e-news for week of 4/19/09

I’m psyched about the message this weekend as we continue in the “Mythbusters” series. You’ve heard people pooh-pooh the Bible saying, “Full of errors.” “Fictional.” “Non-reliable.” We’ll explore the heights and depths of God’s revelation this weekend – namely His Word. “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” He’s a great God and we can’t wait to share from the Author of life and salvation, His Script.

As a ministry, our perpetual goal is to connect people to Jesus Christ. Bottom line, that means you. In worship, as we study the Bible, as we are in life groups, the goal is for all of us to be so connected with Jesus Christ that we begin to look like, act like, imitate, incarnate, perpetuate, and propagate Jesus Christ.

Amid the ebb and flow of this week, I’ve spent a lot of time with Jesus: reading the gospels, hearing His words, allowing Him to converse via the Scriptures and the Spirit with me. Frankly, it’s been a very challenging week for me. Bottom line, God has worked on me very hard and very deeply this week. I’m not sure where this is going to lead, but I’m confident that what He is doing is for His glory and for the sake of the kingdom. I’ll be sharing more about this over the next months, but of this I’m sure: we are going to heighten our intentionally at helping you become Christians (literally “little Christs”). I also know this; I’m miles and miles from where I need to be. Via the Spirit, the Word, new levels of transparency and accountability in life group and some of the men’s groups I attend, heightened spiritual discipline, and a lot of prayer, my personal intent is to become like Jesus.

I realize the tepid sickness within our country right now is the responsibility and fault of the church (that’s you and me). At times we focus waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy too much on numbers such as attendances and offerings and numbers of activities and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too little time of talking very directly about our pursuit of Christ and then, “spurring one another on toward love and good deeds.”

How about this, let’s pursue the high call of Christ together? You might ask, “Isn’t that what we are doing?” To which I’d say, “Yes, but we are going to do it better. Better focus. Better discipline. Better disciples.”

Here’s the second half of this, we are going to do this together joyfully. As I’ve spent time with Jesus this week, I realize very quickly that people loved to be around Him and they loved Him challenging them. He was a party guy, the kind that ‘sinners’ loved to be around but that the smug disdained and hated. Jesus is the man! I want to be that guy!

See you this Sunday. — Scott