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Vision Statement: Formation Zones

March 4, 2015 / / 0 Comments

For the past two years we’ve been listening closely to the stories of our people at Central. We’ve heard every elder and minister talk about how God has worked in his life to change him. We’ve visited with small group leaders and Bible class teachers. We’ve done this with our young people and with half of our adult Bible classes. We’ve asked folks to share with us a time in their lives when God was changing them. Tell us about a time when your faith grew deeper, when something about following Christ finally clicked, when you felt God’s presence and guidance in ways you never had before. Where were you when that happened? What was going on at the time? Who was a key part of your life for that moment? Tell us about a couple of times when you really grew in Christ.

And we’ve listened. And some common themes have clearly emerged. Over and over again we’ve heard the same four things. And we are convinced that God’s Spirit works in these four key areas to shape us more into the image of Jesus: Knowledge, Community, Inner Life, Mission. These are the areas where God does his transformation work. This is what we’ve heard in our own stories.

Knowledge – We’ve all experienced spiritual growth through knowledge: a Bible study that opened your eyes to the truth of God, a preacher who inspired you to deeper faith and commitment, an author who explained things in a way that really made it click, or being immersed in Scripture for two weeks at a Christian camp. Yes, we believe that God changes us through his Word. Of course, the holy Scriptures are transformative. But the Scriptures never uphold knowledge only for the sake of knowledge. It’s not just gaining more information about God. The knowledge of God is intended to transform the way we think and behave.

Community – This is by far the number one thing mentioned by our church family when we talk about how God has made us stronger in the faith or more like Christ. And we’ve all experienced it: the older couple who paid attention to you during the early years of your marriage, your small group that’s been together through thick and thin for more than twenty years, the relationships you have in your youth group. We can all look back and see where God placed the perfectly right people in our lives at the exact right times. These are the people he uses to love us, encourage us, challenge us, and support us. God works in community to deepen our faith and enrich our relationships to him and to one another.

Inner Life – This is mainly what are traditionally called spiritual disciplines. A lot of our members told us that a period of fasting, a season of intense prayer, a commitment to daily Bible reading brought them closer to God and made them stronger in the faith. This has not been a particular area of strength for us in the Churches of Christ, but we’ve all experienced spiritual growth by participating in these kinds of exercises.

Mission – These are good works done in the name of Jesus to benefit others. And I know most of us have experienced spiritual formation here: on a mission trip to Brazil or Kenya, working with the kids at Dry Bones or up at Camp Shiloh, volunteering at Martha’s Home or Another Chance House. Ephesians 2 says we are created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God has prepared in advance for us to do. And Ephesians 4 tells us those works are intended by God to grow us in the spiritual maturity.

We already know this is how God works to grow our faith and make us more like Jesus. These formation zones are exactly where the Father meets us and does his best work on us, whether we’re paying attention to it or not. This is how God changes us in spite of how we might organize or program our churches. Can you imagine what would happen if we actually walked together in step with God as he transforms us? What if we paid more attention to the methods we already know God is using? Instead of just waiting for it to happen, we actually seek out these zones where we know it does happen, and we expect it to happen!

These formation zones are not steps or principles. These are not building blocks or projects. Spiritual formation — becoming like Christ — is not a strategy or a program. These are faith catalysts. What we want to do is pay more attention to these things. This is the atmosphere, the place, where God makes us into the people he uses to touch the world with his joy and peace. So we want to nurture that atmosphere. We want to create a culture at Central where all of us explore and experience all four of these zones together and expect that God will faithfully make us more into the image of his Son.

Peace,

Allan

Vision Statement: Part One

March 2, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Remember the Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff? Born and raised in Russia, Smirnoff lives in the U. S. now — Branson, I think. A lot of his comedy was based on comparing life in Russia to life in the United States. One of his funniest bits is about the first time he ever walked into an American grocery store. He says, “I walked in and one of the first things I saw was powdered milk. You just add water and, boom, you’ve got milk! A couple of aisles over I saw cans of powdered orange juice. You just add water and, boom, you’ve got orange juice. Then I saw a whole shelf of baby powder!”

“What a country!”

Wouldn’t it be great if we just added water to ourselves and became instantly just like Jesus? What if the waters of baptism didn’t only wash away our sins, fill us with God’s Holy Spirit, and connect us to the body of Christ? What if the moment we came up out of the water we were automatically perfect? We know it doesn’t work that way. Whatever you call it — sanctification, salvation, spiritual formation, transformation — it doesn’t happen overnight.

Becoming like Christ is a gradual thing. It’s a process. Scripture calls it “being saved.” The course of being made perfect, being changed into the image of Jesus is difficult and lengthy. But this is exactly what God is doing with those he’s calling and saving. He is forming us into the image of his Son.

“We all reflect the Lord’s glory and are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” ~2 Corinthians 3:18

Being saved means being changed: changed into the image of Jesus, shaped into his character, formed into his nature. It’s conducting ourselves every day in a manner worthy of the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord. Paul tells the Galatians he’s agonizing until Christ is formed in them. He writes in Romans that we’re predestined by God to be conformed to the image of his Son. He writes to the Colossians and says the goal of everything God is doing with Jews and Gentiles alike is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

But it’s slow. It takes time.

That’s why the very first word in our vision statement is “Becoming.” We want to constantly remind ourselves and proclaim as loud as we can to anyone who’s listening that nobody at Central Church of Christ has arrived. Nobody here is perfect. Nobody here has it all figured out. We are becoming like Christ. It’s a process. You know, some people won’t give life in Christ a chance because there are so many church people out there who think they’ve got all the answers. We want it to be known up front that we’re still pretty much a mess. Yes, we’re on our way. But nobody’s there yet. It’s a journey of ups and downs, of thrilling victories and devastating setbacks. We still have a lot to learn, we still make terrible mistakes. There’s a place in our church for anybody who has questions or doubts, for anybody who still says or does the wrong thing from time to time, for anybody who doesn’t feel perfect. Because we’re all in that little boat, fighting the storm, straining at the oars. But in the middle of all that, God is making us more like Jesus. It’s slow, but he’s doing it.

 

Happy Texas Independence Day!

Allan

Becoming Like Christ For the Sake of ________

March 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Ephesians 1 says God has revealed his will to us. And his plan is to accomplish his will through Jesus Christ our Lord. And what is that will? “To bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:10).

We know what God is doing. God is gathering. He’s drawing together all things to himself through Christ. We are all being drawn into the life of God. We’re being brought together with his people to fulfill his purposes. We are called by God. And we live life responding to that call, reacting to his drawing and bringing together. It’s not about my choices. We live primarily in response to something and someone else. God is calling us and saving us so that we, his holy people, can participate in that bringing, so we can serve others and bless others and mediate his love and grace to the world.

We want to be a people, we want to be a church, that lives every moment of every day as if God really is who he says he is and he’s really doing every thing he’s promised to do. We want to be a people who are committed to change — holy change within ourselves and salvation change in the world. We want to know that God in Christ is doing magnificent things in us and doing incredible things through us. And we want to pay better attention to those things. We want to more faithfully expect those things and praise God for those things and jump into those things and participate with everything we’ve got.

So we need a God-honoring, mouth-watering, people-growing, church-exploding, own-this-thing-and-live-it vision statement.

“Becoming Like Christ For the Sake of _______.”

I’ll spend this week in this space fleshing out our new vision statement at Central. Both parts. What God is doing in us and what God is doing through us. And I’ll entertain all comments and answer any questions. We’re excited today about what our Father is doing in and through his people at Central. We believe this statement will serve as a lens through which we evaluate and measure our efforts in being God’s church. It’ll help us keep the priorities of transformation and ministry right in front of us. And it’ll provoke us to own and to live out our calling as children of God and devout disciples of his Son.

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What a great blessing to have my dear friend Jim Martin with us this weekend at Central. Jim wrote the curriculum for 1 Peter that our adult Bible classes began studying today. He trained our Bible class teachers and leaders yesterday, kicked off the series by teaching a combined Bible class this morning, and then spent lunch with our elders and ministers talking with us about mentoring. Regular readers of this space know Jim’s special place in my heart. Our common ground in Pleasant Grove and our partnership in the Gospel are only part of what makes him a cherished friend.

You can always get to Jim’s excellent and award-winning blog by clicking the link on the right side of this page. Or, for today, I’ll provide a link for you here. Jim’s blog is mostly geared toward ministers and lay leaders in the church, loaded with helpful links and book reviews, heavy with provocative questions and insights, and packed with encouragement. I highly recommend it. Especially on Mondays.

Peace,

Allan

Help Wanted

February 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Saul’s conversion story in Acts 8 is a great example of our Lord Jesus delegating his work on the earth to other people. Jesus chooses an enemy of his church (Saul) and a faithful disciple (Ananias) and commissions each of them for a job. He gives them assignments. Neither one of them were looking for it. Saul wasn’t looking for a new religion, he wasn’t seeking direction for his life. He was an up-and-comer, he was climbing the ladder of success politically, socially, and religiously. He knew exactly what he was doing and where he was going when Jesus stepped in and stopped him dead in his tracks and changed everything. He gave Saul a job and changed everything. Ananias wasn’t looking for trouble. I don’t know what he was doing that day — eating a sandwich, cleaning out the garage, I don’t know. But Jesus pushed in, he intruded, he went where maybe he wasn’t wanted, and he gave Ananias a job. Both of these guys had their lives turned upside down by the call. They were both sent to places they didn’t want to go, and they both made speeches written by somebody else.

These kinds of episodes — there are a ton of these in Acts — show us that this thing didn’t end at the crucifixion. It continued. But when the earthly Jesus became the risen Christ, a cast of unlikely characters was enlisted to continue the story. People like Saul and Ananias were chosen to play a part. The risen King is standing in the wings, coaching, encouraging, pushing them onto the stage, feeding them their lines. Ordinary people are given jobs. And given the courage and power to perform them.

This is how Jesus does things. We know that whatever the Father called Jesus to do, the Son was never interested in doing it by himself. The first thing he did was call a group of twelve ordinary guys to drop what they were doing and start doing what he wanted them to do instead. And he didn’t seem to be too concerned with their experience or character or skills. Jesus gave jobs to lots of losers and knuckleheads. He chose them and gave them assignments, not because they were open to his teaching, not because he really enjoyed hanging out with them, but because he wanted to put them to work. Jesus said, “Come unto me.” Then he said, “Go into the whole world.”

Again, we see this all over the book of Acts: ordinary people doing extraordinary things just like Jesus. Peter and Paul both healed crippled men, just like Jesus. Paul’s very first sermon in Acts 9 almost gets him killed, just like Jesus’ first sermon in Nazareth. Normal men and women are fasting and praying like Jesus, preaching Scripture in the synagogues like Jesus. Their teaching is described by the people as amazing, just like their Lord’s. These people called and commissioned by Christ perform miracles, they’re followed by huge crowds, they’re led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. They do everything Jesus was doing. And when they’re murdered for proclaiming the Kingdom of God, like Jesus was, they die just like Jesus. When Stephen was executed for preaching like Jesus, he died with the words of our Lord on his lips, “Father, forgive them.”

These stories in Scripture, ordinary people doing remarkable things, real men and women called and commissioned by Jesus and given extraordinary assignments — this is your story, too. Like Saul on the way to Damascus, as you travel to Dalhart or Dumas or Dallas, as you go along every day, doing your thing, taking care of business, like Peter and his nets, like Matthew counting his money, like Nathanial sitting under his tree, what does Jesus have to do to get your attention? Look for it. Listen for it. Because if he hasn’t already, he will. It’s coming. Jesus is going to give you a job.

Peace,

Allan

Among You

February 23, 2015 / / 1 Comment

“The Kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the Kingdom of God is among you.” ~Luke 17:21

The Kingdom of God is not just about Christ’s power on earth. The Kingdom of God is about God’s empowerment of ordinary men and women to be agents of his eternal reign. Not everybody can see it because it’s carried out by a weak little band of disciples. It’s expressed in a single act of forgiveness by a wounded man. It’s realized in a single act of kindness by a little old lady. It’s accomplished in the worship and service rendered by a church in Amarillo.

To talk about conquering power and ruling the world in these tiny little terms might seem silly — as silly as a great tree growing out of a mustard seed. But we see it. You and I have been blessed to see that God in Christ uses these incredibly small things to miraculously grow his eternal Kingdom.

We know that with the coming of Jesus, the old world is losing its grip and a new world is being born. Rome’s rule is coming to an end — for people who thought too highly of the Roman Empire, that was unsettling news. The U.S.A.’s rule is coming to an end — that’s unsettling news for people who think too highly of the American Empire. But it’s true. The Kingdom of God has come and it is coming. Among us. And King Jesus says, “Give up your agenda and take up mine!” Or, to actually quote him:

“The time has come! The Kingdom of God is here! Repent and believe the good news!” ~Mark 1:15

God’s purposes have already been accomplished in Christ. What remains is the unfolding of what’s already been established. So, repent. Repent. Change your life. The realities of the Kingdom of God among us demand it. It’s not feeling differently in your heart; it’s living differently on the ground. The Kingdom of God is not a new religion or a fuzzy spiritual experience or even a plan for personal salvation. The Kingdom of God is about the whole world at last becoming what God has always intended it to be. A whole new world where mourners are always comforted and the hungry are always filled.

So, our lives have to be changed. It’s not just conversion, it’s discipleship; not just individual faith, but Christian unity; not merely forgiveness of sins, but a brand new creation! Jesus’ challenge is not, “How can I have a more meaningful life?” It’s “How can I get my life aligned with God’s will for the world?”

The way Jesus acted, the way he thought, the way he behaved is not how we get into the Kingdom. It’s not “Behave this way and perform all this really well and someday you’ll be worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.” No! Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection says that God’s Kingdom has come to us and is coming among us. Right here, right now, today! So, wake up and live in the light of these new facts of life!

Sometimes we’ll hear people say, “Forgiveness is noble, up to a point, as long as you’re realistic about its limits.” Or, “Prayer can be powerful, but sometimes you just have to face the facts.” Hey, for those of us who have been given the eyes to see the coming of God’s Kingdom, God’s promised victory is an accomplished fact! It is the true reality!

So, we must live it right now. Not like the world lives — no, just the opposite. Like Jesus lives. Unconditional love, unlimited forgiveness, sacrificial service, never violence or threat, always peace and joy. Not so that we’re doormats for the world. No, that’s living and thinking in the wrong reality, the reality that’s being conquered and taken over, fading away. We live in mercy and love actually as a way of taking charge of the world in the name and manner of our Lord, joining the revolution, living in and practicing the great turnaround toward the ultimate reality that one day will be trumpeted as:

“The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,
and he will reign for ever and ever!” ~Revelation 11:15

Confidence to live every day like Jesus in the world he rules comes from conviction. The problem is, we’re not convinced of the truth of our own good news. We’re too inattentive, too distracted. What Jesus shows us about the Kingdom of God should dramatically impact us. We must give attention to his rule. We must be defined by it. We must solve our problems by applying it.

We think the church is a place that puts on services. Please, come on! God is sovereign and Jesus is Lord and the Holy Spirit lives among us and the powers of the world are in big trouble! This is the truth! This is the reality! And we are called to re-order everything to live into it.

Peace,

Allan

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