Uncategorized

In light of our cultural context it is obvious communication is not happening.

There are many thoughts and opinions, maybe more than ever, that I have access to at any moment. I can find a point and a counterpoint for anything with little effort. If you agree with me I “like”, I “retweet”, I feel affirmed. If you disagree I “block”, I “unfriend”, I am indignant.

This polarized reality is often called an “echo chamber” where we hear ideas that we support in increasing percentage, and dissenting opinions aren’t heard in increasing percentage.

When Leon was talking about the challenges we face in family last Sunday my mind raced in many directions; but I became convinced to evaluate how and why I listen. Am I listening so I can argue against respond to what you think? Or am I listening to understand and then let you know I understand.

Whether it be in ministry, in family, in friendships, or in public, how might my light shine more for God if I communicate to the people I’m around that I hear them and that I want to understand.

Surely it won’t hurt.

Shannon Cooper

The sermon this past Sunday was entitled “Family Values.” The preaching passage came from Hebrews 13:1-6 where among other things, the Hebrew writer says, “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

While the context is dealing with the spiritual attitude and values that Christians ought to display toward others in society, the thought that hit home with me is that attitudes begin at home before extending outward to others! I didn’t have the good fortune of having a brother growing up, (I was the only boy in a family full of girls!), but I’ve heard others tell of how brothers can fight like cats & dogs one minute and be best friends the next! It reminds me that in the family of God, we may have disagreements from time to time but we should always come back at the end of the day to remember the love that we have for one another! A family doesn’t put conditions on their love for one another…they just love! Skinny or fat, tall or short, hairy or bald, we love each other because we’re family! So let brotherly, (family), love continue. Don’t grow out of it; don’t stop showing it to one another. The Hebrews writer reminds us that this is our value system among Christians in our love toward one another.

Now when we understand this first part, it’s not hard to understand the second part about the value of practicing hospitality toward strangers! The passage sometimes gets people unnecessarily confused by mentioning the word ‘angels’. The truth of the matter is that the Hebrews writer is reminding Christians to take the next step in their faith by showing hospitality toward others! Christians should do this as a way of life and in the process you’ll never know when you may be showing kindness to one of God’s angels, (a fellow Christian or potential Christian perhaps), unaware.

You see, people can tell a difference between someone who is genuine, loving and kind and one who is being nice because they have to be. I remember an old TV skit where the mom is yelling at the kids and calling her husband everything but a child of God and then the telephone rings and she suddenly becomes the sweetest, kindest person on earth answering, ‘Hell-oooooo’.

Our Christianity should not be like that. We should strive to be as kind, helpful and accepting toward others as we are toward our friends and family. In the process, we let people see the kind of family values Christians represent! Not just on Sundays when we smile and shake hands but in the everyday opportunities of life when people are searching for acceptance or just needing a friend!

We sing the song, what a friend we have in Jesus but when we understand our family values in Christ we ask ourselves the question, can others find a friend in me? Now there’s something we should think about this week!

John P.

In our Sunday worship gatherings with Renovo (our house church family), we dedicate time each week to hear each other’s stories. We encourage and edify one another by sharing how God is working in our lives.

On Sunday, John (not his real name) shared how God has used Renovo to redeem his marriage to Jane (not her real name). After six years of marriage, John began an affair with Jill. Jane discovered the affair and confronted John, but he continued to see Jill. In the years that followed, Jane struggled with depression and anxiety. If not for her concern for their young son, Jane would have divorced John.

In 2015, John and Jane’s son was diagnosed with a serious medical condition. John and Jane had to work together to save enough money to fly the three of them to Barcelona where he could see a specialist. At a café in Luanda, Angola, the day before they boarded the plane to Spain, our teammate Danny had a chance encounter with John, whom Danny recognized from John’s job as a bank teller in Huambo. John explained the reason for their trip and Danny promised that our group would be praying for their son.

Several weeks later, Danny found John at the bank and asked about his son’s recovery. Danny also invited John and his family to worship with us on Sunday. John, Jane, and their son joined us, albeit out of a desire to express gratitude for our prayers. To their surprise, they found a group of Christians unlike any other they had known. Each person spoke openly about his/her own struggles and our Bible study invited every participant to share a thought on how to be obedient to the biblical text. John and Jane continued to meet with us each week and they gradually opened up more and more about their own trials. They expected to hear harsh words of judgment, but instead they found a Christian family who shares the truth with much love. They found a church who accepted them as broken people (aren’t we all!) while also believing they could be made whole again.

Since John and Jane joined us for the launch of Renovo in February, John has not seen Jill. John called and ended the affair after recognizing how his sin had impacted all his relationships, especially his relationships with God, with Jane, and with his son. John has made a number of intentional steps toward rebuilding trust with his wife, including counseling as a couple with our teammates Danny and Katie. John and Jane have a difficult road ahead as they work to rebuild a healthy marriage, but they have found joy once again in serving God together.

John sees God at work throughout his story. John admits his sin and the effect of his actions. They were a broken family because of John’s sexual immorality, but God is working to restore them to Him and to each other. I am thankful for both John and Jane. I admire John’s courage to confess and turn away from his sin. I thank God for Jane’s grace and forgiveness.

Let us each hold marriage in the highest honor. And where we find broken families, let us work toward reconciliation and redemption by speaking the truth in love.

Robert Meyer

This past Sunday, Leon shared with us out of Hebrews 13:1-6 about how we as Christ-followers are to love one another, show hospitality, remember those in prison, be pure in our relationships, don’t be greedy, but instead live a life of trust and dependency on the Lord.

There’s no place in our life where the Lord says, “Except that area, I don’t have anything to say about that part of your life — just do whatever.”

A couple of years ago, one of my sons and I were making watermelon flavored Koolaid and we’d just finished filling the glass pitcher with ice and Koolaid when one of us (I won’t say who) let it slip out of our hands and it smashed all over the floor and sent Koolaid everywhere.

I mean everywhere. The ceiling. The cabinets. The oven. The stove. In the two adjoining rooms. Under the fridge. You name it, it got a watermelon Koolaid bath.

So, we spent a good amount of time cleaning up glass and Koolaid and we thought we had it all cleaned up, but as it dried, it changed color and got a bit darker pink and we noticed it was in more places than we thought. It’s been months since that happened and I still find little spots of watermelon Koolaid on the ceiling or in a corner.

A long story to make a point – just like the Koolaid, there’s absolutely no corner of our lives that the Lord doesn’t see, doesn’t cover and doesn’t claim. He sees it all and wants us to let him be Lord of it all.

And over time, when we’re ready, he shows us some places we hadn’t thought of yet. Places that we might not have considered as places in our lives he’d be interested in.
Your relationships with people. With everyone in your life. Everyone. Even strangers. Even people who you think deserve a bad lot in life because of their choices. He wants you to show love, grace, truth, mercy to them all. He wants your relationship with them to reflect your relationship with him.

How you think about money and stuff. Even if you’re poor and don’t have much. How you use your home and your blessings. How much time you devote to trying get more or keep what you’ve got. He wants you to depend on him and not the blessings he has allowed in your life.

As you go about your week, remember that Jesus wants to be the Lord of your life in every sense. Not to mess with your fun or derail your life and make you miserable, but because he knows what you need and wants to lead you to better than you have yet imagined. Look for him in places you might not have dreamed he had an interest in and ask him what he would like for you to know and do.

Grace and peace

Wade Poe

This month we are looking at some of the huge challenges we face every day. One of the greatest of those challenges is broken and injured families. The writer of Hebrews concluded his book discussing practical life problems we face daily. In that section of chapter 13 he pleaded for hospitality in the home. He pointed out that marriage was to be held in honor all the time. But to maintain such honor for marriage it is absolutely necessary to maintain sexual loyalty in the marriage. God made the man and woman as sexual beings. One of the marvelous blessings of creation was the companionship of sex in the marriage. Inside marriage sex is holy, pure and undefiled. But if we practice sexual relations outside of marriage, either as pre-marital sex or as sex with someone other than our wife or husband it is immorality or it destroys the marriage. Sex in the marriage is a means of giving oneself fully to their partner as one flesh. Sex out of the marriage dishonors the marriage and God who gave it.

Throughout time there have been challenges of immoral behavior. But there are few times in all of history when the attacks have been as blatant as they are now. Satan has worked overtime to take the honor out of marriage. He longs to turn it into just another relationship, like a contractual partnership, but not a one-flesh bond. He longs to turn us away from the image of God place of honor we hold and convince us that we are simply animals and ought to practice the same biological, “in heat” kinds of sex in the rounds as practiced in the animal kingdom regularly.

How do we maintain the honor in marriage? First, remember that both you and your partner are image-bearers and how you relate to each other demonstrates the image we have from God. Second, when we are completely loyal to each other in the marriage it demonstrates that we left all others to be glued to our partner for life and that our love will grow constantly as we live and love together. Third, it is vital to remember God’s place in our marriage. Notice, marriage came from God. It was God who said it wasn’t good for a man to be alone and made the woman and brought her to the man. It is God who joins us together as one flesh. It is God who judges those who fail to maintain the morality of sex in the marriage only. Instead of gauging the success of our marriage on the amount of things we can accumulate, we must remember that we aren’t alone. God is always with us, helping us to build and maintain the relationship of marriage as we are committed to him each day.

Your marriage is one of the greatest blessings you can ever have in this world. Give yourself fully to the marriage and to your partner. Never allow Satan to pull you away from your devotion to each other or to God. If you stand together, you can withstand the greatest challenges the world can throw at you since you stand together with each other and with God Almighty.

Leon Barnes

I have always been struck by the story of Mary coming in while Jesus and the others were eating, and pouring a jar of perfume on His feet and then wiping it with her hair. We could compare it to how people act toward a high government official or someone who is famous except for the fact that He truly deserved her sacrifice, AND He returned her love for Him fully. But the most intriguing part of the story to me is when He says, “…wherever the good news is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” Wow! Wherever – in the whole world?! That’s a lot!So, my wondering is, what are we doing now that will be told “in memory of us”? And more importantly, what are we doing to help people see Jesus that will be told in memory of us? Mary’s devotion to Jesus was obvious – she poured a year’s salary on His feet. What are we pouring on Jesus feet? Is it obvious by the things we do – and say – that we adore and are fully devoted to Jesus? What drives our schedule, our calendar – it is love for something or someone – but the question is: is it love for Jesus that drives everything we do?

The statement was made in the sermon at Central on Sunday that “everyone longs to see Jesus, whether they know it or not.” Genesis 1:27 says that “we are made in His image” – made like Him, made to need Him. So are we living in a way that our friends who are “longing to see Jesus” can easily see and learn about Jesus from? Are we a clean window that people can clearly look through to see Jesus? Or are we a door that is an obstacle in the way of people seeing Jesus?

I fear that sometimes we are more like the people that Jesus drove out of the temple in Mark 11:17 than we are like Mary. We are in the “right” places, “looking like” we’re helping people, but instead of showing our love for Jesus (pouring everything at His feet), we are only serving our own selfish interests. When we do that, we become a barrier that blocks the magnetic pull that Jesus naturally has on people. We need to look daily at our motives and ask God to make our only agenda in this world to “Love the Lord with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love others as you love yourself”, clearing the path for those that we are around so that Jesus can “draw them to Himself”.

What will be told in memory of you?

 Tammy Beck

If yesterday was “Friend Day”…what’s today?If you’ve ever been a parent, then you know that one of the most difficult scenarios you can find yourself in occurs when one of the kids wakes up abruptly and empties their stomach all over themselves.  

For a moment, you’re paralyzed, and then instinct takes over and you grab the child along with everything that got splattered and you throw them all in the bath tub. Well…that’s what my instinct told me anyway. This happened Saturday night. Wife was out of town and Dad was in charge. There’s no manual. There’s no step-by-step that comes to mind. I’ve got a six year old who is wailing, who’s scared, and who needs someone to take care of her.  

Soon, what was a frightening scurry of events, becomes a tender moment of vulnerability and love. It was a long night, with several other hurried moments that evolved into gentle whispers of affection.

That night, I was reminded that as a parent, the most important part of my job is to be present…really present. It’s not just a “I’m physically here” thing, but a fully engaged presence that is cognizant of the power of being and the gift of now.

Saturday night’s events meant that I couldn’t attend Central’s annual Friend Day. I love this day. I love the food and the fellowship. I love the crowd and the camaraderie. I love that we worship together as we’re accustomed to on Sunday mornings, and then we continue our worship by the way we share our lives together over a meal. It is the intentionality of each person to be PRESENT, whether by serving ribs or in shaking hands. We show we are “FRIENDS” because we show we are really THERE.

But today is Monday. If yesterday was “Friend Day”, what is different about today? Is our worship completed? Is our fellowship broken?

If my Saturday and your Sunday have taught us anything, it should be that we are needed in the present. Our lives should be shared together both in fragile vulnerability and in celebratory feasts. Each morning, we awaken to new opportunities to share life together, and this is a tremendous gift.

In a book I’m reading, the author says,

“Jesus taught his disciples a prayer that begins, ‘Our father, who’s in heaven…’

…which is another way of saying,

Begin your prayers—begin your day—by acknowledging that your life is a gift and this gift flows from a source. This source is responsible for the air in your lungs, the blood that courses through your veins, and the vitality that surges through you and everything around you.

…which is another way of saying,

Begin whatever you’re doing by remembering that you are here and you have been given a gift.”

Today is a gift. May we show our gratitude by how we accept the present.

Chad Tappe

There are few things as fun as reading through the story of Jesus with a group of people for their first time. When you’ve been part of the church for a long time, as I have, there is so much we take for granted. Things that seem obvious or commonplace to us still surprise and delight a new hearer. In my Catholic context in Arequipa, Peru, the Jesus people usually see is either of Jesus as a child or Jesus on a cross. How do we in the U.S. see Jesus?

In the last couple months I’ve started reading through Mark’s account of the Jesus story with two not-yet-Christian families. Mark keeps it short, filled with action, and centers the story around the question, “Who is Jesus?” It works so well in a small group or family setting because the Jesus story was meant to be experienced in a group. Think of the early groups of believers, hundreds of years ago, who would’ve gathered to hear Jesus’s story read aloud on the only copy they had. We each hear Jesus slightly differently. Sharing those differences with each other helps us better to understand the image of God which Jesus fully reflected and which we have the capacity to reflect.

There have been several questions I take for granted that have surprised me as we’ve read through Jesus’s story with these Peruvian friends. For example, what “law” is Jesus always talking about? Or did Jesus really have siblings? (That’s a tough one in a context where people have been taught Mary conceived Jesus a virgin and maintained her virginity the rest of her life) And did Jesus’s cousin John really eat lobster in the wilderness? (The Spanish word “langosta” can mean both locust and lobster…I’d rather eat lobster, you?)

These are just three questions raised when experiencing the Jesus story with fresh eyes and ears. Questions I would not have raised by myself, because I’ve already decided who Jesus is. But seeing Jesus with a new group causes me to readjust my focus, to come to Jesus in a new light, and to be surprised by Jesus once again.

I believe with all that I am that when people come closer to Jesus, things change. A desire to put someone else first starts to replace our selfish instinct. Instead of seeing rivalry or enemies we start to see the capacity for the image of God in someone else. We bring together and unite instead of segregating and dividing. With Jesus, the secular becomes sacred, the common becomes special, so we too reflect God into our neighborhoods, workplaces, and favorite restaurants. And we do it together.

Sit down and read through the Jesus story with someone, and you’ll realize that we all experience Jesus slightly differently, be it a fellow church member, a friend, or an acquaintance. Be ready to learn. Be ready to share. We’ll be amazed by Jesus’s capacity to surprise, clash, and delight, all through his call to follow him—and the God he embodies.

One of the most surprising things to me about Jesus’s life is the sheer amount of time he spends talking about food and feasts, and the time he spends actually eating—with friends, outsiders, and rivals. There must be something special about sharing a table with other people who share God’s image.

What about you? What surprises you most about seeing Jesus? Share your answer in the comments below.

Jeremy Daggett

Sunday morning we will join together to think about this passage from John 12.

20 Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. 21 They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, with a request. “Sir,” they said, “we would like to see Jesus.” 22 Philip went to tell Andrew; Andrew and Philip in turn told Jesus.

This weekend we ask that you make this short phrase your “breath prayer”. When we gather together Sunday, our friend day, we will continue to ask God to give us hearts that want to live this short and beautiful phrase.

#growGodskingdom