For
those of you who are reading the SoulShift book, you will notice that chapter 8
begins with a question. This question is perfect for us today.
Just
to bring you all up to speed, for the last 8 weeks, we have spent time looking
into our souls. We’ve spent some time in Mark chapters 8-10 and saw how Jesus
called His disciples to be more; to do more.
Jesus
called His disciples to a different way of life. He asked His disciples to move
from:
Ø Me
to you- this is a shift from being inward focused to being others focused;
Ø Slave
to child- this is a shift from serving God to loving God;
Ø Seen
to unseenà
this is a shift from embracing temporary things to embracing eternal things;
Ø From
Consumer to Stewardà
this is a shift from acquiring things for ourselves; to offering what we have
to other people;
Ø From
Ask to Listenà
this is a shift from asking others to listening to God;
Ø From
Sheep to Shepherdà
this is a shift from simply following Jesus to leading others toward Jesus
Ø And
from Me to Weà
this is a shift from being individuals to being the Community.
Jesus
wanted these shifts to occur in the soul of His disciples, because the soul is
the place where God does His best work.
Pastor Steve
DeNeff says that “A SoulShift is a change in the deepest part of our being, usually
after we are saved, and before we die, that makes us more like Christ and less
like our old selves.” (DeNeff)
In order for us to become all
that God wants us to become; in order for us to experience all that God wants
us to experience, we’ve got to change.
Jesus said: “I tell you the
truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter
the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:3, NIV)
I trust that
many of you have allowed the Word and the Teaching of God to speak to your soul
and you are experiencing a SoulShift.
Well, this brings
us to chapter 8 of the SoulShift book. Perhaps you’ve noticed that this chapter
begins with a question. It’s a very simple question; but very thought
provoking.
If you were to open
your SoulShift book to chapter 8, you would notice that the title is: “Now What?”
It’s a great
title for a chapter, especially after we’ve been exposed to the 7 shifts that
God wants His people to experience.
I want to
encourage those of you with this book, to continue on in your reading to figure
out how to implement these shifts.
I would like to
take the next few moments and answer this “now what” question with what God has been
doing in my heart over the last three years that I have been your pastor.
-PRAY-
ILLUSTRATION- AS some of you may know, I am
one of 10 pastors from the maritimes to be included in a Coaching Network.
Rev.
Tim Guptill is our leader, and he is mentoring us and challenging us and our
churches to move beyond ordinary and expect extra-ordinary things from God.
He
is teaching us that God wants to do greater things in the churches of the
Atlantic District, but we can’t do what we’ve always done and expect what we’ve
never had.
Pastor Tim is
challenging us to do the hard work and lead our churches out of the past and
into the present and future.
The
rationale behind this challenge is very simple. People who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus
Christ are lost, and they will spend eternity without Him.
So,
I have been challenged to seek God’s face for direction for our local church,
because I believe that the Local Church, when it’s working right, is the hope of
the world.
Brad
Powell, in his book, Change your Church
for good, says: “The Church should be offering and expecting life change.
It should settle for nothing less.
I believe that
churches aren’t seeing people’s lives transformed today because they’re not
expecting anyone’s life to be transformed.” (Powell, 2007, 46)
Every Sunday
that I come to church, I’m expecting God to change lives. When Pastor Mike and
I get together to pray, throughout the week and on Sunday Morning's we pray for
changed lives.
I believe that
the same God, who brought back Jesus Christ from the dead, has the power to
change lives.
I believe that
my God is changing Lives. I know this to be true, because I spoke to several
people last Sunday, and they shared with me their stories of how God is working
in them, how God is changing them.
Thank-you to
each one of you for responding so positivetly to God's life changing message.
God is changing
the lives of the people of MRWC.
But, you know
what? I’m also expecting God to change the lives of people who have yet to walk
through our doors.
So allow me to
share with you what I’ve taken from my prayer closet as a “Now What” direction that I
believe the Ridge church is to take.
In reality, this
simply verbalizes the approach that I have tried to take over the last few
years as your Pastor.
Please
understand; I’ve spent many hours before the Master, crying out to Him for a
fresh vision for our church, because, “Where there is no vision, the people perish….”
(Prov. 29:18a, KJV)
I’ve spent time seeking
the Face of God for our “now what” Chapter.
As many of you
know, the Mission of our church is: “to Know Christ and to make Him known”
This is our why.
This is why we exist. This is why I come to work each day. I want to know
Christ Make Him known.
I didn't take
this mission statement out of thin air; this mission statement is rooted in the
Bible.
One day Jesus
was asked as to which commandment was the greatest, and He replied by saying: “Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This
is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second
is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets
hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:37-40, NIV)
There is nothing
of greater importance than loving God with our entire being. It’s why we were
created.
Paul said: “I want to know
Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10a, NLT2)
Knowing Christ
personally and intimately is the mission of the church; but it’s only half of
the mission.
We are also here
to “Make Him
known”.
Just before He
ascended to heaven, Jesus gave His disciples this command: “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
20 Teach these new
disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am
with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20, NLT2)
Not only are we commanded to
love God with all we have, we are also commanded to tell others about Him.
Which clearly
brings us to the “now what?” question, or more specifically, the vision.
If the Mission
of our Church is to Know Christ and to Make Him known, then the
vision—what I believe God is asking us to do to fulfill the mission; and what I
have been trying to accomplish over the last couple of years is “Become a church
that unchurched people want to attend”
This is our now
what. We want to become a
church that unchurched people want to attend.
This is where I
believe God is asking us to go. This is what I believe God wants us to do, and
what I have been trying to lead us toward over the last couple of years.
I believe that
we need to become
a church that unchurched people want to attend.
But why? Because lost people matter to God.
One day, Jesus
was travelling through the towns and villages of Galilee, teaching, preaching
and healing. Suddenly, His holy heart broke for the people of His day.
Matthew tells us
that: “When he
saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and
helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
37 He said to his
disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord
who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.”
(Matthew 9:36-38, NLT2)
Jesus’ heart
broke for the people in that town; He saw that they needed hope and He
challenged His disciples to pray for more workers for the harvest fields.
John Wesley once
said: “I look
on all the world as my parish...in whatever part of it I am, I judge it…my
bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of
salvation.”(http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Wesley)
Wesley believed
that wherever he was that was where he was to preach the Gospel.
We who believe
in Wesley’s God are to do the same.
We want to become a church
that unchurched people want to attend.
Why? Because Lost People Matter to God!
So, what’s the
best way to do this? Well, I see at least three steps that we are taking that
is putting us on the path to becoming a church that unchurched people want to
attend:
In our Sunday Gatherings.
To become a
church that unchurched people want to attend, we need to continue raising the
bar on the Sunday morning experience.
We need to
continue learning new songs; we need to continue hearing solid biblical
preaching, we need to move forward on an audio and visual system…
Sunday morning
is still the primary outreach tool that the church has to offer, and to become a church
that unchurched people want to attend, we must continue raising the
bar on Sunday morning.
Remember the
Bible says: “Better
is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere…” (Ps 84:10,
NIV). If we believe this to be true, then we have a biblical command to make
Sunday’s awesome.
Pastor Tim once
said: "A Higher Calling Deserves Higher
Standards" The Church has the highest calling there is, and we need
to continue making great gains on Sunday Morning.
So thanks
Worship team for doing an AWESOME JOB. You continue to hit it out of the
park...
And thank-you
folks for coming to church, and taking part in this vision...
The second way
that we can become a church that unchurched people want to attend is in our
Student Ministries.
We are blessed
to have a great cadre of people working with our Children and teens.
Pastor Mike is
doing a great job at helping our volunteers think outside the box and make Youth
Group and the Ridge Kids a place that children and teens want to attend.
But we need more
volunteers. We need at least 4 or 5 people who are willing to forgo a Sunday or
two each month to help our kids meet Jesus.
Some of you
listening to my voice can work with our students; you just don’t know it yet. I
want to encourage you to move out of your comfort zone and be willing to be
used by God to expect Changed lives.
The Third way
that I see our vision being accomplished is by helping people realize their full
redemptive potential.
Right now, I am
looking at God’s plan to reach the world. There is no plan b. Or even a plan c.
When we realize
that Found
people find people, we will take an active part in the life of our
church and move from sheep to shepherd and help people meet Jesus Christ.
I was talking to
a lady in our church about someone who the Lord was asking me to wittness to...
we all have an active part to play, even the preacher.
Again, I've
heard stories of how several of you are already doing this.... Keep up the
Great work!!!
If you have ever
read your Bible, you will notice that God is no respecter of ages.
He will use
anyone who is willing to be used by Him, from the youngest to the oldest, God
can and will use people of all ages to accomplish His plan to reach the world.
You see, we all
have an active part to play in helping our church become a church that unchurched people want
to attend, and it will take all of us working on the mission to
realize the vision.
ILLUSTRATION- Have you ever lost your
luggage? Chances are if you have travelled by air you have lost your luggage,
or you know of someone who has lost their luggage.
When I
travelled to Ghana in 2010, our entire team lost our luggage.
We had been
stranded in London due to a snow storm, and had to disembark the plane and
thousands of people were stuck at the airport all because of 10 centimetres of
snow…
When
we finally arrived in Ghana two days later, we realized that our luggage didn’t
arrive with us, so we headed to the lost luggage desk and had to describe what
our bags looked like, and what was in our suitcases.
Much
to my surprise, the luggage people weren’t upset by the fact that we had lost
our luggage.
They didn’t care that we were in a foreign country without our luggage.
It didn’t
matter to them, because it happens all of the time; they are not concerned
about lost luggage!
Sometimes we can
act more like luggage handlers than children of the God Most High.
Sometimes we can
be more concerned about what we like, what we want, than about the things that
are lost.
God
is concerned about what is lost in this world. The Bible says: “For God so loved
the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16a, NIV)
We
need to remember that people are lost, and it’s our responsibility to partner
with God and find people, because found people find people.
Jesus
said in Luke 19 that: “the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”
(19:10, NIV) We who have been saved by God’s grace are to do the same.
Lost
people matter to God; and lost people should matter to the church as well..
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