what was Nehemiah's secret to success and see what four factors make up kingdom building prayer.

Home is Where the Heart Is

September 19, 2014

Ready for my answer? In my previous post, I posed the question “why does God care so much about having a home on earth?”

Whether it was the Garden of Eden, or the tabernacle of Moses, or the temple of Solomon… God placed a lot of emphasis on having a physical building/place where His people would gather and worship Him. Why is that? Why would a spiritual God care so much about a physical building?

Why? Because our God is an INCARNATIONAL GOD.

Does God Really Need a Home?

September 17, 2014

You’re trying to build a “home” for God by buying a church building? Are you serious? Does God really need a physical building to have a home? Isn’t the entire universe His home? Why does He need a building? And how does that building have anything to do with the Kingdom of God?

Those are some of the questions you might be asking as you hear about the BUILD YOUR KINGDOM campaign which kicked off last weekend at STSA.

And those are all fair questions. Does God really NEED a building? Does He even want one? Doesn’t God care about spiritual buildings more than physical ones? Who cares if there’s a building or not?

THE CALL TO BUILD - Build Your Kingdom Part 1

September 16, 2014

"Consider now, for the Lord has chosen YOU to build a house for the sanctuary;be strong, and do it.” 1 Chronicles 28:10

The Build Your Kingdom series officially kicked off yesterday with a message titled "THE CALL TO BUILD." We looked at why having a visible building is so important to a invisible God (hint: it isn't for His sake as much as it is for our sake).

- God built a home for He and Adam (the garden of Eden).

- God commanded Moses to build a home for Him among the Israelites in the wilderness (the tabernacle).

- God put it on David's heart to build him a permanent home in Jerusalem (the temple).

- And when that temple got destroyed, God moved in heart of the king and in the spirits of His people to rebuild that home and restore His sanctuary (see the book of Ezra).

And now God is putting it on our hearts at STSA to build Him a home as well - not for the purpose of building a building, but rather for the purpose of BUILDING HIS KINGDOM.

Check out part 1 of the series above and let's get ready to build!

Reminder: BYK KICKOFF IS TONIGHT!

September 12, 2014

BYK = Build Your Kingdom and the Kickoff event is TONIGHT at 8 pm (doors open at 7:30).

The theme of the night is "God Building His Kingdom through STSA." We'll have LIVE TESTIMONIES from people whose lives have been transformed at STSA and hear how God is working in our church. We'll also have the music team rockin, we'll be giving away prizes (like 4 tickets to a Christian concert coming to DC) and of course yours truly will give a brief message (as I always do) kicking off the 4 week BYK campaign.

So get excited and come on out tonight! If you’re local, come join us in person; the event is free and all are welcome. If you’re not local, then be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter and simulcast the event live as it happens.

Either way, don't miss out on the fun tonight and find out how God wants to use YOU to build His Kingdom wherever you might be.

BUILD YOUR KINGDOM HERE!

A Little Piece of our Ocean

September 11, 2014

“What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” – Mother Teresa

Just recently, I read an article that the Australian government is not giving up on its search for the mysterious Malaysian Airlines plane that disappeared earlier this year. When it first disappeared, I was one of the first people to sign up to help find the plane without ever leaving my home. Using satellites from a private company, I was given a piece of the ocean to search and mark anything I may see. When I was awake at night with my little one, I spent hours scouring the ocean to see if I could find any wreckage or signs of this missing plane.

Although this task kept me busy during the wee hours of the night, I never found anything. But it did teach our family a lesson to apply in our mission life: each one of us in this world is responsible for a little piece of our ocean.

Be Part of the #OneBrick Movement

September 9, 2014

You’ve seen the tweets and you’ve read the Facebook posts. You read yesterday about the BUILD YOUR KINGDOM campaign launching on Friday night and by now you’re probably asking the same question I’ve gotten from many over the past few days…WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THIS ALL ABOUT?

What is Build Your Kingdom? What is #OneBrick? What are you guys trying to do here?

Build Your Kingdom KICKOFF EVENT

September 8, 2014

What are you doing on Friday night? Whatever it is, I guarantee that it won’t be as uplifting, inspirational, and downright FUN as what I’m doing. That’s because I’ll be attending the “Build Your Kingdom” Kickoff Event and I’m inviting you to join us as well.

The kickoff event is where we’ll be launching a 4 week campaign to BUILD GOD’S KINGDOM all around the world. We’ll talk about some of the ways that God is building His Kingdom here in the DC area and we’ll show you how you can get involved and become a kingdom builder as well.

And if you’re not local, we’ll be simulcasting the event live online and hopefully inspire you to build God’s Kingdom wherever you might be.

The Power of God’s Promise

September 4, 2014

Ladies and gentlemen…I am BACK! Fr. Anthony is now in the building and it’s time to get back to turning the world upside down for the glory of God!

In case you didn’t notice, I was off from blogging for the past two months (pleeeeeease tell me you noticed!). I took the summer off in order to concentrate on two other projects – two HUGE, ginormous, God-sized, set-the-world-on-fire projects which you’ll be hearing about very soon.

But before I tell you about those projects (sorry, but trust me, it’s coming, check back here on Monday morning), I wanted to share a verse that has become very special to me over the past few months. It’s actually my “promise for 2014” – a verse that I randomly selected at our New Year’s Eve party as we all chose a verse from the Bible as our promise for the new year.

LIVING YOUR STRENGTHS Part 3 - My Strengths & Your Weakness

September 1, 2014

Every person (not just you) has unique and eternal value in God’s eyes and therefore should have the same value in yours.

That was the central message of yesterday's series finale in the Living Your Strengths series. After two weeks of talking about the importance of understanding and maximizing our own strengths, we looked at the flip side yesterday - dealing with the weaknesses of others.

It's easy to think highly of our own strengths and look down at others who don't share them. It's easy to think that because something is easy for me or comes natural to me, then it should be the same for others as well. But that's not the point.

Check out the message above and see why it's so important to not just ACCEPT the weaknesses of others, but to APPRECIATE them because those differences were designed by God for a specific reason.

Now it's your job to figure out what that reason is for the people in your life.

The Struggle

August 29, 2014

Meet Mamma Freda. Mamma Freda is an elderly woman that I met during a recent trip to Kenya. She lives with a crippling pain in her left leg, unable to afford medication to alleviate the discomfort. The pain is so immense that it prevents her from daily tasks such as cooking; in fact when we saw her, she hadn’t eaten in three days because of the pain!

Despite that, she received us with a most cheerful countenance. She struggled to greet us – using a huge wooden rod to steady her step, simply overjoyed that we were there to share a short prayer with her.

I wish I could find the words to express the blessedness of this woman – nothing I am capable of writing will do justice to Mamma Freda and her faithfulness to God. She lived with a debilitating pain in her leg, but despite that, she walked long distances every single Sunday just to make it to church. And she always did it with a smile on her face.

With Mamma Freda before me as an example, I had to ask myself: do I ever struggle for my faith? Do I ever seek Christ when it isn’t convenient and easy? Do I ever sacrifice my comfort to be with God or do something for God?

LIVING YOUR STRENGTHS Part 2 - Discovering Your Greatness

August 25, 2014

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and GREATER WORKS THAN THESE HE WILL DO, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:12)

Did you ever think about how that verse could possibly be true? How could we do "greater works" than Jesus Himself? The One who walked on water? Fed the multitudes with 5 loaves and 2 fish? Healed the sick and raised the dead? Is it actually possible for me to do "greater works than these?"

I say YES! And in Part 2 of the Living Your Strengths series, I tell you why I believe that.