Plans

I am a planner. I feel peaceful and at ease when I have a good planned; I feel worried and distressed when I do not. A year ago I began the adventure of grad school. I started taking a couple of distance courses at a particular school while Kassie and I prayed about where we needed to be for the next couple of years. Wrapped up in the decision were housing, work and school. I analyzed it from every possible angle. I have on my computer multiple spreadsheets outline every course that I might take at any given school, when I would take them and the cost of each one. I talked to people who attended the various schools. I prayed. I read. Then, I made a decision. I applied to the school that seemed like the best fit, full of faith that I was in the right place.

This week, I received my rejection letter from that school. My plans were thrown out the window, and it was completely outside of my control. I went through one whole day of pouting. Then, there was the panic of, “what now? Plan B? Does God have a plan B for my life?” I went to see a good friend on Friday. He is a faithful follower of Jesus. He is also the paradigm of health and fitness. He is having tests run in Little Rock today that will tell how serious the cancer in his body is and what his chances are. He said things are not looking good. You know what he also said? He said, “There is no plan B with God. He knows what He has for me. My job is to be faithful and obedient.” Puts things in perspective, huh?

Mike Newman pointed out to the Antioch crew this week that every time Scripture says, “this is God’s will for your life” it is always talking about living righteously in the present, not making a big decision for the future. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart
/ And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him
/ And He will make your paths straight.” Notice that it does not say, “He will show you your path.” It says that He will make it straight. This seems to imply that our job is to walk forward. Forward after what? Hebrews 12 says that we run after Jesus. Fix our eyes on Jesus and run forward. He will order the rest.

Still working on that one…

For His glory and our joy,

Nick

More thoughts from the church

As we have been digging into Acts 2:42-47 this past week, we have seen a good model of what the Church should look like.  People encouraged one another, opened their homes, sold possessions to give to another member, broke bread, had a ton of fellowship, and prayed.  1 Corinthians 12:12-25 shows that the Church is made up of many members and that those members are one body (the Church)!  Each member has a role and has a purpose to be used by God.  One of these members that we would like to expound on is someone that I have become friends with over this past year.  This particular individual has been completely redeemed by Christ and is constantly being transformed in his faith.  This persons name is Josh Sarahan and he has been living out a strong mission for the past 4 months.  This mission has been a calling to walk a cross over 2400 miles!!!  Yikes…does that sound extreme?  You bet it is, but because God pressed it so hard on Josh for this mission, he was faithful and available to do this work.  There have been so many people that have wanted to know his story (believers and non-believers) and the name of Christ has been seen because of this.  As we look at the Church and see our self as a member, God desires to see us faithful to His call no matter what it is.  When we do this, we experience the full gift of what God has to offer…His Church!!

lessons from the early church

In Acts chapter 2 we find one the greatest descriptions of the early church given in the New Testament. Luke wrote, “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teachings and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). He later goes to say, “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as everyone might have need” (Acts 2:44-45). As I have been praying and thinking about what it looks like to be the church, I’ve noticed a few characteristics of this early church.

1)     1) They were devoted to the Scriptures. They learned from the apostles’ teachings and let it shape their lives.

2)     2)  They were devoted to each other. Church was not a place to attend; it was a group of people among whom to belong.

3)     3) They were devoted to eating together. This is simple sign of sharing life and community.

4)     4) They were devoted to prayer. This recognized God as God as they sought His will and provision as well as His praise.

5)     5)  They sold their possessions to meet the needs of their own. The needs of the body were always met.

This is just a short list, but I wonder what would happen if we devoted ourselves to these things. Notice that the action in verse 42 begins with “continually.” This was not something they did at a gathering once a week; it was a way of life. What was the result of this? Verse 47 tells us that “the Lord added to their number daily.” The result of this kind of deep, Bible centered, people valuing community was that people were saved! So the question for us, church, is do we look like this?

For His glory and our joy,

NR

Ministering in Weakness

***NOTE: This comes from a series I've started on my blog (abidingtruths.blogspot.com) on Jesus's conversation with the woman at the well in John 4.


Continuing in our look at John 4, let's take a look at verse 6. It reads, "So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour." Jesus was wiped from a day of traveling in the hot, Palestinian sun. It is around noon, the hottest part of the day, and Jesus does something remarkable for the GodMan: He takes a break. He stops to rest. This should be a message to us in and of itself. Jesus got tired and needed rest.

However, it should also be noted that Jesus was in this exhausted state when the woman came to Him. We don't see Jesus tell her to come back another time. He does not refer her to one of His disciples. He ministers to her. But, it's a simple kind of ministry. He sits and talks to her about her life. And this doesn't appear to drain Him. Why? I think Jesus explains in verse 34 when He says, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work."

How is it that Jesus was able to continue ministering in His weakness? I suggest that we can learn a few things. First, Jesus allowed ministry to feed Him. I think all too often we find ourselves dividing the ways we serve others and the ways we are served. I think we create too much distance between ourselves and the once we are ministering to, so that we can never be fed from the experience. Ministry should happen in authentic community that feeds us all well.

Second, Jesus understood that it was the Father's work, not His. I often feel the weight that a person's soul rests on my words or actions. Actually, everyone's souls are in God's hands. We are merely able to "participate in the gospel" (Philippians 1).

Ministry is not some job that we are tasked with that weighs us down and must be abandoned in our moments of weakness. It is also not only for "vocational ministers." It is a way of life for all believers in Biblical community that sustains us as we live in the will of the Father.

For His glory and our joy,

NR

Patterns

If you missed this last Saturday, you missed what is quietly becoming one of our favorite gathering environments.  It’s a time where families worship, look at God’s word, celebrate communion, and simply belong…together.  In fact, now that I am in my Monday morning reflection mood, the night itself lined up with the topic we spoke about.  We looked together at:

 “Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me,

in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

2 Timothy 1:14 

We all know and agree that there are patterns that enslave us, and there are patterns that set us free.  As we look at our own lives, we would be fools to be living in results that are not fruitful, without looking back at the patterns that have gotten us here. 

There was a critical point in the night where we presented to all families present a pattern within our ministry that has been causing a check in our spirit.  For years, we have become a church that has grown accustomed to worship with families silo-d between multiple buildings.  While there is much benefit in getting with your peers to seek God with specific application, there is also some fallout to this pattern.  It has become a common thing for students to feel completely disconnected from the church body, at times even saying: “I don’t belong to that Church”.  This is painfully revealing of many of our students ecclesiology (understanding and philosophy of the church). 

We want to address this pattern first hand with an experiment. For 12 weeks, throughout the course of the summer, we are going to adjust our worship pattern by joining as families (grades 7^th through adult) to worship as one. We are pursuing this very humbly, carefully, and above all…prayerfully.  We are also doing it with a big safety net, sensing the support and backing of our pastors and elders.  We don’t know where this will take us, except to our knees where we will be seeking God together.  At the end of the 12 weeks, we will gather together to seek what the Lord has taught us, and where the Lord will take us. 

We hope you will prayerfully join us in this journey!

~Deep thoughts by a shallow guy~

mn

What does it mean to be a disciple?

What does it truly mean to be a disciple?  It has taken me a lot of my spiritual journey to form a proper perspective of this question.  We have been studying the reason to initiate and multiply, pray about discipleship, the cost that comes with being a follower, and why we need to being sent out.  Jesus invited His chosen 12 to walk with Him daily, to see Him pray, evangelize, teach truth, and most of all, to see how to go out and show others how to do it.  I find in my own life it is so easy to just set the cruise control and coast…but we see that we must start taking the truths that have been instilled into us and begin to reproduce and inject it into those around us.  Luke 6:1-9 shows the disciples being “sent” by Christ for the purpose of His ministry.  I am challenged everyday by the truths of the Word to go out and truly be a “SENT” disciple and seek out where I can participate in the work of His Kingdom.  I encourage you to do the same!

Everything Disciple

What does it look like for us to follow Christ, to be His disciples, in the everyday every part of our lives? That's what we have been trying to assess through Luke over this last month and really over the last year as we have pursued teaching our students how to live intentionally with initiative in all seasons and circumstances. Since being here, I have seen my life changed through this vision, which is really just what Scripture teaches us is the Truth. It's been such a dream to watch & grow alongside my team, our leaders and our students throughout this entire year... but really the conclusion that I have come to in all of it: He defines my existence, significance, purpose, ministry, plans and anything else in between.

With no real knowledge or direction of what is next in my life, I have found great courage in the comman of Scripture to be faithful. Making all the plans in the world can be good, and I believe it's biblical, but truly the heart of surrender behind those plans is of the importance to God. Next year is not promised, nor is tomorrow; so we have to be willing as seekers of Christ, those desiring to be conformed to His image, to lay our lives before Him... everything.

Your time, your job, your family, your friend, your next big change, your ministry, the blessings, the hardships, the struggles, NONE of it defines you or holds more importance than Christ Himself. Our work as His followers is to be faithful with that which is set before us, which includes the entire above list, but it is secondary to our love relationship with Jesus Himself. He may come back tomorrow or you may die next week, and with that reality before us, we should take great comfort in His plan and not our own.

May you recognize He is enough; He is everything so that you are able to follow Him in the everyday, every part of your life... cultivating faithfulness as a disciple of Christ.

Trust in the Lord, do good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Psalm 37:3.

-ew