Tag: The Church

Real Faith Reaches Out

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For the last three weeks, we have been talking about who we are as a church; who God made us to be. Hearing the basic idea each week is good, but sometimes we need to dive a little more fully into the ideas to make sure we are all on the same page together. We have so far talked about being a people with whom anyone can connect, and growing in Christ together. Both of those are necessary and important parts of who God made us to be, but they aren’t the end of the journey. Having a faith in God that means something means reaching out to advance His kingdom. That’s what we are diving into this morning as we complete this journey. Let’s dig in together.

Real Faith Reaches Out (James 2:14-26)
October 4, 2026 

I loved doing worksheets when I was in school. I loved them. Yes, I have long since owned my nerdiness. When teachers would start handing out worksheets—especially in math classes—while all the other kids would groan (often loudly), I would be secretly celebrating. I could sit there and do those for hours. When I was in eighth grade, I had a science teacher who was a very nice man, but not a very organized teacher. He handed out these enormous packets of worksheets about the various systems of the human body, but then he decided not to actually assign them and made them just extra credit. I did every single one of them anyway. I think the reason I loved them so much is the perfectionist in me. I could get them done, I could mostly do them right, and when you got to the end of the worksheet, that job was finished. They delivered me the same dopamine hit that accomplishing objectives in a video game gives you. 

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Team Sports

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No one really accomplishes anything on their own. As we go through our journeys, there are all sorts of people who are pouring into us and enabling us to accomplish the things we do. Some of this is formalized and intentional; a great deal of it is unplanned and circumstantial. But all of it shapes and directs where we go and what we accomplish on the way. This is true about life in general. It is even more true about the growth and development of our faith. As we continue our look at how God designed us to be as a church today, we are talking about the second part of our identity: growing. Growing in Christ is never something that happens on its own. Let’s talk about how it actually works, and what that means for us.

Team Sports

On occasion the world discovers an athlete who seems to have gotten really good at some sport entirely on his own. In the 2024 Olympics in Paris, there was a member of the Turkish shooting team named Yusuf Dikec who took the world by storm and was the source of an endless number of memes. In the 10-meter pistol competition, while all his other competitors had expensive headphones and glasses and guns and uniforms, Dikec was just…casual. With his rumpled shirt and shorts, a pair of Dollar Store ear plugs, and his normal, everyday glasses—and his non-shooting hand stuffed casually in his pocket—he calmly won the silver medal. Everyone else absolutely looked the part. Dikec looked like somebody’s dad who had woken up late and just slid into the parking lot in time to make his scheduled slot in the event. His nonchalance instantly became legendary. As much as they made for fun stories and speculation, the truth is a little more complicated than that. 

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Three adults discuss community matters beside a “Community Event” sign and “OUR VOICE” mug.

Getting Our Priorities Straight

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“Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘Whoever takes an oath by the temple, it means nothing. But whoever takes an oath by the gold of the temple is bound by his oath.’ Blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that sanctified the gold?” (Matthew 23:16-17 CSB – Read the chapter)

I have been working through the Gospel of Matthew with my church on Wednesday nights for nearly three years now. We’ve taken a break here or there along the way, but mostly it has just been Matthew for a while now. And I’ve got to say: it has been good. I know that I’ve never taken such a deep dive into a single book from the Scriptures, and I’m sure none of them have either. Taking time to meditate so long and so deeply on a single, Spirit-inspired author’s work has yielded much in terms of applicational rewards for us. We are currently in chapter 23 where Jesus blows up the scribes and Pharisees for their religious hypocrisy and bad spiritual leadership. It is one of those chapters that’s easy to ignore because at first glance Jesus is just berating His enemies for religious practices and traditions that are long gone. But a bit closer of a look uncovers volumes of uncomfortably relevant critiques for modern church members to consider. Let’s take a look at one of them together today.

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The Gospel Is for Everybody

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This week we are kicking off a brand-new teaching series. God has been doing a pretty incredible work at my church. We are experiencing explosive growth thanks to the movement of His Spirit in our midst. We are also on the cusp of breaking ground on an expansion and renovation of our current facilities. It’s a pretty exciting time, and we are most definitely going somewhere. But in order to make sure we are truly heading in the right direction, we need to remember who God made us to be. For the next three weeks, we are going to be explore afresh the basic elements of our identity as a church. Thanks for coming along for this journey with us.

The Gospel Is for Everybody

Social media can be a great tool for the advancement of the Gospel. But social media can also be a place where people vent their spleen without really thinking through what the full consequences of their words might be. I won’t ask you to raise your hand if you’ve ever posted something you later wish you hadn’t and even perhaps had to take down because of the negative impact it was having. And the thing is, because none of us are particularly disciplined with our words on a good day—whether they are coming from our mouths or our fingers—all of us are susceptible to this kind of thing. Even pastors. 

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Woman writing in a journal beside a historic stone church and cemetery

Do You Even Want It?

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“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew‬ ‭28‬:‭19‬-‭20‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

Other than the month of July, for the past seven Fridays we have been talking about different factors than contribute to church growth. None of them are guarantees. None of them in isolation from the others are likely to accomplish very much. Together these do not form an exhaustive list. I’ve read books on church growth before. Some of these things have been mentioned in those list, some of them have not. What this has been is a list of things that have contributed to the season of growth my church is currently experiencing. There are more we could probably talk about, but these have so far been the six that came to mind first. At the end of the day, though, real and sustainably growth happens because God directs it. Today we are going to end this series by talking about one last critical factor for any church thinking about growth: Do you really even want it?

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