Community News from Dr. Bob – 01/31/24
If you long for revival, to experience all that God intends for the church, then you need to go back to the roots of the early church. Pastor Brett preached a powerful message to kick off our series called Let’s Be the Church – if you missed it, you need to hear it. You can listen to it here online.
One of the many important points he made was in summarizing the actions of the early church. Their behaviors broke down into three categories:
- Catalytic worship. (catalytic means something that initiates a change). Essentially, we encounter God and are changed as a result of that encounter.
- Life-changing relationships. These relationships happened both inside and outside the church—and they pointed people to go further and deeper with Jesus.
- Everyday missionaries. The regular people in the early church lived as everyday missionaries: showing compassion for others and telling people about Jesus. This was in addition to however they made a living.
All three of these are needed for the church to work. To what degree do we have these three things in our lives? If you look carefully at them, you’ll see echoes of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission: love God, love others, make disciples.
We’ll continue this series of Let’s Be the Church next Sunday by looking at where we are right now. As a part of this next message, we’ll go over some of the results of the assessments we’ve taken. This series of how the church has functioned in the past, present, and future is one you won’t want to miss, as it has direct implications for how our church moves forward as well.
We want to be a part of what Jesus is calling us toward as he has sent out his church with a purpose.
Now may the God of peace—
who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus,
the great Shepherd of the sheep,
and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—
may he equip you with all you need
for doing his will.
May he produce in you,
through the power of Jesus Christ,
every good thing that is pleasing to him.
All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.
Hebrews 13:20-21 (NLT)
