Hands of Christ

So, it’s my vacation time. I won’t be in the office for nearly 2 weeks. What will I do with all of this time? Travel? Nope, it’s not in the budget. Rest? You bet. It has been a crazy fall season of ministry. Bake? Yes, the remaining days leading to Christmas. And, of course, blog…

My CONNECT group participated in the adoption of families from Lititz/Warwick Community Chest. During the Christmas season, LWCC makes its lists of needy households available to those who want to reach out to the community. Shamefully, Grace Church has not participated substantially in this program in the past. It’s not that we didn’t care. It’s not that we didn’t know. It’s that it didn’t fit.

But CONNECT is the future of Grace Church and CONNECT is missional and incarnational. That means that, as time goes on, we will become more focused on being involved in a redemptive way in the world, starting with our own neighborhoods. We are going to enter into our neighbors’ sufferings. We will carry their burdens. We will communicate with words and deeds that they are loved.

This is not a “social gospel.” We don’t even believe that we can fix all of the problems of the world. In fact, we believe that things on a macro level will actually get worse. But we are called to be light in the darkness. And, we are demonstrating that ours is not a Platonic faith. Plato taught that the spiritual domain was better than the physical. A lot of Christians have substituted a Platonic worldview for a biblical view of things. We believe in a physical resurrection! Your body, your neighbor’s body, even the physical world are important. No, this isn’t a social gospel, but rather a full gospel.

Early next year, I am going to invite our group leaders to a meeting where we will discuss how God wants to use CONNECT and Grace Church in 2010 (and beyond). Since Pastor Scott has declared that 2010 will be a Year of Prayer for our church, the timing seems perfect. What is prayer if not connecting to the heart and mind of our Lord? And how else do you determine the direction for the next season of life? Because, on that Day, we all want to be found faithful to our Lord and true to our calling.

So, this is how we’ll roll…

in carne - In the Flesh

Not only is CONNECT about being Missional. CONNECT is about being Incarnational. While Missional is all about how we approach our faith, how we seek to live out faithfulness, Incarnational is how our words, our lives, and our relationships are to be.

The term Incarnational comes from the Latin, in carne, meaning “in the flesh.” This is a theological term used by the Church Fathers to describe the 2nd Person of the Trinity, the Eternal Son, becoming Jesus, the God-man. Look around you and you will see the impact that that moment in history has had upon the world. At this time of the year, two-thirds of the world is celebrating Advent (adventus – “coming”) of Jesus. Does two-thirds of the world recognize Him as God in flesh? Certainly not! But they realize that we have built a consumer-based holiday around this unique event in human history. While US retailers might be afraid to wish customers “Merry Christmas,” places like Tokyo, Japan are littered with references to the Incarnation, even if only to lure holiday shoppers to their goods.

So what’s the significance of the Incarnation? Scripture calls Him Immanuel, “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14). Look at the proclamation of Gabriel to Mary:

Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end… The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Luke 1:30-35

Look at what John wrote about this event and its implication:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and
truth. John 1:14

Now, look at how Jesus described it in this exchange with Philip:

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Jesus answered: “Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” John 14:8-9

It is clear that the reason for the Incarnation goes far beyond God taking on mortal flesh in order to die as a substitutionary atonement for humanity. The significance of Christmas is God giving Himself to us. Christmas is about God drawing near to us. We can know God because He walked among us. How important was the Incarnation to the early church? John wrote, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched-- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1).

OK, by now you’re saying, “That’s all fine and dandy. That’s Christ! But what about us?” Glad you asked! :o) Look at what Jesus prayed for us, His church just before He went to Gethsemane and His appointment with the cross:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:20-23

The mission which was given by the Father to the Son has been given to us, His church. And, the evidence of the Father in Jesus is to be found also in His church. Jesus wants the world to look upon us and know about the love of God. Paul would write later that we are to have the same attitude as Christ who stepped down out of Heaven and set His rights as Creator God aside for the sake of His mission, even to the point of letting Himself be tortured and killed. I was going to end on this description, but the Word is powerful and beautiful. I’ll leave you with Paul’s exhortation to the Church of Jesus the Christ:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Philippians 2:5-8

CONNECT is Incarnational.

Merry Christmas! S

Missional

As I mentioned last week, CONNECT is about moving Grace Church toward being “Missional” and “Incarnational.” This week, we’ll look at what I mean by Missional. Come back next week for the meaning of Incarnational.

For a long time in America, the church developed as an organization. What God intends for His church certainly has organizational structure. However, the church is primarily an organism. As we learned in Ephesians during Grace Matters, the church is a family and we are God’s adopted children (1:5), His possession (1:14). We are His people (2:19), in relationship with Him and with each other (2:15-16). And we are His holy temple, His presence in the world (2:21-22). We are called His body, with each of us being gifted in unique ways so that when we minister together we represent Him in and for the world (1:22-23, Romans 12:4-8, 1 Corinthians 12:11-27). The church is meant to be organic. Look at how Paul puts it:

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. Ephesians 4:15-16

Unfortunately, what was intended to be a people actively living out every moment of their lives in the name of Christ and for His Kingdom has become an institution. For a lot of churches in America, our faith has become a show on Sunday morning and a list of rules of things you can’t do. If you want to know where that path leads, look at Europe. The cathedrals are beautiful but empty. And, while you might find some “religion,” you’ll be hard-pressed to find “faith” outside of small pockets. And faithfulness is scarcer still.

During Grace Matters, we read the letter from Christ to the Ephesian church of the second generation, those who had taken the good seed of Paul and began to implement “church” (Revelation2:1-7). While they did some things quite well, Jesus accused them of leaving the love they had from the beginning, their passion for Him and for His Gospel. As a result, He threatened to take away their lampstand. In essence, the warning to these Christians is that they need to return to the service for which they were called or else they would be denied the power of the Spirit. If they were going to follow their own desires for the church, God would remove the only power that can truly make a difference among them and in the world. Frankly, this is the last thing any church, especially Grace, would ever wish to hear from their Lord.

Wow, that was a lot of background to get to the point. Being missional means being fully-engaged in the mission of the church. And the mission of the church is to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). But guess what? Making disciples is something that happens in the world more than it does in a building on Sunday morning. While solid biblical preaching is clearly a vital part of the ministry of the church, as is the gathering of God’s people for worship, teaching without implementation is useless. Therefore, what happens beyond the boundaries of the church building and Sunday morning is significantly more important than what many churches have become.

Becoming a “church of small groups” at Grace Church is about living in faithfulness to our calling as God’s people. Our understanding of the Gospel of Grace as we studied it during Grace Matters must compel us to be “on mission” for God every moment of our lives. And since our identity in Christ is more corporate than individual, we’re compelled to pursue divinely-created community. This is crystal clear from Scripture. God wants us to be Missional. Therefore, CONNECT is Missional.

Come back next week as I look at the term “Incarnational.”

Touched by Grace

A huge part of our move toward becoming a church of small groups is our effort to align the entire church with our mission statement, to Meet as many people as possible and to help Move them to where God wants them to be. You have to admit that it’s difficult for the average church member to do much Meeting & Moving when his involvement in the ministry of Grace Church is limited to 1-2 hours on Sunday morning.

CONNECT is all about taking the church (read “the saints”) beyond the boundaries of 501 W. Lincoln Avenue. Church isn’t an event that happens weekly. We are the church every moment of every day! It’s not enough to create a quality worship experience three times each Sunday morning. Each and every one of us has been sent out to engage in the work of the Kingdom of God. And, as we found out in the Grace Matters series, God intends us to go out together. He made us for divinely-empowered community, community which reflects the very nature of God Himself. Let me tell you what that looked like for one of our groups…

A bunch of neighbors decided to form a group in their housing development. They were fortunate that there were nearly a dozen Grace households in their immediate vicinity. When the Taste of Grace Food Ministry began, they decided to use it as an opportunity to practice loving someone outside the church. They selected a recently-divorced woman and her daughters. Each month they would buy her at least one box of food and take it to her – no strings attached. They said that they were doing something for her out of love that would help ease her pain. Months later and a few weeks into Grace Matters, this woman bumped into a group member at a local store. She asked about the gathering of neighbors on Sunday nights and was told that is a group of people from the church who get together to challenge each other to live gospel-centered lives. It was also explained that right now they were diving deeper into the sermons that Pastor Scott was preaching. Then came the first unexpected question: “Oh, is that Grace Matters?” Then came the second: “Can I be part of that group?”

You see, she was moved by the unconditional love of the group members who brought her gifts of food each month. So, she decided to check out the church on the Internet. She started watching the Grace Matters sermons online and decided that she wanted to be part of this group of people who were trying desperately to live out the truths they proclaimed. Now, this gal is regularly attending Grace Church worship services on Sunday morning and then participating in this neighborhood group on Sunday evening. She is even participating in an outreach that this group is doing to a near-homeless family this Christmas.

CONNECT is all about moving Grace Church toward being “Missional” and “Incarnational.” Those are contemporary buzzwords that are often over- and mis-used. Check in over the next 2 weeks and I’ll share what I mean by each of these terms. And see how this type of ministry will help us fulfill our mission and ultimately be found faithful on the day we meet our Lord.