Here is my sermon on John 21. It struck me how much Jesus worked with Peter and helped him to have confidence that he would follow Jesus. I think Peter was afraid to make any promises to Jesus, considering how passionate he was about his devotion the night of the last supper.
We Can’t Reach Something We Are Afraid to Touch
[13] He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. [14] And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.
[15] And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. [16] And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” [17] And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
One of the brilliant things about poverty as mission shows up here. Jesus wasn’t afraid of the tax man. Since the man Jesus was talking to couldn’t take away anything that Jesus had, Jesus wasn’t afraid to talk to him. Jesus might not have even had the case to be bitter towards what Matthew had taken in the past.
If we fear for our lives, we won’t talk to dangerous people.
If we fear for our wealth, we won’t talk to those that steal.
If we fear for our comfort, we won’t talk to those who impose.
If we fear for our good reputation, we won’t talk to those that are below us.
Unifying spread out communities
Unity within a spread out group like a multi-site church. that was one of the main topics last week at One Life Core. These are my notes on the night and some of my own commentary.
A shared language and shared ideals help people that aren’t together all the time keep unity with one another. If I’m working at the same goal as my brothers in the east side and in Henderson and Mt.Vernon, I don’t have to see them every single day to share my life with them. Using the same language helps us put emphasis on the same things.
Have you ever seen a movie that was awful but you enjoyed being with your friends so much that you remember it being a good movie? It’s like that with church programs. The connection to the people you are with is what makes it good or bad.
Like Bret said, let us focus on connecting and befriending and meeting instead of making up a slew of events and programs. The trick is that we are so stuck in a program paradigm that we’d make a program to make more connections, but we’re getting there.
OneLife (West) August 31, 2014: United #3
Here are my notes from Trey McClain’s sermon from this past Sunday. I am trying to take notes in the dark, so the big purple sharpie showed up this weekend. It seemed appropriate to leave the last line from a Palm Sunday sermon up there on the first page. “Help each other, unite. Don’t be divided. Unite or stay home.”
You can catch up on this sermon series and watch other sermons from OneLife here.
The last picture is a card they passed out advertising a movie about human trafficking. You can learn more about Uncharted and the great work they do here.
Verge 2014 Notes – Saturday Morning, Redeemed for a Mission
Verge 2014 notes – Redeemed for Gospel Community on Mission
Quote about vision and mission
We, the people of God, are carried forward by a vision of the future that constitutes our mission. When we are caught up into it, and pursue it, we are changed, and we go on to enact history.
From The Forgotten Ways, by Alan Hirsch
Adventure and Safety in the Church
I’m still taking a long, slow read through The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. It is really good. This week I’ve had several conversations about community, Christian community, koinonia, and church. This quote sounded really good for today as we go out to the YMCA Pancake Days, then play with neighborhood kids at boys group with the People of Praise (the Christian community we are a part of)
“Risk is the price we pay for genuine adventure, and it was Alfred North Whitehead who once remarked that without adventure, civilization is in full decay. The same is equally true for the church. And once again, it is largely because we have structured community in isolation from any real engagement with the world. ” – p.231
Goal of Life vs. Goal of Our Vacation Quote
If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.
– Dorothy Canfield Fisher, as quoted in Michael Hyatt’s Creating Your Personal Life Plan which you can learn more about here.
I’m working through this to see how it would apply to the guys at the mission.
Friday night think tank notes
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