'Jesus even loves brummies'

The Why in Community

You should join a community group because ________.

That is very important blank.  How you fill it in will have a profound effect on the health of your community group ministry.  You can do a lot of things right and still be torpedoed by that question.

If you are not convinced the question of why is that important, tell your wife that you’re planning a date night because Mark Driscoll says it’s a good idea. While she may appreciate the insight of Pastor Mark I would venture that she would be more moved if your motivation were her beauty and your desire for her company.

The answers to the why in community are similarly not all equal.

Good Fruit ≠ Purpose

Growth, retention, belonging, and health are important byproducts of community, but they are just that: byproducts. We cannot take good fruit of healthy, gospel-saturated community and make it the purpose.

“Apart from Jesus’ death and resurrection, community is not possible.”

Our foundational reason for why we have community groups in our church is to image God and proclaim the good news of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. –  2 Cor. 5:17-20

The Ministry of Reconciliation

We have been reconciled to God and one another for the purpose of making an appeal to the world to be likewise reconciled.  As image bearers of God we were created for community. What sin has broken, Jesus has reconciled. Apart from Jesus’ death and resurrection, community is not possible. The existence of a loving, gospel-saturated community is a testimony to the truth of the gospel.

In a broken world that intrinsically longs for authentic community, this is a profoundly different motivation. People aren’t interested in church growth. They are desperate for hope. They can find belonging in a pub, but they need a community transformed by the love of Jesus. We have exactly what they need when we root our groups in what Jesus has accomplished.

“Our foundational reason for why we have community groups in our church is to image God and proclaim the good news of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross.”

The Why Before the How

If you want to inspire people to be a part of community help them see the bigger purpose.  Show your church how to image God in community and help your leaders understand that they are an integral part of the advancement of the gospel.

As for those byproducts, when we get the foundation of community groups rooted in Christ, we can trust there will be fruit that is good and glorifying to God.

So before you ask how to do healthy community groups, make sure you know why.

via The Why in Community | The Resurgence.

When an Unreached People Group Hears the Storyline of the Gospel for the First Time

If you’ve never seen this old-school video about the moving EE-TAOW story, it is very much worth 25 minutes of your time to fan the flames for frontier missions where Christ is not yet named. Make sure to watch to the end.

EE-TAOW (The Mouk Story) from oliver wong on Vimeo.

via When an Unreached People Group Hears the Storyline of the Gospel for the First Time – Justin Taylor.

Richard Dawkins, the champion of the New Atheism, argues that we should base our lives only on that which is empirically verifiable or rationally provable and yet in this devastating interview Dawkins admits that;

a He has no idea how likely it is that God doesn’t exist and wouldn’t want to put a figure on it

b He has no idea how the universe was created

c He has no idea how life began on earth

d He suggests that we might be here because aliens put us here!

Given his lack of answers its perhaps no wonder that he’s happier raking in the money at the Albert Hall rather than debating William Lane Craig.

be to blame « A Faith To Live By.

My wife and I have no gold in our house, as long as you don’t count our wedding rings. What we had was stolen a few years ago and we never replaced it. Now our daughter and her family have no gold in their house either. With the soaring price of gold and our culture’s insatiable need for more drugs, a thoughtful burglar found a way to break in without breaking windows, kindly left my daughter’s wedding pearls, and took all jewelry of value. All gold is gone. We are told that the jewelry is probably being Fed Ex’d to Nevada where it will rendezvous with a lot of other stolen jewelry and then get back into circulation so it can be enjoyed by someone else.

So, we are following the normal protocol.

I have found comfort in knowing that we have nothing of significant value in our house.

I told my wife that I would be willing to get her some decent jewelry as long as we also invested in a safe that was anchored to the core of the earth.

I feel very sad for my daughter, who no longer has some family heirlooms.

She and her husband are now security experts. You can be sure that there will be no more burglaries in that house.

We are wondering whether she should replace her cat with a Doberman. The cat’s only defensive ability is to provoke allergies in susceptible burglars. We think a Doberman would inspire more universal fear.

My daughter is going to redouble her efforts to keep her bedroom neat. Then she won’t have to explain to the investigating officers that, no, the mess all over the floor was not a result of the robbery, and her parents won’t have to explain that, no, she was not raised by a pack of wolves.

And of course, having gone through some of those more mundane steps, we are left with that wonderful question, “And to what else am I too attached?”

Just imagine. What would it be like to hear that something in the house broke, or the car was totaled though all passengers are fine, and be largely unmoved? It is possible. We were recently in California and friends let us use their immense Suburban for as long as we needed it. As we were leaving they said, “We are just so glad that you have the Suburban because if the car gets ruined you should still be safe.”

In other words, if they had to make a list of the objects to which they were attached, the Suburban, at least, would not be on it. I, on the other hand, can remember times when I was reluctant to loan things out for fear that those things would come back damaged.

Lord have mercy.

We know that everything is the Lord’s and we are mere stewards who are called to freely give and enjoy opportunities to be generous. But we also know that primitive cry of “MINE” exists in every human soul.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. Jesus, looking at him with sadness, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” (Luke 18:22-24)

This is one of the hardest passages in Scripture. It isn’t saying that we must follow the mendicant tradition and divest ourselves of all earthly goods. But it is calling us to be beggars of the heart.

Edward T. Welch, M.Div., Ph.D., is a counselor and faculty member at CCEF and holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology with a neuro-psychology specialty from the University of Utah as well as a Master of Divinity degree from Biblical Theological Seminary. Ed has been counseling for over twenty-six years and has written many books and articles on biblical counseling.

via After the Burglary | CCEF.

Church planting pastors usually experience a painful crash course in leadership. Very few seminaries teach this well and very few churches model this well. So, young pastors led by a vision and driven with passion often run into a leadership brick wall. I remember the first church I led as Pastor and Chairman. The Board was more concerned about Robert’s Rules of Order than they were in Jesus’ Great Commission (Mt 28:16-20). I move that we postpone indefinitely the exclusion of the Holy Spirit in church leadership meetings.

A Tool for Leaders Leading Leaders

I have used one leadership tool in my 30 years of ministry and 21 years as a chairman of a non-profit Board more than any other tool. Perhaps it may help you as you lead a newly formed leadership team or an official board of directors. It may even be the difference maker in any leadership team you direct.

In leading other church leaders, ask them to weigh in and not just to buy in to a product (any idea, project, concept, or thing produced by the work of the organization).

Buying in is securing the commitment of affected parties to a decision where they have not been involved in its formulation (i.e., I need their buy in to my plans)

Weighing in is having an idea, concept, or vision and asking for key leaders to lend their ideas (weigh in) on its formulation (i.e., I want them to weigh in on this need we have)

Average leaders will appreciate your bringing a finished product to them for their approval. But great leaders will want to help shape it, refine it, and make it a better product. Which kind of leader do you want to lead your organization?

via A Tool for Building Great Leaders | The Resurgence.