Getting the church right – Page 4

This week we are talking about another of the fundamental nuts and bolts of getting the church right. Like we did a couple of weeks ago, though, this week we talked less and showed more. Today we’re talking about the importance of discipleship in the church. From there – which you can watch in the embedded YouTube video of our service – we experienced together what discipleship in action can look like as we heard and celebrated the stories of our Guatemala mission trip team. Thanks for reading and sharing.

Growing Together

I am not generally well-known for my physique. Unless you happen to be going for scrawny, in which case I am your man. It may not come as much of a surprise to you to learn that over the course of my nearly 41 years of life, I haven’t spent all that much time in a gym. Or it may surprise you…but then we probably need to have a conversation about what muscle looks like, but we can do that another time. Yes, because I haven’t spent more than a few hours in a gym exercising and lifting weights…ever…big, bulging muscles aren’t really my thing. Indeed, if you want to build muscle, you have to work out. Simply wishing yourself strong isn’t going to work. If you want to enjoy the payoff, you have to put in the effort. Well, kind of like we talked about last week, what’s true of the human body is also true of the church.

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Today, as we continue our journey through the story of the early church in Acts, we come to one of those stories that threatens to derail the whole thing. This is a hard story. It’s hard to understand. It seems totally inconsistent with what we think we know of God’s character. It seems to paint the church in just the kind of judgmental light that is so often shined on it today. And we are going to dive right into the middle of it. We’re going to tackle it head on because I think there’s something happening here that we absolutely cannot miss if we want to get doing church right. So, buckle up and get ready, because this is going to be a wild ride.

Taking Things Seriously

I often start off our time together with a question. I’m going to do that this morning. This question, though, is a little more personal than what I often ask. I want you to think back to your past a bit this morning—hopefully not the recent past if you haven’t yet been around here very long. I want you to think for a minute about whether or not you’ve ever had a bad church experience.

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