BUSYNESS AND THE CHURCH

We Christians in America often pride ourselves on being busy with church activities. It is a compliment to say So-and-so is “active in church.” In some megachurches it is almost possible to spend all one’s nonworking, nonsleeping hours at church.

That isn’t necessarily bad. We need fellowship with other Christians, and church activities are better than many secular alternatives. But it might be healthy to consider our motives for remaining busy with church activities. According to 1 Corinthians 13, doing a lot of things is no substitute for genuine Christian love -- even though a loving Christian will, of course, do good works.

In my youth in Germany, my impression was that churches are places of worship, not activity centers. Europeans (whose rates of church attendance are much lower than Americans) still puzzle that American churches schedule so many activities outside the worship times. Personally, I like busyness, since it dispels the notion that Christianity is strictly a Sunday morning affair. Bible studies, fellowship times, prayer groups, etc., are wonderful things. My chief criticism of church busyness is this: We can bury ourselves in activities and withdraw from a world that needs to hear the gospel. Busy churches can be like monasteries – beehives of activity, but forgetful of Jesus’ mandate to “go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). We can’t “let [our] light shine before others” (Matthew 5:16) if our lights only shine within the church fellowship hall.

-- George Strumpf and J. Stephen Lang, quoted in “Side by Side: Disciple-Making for a New Century,” Steve and Lois Rabey, General Editors 

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A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT FOR FLOURISHING

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  (Acts 2:42 NIV)

We live in an increasingly fragmented and disconnected world. Though social media and other technology have made our world seemingly more connected, people have fewer genuine friends than ever before. It feels scary and threatening to allow ourselves to be known or to invest in knowing someone else at a deep level. It is much easier and more convenient to stay on the surface. Yet when we take the risk of being authentic with a small group of people, we can experience God's grace and love coming through others, which leads to freedom and transformation.

John Ortberg writes: "God uses people to form people. That is why what happens between you and another person is never merely human-to-human interaction -- the Spirit longs to be powerfully at work in every encounter." So the goal of small groups is to create environments where Spirit-driven, life-giving experiences can flourish. While the type of group or study can help promote a positive environment, the real things that promote a healthy environment for flourishing are prayer, support, service, confession, worship, accountability, conflict resolution, social gatherings, and simply doing life together. Regardless of the specific guidelines a church may have in their small-group ministry, its objective ultimately is to help people engage in relationships that help them become more like Christ. Spend time building an environment that allows true relationships to flourish. 

-- Excerpted from an article called “Making a Case for Small Groups” by Carolyn Taketa

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AN INVITATION

"How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" (Romans 10:15 NIV)

One weekend when I wasn’t preaching, one of our campus pastors -- a young, bald-headed guy with a goatee -- spoke in my place. The next week, I was at a store when I heard a lady inviting a friend to church. Curious, I crept a little closer to eavesdrop on their conversation. The first lady said, “I’m not a religious person or anything, but you have to try this church called Life Church. It’s incredible. It totally changed my life.” I was blessed to overhear a conversation of someone who’d been touched by God at the church I pastor.

Unfortunately, the lady must have noticed me listening in. She looked at me and said, “Hey you, you need to come to church with me, too. The preacher is amazing.” Still excited but slightly confused, I asked her what the preacher looked like, confident she’d recognize me at any moment. Still talking fast, she said, “He’s bald and has a goatee.” This lady, who had been to our church only one time, was inviting everyone she saw -- even me -- the pastor of the church.

You can do the same thing. Take a step of faith and invite someone to go with you where they will hear God’s love through Christ. 

-- Craig Groeschel in “The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living as If He Doesn’t Exist” 

EDITOR’S NOTE: In addition to inviting someone to church to hear the good news, share SOUND BITES with them. Forward a quote that might be particularly meaningful to them and invite them to subscribe. Don’t keep the good news to yourself. – DW

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THE GOSPEL OF FORGIVENESS – Part 2 of 3

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love… He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He removes our transgressions from us.”  (Psalm 103:8-12)

This is the extravagant grace that is God’s heart and character. It is something we know in our heads, and yet we often struggle to accept in our hearts. We sometimes fail to understand and experience God’s grace, which is offered freely to us, continuing to carry burdens of separation or guilt that God has already removed…

Some time ago, I saw a man outside of church and said, “I haven’t’ seen you for a while. Where have you been?” “I am having a hard time coming back to church,” he said. “I did something I’m really ashamed of, and I just… I just feel like I can’t come back.” “Don’t you understand?” I said. “That’s where you need to be. The church is for sinners!” 

-- Adapted from “Forgiveness: Finding Peace Through Letting Go” by Adam Hamilton

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BACK TO CHURCH WITH PREPARED HEARTS

“Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still, small voice.”  (1 Kings 19:11-12 NKJV)

Until our bodies, minds and spirits let go of the clutter we bring to our places of worship, we automatically tune out the still, small voice of God. Unless we come into stillness before God we do not detect either the fullness of His presence or the winsomeness of His voice.

-- Joyce Huggett in “The Joy of Listening to God”

You may want to make this your prayer as we come together for worship this Sunday:

Lord, I come to worship cluttered -- with noise in my mind, restlessness in my body, and distractions in my spirit. I confess that I often rush into church carrying the weight of my own agenda, forgetting that You are already there waiting for me. Teach me to release what I don’t need. Help me to place on the altar the mental lists, the emotional burdens, and the spiritual striving. Let me breathe deeply in Your presence, not to perform, but to just be.

Still my soul, Lord. Quiet my thoughts. Slow my heartbeat. Tune my ears so I can hear Your whisper -- the winsome voice that speaks peace, the gentle truth that heals, the holy presence that fills. I don’t want to miss You. So I choose stillness. I choose surrender. I choose You, Lord. Amen.

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CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF CONGREGATIONS

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Back to Church Sunday” is this weekend. It is to call the Church back to its mission and to extend an open invitation to those who’ve never attended or have been away. It’s one Sunday -- always the third Sunday in September -- set aside for churches to rally together, welcome their communities, and remind people that hope is found in Jesus and in a church family that cares.

CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF CONGREGATIONS

“And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another -- and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”  (Hebrews 10:24-25 NIV)

Consider the impact of congregations on your own life. Suppose someone could extract from your life all the influences that God has had on you through faith communities.  Imagine if you could pull out of your mind and heart all the thousands of sermons you have heard, the tens of thousands of hymns and praise songs you have sung, the Scripture readings and pastoral prayers that you have heard.  Remove all the people from your life and memory whom you have come to know and from whom you have learned and with whom you have worked -- the pastors, friends, colleagues, laypersons, youth leaders, Sunday school teachers.  Extract from your soul all the work projects, the meetings, the conversations, the service initiatives, the soup kitchens, the mission trips, hospital visits and support from others you have experienced.  Extract all the weddings, funerals, volunteer hours, stewardship campaigns, prayer vigils, children’s programs, mission fairs, camp experiences, and youth ministries.

If you could remove from your life all the influences congregations have ever had on you, who would you be? You’d be someone substantially different from who you are now.  The congregations to which you have belonged -- their people and pastors, their ministries and teachings, their small groups and programs, their worship and service, their music and rituals, their communities and caring -- these have been the means God has used to form who you are.  They have shaped you.       

Congregations are a primary means by which God reaches down into our lives to work on our behalf.  God uses congregations to create us anew, to claim us as God’s own, and to call us to God’s service.  It is through congregations that God’s spirit shapes how we understand ourselves, how we relate to our families, how we view community, and how we participate in the world. 

-- Adapted from Robert Schnase in his blog “The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations”

A COLONY OF HEAVEN

“Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.”  (Philippians 1:27 NLT)

Paul exhorts the church at Philippi to live as a colony of heaven. The ancient city of Philippi, filled with retired Roman soldiers from the imperial capital, trying hard to be a little Rome far from Rome, knew what it was to be a colony of a great city.

So Paul appealed to the church there to do the same -- to live as a colony of heaven. That’s a timely word for the church today. We live under the reign of a different king -- Jesus the Lord. Our ultimate allegiance is to a different kingdom -- the kingdom of heaven. We are ultimately bound by the laws of our true homeland. In the meantime, we must represent that land well until the Lord comes again and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we bless others in the name of Christ, may we catch a glimpse of a better land and a more lasting kingdom. By the grace of God and the Spirit’s power, may they be wooed through our lives and our corporate witness into joining us on our journey. 

-- Donald W. Sweeting and George Sweeting in “How to Finish the Christian Life: Following Jesus in the Second Half” 

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BEYOND THE CHURCH WALLS

Jesus said to His disciples, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:19-20 NIV)

The church is never true to itself when it is living for itself, for if it is chiefly concerned with saving its own life, it will lose it. The nature of the church is such that it must always be engaged in finding new ways by which to transcend itself. Its main responsibility is always outside its own walls in the redemption of common life. That is why we call it a redemptive society.

The outgoing character of the Christian movement is of such crucial importance that when it is understood, many of our religious presuppositions are thereby altered or rejected. Christians may indeed come in [to the church] but they do so only that they may, in consequence, go out, and furthermore, that they may go out with greater effectiveness.

The presupposition used in describing Christ’s own strategy is highly significant. “He called to Him the Twelve, and began to send them out” (Mark 6:7). The point is almost equally clear in the dispatch of the Seventy, whom He sent “on ahead of Him” (Luke 10). Though it is discouraging to find how few of the millions of [church goers] have even a slight comprehension of this, it is heartening to find it understood in some places. 

-- Elton Trueblood in “The Company of the Committed” (1961)

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COMMITTED TO COMMUNITY

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”  (Acts 2:42-47 NIV)

One of the marks of the early church was their commitment to connectedness because they knew connectedness doesn’t just happen. They met together every day. They ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Over time, however, that value began to fade. So the writer of Hebrews said, “Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing.” (Hebrews 10:24-25a NIV)  

In other words, keep committed to community. 

-- Adapted from John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be”

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BACK TO BIBLICAL BASICS – Part 2 of 2

The great C. H. Spurgeon, a preacher who reached out and grabbed the guts of the people of his day, once said that the Christian bloodline ought to be a Bibline. [Spiritual leadership] entails mastery of this Bibline bloodline. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates writes of a character’s grandmother: “We are linked together by blood, and blood is memory without language.” Christians are linked together by the blood memory of the Bibline that circulates through the body of Christ.

There is nothing more exciting in life than to find your sense of direction. Why is it that when we open God’s Word we expect to be bored? It is theologically incorrect to talk of making the Word “come alive.” It already is. We’re the ones who have tried to kill it. We’ve sucked the blood right out of the Bibline. We’ve drained it dry with boredom, banality, and mediocrity.

“Breathe on Me, Breath of God” is a song the soul should sing every time one opens the Scriptures. To study and learn the Scriptures is to inhale the energies of the Spirit. We inhale the breath of God. We exhale the breath of life: biblical stories. Through modulating exhaled breath, humans fashion stories, stories to build lives upon. When the stories of Scripture become “our” stories, when biblical images and metaphors become “our” images and metaphors, when we structure “our” lives around the cornerstone Jesus story, a new architecture for our souls is constructed.

In his first letter, Peter wrote to the scattered church about this cornerstone: “As you come to Him, the living Stone -- rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to Him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.’ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.”  (1 Peter 2:4-7a NIV) 

-- Leonard Sweet in “Aqua Church: Essential Leadership Arts for Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture”

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SPIRITUALLY RENEWED CHURCHES

“Christ is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.”  (Colossians 1:18-20 NKJV)

God has always desired to work through His people, but they have not always recognized His initiative in their lives or His activity around them. But for those churches who repent -- those who take time to hear the Spirit; to believe what He tells them; to adjust their plans, structures, and programs to Him, and then to follow the Lord regardless of how impossible it may seem -- these are the churches that will be spiritually renewed and that will experience God's mighty deeds through them to bring a lost world to Himself in a great spiritual awakening. 

-- Dr. Henry Blackaby in “What the Spirit Is Saying to the Churches”

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GROWING OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH ONE ANOTHER

The New Testament places great emphasis on the importance of personal relationships among believers. We are told to love one another (John 13:34), to encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11), to comfort one another (2 Corinthians 1:4), to share our burdens with one another (Galatians 6:2), to instruct one another (Romans 15:14), to forgive one another (Colossians 3:13), to serve one another (Galatians 5:13), and to pray for one another (James 5:16). All of this obviously means more than merely having superficial acquaintances.

Knowing other people on this level requires real work and commitment on our part. And it involves a setting where we can be “real” with each other. For us to develop these real, vibrant, biblical relationships, we need to be face-to-face. Think about the various settings you are in at church. Are you just looking at the back of the head in front of you? Or are you in a small group or class where you have the opportunity to be real, to be face-to-face with other believers? These “one another” passages are not just suggestions but are essential for fostering a loving and unified community.

As we strive to live out these “one another” commands, let’s remember that they are not just about actions but about the heart behind them. Genuine love, humility, and a desire to build each other up should motivate us. By doing so, we reflect the love of Christ and create a community that glorifies God.

For over 50 years I have experienced that something very BIG happens in small groups. Don’t miss out on an opportunity to grow in your relationship with God and with one another. 

-- Rev. David T. Wilkinson, SOUND BITES Ministry

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MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take [a thorn in the flesh] away from me. But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8-10 NIV)

There is no ideal community.  Community is made up of people with all their richness, but also with their weakness and poverty, of people who accept and forgive each other, who are vulnerable with each other.  Humility and trust are more at the foundation of community than perfection.

-- Jean Vanier in “Community and Growth” 

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MUTUALLY ENCOURAGED BY MEETING TOGETHER

“Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:24–25)

Here are two ways to pray as you head to church, regardless of how indifferent or even fearful you might feel about going.

First, pray that at least one thing would be a significant encouragement to you. Be open to being encouraged. Look for encouragement. It might be a lyric from one of the hymns or songs you sing. It might be someone’s prayer, or a line from a sermon. It might be something someone says to you before the service begins or after it ends. Ask God for this. He means to encourage you.

Second, pray that you would be a significant encouragement to at least one other person. It might be what you say to them. It might simply be seeing you there, faithfully attending even when you don’t fully feel like it. Stick around long enough to have one meaningful conversation. I’m shy; I don’t like moving into a crowded coffee space after church not knowing whom to talk to. But I love lingering in the pew talking to whoever’s around me.

God has designed us to be mutually encouraged by meeting together regularly as His people. To seek it is to go exactly with the grain of what God wants to do for us. These are prayers God means to answer. Trust Him as you walk into church again. 

-- Sam Allberry

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A PRAYING CHURCH IN TODAY’S WORLD

“The heartfelt and persistent prayer of a righteous person (believer) can accomplish much [when put into action and made effective by God -- it is dynamic and can have tremendous power].”  (James 5:16b AMP)

It is reported that Mary, Queen of Scots, once said, “I fear the prayers of John Knox more that I fear all the armies on the face of the earth.” That was probably the last time anyone feared the prayers of the church.

The world does not fear the church – it barely tolerates it. Generally, the world perceives the church as no longer a player in world affairs, only an observer,… of a culture that has long since abandoned Christian presuppositions as a serious voice in shaping the values of modern society. The church is a quaint relic of the past that lends a certain charm to the neighborhood, a holdover from bygone days, big but harmless, like a beached whale.

For many, the crucial question facing the church is will it survive. I can answer that question. Yes, the church will survive. God has never left Himself without a witness, and His church will still be around when the curtain comes down on this [world]. It may not survive in its present form, but God help us if we’re interested only in surviving. Christ intends that His church do a lot more. 

-- Ronald Dunn in “Don’t Just Stand There, Pray Something: The Incredible Power of Intercessory Prayer”

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THE INTIMACY OF SMALL GROUPS

“Those who accepted [Peter’s] message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”  (Acts 2:41-42 NIV)

Belonging to a learning faith community provides companionship that sustains us through difficult experiences.  Nothing is as disheartening as a lonely struggle.  Many communities and congregations are too large for people to know others well, and so it's in the intimacy of small groups - classes, Bible studies, choirs, prayer groups – that we learn each other’s' names, pray for one another, and learn to care for one another.  Christian companions become the people God uses to sustain us through the ordinary ups and downs of living, and also through those times of extraordinary darkness and grief. 

-- Robert Schnase in “Five Practices of Fruitful Living” 

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COMMITTED TO ONE ANOTHER

“Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian. What a foundation you stand on now: the apostles and the prophets; and the cornerstone of the building is Jesus Christ Himself! We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. And you also are joined with Him and with each other by the Spirit and are part of this dwelling place of God.”  (Ephesians 2:19-22 TLB)

When you became a Christian, you committed yourself to Jesus Christ. Now you can become a part of the local body of believers committing yourself to those people. That is what “church membership” is -- a commitment to other Christians. It is a decision to become a participant, not merely a spectator. You stop being a consumer and become a contributor…

Who can count on you? Can anyone? There is no such thing as a Lone-Ranger Christian. Koinonia, the Greek word translated “fellowship” in the Bible, means being as committed to each other as we are to Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). One way love expresses itself is in faithfulness to others [in the body of Christ, the church]. 

-- Rick Warren in “God’s Power to Change Your Life”

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MY EASTER QUESTION: WHY GALILEE? – Part 3 of 3

That first Easter, nobody actually saw Jesus rise from the dead.  They saw Him after He had risen.  They didn't appear to Him; He appeared to them.  Us.  In the Bible, the "proof" of the resurrection is not the absence of Jesus' body from the tomb; it's the presence of Jesus to His followers.  The gospel message of the resurrection is not first, "Though we die, we shall one day return to life," it is, "Though we were dead, Jesus returned to us." 

If it was difficult to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, it must have been almost impossible to believe that He was raised and returned to us.  The result of Easter, the product of the Resurrection of Christ is the church -- a community of people with nothing more to convene us than that the risen Christ came back to us.  That's our only claim, our only hope.  He came back to Galilee.  He came back to us.

In life, in death, in any life beyond death, this is our great hope and our great commission.  Hallelujah!  Go!  Tell!  The risen Christ came back to [your town], uh I mean Galilee.

-- Adapted from a sermon entitled “He Came Back… To Us!” by William Willimon

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SEEKING TO FOLLOW CHRIST

“The gifts Christ gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-13)

The church is the worshipping community. We are that body of people who are learning together to repent, pray, and serve in the light of our history and an imagination that is teaching us to do so. The focus of our history and imagination is Jesus Christ, in Whom we see what it means to live in repentance, prayer, and service. We seek to follow Him, to be His disciples, and to undertake the disciplines that such a life requires. 

-- Craig R. Dykstra in “Vision and Character”

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THE CHURCH, THE BODY OF CHRIST

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”  (Ephesians 2:19-22 NKJV)

Some people feel the church is dying. Throughout the entire world, though, Christ’s church is alive and well, praise God! The church may be trampled, threatened, burned, blown up, misunderstood, mistreated, splintered, and ignored, yet her heartbeat grows stronger. The saints march forward and speak out for Christ more and more every day.

Although they are important, the church is not just things like choirs, organs, praise bands, sermons, and social activities. She is made up of servants of God, with Jesus Christ as her cornerstone. Every believer is part of the Body of Christ.

The church will never die. It is eternal. We, as part of the church, must step forth and share the good news of what God has done for us with everyone and anyone who will listen. There is an urgency in this, for life here on earth is short. This is our commandment: to tell the world about the love of Jesus…

Christ paid our debt of sin and gave all who accept Him the most valuable gift of all: an abundant, joyful life on earth and eternal life with God in heaven… Most incredible is that we can share this wonderful gift with those around us, so they may also receive Him. 

-- Adapted from “When I’m Praising God” by Anita Corrine Donihue

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