BibleScribbler

Notes from One Life Church just before Christmas 2016

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Name Him Jesus, because He will save His People from their sins.”
Jesus would be so with us that we’d be called “His people.”

It’s God’s story to tell and He tells it His way.

God spoke to Joseph after Mary told him about Jesus – DANG!

Righteousness was a part of the operating system of Joseph’s soul.

He was a righteous man, not about do-gooder, but right about seeking God.

Righteousness motivated him to NOT disgrace Mary. (So often we use righteousness as an excuse to shame others, but that is not the right way.)

Righteousness is a real thing and it’s good.

Sin is the lack of righteousness.

Which brings us to redemption by redefinition.
That’s what our culture does.

 

Redemption by redefinition was in the Garden of Eden too.

Jesus came to SAVE us from our SINS.
Don’t re-define it! We NEED those words to really mean what they mean.

Sin makes an ungodly mess.
It messed up everything we use to clean it up.

That last note was from this video below. It was pretty moving.

Unifying spread out communities

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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.

shared life unites a spread out church

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.

connecting to one another builds the church

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.

My notes from More a.k.a. Restoration Church on December 2, 2012

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So the name of the church is going to be Restoration Church, since they decided that nobody really wanted “More!” Church. I thought that was pretty funny. Either way, whatever you call it, church or not, here are my notes. This week I came unprepared, so they are on the backs of my IamDanSullivan.com business cards!

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Photo on 12-10-12 at 3.59 PM #2

Photo on 12-10-12 at 4.00 PM

My Notes from CFC, 11-4-12 Dale Beaver on Intimacy

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Dale has been going through a series on the Trinity entitled “TriUnity”.

This Sunday I really noticed how much the 15 minutes before I walk into church color everything. I had my two littlest guys (ages 5&2) grabbing and screaming while I dropped them off in their class. I’m still wondering about this whole “Daddy is going to dump you off with strangers while he goes and learns about Jesus.” thing, but that is a discussion for another blog entry. Here are my notes.

Dale had some good points on what REAL intimacy is. It’s not about sex and lingerie and all of that nonsense. Like so many other things, the world has taken that word and shallowed it. Intimacy is being known as deeply and truthfully as possible. If you don’t have some brothers and sisters that you are close enough that they know you well, go find some! Pray that God would fulfill Psalm 68:6 “God sets the lonely in families.”

The other good take-away was his statement on the Trinity, “I don’t have to know it completely, but I do have to know it truthfully.” This applies to SO MANY things in Christianity. People often bail when things get too complicated or too heady. That can be ok, as long as they bail with a right understanding and not bend the words of Christ to suit their own ways. I know I’ll be using that line this week at the mission.



Sermon notes from 2 stops I made yesterday

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Yesterday my family and I went to two different places, heard two different sermons, but were part of (sort of) one community. The church we attend, Christian Fellowship Church, is having a leadership identity crisis right now, which means that we, as members, are having a member identity crisis as well. This weekend a consultant came in to help the present leadership at CFC work together, reconcile, etc.

I bring all of this up to explain partially why there haven’t been so many posts here lately, (because what I wrote in my journal was not fitting for the blog) and also to give some background into the two sermons I heard yesterday.

One was from the consultant, who preached at CFC in the morning. The other was from Jeff Kinkade, who was the pastor at CFC when all of this stuff hit the fan. A bunch of people have been asking Jeff if he would lead a Bible study, so last night a gazillion people met together and we sung some songs and Jeff preached a lesson.

The cool part of the two sermons was that both talked how about really living the Christian life is not about duty, but about love. Both camped out on that for a while.

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The weird part about this sermon, though, was that it seemed like something was missing. I’m still not totally sure about what it was. If I summed up the gist of it in one sentence, it would be:

We should go above and beyond everything Jesus commanded us to do out of love rather than just doing the minimum requirements like a disgruntled slave, especially when it comes to forgiveness.

That still doesn’t quite sit with me right.

So then we went to the “bible study” on Sunday night. And here’s what we got:

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The three points at the bottom of this note might be the thing that was missing from the morning sermon. If any forgiveness is going to happen, if any LIFE is going to happen, it is going to have to be Christ’s life in us making it happen. I can’t just grunt and make it happen any more than the apostles can throw a tree into the ocean with their faith!

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So at the end of the day, I’ve got a lot to think about and a lot to let Jesus work through in me.

The other thing that is going on is my ecclesiology is getting stirred up again. Why was Sunday morning considered “church” & not Sunday night? But I’ve already written too much. More about tails & monkeys another day.

Dale Beaver, Mealin' With Jesus on September 9, 2012

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Here are my notes from 9/9/2012 at Christian Fellowship Church. Dale Beaver is continuing his series on Mealin’ With Jesus. The funny thing about this sermon was that Dale pulled some quotes from some etiquette guide to table manners. The whole thing fit together really neat with the idea of following the host’s lead. The host is the one that provided for you, invited you, and serves you. If that isn’t a great picture of the Living Christ, I don’t know what is!

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