Let's talk about worship

When we talk about worship, we are talking about something only believers can do. Worship is from believers to God. We magnify God’s name in worship by expressing our love and commitment to Him.

Worship is expressing our love to God for who He is, what He’s said, and what He’s doing. We express our love to God by praying, obeying, trusting, singing, giving, testifying, listening, responding to His word, and thanking. God, not us, is the focus of our worship. Unbelievers simply cannot do this.
God’s presence must be sensed in the worship experience. When unbelievers watch genuine worship, it becomes a powerful witness (Read Acts 2). There is an intimate connection between worship and evangelism. The goal of evangelism is to produce worshipers of God (John 4:23). Worship should provide the motivation for evangelism (Isaiah 6:1-8).
We must be willing to adjust our worship practices when unbelievers are present. Making a service ‘comfortable’ for the unchurched doesn’t mean changing your theology. It means changing the environment: how you greet, style of music, what Bible translation you preach from, and the kind of announcements you make.
The message must be understandable to unbelievers, but not watered down (Acts 2:11). A clear message, coupled with genuine worship, will not only welcome the unchurched people, it will open their hearts to the power of the gospel.
As we worship, let’s worship with heart, soul, mind, and emotion, so that we may show others the presence of the living God.

Blessings,  

Mark

P.S. Are you worried about something? Do you fret about the economy, terrorism, job, health, family, relationship, presidential election, or the question: What happens to you after you die? If so, you will not want to miss this week’s worship experience at 9:15 and 11:00. Bring a friend with you and discover hope instead of worry.

Can We Learn From Each Other?

In an article I read this week, blogger, author, speaker, and pastor Kurt Bubna shares observations for the young (under 30) and the not so young (over 50) and what we can learn from each other. The advice he gives to the young is… Live in the present. Months turn into decades before you know it. ‘Bucket Lists’ are common among the elderly primarily because they wait too long to take risks and make every moment count. Plan for the future. Don’t live your life without a view to the future. Be present today, but live prepared for the future because it will be here sooner than you think. Stop throwing boomers (51-69 year olds) under the bus. The seniors in your life have learned a lot of lessons, some the hard way, so glean from their knowledge. Listen more and ask for their wisdom. The advice he gives to the older is… Stop living in the past. Engage in life now. Take some new risks. Be active. You aren’t dead yet. Accept your limitations. You will never run a four minute mile, your memory may be fuzzy at times, and your body begins to sag. So what? Little stays the same over the years so don’t waste precious time worrying about the inevitable. Stop throwing millennials (18-34) under the bus. They may seem cocky to you, but can teach you a thing or two about compassion and selfless service to those in need. Listen to them and ask for their advice about compassion, selfless service, and causes to live for. The bottom line is we need each other. That is one of the intents of the church: to be multi-generational, working, and serving together to reach our world with the Gospel Message. Proverbs 20:29 says ‘The glory of the young is their strength; the gray hair of experience is the splendor of the old.’ Blessings,   Mark P.S. Do I need to turn in someone who is in the States illegally? Who is responsible to secure our country’s borders? Is this protection Biblical? Has my view on immigration been shaped by the Bible? You won’t want to miss this Sunday, July 10th at 9:15 and 11:00 as we explore these questions! Bring a friend and join us!

Are You Stuck in the Past?

Are you stuck in the past?  Do you feel guilty over something you did and just can’t get past it? Do you carry resentment towards someone who wronged you? You want to move on, but the resentment keeps raising its ugly head in your thoughts.
If we are honest with ourselves, we all have hurts, habits, and hang-ups that trap us and keep us looking back to the past instead of looking forward.
Guilt, resentment, and hurt keeps us stuck in the past. These things also keep us from growing and from becoming all God wants us to be.  If you want to enjoy your life, if you really want to experience the abundant life of Christ (John 10:10), you’ve got to learn how to let go of these kinds of things that keep us stuck in the past.
There are three things you can do to help you overcome the guilt, hurt, and resentment of the past.
1. Take a moral inventory of your life.  Lamentation 3:40 says ‘Let us examine our ways and test them.’
To take full advantage of this inventory you must get away alone and take a large chunk of time.  Make sure you have a pen and a piece of paper and write down what you’re feeling guilty about and why you feel you can’t forgive what someone did to you.  Express these things honestly and write them down.  Writing it down helps you be specific and avoid denying problems.
2. Accept responsibility for your faults.  Proverbs 20:27 says ‘The Lord gave us a mind and a conscience.  We cannot hide from ourselves.’ 
Your honesty may lead you to see that healing begins with you.  Don’t rationalize, don’t minimize and don’t blame others.  Maybe you have been deceiving yourself of why you are feeling guilty, or why you feel hurt so deeply.  Look at your list and admit your own faults. 
3. Admit your faults to God.  1 John 1:9 says ‘If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  Confession means ‘saying the same thing about.’ 
It means you are saying to God the same thing about your faults – it is sin.
Go through your inventory and say to God ‘You’re right, God, it’s wrong, cleanse me.  This will free you from the guilt, the hurt, the hang up, and the un-forgiveness of others. When we confess our faults to God, we can claim His grace and forgiveness.  He wants to give you freedom, and He invites you to be honest, trusting that He will be gracious.

Blessings,  

P.S. Do you ever feel the tension of submitting to the government in things you don’t agree with?  Is it ever okay to be disobedient to the governing authorities?  What is the government’s responsibility to me as a citizen?  You won’t want to miss Independence Sunday at 9:15 and 11:00 as we answer these questions.

Be Our Guest

Two days ago I read a blog that captured my heart because it speaks to what I want First Free to become as a church. The blog was written by James Emery White, the pastor of Meckenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.  White begins with the question ‘Have you been to Disney World?’

Some 20 million people attended Magic Kingdom alone in 2015.  That is only one out of four theme parks, so around 80 million people have been to Disney World.  What captured my interest more than how many people have been to Disney World, was the key to Disney World’s success.  It isn’t money, technology or the wow-factor of the rides.  The most frequently stated reason for guests returning is the cast – the employees.

Jeff James, vice president of the Disney Institute says, “200 million attractions won’t be fun if the cast member at the front is less than pleasant.”

The people at the Disney Institute spell out their entire approach to quality customer service in the book Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service.  They claim, “Quality service means exceeding your guests’ expectations by paying attention to every detail of the delivery of your products and services.” They have a saying, ‘Everything Speaks’.  Every detail from doorknobs to the dining room sends a message to our guests.

White then adds this thought: If only the church could be more like Disney World.  Not in terms of existing for mere entertainment and not in terms of a vision or providing ‘happiness.’ No, the church is much more than that.

We should ‘be like Disney World’ in the sense that our efforts to reach others is done with excellence so that it makes them want to return.

Where our ‘cast members,’ our regular attenders, are marked by friendliness and courtesy. Where ‘everything speaks’ from easy access to all floors to well-groomed facilities (inside and out.) That is what we are working for with The Church Appeal campaign.

God deserves our very best and we honor Him when we give Him our best. We do not want outdated carpet, dirty unpainted walls, smelly bathrooms, or any doorknob to speak against the message we are trying to convey. We want everything to communicate ‘be our guest.’

When it comes to serving guests, opening the front door and our interactions with guests should mirror our message and purpose. We should not only be like Disney, but put Disney to shame.

Let’s adapt the motto ‘Be Our Guest’ and let’s say it as well as Disney does. What can you do to make our guests want to return?

Blessings, 


P.S. If you were God, would you have a ‘Hell’ in your plan? Would you send someone there? If God is a God of love, why is there a Hell? Join me this Sunday at 9:15 and 11:00 AM as we look to the Bible for answers.

Summertime Challenge

Summertime presents challenges for every church. People are very busy and mobile in the summer, and sadly, some families will disengage from their local church from Memorial Day Sunday until the beginning of school, or even after Labor Day.

May I make a suggestion to you for this summer? Don’t disengage from the church! Use the summer as the time to renew your mind spiritually, refresh your spiritual walk, and rededicate your commitment to Christ and His Church. These things are harder to attend to in our lives during the rest of the year because of the normal routines of life. Yes, take a vacation. You need a couple of weeks to relax, have a complete break from routines, just don’t take the entire summer as a vacation from church.

Study after study reveals that people who engage in a faith community on a regular basis are rewarded significantly by reduced likelihood of life problems and risky behaviors, and stand to significantly improve the odds of a happier, healthier, and longer life.

But here’s the thing… being engaged in the church needs to start immediately. For those families with children, studies show that if a child is not regularly active in church by the age of 12, the odds of them getting active drops dramatically in teen years and beyond. In other words, parents who truly want the best for their children should get their children involved at church now and regularly.

The Proverb was right on: “Raise up a child in the way they should go and they won’t depart from it.”

Supervised activities such as baseball teams, dance classes, and club teams, while helpful, are poor substitutes for parents and family and the development of the spiritual self. Though the influence of these kinds of activities are important, the long-term nurturing qualities and faith values that families provide to children are what lead to spiritual development and church participation.

Another saying is: “It takes a village to raise a child.” The church can come alongside the parent(s) and help stimulate the intellectual, social, and spiritual development of children through lasting and caring relationships and the teaching of selfless values found at the core of faith.

That’s why I want everyone engaged with the church this summer. Even though the programmatic expression during the summer is different, church life challenges us to become more like Christ. Church life transforms us inside out.

Blessings, 


P.S. Do you ever feel trapped in your faith because there are too many rules? Why does the Bible contain so many do’s and don’ts? How can I be free if I’m bogged down with so many rules? These questions create a tension for us concerning our view of God. Sunday at 9:15 and 11:00, we will look at the Bible’s answer to this tension. See you soon! 

The Shift

I was reading a report by George Barna where he states that three major changes are reshaping the landscape in which we read and engage with the Bible in America today. These ‘shifts’ are most apparent among today’s youngest generations and give shape to the present and future reality within which we read and interact with the Bible.

The first shift is the ‘increasing skepticism.’
More people have more questions about the origins, relevance and authority of the Scriptures. Our culture is becoming unfriendly- sometimes even hostile- to claims of faith. In a society that venerates science and rationalism, it is an increasingly hard pill to swallow that an eclectic assortment of ancient stories, poems, sermons, prophecies, and letters- written and compiled over 2,000 years is somehow the sacred ‘Word of God.’

The question we need to ask as Christ followers is: When people ask questions about faith, do we know the Bible well enough to answer? (1 Peter 3:15)

The second shift is a ‘new moral code.’
Self-fulfillment has become the cultural measure of what is good, setting up a conflict between society and the Church. It is becoming rarer in our culture to find people who discover the truest thing about themselves is their identity in Christ.

How can the Christian community help disciples of all ages remain faithful as the culture becomes more intolerant?

The third shift is ‘digital access.’
New tools and technologies are making the Bible- and everything else- more accessible than ever before. This shift is an incredible leap forward in the ‘Bible cause’ of giving every person on earth access to God’s Word in his or her own language. What a privilege to partner with the Holy Spirit during this all-access revolution! At the same time, digital access also means an unfiltered flood of ideas and information that must be evaluated for goodness and truth.

So we must ask ourselves: ‘Are we equipping disciples, especially young disciples, with the spiritual, emotional, and mental tools they need to live wisely and for God’s glory in the ‘screen age?’

Blessings,  
Mark

P.S. If you were God, would there be evil, pain, and suffering? If God knows more than we do, how do we handle this issue of evil and suffering in relationship to a good and Holy God? Come this Sunday at 9:15 or 11:00 am and bring a friend as we wrestle with this challenge.

The Challenge, Part 3

This is the third and final installment on the challenge of the church today. I began by listing the five different generations within the church today, each with distinct beliefs, morals, and world views. I then shared with you how the responsibility of the church is to reach, train, and unleash the next generation, knowing that each current generation will eventually die and a new generation will rise up.

The next generation of the church is called “The Millennials.” Their ages are 18-30. If we hope to understand how to reach, train, and unleash them to influence their generation, we need to ask five questions as a church.

Two questions were asked and answered in the last issue: Is First Free relevant? Is First Free clear in our visual messaging? The third question to ask is: Is First Free a place of action or rest? Most church buildings today are places of action, not rest, and space to ‘do’ rather than to ‘be.’ Millennials have a great desire and need for respite.

Most churches have excellent areas set aside for corporate worship, group learning, and community, but nothing when it comes to personal reflection and prayer. Millennials say nature helps them connect with God. Does First Free provide this kind of space?

Question Four: Is our church being Jesus? Millennials don’t want to sit on the sidelines and observe. If they’re going to be part of a church, it must have value and meaning. In generations like the Boomers, people attend church out of some moral obligation to do so. Millennials won’t have any of that.

If First Free doesn’t provide meaning and value to them, they won’t participate. They’ll go and find something that does have meaning and value. They want to talk about real things, difficult messages, and explore the application. We must keep our message ‘real.’

The last question we need to ask is: Is First Free helping Millennials find mentors? Millennials don’t feel the same sense of obligation to attend church that previous generations may have. But those who are involved in a local church after their teen years are twice as likely to stay involved if they have a close personal friendship with an older adult in their faith community.

The golden opportunity for First Free is learning how to tap into all the financial, intellectual, professional, and relational capital of prior generations (especially the Boomers) and leverage it to equip the next generation (the Millennials) in the church.

Effective ministry to Millennials means helping them discover their own mission in the world, letting them teach us how to navigate life in this digital age. Mentoring Millennials isn’t just teaching and training them but also them training and teaching us.

At the end of the day, we don’t have anyone to hand-off the church to if we don’t have Millennials (18-30) at First Free. That’s the challenge of ministry today.

Blessings,
Mark
P.S. If you were God, don’t you think you could come up with a better world, a better plan? This Sunday we begin a new series that will add some questions we know people wrestle with. See you at 9:15 or 11:00!