I just wanted to share a little bit from my heart (really our hearts) as it relates to the future of our small groups.

As many of your know, Matt has been challenging our church to go deeper and for each of our members and attenders to take on more ownership as we move forward. This is based on two crystallizing thoughts.
1. We want to recapture the priesthood of the believer. As a follower of Christ, you have everything you need to be huge part of the kingdom of God. In terms of ability to channel the power of God in your life and in the lives of others, there is no difference between you, me, Matt, or the members of your group. It is, in fact, God IN us that gives us that power – not ourselves. With that in mind, we want to empower the congregation to live out their faith in powerful ways.
2. We want to be a people reflecting Luke 15. In these verses, God is consistently chasing after the lost. He ignored the 99 who are already safe in order to chase the 1 who is running away. This MUST be the heart of our church – to seek after the 1.

With this in mind, we want our groups to grow in two ways.
1. We want our groups to grow by planting and multiplication. In order to reach those in our church who need community and discipleship, we need more groups. Our staff team will be calling members of your groups in the next few weeks who we believe are ready to lead a group themselves. Please do not be offended by this. We do not want to steal your people. We do, however, want to see the kingdom of God expand. Please let us know if you know of people we should be calling.
2. We want our groups to grow deeper. So many groups are right where they should be – living life together and digging deep by living out the truths of the Bible that they uncover every time they meet. However, many of our groups have turned into nothing more than social clubs with no desire to grow. Most of us don’t need more friends, we need friends who are willing to “die on the hill” with us in order to see Christ glorified in our lives.

Please join me in praying for these two things. Our goal is to see 125 healthy, thriving small groups by 1/25/11. Should be easy to remember: 125 by 1/25.

You are a tremendous blessing to me, both individually and as a group. I love serving God alongside of each of you. I pray that God will bless your group beyond your wildest dreams. Thank you for serving.

I keep having this recurring daydream where the entire United States economy collapses onto itself and I can no longer afford to buy diapers.

Call it a daymare perhaps.

I know it’s based in fear. It’s certainly not based in trust and commitment to God’s goodness and love. It’s a fear that my security will be ripped from me leaving me powerless to support and care for my family.

Many of our fellow Americans are already living this nightmare.

For them, the nightmare is a reality. Everyday they must wonder how they’re going to make it to the next. Stumbling from one place to another searching for jobs…

Powerless.
Impotent.
Without hope.

Continue Reading…

Despite all the affected teenage rebellion, I continued to call myself a Christian into my early twenties. When I finally stopped, it wasn’t because being a believer made me uncool or outdated or freakish. It was because being a Christian no longer meant anything. It was a label to slap on my Facebook page, next to my music preferences. The gospel became just another product someone was trying to sell me, and a paltry one at that because the church isn’t Viacom: it doesn’t have a Department of Brand Strategy and Planning. Staying relevant in late consumer capitalism requires highly sophisticated resources and the willingness to tailor your values to whatever your audience wants. In trying to compete in this market, the church has forfeited the one advantage it had in the game to attract disillusioned youth: authenticity. When it comes to intransigent values, the profit-driven world has zilch to offer. If Christian leaders weren’t so ashamed of those unvarnished values, they might have something more attractive than anything on today’s bleak moral market. In the meantime, they’ve lost one more kid to the competition.

Now that’s a truly insightful statement. Don’t back off the truth. Your authenticity and love make all the difference in the world.

To read more: http://www.guernicamag.com/features/2874/meghan_ogieblyn_7_15_11/

from Megan Pulver.

Oprah’s spiritual views are often said to make people feel good about themselves, so naturally, they’re appealing.  She claims that we find our spiritual power by getting in touch with our inner selves. But what does Jesus say? Is it our inner self that provides us with the wisdom and power to live a God-honoring life – or is it something else?

Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”

Of course we want to live by our feelings. It’s comfortable, makes sense, doesn’t ask us to wait, trust, or surrender all. But, we’re not called to live by our feelings. We’re called to live by the knowledge of a true God and that can be very uncomfortable. “Jesus says, ‘You shall know the truth’ – not get in touch with your inner self – and the truth will set you free.” As Christians, when we focus on feelings without thinking through God’s truths, we are lead astray.

It’s natural to live off feelings of doubt, fear, weakness, loneliness, etc. But what would it look like if we instead, lived off God’s truths:

Continue Reading…

I don’t normally celebrate lent or follow the religious calendar very closely. I don’t abstain from anything particular for this season. And I didn’t this year.

But as I prepare some of our teaching materials for Palm Sunday and the week leading up to the cross I can’t help but have a heavy heart. There are times this week where I just feel like crying out.

I’m not sure why it’s different this year, but I feel like I’m experiencing the weeks leading up to Easter in concert with those same weeks in the Bible. And it hurts.

Knowing that Jesus will soon be in the garden begging God for another option.
Knowing that He will soon be betrayed.
Knowing that I put Him in that position.

It’s almost more than I can take.

Read Genesis 3 and then Mark 14-15. You can’t get away from it.

It is our sin that put Him there. There’s a heaviness that I can’t shake.

But Easter is coming. Like a freight train you can’t stop – it doesn’t end with death. Jesus didn’t end in the grave. God’s work didn’t end in without grace and mercy…and a path to redemption.

And so I glimpse the light at the end of the tunnel. But the worst is yet to come. It’s always darkest right before dawn.

Dawn is coming.

Continue Reading…