Tag: Missions

Looking Out

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In the world of church life, this is the one Sunday that often gets forgotten about. It’s like a throwaway Sunday. I know of some churches that don’t even meet this week. Sitting between Christmas and New Year’s, most people are ready to just lie low, resting from the year past and preparing for the one that lies ahead. Yet rather than wasting such a time like this, it seems like a wiser play to redeem it. So, let’s look back and look forward at the same time; reflecting with gratitude on what has been, while anticipating with joyfulness what still lies ahead. Let’s talk about how we can be the kind of church God has made us to be.

Looking Out

So, I’m going to run out on a limb and be honest with you about something this morning. I went back and forth on this because of how it would be received, but decided that transparency is the best option. Before your minds race too far ahead of me with a list of all the things I could follow that opener with, I’ll just tell you: The idea for this message came to me in a dream. If you had a copy of the message and already read ahead, you were spared a bit of suspense there. I’m honestly not sure what it means that the idea came to me in a dream. I’m not sure how much weight to put on that. I am certain that it doesn’t mean anything significant about me. I normally have sermon subjects and passages planned out months ahead of time. But I had recently shifted some things around, and had been praying through what the message for this morning was going to be. For some reason, God seems to have chosen this way to communicate it. Prayerfully I’m getting it right. Again, I don’t know why. I don’t honestly remember any of the rest of the dream. I just remember the one idea that gave birth to what we’re going to be talking about today. I am pretty sure it is from God’s Spirit, though, because I hadn’t been thinking in this direction at all before, and the message is consistent with the Scriptures as we are going to see. All of that is to say this: I think what we are going to talk about this morning together is something God wanted to set before us as we wrap up this year and get ready for the new one arriving on Wednesday. 

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Toward a Purpose

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This past Sunday we continued in our new teaching series, Nuts and Bolts. Last week we talked about what the church is. This week, we spent our time experiencing together what the church is for. I say experiencing because that’s more of what this service was. Below is the short message I gave at the beginning of the experience. For the rest of the experience and some powerful examples of what it looks like when we get the church right, watch the imbedded video of the service. When we get the church right, the work of Jesus is made possible. Check out some examples of what this looks like below.

Toward a Purpose

The church gets a lot of things wrong. Have you ever thought that? I have a pretty strong suspicion that even if you haven’t you know at least one person who thinks that. You may know a whole bunch of them. You may live with one—or more. Now, depending on how outspoken you happen to be about your own attachment to the church they may sit on those particular thoughts out of respect for you, but they’re there. Do you know why they think the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong? Because the church gets a whole bunch of things wrong. 

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Not Merely Converts

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After a couple of weeks off, this week we are picking back up in the incredible story of the church in Acts. My Minister of Students walked the congregation through Acts 12 last week (click here and tune to the 35:30 mark to catch his excellent treatment of it), so this week we are on to the next part of the story in Acts 13-14. This is where we find the travelogue of Paul’s first missionary journey. Travelogues like this can make for tough point-seeking, but as the story unfolds on Paul’s disciple making efforts, we discover a series of principles worth considering in our own similar efforts. Let’s explore these together as we see that merely making converts to the Christian faith is not our goal.

Not Merely Converts

For nine weeks now we have been working our way through the story of us; the story of the church as told by Dr. Luke in the incredible narrative of Acts found in the Scriptures. And we’ve learned all kinds of things along the way about how we should be doing church if we are going to rightly stand in the long history of tradition that stretches out behind us. We’ve learned that people best connect to Jesus through the three-fold ministry of powerful words, loving actions, and an attractive community. We’ve learned that the way we survive the myriad of challenges all churches face is by being boldly committed to advancing the message and mission of Jesus and by taking the church as seriously as it deserves. We’ve learned that sometimes this kind of boldness sparks persecution, but also that the only response that will get us through these challenges is to double down on Gospel boldness. We’ve learned that when we do our part, pairing our efforts with those of our Father who always does His part, the church grows, and that having as many people as is possible in the church is the point of the whole endeavor. Indeed, if we’re not reaching people with the Gospel message then what on earth are we doing wasting our time and money on all of this for? We’ve been impressed by the fact that our whole identity as Jesus followers is built on the idea of including everybody. “Christian” is an inclusive identity. Just last week, after taking a week off to hear about all the work God did among our students this summer at camp, Nate walked you through the remarkable story of Peter’s miraculous escape from prison, and helped us see that when we pray big, bold prayers, God just may answer them and we need to be ready for that.   

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Morning Musing: Philippians 1:12-14

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“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

What do you do when things aren’t going like you planned? Maybe you’re the kind of person who is able to fairly well roll with it. But I suspect you are at least a little disappointed in that moment. Perhaps, though, “a little disappointed” doesn’t really cover it for you. Rolling with it isn’t a resource in your repertoire. This may be especially true when your plans were to help someone else or do something good. In that moment, you’re ready to simply throw up your hands and give up. Paul, here, though, offers us another approach to consider.

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Knocking Down Walls

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We’ve finally reached the end of this journey. We’ve seen the church rise up, thrive through adversity, stand firm in the face of some pretty intense internal challenges, and finally hit its stride here in the most exciting story of all with a church business meeting. Wait…a church business meeting? How could that be exciting? Because this one would set the tone for how the church working well would approach ministry for the rest of its history. You’ve never seen such an exciting business meeting before. Read on to find out what happened and what it means for us.

Knocking Down Walls

Have you ever seen the gameshow Wipeout? It is a favorite in our household. If you’ve never seen it, the basic premise is that a group of pretty average folks are invited to take part in an insane series of obstacle courses. Each course is designed for the contestants to fail and in increasingly embarrassing ways. The bigger the wipeouts, the better the laughs. 

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