First Fruits Co-Op...

Hello Everyone,
God is good------That statement just does not fill the HUGE space in my heart for what God can and DID do this year at the Farm--First Fruits. Can't wait to see what kind of harvest we have this year, most of which was given to Seeds of Grace, the AC3 Food Bank. First Fruits Co-op members also harvested food for themselves.
The key ingredient is "US", working in concert with our Creator to do his bidding in HIS DIRT!!!! I pray that you all will be blessed by God this year and renewed to come back next spring as we begin a new harvest year.
Peace and Gratitude, Jan Hayes 
Co-Op Manager

"The words above were posted on the AC3 website 5 years ago approximately and still apply today-with one little addition. GOD IS ALWAYS GOOD! :) He has blessed this Farm and the Land Owners and all the members abundantly these last 5 years and I'm so grateful for those blessings, good healthy food for my family and friends, new and WONDERFUL friendships, a loving family integrated into my life when their Land was donated to use for Gods Purpose, Our church AC3 grew for the Kingdom, souls that will follow our Lord - Mathew 25; 34-40. This is our path at First Fruits and Seeds of Grace. God be with you this year my friends. Come join us at the Farm this year, membership now opening for the 2015 year. Peace Jan

AC3 VB40 Secret Chruch

HERE IT IS! This weeks video blog comes to you from the elevator in our current series. Enjoy! :)

AC3 VB33 Pause Week 4

Join Rick and Dan as they talk "Pause", some Leadership Summit and the upcoming Vision Cast. Enjoy! :)

AC3 VB *Special* Church Leadership

Rick and Dan talk about church leadership and the importance of accountability while discussing the current happenings with Mars Hill church in Seattle.

AC3 VB Series DNA Part 6 "A Safe Place"

In Part 6 of our AC3 DNA series Dan and Rick talk about creating a safe place to seek and ask questions about the gospel if you are a seeker. This is a great topic for all of us AC3ers. Enjoy!

2014 Men's Forum, H.U.G.E. Hearts!!

Men after God's heart

 

H.U.G.E. Men of God Men's Forum kicked off last night at Word of Life Church in Marysville. This is my first time attending, so I thought I'd share my experience and growth throughout the 5 week event and in to the 2014 Men's Advance.

AC3's own Pastor Dan Hazen delivered the first week's message, the message was profound. An epic beginning to start this 5 week event leading up to the 2014 Men's Advance.

The intent of the Men's Forum is to unify the men of all Christian churches in and around our community. To continue to create a church without walls, worship, fellowship, deep discussion and HUGE growth in the hearts of the men in our communities.

Open Heart?

 

As I do with all of my time with God's people, I intentionally went in to this night with what I thought was an open heart. I try to leave all notions of who I have been to this point in my life at the door and just take in what God has planned for me to learn.

As Dan passionately and intentionally delivered this message to this crowd of men, gathered on a Tuesday night in Marysville, magic was happening in our hearts. God's presence was apparent and what an open heart truly means was redefined for me, through God's eyes.

The Pregame

 

I won't dissect this message too much, it was too good for me to hit every point of it and somehow do it justice. I can however relay where and how it hit me. First things first here though, I must say, the worship band absolutely rocked, excellent couriers in to God's presence, that shouldn't be understated but the message hit me hard, so I guess it is.

For as long as I can remember, I've looked to world class athletes for traits that I strive to have. An amazing work ethic, a dream and a lofty goal realized, humility, courage, faith and especially those with an extreme will to succeed.

Russell Wilson is all of these things. His character, by all accounts is absolutely incredible. I bring this up because it was profound to me. That Dan, self proclaimed "nerd" and hardly a fan, let alone a big fan of football would start his message with tangible (and somehow accurate) evidence of how the characteristics of Wilson's heart are responsible for where he is today. Where he is today is on the verge of achieving his ultimate football goal as well as finding himself on the biggest stage possible to spread The Word of God in a community that desperately needs it, he does the latter quite gracefully I might add.

With Super Bowl Sunday coming in a few short days, I think Dan knew the way in to our hearts because that was just the beginning. The set up or the 3 yard run before the deep play action touchdown pass.

The message of and from the heart

 

If you know Dan, you know Dan's heart. If you don't know Dan, know that he wears his heart on his sleeve and reveals it to his community in every walk of his life, especially while delivering a message from The Word.

I won't dive in to the event in Dan's life that he centered this message to these men around, if you weren't there, I'll leave it up to you to ask him about that. Let me just tell you that he told an amazing story, a story of true courage in a young boy's heart and the profound effects of the lessons learned from it more than 30 years later in his life. How that courage gave him the ability later in life to love his father more and better than he had even thought possible.

The fierce passion in this man's eyes, his tone and his fists, shaking at the sky made it feel like he was talking directly to me, but I know I wasn't alone...I wasn't alone in knowing that men's hearts in our society aren't just broken, they're hardened by our culture. We're on a crash course, losing the courage and will it takes to truly love God, to truly love ourselves and in turn, love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

My will to seek God is the will that matters. We've all been broken by something at some point, our will to seek God is what gives us Christ followers redemption, it's how we find God's grace in the darkest of hours in our lives and how we find true joy in the best of times.

What I took from this message is that my will to seek God, the courage it takes to open my heart, mind and soul to God's word and His people is everything. My heart is hardened by my past, the only way to soften it is to keep it open for God's work, to have the courage to completely break societies mold of the modern man and continue to give my entire life to Jesus Christ so that our community can be the light on the hill for all to see.

H.U.G.E. stuff

 

After the message everyone headed to breakout rooms for discussion on what we love versus what we fear and different ways men have overcome fear with the courage to chose love in many situations. I'm certain that a man's life was changed in our group and I can't wait to follow up with him to make sure he stay's in God's presence where he was on Tuesday night.

These are the rooms where new relationships with like-minded men in all walks of life come from. A safe place to find real answers to real life problems through someone else who has conquered a similar situation, because I guarantee you, someone else has been there and overcome it, whatever it may be.

So, I hope and I pray that you'll join us. If week one was this good, I can only imagine where we'll go, I can already imagine the bonds that will be created in the hearts of men in our community over the next 6 weeks. The growth that this event is creating in our communities is astounding. So please come, open your heart, be courageous and do your part to make our community and your love for it stronger.

More information on the website HERE

We'll be at the Word of Life Church on 51st Ave in Marysville on Tuesdays all throughout February.

The Story, From the Inside

In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God.

 

Our Christmas service at AC3 this year will feature 'The Story', an awesome, modernized musical rendition of the Christmas story. In true AC3 fashion it's imaginative, creative and filled with talented people expressing their love of Jesus through song and theatrics.

Our ironic God

 

For years, I've known that God gave me a voice for singing but I never knew what I was supposed to do with it, and frankly, I shied away from it as I have ZERO technical training and was afraid to get on stage and sing. Well, with some pushing from my immediate family and my church family (you know who you are!), I decided I would put myself out there and see what happens.

The audition was a few months back, I received good reviews and was told that they would let me know when there was a spot for me. A few opportunities arose but there were other family events on the weekends preventing me from singing on stage. When I received that fateful email asking everyone their availability for the month, I looked at the family calendar and realized that the only week in December that was available was the week of Christmas.

This is the way God works in my life, he finds my worldly shortcomings, like this one of being timid about getting on stage, standing behind a microphone and singing and gives me no choice but to put my faith in Him and push strait through my limiting beliefs.

So here we go, a child of the one true God, not singing harmony in the background of a worship service for our church (like I would have chosen), but thrown right in to sing a lead vocal in the musical climax of our CHRISTMAS MUSICAL PROGRAM!!

Thank you Jesus and thank you AC3!

 

With 3 rehearsals in the books, I feel incredible, like I'm doing exactly what God had intended for me to do, much like loving my family, completely changing my career path and starting this blog have felt since AC3 led me to the truth about our Savior. There's no possible way that I could feel like this without the amazing production team at AC3. It's unimaginable to have a more patient, talented, loving and passionate group of people than these.

The first 3 days, there's been a lot of "hand holding" so to speak, there's no doubt I need it as this is all new to me. On day one, I couldn't find my cues, I was running in the wrong direction half of the time and felt lost yet EVERYONE stayed calm and coached me to where I needed to be.

Tonight, after day 3, I'm filled with confidence and excitement to share 'The Story' of Jesus Christ, our Savior coming to earth in the flesh to redeem us from our sinful bodies. Being a small part of this story, His story in this powerful house of God that my family calls home is a great honor and I'll be praying diligently in the coming days for strength to perform well and to honor God well this weekend.

Go, tell it on the mountain...

 

So, AC3er's and non AC3er's alike, please join us as we tell this amazing story, the story of Christmas and how Jesus came to us in the flesh to save YOU! These people are amazing and 'The Story' will be enjoyed by all.

Now go! Let's fill this house up all weekend! Make sure everyone you know is invited, in person, on Facebook or wherever else that anyone will listen, it's a story worth knowing....

Click here to go to AC3's website for details on times for encounter services this weekend.

AC3 Men's Getaway - What Does Love Require of Me?

What Does Love Require of Me?

In years past, I would have thought that 18 men headed for a lodge up in the mountains would need to start with a common activity, fishing, hunting, skiing, snowmobiling, partying or maybe a mix of those in some form. The mere thought of this getaway, the fact that all of these men are here to just get to know each other better, to get to know God better and to just take a refreshing break from every day life was unfathomable for the first 30 years of my life. Maybe just weird, yeah, I definitely would have thought it was just weird.

I went anyways....

Maybe it is weird, maybe we are weird, with all of the things in today’s world that are genuinely strange and often harmful to humanity, I’m ok with this kind of weird. I’m now firm in the belief that it’s this kind of weird that today’s world lacks, desperately. The kind of weird that allows us to be different, to stand out in the crowd like the light on top of the hill that Jesus called us to be. Not the look at me, look what I’m doing and crying out for attention standing out but the kind of weird that allows time for men to grow in to the leaders that our generation is looking for, the kind of leaders God intended us to be.

 

18 of God's Men, AC3 Men's Getaway 2013

Selah....

The Selah lodge is owned by a friend of AC3, we are blessed that he opens the doors of this wonderful place to us for this men’s getaway. It’s meant to be a house where The Lord is present, Selah is used in the book of Psalms 71 times, it’s closest translation is “pause, and look at that”, or it’s referenced as a musical interlude/pause within a psalm. To me, it’s a sacred place to pause and be with God and to be with the men that God has put in my life.

Our opening prayer is to take in the name, Selah, to use this time as a pause, to take in God’s rejuvinating power and let it fuel us to lead our families better as well as our community. To me this hit as soon as I parked the truck, I don’t know about you but everyday life can at times beat me down, mentally and physically. Recharging my battery and my passion for discerning God’s will in my life are vital in my Christian walk, a large gasp of the fresh mountain air when I stepped out of the truck was all it took for me to find the peace within the weekend, before it really began.

A safe place...       

The theme of the weekend, was based on The Book of Matthew 22:37-40.

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The question proposed by our elders/teachers in attendance for the weekend was “what does love require of me?” This struck me, the entire weekend hung on this question, in fact, when you read the words of Jesus, our entire walk as disciples of Christ hangs on this question.

Clay’s story....

Well you see, for me, I’ve had a problem in the past with letting society’s cliche’s get in the way of me actually knowing someone. Before the trip had even started, we were all gathering in the parking lot looking to take off and I see this rough, tough looking dude, tattoo on his neck with the look of a man who’d been to hell and back on this earth. I remember thinking, “oh great, I have to spend the whole weekend with this guy”. That thought was real, it is how my mind has operated for many years, possibly my entire life. Clearly I’ve been distancing myself from some meaningful relationships due to preconceived notions that somehow I was better than this person, or in some cases, this person was better than me.

As is God’s way of teaching, Clay rode in my car on the way over and I was instantly drawn to him. Clearly God was at work in his heart and clearly he was here with us to make himself a better servant of God. As our teaching session was coming to a close the next morning, Clay told us his life story leading up to that day. I must say, some tears were shed by all. For a man to overcome as much violence and addiction as Clay had, to find redeeming power in the grace of God is absolutely nothing short of a miracle. A man that had been through more than 15 years of what would have and has killed most people whose path had crossed drugs, anger, violence and prison to be here today in the presence of God at Selah lodge, clearly God has more plans for this man. I pray that he never loses sight of the fact that God has placed him exactly where he is today to make an impact on this world, and to be a light within it.

How it hit me...

When the group separated for some free time after Clay poured his heart out to us, I wanted to grab my computer and find a quiet place to write. My instant thoughts went to the question, “what does love require of me?” and how does this pertain to Clay?

I had barely written two sentences when the door popped open and in walked Clay. He sat down on the floor below the bunk bed that I was on the top of and grabbed his iPad, seemingly to settle in for a bit like I was. We talked for more than 2 hours, I won’t divulge in to what the conversation was all about, but I will tell you that I love that man as Jesus does and as I’m called to by our Lord and Savior. The notion that there was a time in my life that I would have never known a story like Clay’s, that I would have never been around to be a friend, a brother in Christ if he needed me and had thoughts of sinking in to his old life genuinely frightens me to my core. I’m so thankful that I decided to be in that place, with those men that weekend with an open heart, God poured in his love and I’ll never judge a book by it’s cover again.

My advice...

As with most thing’s God sees as good, you have to leave the easy road behind. Think outside the box, get weird and get involved with people who will make you a better servant of God. Take a chance and go on a retreat, getaway or just call somebody and find a group that will help you grow, it’s the lone sheep that get’s slaughtered by the enemy.