Tag: Building the church

A diverse group of people singing and reading from books outdoors near a church building

A Community Supporting Itself

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“But you are to proclaim things consistent with sound teaching. Older men are to be self-controlled, worthy of respect, sensible, and sound in faith, love, and endurance. In the same way, older women are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not slaves to excessive drinking. They are to teach what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands and to love their children, to be self-controlled, pure, workers at home, kind, and in submission to their husbands, so that God’s word will not be slandered. In the same way, encourage the young men to be self-controlled in everything. Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn’t have anything bad to say about us.” (Titus 2:1-8 CSB – Read the chapter)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the church this week. I mean, more than normal. Being a pastor, I’m thinking about the church all the time, but this week has been a bit different. I’ve got some ideas rolling around in my head this morning, and I’m going to take just a minute to start to flesh some of them out here. I had thought about writing about the new Punisher special from Marvel on Disney+, but there just wasn’t much to say there. This idea, though, has been nagging at me for a couple of days now. It will probably be explored even further as my sermon for next Sunday, but this will just give you a bit of a preview of coming attractions. I’m thinking today about what makes a church strong and impactful over time. The answer is Jesus, of course, but it’s also more than that. Let me explain what I mean.

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Buildings Don’t Matter

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Last time we talked about the fact that buildings can play a significant role in our efforts to advance God’s kingdom. Not every church has a facility from which to launch their kingdom-advancing efforts, and God doesn’t need buildings to do that, but the ones that do and use them well have a powerful ministry tool at their disposal. It is a good thing that we are preparing to build a building at my church. But in the grand scheme of things, buildings don’t advance God’s kingdom. The church does. Let’s talk about it.

Buildings Don’t Matter

I am not a church planter. Unless God does something dramatic—which I am not anticipating in the least—that’s not going to change. I’m pretty comfortable in the knowledge that He has called me to pastor churches that already exist—like this one…where I plan to be for a very long time. Now, I support church planters. I think they do good and important work. But If I’m being totally honest, I struggle some with the knowledge of just how many churches are out there that already exist and which need good pastors to lead them back to health and relevancy in their communities. 

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Buildings Matter

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A year ago, we started out on a journey to expand and renovate our facilities here at First Baptist Oakboro. Over this week and next, we are checking back in on where we are, what God is doing, and why the work we are pursuing is still worth the effort. We’ll start today with the prophet Haggai and his call for the people of Israel to rebuild the temple. When we put God’s things first, He blesses the effort. Let’s dive in.

Buildings Matter

Have you ever hit one of those seasons when everything just feels like a rat race? You wake up, get dressed, go to work, come home, go to bed, and start it all over the next day. It feels like nothing ever really changes. You aren’t really going anywhere. You’re just doing the things that need to be done because they need to be done. You never feel like you get to the things you do just because you want to do them. No sooner do you get to what seems like it will be the end of one season than you find yourself back at the start having to run the whole thing over. It can all start to feel pointless. It can be depressing. How do we find purpose again when we get stuck like this? The answer is found in putting first things first. 

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Giving It Our All

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God created the church to be the place where His presence dwells on earth so that people who don’t know Him can experience Him and come to be in a relationship with Him. Nothing short of that is our goal. But this isn’t a goal to which we can give merely a half-hearted effort. It requires entirely more of us than that. As we wrap up our series, Building the Kingdom, today, we’re talking about Paul’s passion to see the Gospel advance, what that means for us generally, and what that means very specifically for this church. Let’s see what Paul has to say and what we need to do.

Giving It Our All

I still remember watching the original Mission Impossible movie with Tom Cruise as superspy, Ethan Hunt, when I was growing up. It hit theaters the summer before I started eighth grade. I remember its being terrifically fun. The plot mostly kept you guessing until the very end. The twists and turns left you never quite sure who was playing for which side. I remember over the next several years watching the second and third installments in the series, but neither one in theaters. And they were just okay. They were fun, but never quite up to the focused, spy-thriller par of the original. After that, I fairly well lost interest. Life got busy. Marvel’s MCU got up and running. Streaming services were still in their infancy. And, I wasn’t willing to spend money to buy the subsequent entries on DVD. They looked pretty fun, but seeing them just wasn’t on the agenda. 

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