Be Ready to Stand

This week we begin a brand new series called Stand Up: How to Fight Injustice.  For the next six weeks and with the story of Esther as our guide, we are going to look at how as followers of Jesus we can stand effectively against injustice in the world around us.  Sometimes we’ll be called to do that in big, bold ways, but more often than not, our best chances will be small and seemingly insignificant.  But, if we don’t make them, injustice is given that much more space to flourish, so make them we must.  Stay tuned in the weeks ahead for how to do it.

 

Be Ready to Stand

Have you ever heard the word “serendipity” before?  I’m sure you have.  Better question: Do you know what it means?  You might know it was the title of a romantic comedy starring John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.  That doesn’t really answer the question, though.  Serendipity is a word used to describe a random, but fortunate turn of circumstances.  In other words, serendipity is when something good happens to you totally unexpectedly.  The idea is that the universe has contrived to bless you in some kind of a way without your realizing it.  Now, this is not a concept that connects with the Christian worldview at all.  As followers of Jesus, we believe that God is the giver of all good gifts, not some impersonal entity such as “the universe.”  But, many people don’t have a category for something like this happening because they don’t have the proper worldview framework and so they simply call it serendipity. Read the rest…

Get Moving

In this second part of our conversation, What’s Next, we took a look at how the ideas of growing and reaching and help give us clarity in terms of our next steps now that we understand our identity a bit more fully.  Keep reading to see how these can guide us.

 

Get Moving

Well, last week, after spending the previous four talking about our God-given identity as a church, we began a new conversation seeking to answer the question, “What’s Next?”  So we know a little better than we did before who God made us to be.  What are we supposed to do with that?  What are some of the things we can be doing now to start moving us down the road in the direction of becoming fully that church?  Certainly we’re not going to get there all at once, but what are the steps we can take now no matter who we are and where we are in order to start the ball rolling in that direction?  Perhaps to ask that another way: How can we begin adjusting our behavior as a body in light of who God made us to be such that even if we’re not fully that church yet, we’re putting ourselves in a place to begin becoming that church? Read the rest…

Diving In

After spending the past four weeks talking about who God made us to be as a church, this past Sunday morning we started a new conversation about what’s next.  Now that we know who we are, what are some of the specific things we can start doing now to make sure we are able to move all together in the direction He has designed us to go?  Keep reading to find out.

 

Diving In

Wasn’t last week fun?  If you were not here for whatever reason number one, we missed you.  Number two, you will want to get your hands on a video of the service so you can experience some of the Spirit moving as we did in the room.  After three weeks of unpacking the key pieces of the identity God has built into this church for the purpose of building up the larger body of Christ and expanding the kingdom starting in Oakboro and moving on outward from here, we finally put everything together as we celebrated the resurrection and found ourselves in the larger story God is writing across the ages.  I thought it was a really exciting morning and I hope you did too.  It was definitely a morning that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.  Several of you have told me how excited you are to race forward to see what God has in store for us in the days ahead as we become fully the body of Christ He made us to be—a place where people connect to grow in Christ and reach out for His kingdom.  And yet this week…everything looks about like it did last week.  So…what’s next? Read the rest…

Telling Our Story

Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday!  We celebrated our risen Lord together by telling the incredible story of which we can be a part if we will receive Him as our Lord.  We celebrated our part in this great story as individuals, but also as a whole community as we finally put together the three key pieces of our identity into one clear and compelling idea: First Baptist is a place where people can connect to grow in Christ and reach out for His kingdom.  Keep reading to see how this all unfolded.

 

Telling Our Story

Three weeks ago, we started a journey together.  It was a journey that came out of a conversation about who we are as a church; what our God-given identity is.  The idea here is that while each individual person has a unique, God-designed identity, so do whole churches.  The church is the body of Christ and we are individually members of it.  That means we each have a specific role to play in the body, but one local church does not by itself comprise the whole body of Christ.  That means that each individual local church is itself part of the larger body of Christ and thus has a specific role to play as a community in that larger body. Read the rest…

Reaching Further

In this third part of our conversation about who God made us to be as a church, we talked about the fact that connecting and growing, while necessary, are not sufficient in and of themselves.  Thank you for taking part in this conversation with us and reflecting on God’s design for your own community.  Don’t miss next week as we put everything together and celebrate the thing that gives it all substance: The resurrection.

 

Reaching Further

Have you ever had a secret that was simply too good to keep to yourself?  It was news that you just weren’t going to be able not to share; you were just going to have to deal with the consequences later?  Or perhaps make this more personal: Have you ever gotten a bit of good news that you couldn’t possibly have not shared with the world?  In our social media-crazed world, some days it seems like most folks think everything is worth sharing.  “I got a promotion!”  “I ran a marathon!”  “My kid is on the honor roll!”  “My dog really like its new bed!”  “I woke up this morning!”  “I’m asleep now (my fingers are set on auto-post)!”  What starts to happen is that as everything gets shared, it can begin to seem like really, nothing is worth sharing.  I submit to you, though, that some things really are worth sharing.  What’s more, some places are designed to help us do that.  And I’m not talking about Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Read the rest…