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.

Excited and Thankful

So, it’s a rainy November Tuesday, just 2 days before Thanksgiving. I’m home today. My normal day off is Friday, but, since Friday is a holiday this week, I’m taking today to be away from the office. The girls are busy with school and Shawna is writing a huge email to someone, so I’m sitting at the kitchen table, looking out across my yard at the Grace Church construction zone.

There’s a lot to be thankful for. The construction is moving right along. Despite the predictions of the wooly bear caterpillars and the acorns, winter has not yet arrived with a vengeance. This means that the construction continues and we hope to have the steel structure added to the foam/concrete walls so that a roof can go up soon. The lobby is coming together, as well as the Welcome Center and Conference Room. There are a lot of changes at Grace Church and they’re changes that will help us Meet & Move more people.

The changes go beyond those evident to visitors to 501 W. Lincoln. We have a redesigned website that is very cool – do people use that word around here? Not only is the new look very contemporary, but the site is strategically laid out to communicate who we are becoming as a local church. There’s still lots to be done, especially to the CONNECT page, but it’s exciting to experience the new look and feel. It is a much better reflection of our church and our mission.

But the changes that I’m most thankful for are happening in our church family. Grace Matters is behind us now. You probably noticed that it has been 2 months since my last post. That’s because our CONNECT Team has been working frantically during that period. During Grace Matters, we saw a 55% increase in our CONNECT groups, with 45-50% of our adult congregation involved. In addition to that, Grace Matters proved to be a church-wide campaign as our Youth and ABF classes also participated in the series. Together, as a church family, we took a fresh look at Ephesians and the grace of God for us, His church. From the stories I have been hearing, there is new or renewed enthusiasm for being actively engaged in the work of the Kingdom of God. We saw 20 people commit to living out the fullness of the Gospel of Grace here at Grace Church by being baptized on the 15th. And, our Communion service on the 22nd was amazing as nearly 400 people came out to rejoice in all that God has done for us in the past, His ongoing presence today, and our anticipation of a future celebration with Him in Heaven. I saw many of our groups sharing in the Bread & Cup together. What an incredible way to wrap up the fall season!

Though Grace Matters is finished, our commitment to living out God’s plan for us is kicking into high gear. With Christmas upon us, many of our groups are reaching out to struggling families in our community. The local food pantry sent us names of local families that need a Christmas dinner. Our groups have begun planning for providing those groceries, and a whole lot more. They are ready to reach out to our neighbors to minister to them physically, emotionally, socially, and of course spiritually. Look at the update I received from one of our leaders:

Just wanted to update you. Our group made contact with (the mother) and are going to provide her with a Taste of Grace Christmas Meal Box, as well as some small gifts for all four of her children. We were also able to pray with her on the phone and have a very nice first touch. One of the couples in our group has minimal plans on Thanksgiving Day, so is contacting her again to see if they can deliver a meal on Thanksgiving as well! We’re really looking forward to blessing this whole family. Praying that our connection will be more than just a “drop off”.

Do you see why I’m excited and incredibly thankful to be here, ministering alongside such a great bunch of people? I’m reminded of what Paul wrote back to the Thessalonian Christians:

We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. 1 Thess. 1:4-5

This Thanksgiving Season, I’m thankful for what the Lord has done and thrilled about what He still has for us.

Grace and Peace to you all in Christ Jesus, our LORD

FAQ #4

Is this a good study for my friend who is not a Christian? Yes! The gospel will be clearly explained and your friend will have multiple opportunities to put his hope and trust in the Lord.

Do I have to stop going to my ABF? No. It is your choice. Every ABF leader has been invited to participate in the Grace Matters study. Ask your leader if your ABF will be participating in Grace Matters. Alternatively, you may be curious about small groups and this would be a wonderful time for you to take group life on a test drive.

What happens at the end of the 8 weeks? That’s up to you. You could choose to continue as a group. You might decide that you enjoyed group life and want to continue, but you’d like to be in a different group. You might decide that you liked group but need to take a break through the holiday season and then start again after New Years. You might even decide that you don’t want to be in group any longer. Whatever you decide is fine. Your commitment was for the 8 week series. When it’s finished, so is your commitment. However, if someone in the group decides that your group is not where they feel God has called them to grow in faithfulness, they should be free to leave without guilt.

FAQ #3

Do you have to attend Grace Church to participate in Grace Matters? No. However, you will need to participate in the weekend message, either here at Grace or online.

How do I get into a group? It’s simple. Fill out the form found in your bulletin on August 30 and September 6. If you no longer have it, pick one up at the office during the week or in the lobby on Sunday. The interest form can be placed in the offering tub, returned to the office, or given to the CONNECT representative at the table in the sunroom. If you were unable to attend one of the 2 Connection Events we held on Sunday, September 20, our leadership team will help you find a group. Email us at CONNECThelp@lgbc.org.

Can I lead a group? We are always looking for people who care about others and are willing to learn how to manage a meeting time. If you would like more information about helping us lead a group, please email CONNECThelp@lgbc.org.

Can I form my own group? You bet! But try to invite people who live near you and who have common interests rather than your good friends. It makes for a much healthier dynamic. Also, if you know someone who is new to Grace Church, make sure you help them get connected to a group, either yours or another.