Joy to the world the Lord has come!

By Pastor Tim White

This Sunday, for us at Washington Cathedral, is the Advent Sunday of Joy. It’s hard for us to imagine a Christmas season the way it ought to be without joy. These include our best visions and memories of the Christmas season. What would it be without gut-busting laughter, kids waking up way too early, laughter at Christmas services from donkeys that refuse to walk the aisle? Sheep that baa way too much, wardrobe malfunctions. Frosty taking over the show while everyone gets uncontrollable giggles. Tiny cherubs who become hilarious divas and the preacher who gets mixed up and uses his comments to completely embarrass himself. And what about those dumb Christmas jokes you hear throughout the season such as “what do you call a kid who refuses to believe in Santa? A rebel without a clause.” Joy abounds!

Join us this Sunday morning at 10:30am in our In-Person service or Online (YouTube, Facebook Live or Church Apps) to discover the healing power of Christmas through joy.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Advent Lights the Night

By Pastor Tim White

This time of year can really be dark. It seems like yesterday that 5:00 am was a beautiful time to enjoy the spectacular sunrises in the Pacific Northwest. Now 5:00 am is like the middle of a very dark night. In this dark time of year, we miss light. And we need light to shine into our lives. As for the rest of our planet, light brings health, optimism, new energy, and motivation.  

Most religions in non-equatorial regions developed festivals to mark the darkest days of the year with hope. Christians celebrated this time leading into Christmas with Advent. And since early Christians struggled to know the date of Christ’s birth the darkest time of the year was when it became tradition to celebrate this holy festival of Christmas.  

The word “Advent” is derived from the Latin word adventus, meaning “coming” which is a translation of the Greek word Parousia.  By the 6th century, however, Roman Christians had tied Advent to the coming of Christ. We celebrate Advent in the four weeks leading up to Christmas. The Catholic Tradition had Hope, Faith, Joy and Peace all leading to Love on Christmas morning. As each new reformation took place, different churches would change the order as Martin Luther did in reviving the faith of German Lutherans. Each tradition of Advent was meaningful.

I like to follow the Catholic Order because it is the oldest, but I could celebrate any Christian Order of Advent. This year Dr. Rey Diaz is going to be here on Sunday the 19th of December to preach and he asked to preach on Hope. So, we change the order and rotated Hope to the 19th of December and Faith then becomes our opening to Advent.

We need this season to refresh our faith. Stagnant faith becomes rigid and cold. This season is designed to renew our lives, our churches, our nation, and our families. We all need to kick off Advent 2021 with a faith infusion. Please join us at our In Person Service or Online this Sunday at 10:30am. Online can be found on You Tube, Facebook Live or the church Apps.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

Beautiful Gifts

By Pastor Linda Skinner

I hope everyone has or has had someone in their life that they could say, regardless of their age: “When I grow up, I want to be just like _________.” Well for me there have been and still are several of those people. Of course, we believe that everyone is a “Gift” and that everyone is “Gifted”. But there are some of those people whose gifts are “something special.” It doesn’t matter what their gift is, it can come in all shapes and sizes. But you see them using their gift and it is beautiful.

I’ll give you an example. “When I grow up, I want to be like Marilyn Biggs.” (I’m 73 years old and I’m still feeling that way.) I think Marilyn had gifts of faith, teaching, prayer and evangelism. And often sprinkled with a few other things as well as the need arose. But it wasn’t her gifts that impressed me over the years. It was the way she used those gifts. Every gift the Holy Spirit gave her, she wrapped it in God’s love. She was strong lady and she would speak truth into your life without hesitation. But it was always wrapped in love.

When I visited with Marilyn about 10 days before she went to be with Jesus for eternity; she told me about a nurse she encountered at the hospital. It was the first time I ever heard her say anything bad about another person. She told me this nurse was grouchy all the time, never smiled and Marilyn was pretty sick. Marilyn told me she said to her “you are not a very nice person.” I said a “woohoo—how did she take that?” Her response to Marilyn’s was, “no one has ever told me that.” Marilyn just gave her the Marilyn look, and said “I’ll be praying for you, maybe you need the love of Jesus in your life.” (I don’t know how to write that look down, but the next time you see me I’ll show you.) The nurse said, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.” Now only Marilyn could pull that one off. A gift wrapped in the love of God.

As I am preparing to wrap up our 8-week series on Spiritual Gifts this Sunday with 1 Corinthians 13 (the Love Chapter) I couldn’t help but think of my friend, my mentor, my sister in Christ. I learned so much from her and I miss her terribly. We will have a lot of catching up to do in heaven. And who knows, maybe I will get to meet her nurse there with her. I wouldn’t be surprised.

Hope you can join us this Sunday at 10:30 am In Person at Spirit Falls Sanctuary or Online via Facebook Live, YouTube Live, www.wacathedral.org, or WaCathedral App (Apple, Google, Amazon)

Just remember always “You are a Gift – Embrace It.”

God Bless You,

Pastor Linda Skinner

Success Through Your Gift

By Pastor Tim White

Something deep inside of us wants us to be a success. We want to discover our best selves and hopefully we have learned that real success is to become the person God wants us to be. I think every human being has that sense of God’s plan for their life. People get sidetracked by cheap imitations. They want to be confident, and cocaine is a cheap imitation, and its path leads to destruction. Many want to be peaceful, so people use heroin or one of its sister drugs. Some want enthusiasm, so they use meth as a cheap substitute. A lot of people are desperate for love, so they become addicted to illicit sex.

To battle those perversions, we need to meet our deepest desires by becoming the person that God has designed us to be. And we can’t do that until we discover our spiritual gifts, and we find a way to use them as the body of Christ.

How do you find that gift and how to use it?

1) You need to have an authentic relationship with your Creator. Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit which prevents you from the connection that establishes your gift.

2) You need to learn about God’s spiritual gifts. What they are or what they are not. And how to use them.

3) Take an online Spiritual Gift Inventory. And learn more about yourself.

4) Get feedback from leaders in the church and match your giftedness to the need of the Team Jesus.

5) Try using your gifts and see if they are fruitful.

When you are operating in your giftedness you will discover a genuine source of confidence, peace, excitement, and love that you can’t find any other way.

Remember you are a gift embrace it.

Come join us either In Person on Sunday at 10:30am or Online with Church Apps, You Tube or Facebook Live. Learn more about how to have a more fulfilling life using your Spiritual Gifts.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

By Pastor Tim White

Don’t you just love unique people? I enjoy trying to build a friendship with my critics. Throughout my life some of my greatest critics have become my best friends. That began when I was a kid growing up. It existed when I was a young man and still exists as an older friend.

I find it astonishing that every one of us is absolutely unique. You can meet all types of people but when you get to know them longer you discover more and more of their uniqueness.

Halloween is fun because we can see this in each and every costume. Jackie was a Pirate and I was Spider-Man. My daughter Becca was a Tyrannosaurus Rex. While her husband Ben was a Ninja Turtle, our granddaughter Eva was a TV star of a Disney show while our grandson Oscar, was a Storm Trooper from Star Wars. While we were at the house, some trick or treaters came by. One enthusiastic little girl was part clown, part pirate and part vampire. Do you see what I mean about uniqueness?

When building a marriage, we need to understand human uniqueness. That’s also true of raising kids. As a Professor of Preaching at Northwest University I was always amazed at how unique each student was even with their shared gift of preaching.

Join us this week as I share how we can better understand our uniqueness and our giftedness. Sunday at 10:30am at our In Person Service in our sanctuary or online with You Tube, Facebook Live or the Church Apps.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

Pastor Tim White

What Are You Waiting For?

By Pastor Michael Fernandez

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4: 8-11 (NIV)

Often when I lead off a service with a prayer. I have come to use the phrase, “All that we have to do is Open Our Hearts to the possibilities that only God can place there through the miracle of his love.” The key is to truly Open Up to God without hesitation. The question is, have we truly Opened Our Hearts and allowed God to work through us?

For me it’s a constant reminder of how short our lives truly are. If we don’t take the risk and Open Up now, we may never get the opportunity or reap the blessings of it.

It took my brother Joe 58 years to Open Up and share what God had placed on his heart and he finally did in the last 3 months of his life. It truly was a miracle. He shared his love and thoughts openly and had a tremendous loving impact on his family & friends. My brother’s life is a constant reminder, “The tasks we do are not as important to God as the heart in which we do them.”

Here is another miracle a new HVAC system for the sanctuary and Foyer!

Finding Your Spiritual Gifts- Part 2
By Pastor Tim White

A natural gift is a God given talent that you can enjoy all unto yourself. A spiritual gift is a supernatural gift that you use as part of a team.

Yes, you might be using your spiritual gift in the Parent Teacher Association, the Union Gospel Mission, the Food Bank or even as a part of The Company. If your spiritual gift is leadership, encouragement, service or any other on the list, it may be the thing that they love about you at work. But you should know your spiritual gift is dependent upon God’s work in your heart and life. Whether you need encouragement or forgiveness to let it flow - you need God’s continual work in your gift. When a natural gift is used, people say, Wow, you are awesome! But when a spiritual gift is used people say, Wow, God is an awesome God! Both are amazing, but spiritual gifts have an exponential impact as those impacted are changed, then others are impacted by this amazing change and so on and so on.

Many people are asking how is the church going to survive and thrive during this season of pandemic? Especially when many people will go to sporting events, holidays, etc., but are afraid they will catch COVID at church.

All Christian churches will grow the same way they have grown in the past, and that is by motivating people to build their relationship with Jesus Christ and discovering and using their spiritual gifts as a team to reach out to the world.

What’s our plan as Washington Cathedral to overcome and rebuild? By teaching people that they are a gift and how to embrace it. This week come and learn about a spiritual gift inventory that can be found online that you can use. Find out more about your gift and how it can be used to help access mountain-moving faith in all areas of your life.

Join us this Sunday, at 10:30am either in the In-Person Service in our Sanctuary or online with You Tube, Facebook Live or the Church Apps.

Your friend for life,

Pastor Tim White

Sacred Love! Hey, Let’s Find your gift.

That line assumes that first you have a gift and second you have decided to discover it. 

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other,
just as in Christ God forgave you.   Ephesians 4:32

This passage in Ephesians Chapter 4, where one of the three gifts listed are in Scripture, points us to healing our relationships as part of discovering our gifts. Yes, gifts because you have more than one gift; you have a mix of gifts. But if we have problems with our team in the local church, we can’t discover or succeed in using our amazing gifts.  It’s hard to say you are a great Running Back or Shortstop if you’ve quit the team. Right?  So, this miracle of discovering your gift mix, learning more about your personality, needs to come alive as you are in healthy relationships with your fellow team members.  This is good news because God can heal relationships if we allow God to heal us, which is the way to an ongoing great team.

You see, “love’s gift is that everything it touches becomes sacred!”  In other words, where love really exists, it lasts forever as the Bible says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13.  God’s love helps us in the process of becoming holy.  The love we share is one of the most beautiful things in the universe because it was not selfish, it is from God. So, we can’t give up, we can only forgive and receive forgiveness thereby making us better and better as life continues on.  You are moving towards the best version of yourself as Jesus works inside of you.  And that’s where you discover your God-given giftedness.  It’s not happening if you are not giving and receiving Gods love.  But you are, so where are we gifted and how do those gifts work together?

Join us for Worship this Sunday at 10:30am either online with Facebook Live, You Tube or the Church Apps, or in person in our Sanctuary, and you will find out.

Your friend for the rest of my life,

 Pastor Tim White

Happy Anniversary!
By. Pastor Tim White

This weekend we celebrate the 37th Anniversary of Washington Cathedral. That means we are celebrating the heroic story of so many people and ministries which played for 37 years. It all started on the last Friday of August when we held a rally at what is now the Bellevue Hilton Hotel.  Only two prospects came to that service, Earl and Mary Ann Ess, who told us it would be too far to commute from the University District to the Eastside at Lake Washington High School. They then became the core of our church. Earl was a retired US Air Force Colonel and Mary Ann was one of the sweetest Christians you would ever meet.  Joining them were Ed and Jane Bishop, Dennis and Pam Brown and their two kids at the time, Nick and Tyler Brown.  Jackie and I with our two children at the time Elise and Roman White. A few other families gathered with us before our first Sunday in October 1984.  I was 29 years old, and Jackie was 28. We had been in Ministry at three other churches for 11 years dreaming the dream of someday trying to Build the Greatest Caring Network the World Has Ever Seen. And try we did, as one by one great people, who became legendary, came to join the team and expand the ministries.  I never could have envisioned the amazing knights in shining armor who helped build such an impactful team.

You are those knights in shining armor and we celebrate you this weekend with celebrated classical soprano Elaina Lewis, who will be joining us online for this celebration. For our In Person service, we will be joined by our new Worship Leader Chelsea Maitland, who is returning from maternity leave after bringing into the world a new baby boy.  You will also hear from the Pastoral Team regarding the plans for the future as we continue to thrive during this pandemic.

Please join us in either the In Person or Online on Sunday at 10:30am. There will be an opportunity given for you to vote on retaining the Senior Pastor and Board of Directors.

So please join us.

Your friend for the rest of my life, 

Pastor Tim White

You Are a Gift, Embrace It

by Pastor Tim White

I am amazed at how discouraged, frustrated, and angry people are during this COVID Pandemic. Every line of work is experiencing it.  Airlines, hospitals, and grocery stores are three that come to mind.  But all of us feel it in some way. So, it is time for Christians to get to work loving and encouraging as many people as possible.

 Can you imagine how a young family struggling with school, working from home and financial challenges needs to hear “you are a gift.” Well, we all need to hear that message, don’t we?

 Denzel Washington, Pastor Rick Warren, and Samuel Clemons have all said, “there are two great days in a person’s life. The day they are born and the day that you find out why you are alive.” My opinion is that there are many great days in a person’s life, the day they are born, the day when you find out why you are here, the day you fall in love, the day you have a baby, the day you go fishing, the day you go on vacation, the day you sit down at a coffee shop and read a great book, the day you have popcorn…etc. etc. 

 But back to the first quote. We are kicking off a series for Washington Cathedral with the catch phrase “You are a gift! Embrace it.”  We will be discovering how to discover our spiritual gift and how to use it effectively through teamwork. 

 This week we have a Special Guest, Ellaina Lewis.  She is an amazing classical singer from our area. And has a personality you are sure to love. Join us for this great start to October with this new series and special music this Sunday at 10:30am for In-Person Service in our sanctuary or online with You tube, Facebook Live or the Church Apps. You will be encouraged and inspired!

 Your friend for the rest of my life.

 Pastor Tim White