Super Star Pastor?

Our church recently re-launched an online church (www.graceonline.church). There were many that asked me why we needed to invest time and resources into this tool. I had to pray through and answer those questions myself before re-launching. Behind this wrestling is a core principle that should guide all pastors, but sadly does not at times. The principle is found in a key text of scripture: John 12:32.

In this passage Jesus was literally referring to His crucifixion, but the parallel to Numbers 21:9 is evident to most. When you link the passages together you get a wonderful picture to guide us in pastoral ministry. Our goal is to lift up and glorify Christ alone; not ourselves, our local gatherings, a well-known leader, or a popular movement. I see too many pastors in our world today that promote their name, their local church, and their resources in a way that glorifies them. Admittedly, I struggle with this temptation at my core because I am a prideful man. So, before re-launching our online church I had to remind myself of this principle.

Because I took time to do this, we decided that we would re-launch as an online venue and not an online church. Our goal is to lift up Christ in this venue and allow Him to draw people to Himself. This venue is designed to gather people who work in retail, the medical field, restaurants, shift work, are engaged in travel ball, or for health reasons can’t travel to a location. Moreover, the team I’m working with understands that as we get to know our online audience our goal is to connect them to a local fellowship. Since we are about lifting up the name of Christ we do not feel we are in competition with other churches that share this goal. There are many “one another’s” in scripture that are best lived out in a local fellowship and we don’t want anyone to miss out on the fullness that God has for them.

Please pray for our new venue and connect with us online. If you are a church that shares our goal of lifting up the name of Jesus we want to connect with you. We may have a future congregant we want to send your way. If you are a Pastor who needs encouragement, please connect with us so we can pray for you and encourage you.

By the way, because LifeChurch gives away all their recourses for free we were able to launch online and I want to say thank you to that church for sharing this heart to glorify Christ Alone by sharing their resources! If you are someone who can’t make it to church on Sunday, come visit us and experience the love of Christ each week at Grace Online. May the Lord teach us all that Jesus is the only Superstar with elevating!

The Debt of Un-forgiveness

If you live long enough you obtain some wounds from other people and if you are humble enough to admit it, you probably have caused some wounds along the way. In Jesus model prayer (Matthew 6:7-15), also known as the Lord’s Prayer, He refers to these wounds as DEBTS. He could have chosen many words to describe these particular sins that we have committed and other have committed toward us, but I think He was very intentional in His word choice.

When you think about the word DEBT it carries that connotation that something is owed. What is owed is unique to specific DEBT. For instance if someone has lied to you they owe you an apology and the truth. As we seek many times what is owed to us we encounter a roadblock. Possibly someone who is unwilling to admit their wrong or can’t return to us our dignity or what is owed to us. Depending on our personality and other factors we may push hard for them to pay what was owed or we stuff it down and try and move on. Both responses create a seed of un-forgiveness that grows over time to impact our heart and our ability to love others the way that God loves us.

The solution is to forgive. But we struggle to forgive many times because we misunderstand the true definition of forgiveness. For instance we think is we forgive someone we are excusing what they did and justifying it. But this is not what forgiveness really is. True forgiveness is best understood by understanding how God forgave us. God new that we would never fully be able to pay back all that we owed to him based on our personal DEBT that we accumulated over the coarse of our lifetime. Therefore, He sent His one and only unique Son to pay our DEBT. We did not deserve this forgiveness, we did not pay what was owed, and yet God canceled our DEBT based on what Jesus did. This reality when accepted frees a person from the burden of their DEBTs that they could never afford to pay and removes the power of those DEBTs to cripple that persons capacity for love.

When you hold a seed of un-forgiveness it poisons your soul to the point that you can’t function. When you forgive someone you cancel what they owe you! You don’t expect the payment because you believe that because God has canceled your DEBT He also wants to cancel that persons DEBT as well. This frees you from the expectation that person will ever pay what they owe you. It does not mean that you would put yourself back into a situation where you would be hurt again or that you excuse the natural consequences of that person’s DEBT. It also means that you leave their personal journey of seeking their own forgiveness with them. YOU ARE FREE!

This week at Grace Seaford, and Grace Online we will be sharing on how you can experience freedom from personal hurts or DEBTS. Our prayer is that you will be set free from your DEBTS and that you as you forgive those who OWE you a DEBT. If you can’t make it physically you can experience the message here: https://faithlife.com/graceseaford/activity  or you can experience our online campus here: http://live.graceonline.church. May God set us all free through Christ’s love this weekend! 

Not Your Mother's MOB

This week @ Grace we will be sharing about Christ's Vision for the Church. I know that this might seem way too simple for some, but it is so easy for all of us to loose sight of the understanding that Jesus established His Church (Matthew 16:13-18) and the word He used for church He borrowed from the word MOB or Gathering. How cool is it that Jesus in this profound statement boils His church down to a Gathering of people who share a conviction that Jesus is the unique Son of God. He established His church on FAITH!

Too often we gather for alternative reasons. We think church is about meeting our needs, meeting our community's needs, moving a man-made vision forward, making us feel spiritually better, or even to build our own little kingdom based on some slick program or system. These are man-made mobs and in essence they create the potential for a SCAR that comes from an unusual place - THE CHURCH. There are times that we find spiritual healing, we meet the real needs of our community, and that we get something out of our Gathering. But at the end of the day this is not the primary purpose. The primary purpose is to know Christ! Whether I'm new to that idea or I've been a Christian for 50 years I'm still a seeker of His heart, His purpose, His Love, His wisdom, His blessing, and His Gathering. Christ's stands ready to quench our parched thirst for with the Water of His refreshing Spirit in a way that man-made gatherings fail to.

So, this week @ Grace we will share how we can heal from the man-made SCARS of church. How God intended a better way for people to Gather and how simply beautiful Christ's assembly is when they are focused on a healthy expression of knowing Him. We will share these ideas at Grace Seaford and Grace Online and we hope you will take time to be a part of this conversation and that the result is you are refreshed in your faith as you Gather @ Grace.

The Soul of Money?

This Sunday @ Grace we will launch a series called “The Soul of Money”. Last year I read a book with this title. The book really helped me to personally think about the concept of money and ask questions like: Where did it come from? What kind of social construct is money? How do most U.S. citizens view money? As an example just consider our national debt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#/media/File:USDebt.png 

It is not a coincidence that our national debt increases while personal unsecured debt in the U.S. increases. The average American has little to no money put away for a rainy day (savings). When you look at these two basic markers (debt and savings) you can see that what we as Americans have a poor understanding of the purpose / function of money.  In other words, we don’t understand the Soul of Money. I think that is because we have moved far away from God’s wisdom regarding finance. We are CONSUMED by our financial practices instead of learning God’s wisdom that leads us toward CONTENTMENT with what He has provided for us. 

That is why we will start this new series Sunday! I’m praying that we will see families get ahold of God’s principles regarding finance and from that they will reduce their debt, increase their savings, learn to live within their means, and learn to honor God with their finances. We as a church believe so much in seeing families set free from the burden of poor financial understanding that we will be giving away one of Dave Ramsey’s FPU kits at the end of our 4 week series. The average family pays off over $5,300 in debt in the first 90 days after doing Dave’s seminar and Dave’s principles are based on Biblical Principles: Go Figure? I hope you are able to make it and that you see God move in your financial life as a result.

How Much of a Saint was Nicholas?

Santa Claus is a big part of American culture. I’m not sure how your parent’s handled the whole “Santa” thing, but my mom thought it was OK to dream and use your imagination while at the same time believing that Jesus was the Real reason for the Season. There is certainly a tension between faith and fun during the Christmas season and each family has to navigate it in their own way. I’m still not sure sitting on the lap of an old, fat guy is a very good thing to do, but there is are some great things we can learn from the historical St. Nicholas.

St. Nicholas’ journey to Sainthood is fascinating to me! I reached out to friend who is a Catholic Priest and he shared this link: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=371. There is a pretty good video attached to the site that describes his historical life and how St. Nicholas precedes the Catholic process of canonizing a saint. I think there are many things our Catholic friends got right in their investigation of a Saint; however, there are also some areas that I question.

Like many seekers of truth, I wanted to get to the source and ponder the implications for my faith. So, I asked the questions: “Where does the New Testament first address the issue of sainthood”? The answer to that question surprised me. The first mentioning of a saint is in Matthew 27:50–54.  It is in verse 52 that we find the original word: “ἅγιον hagiŏn”. Now if your not a Bible Geek or Pastor why does this matter and why should you care? Well the people that came out of the tombs after Jesus death were called saints. WHY? They went through no special process, they were not examined and confirmed by the church, no one prayed to them, we have no specific record of their piety…. So, why does Christian Scripture use such a holy term to identify them? I believe it is because they were dead and brought to life solely because of Christ!

This week at Grace Seaford, I will be sharing on how you and I can live out the principles of Saintly living. How the principles of sainthood are available to every person regardless of their background, hang ups, hurts, or distance from God. If you can’t make it physically you can check out the audio later here: http://graceseaford.org/sermon-outlines-recordings. My hope is that this Christmas many new saints might exit a tomb of death and despair. That these saints may be energized by the power that Christ can bring anyone into sainthood and that sainthood is less about status and more about service. St. Nicholas is a great example to lead us in this direction.

Xmas vs. Christmas

It has been a little while since I blogged; I have been really busy working to move our church through revitalization and at serving at a local hospital as a Chaplain. However, this week I wanted to get back into the habit of sharing and learning through the blogosphere. As we enter into the Christmas season (advent season for our traditional folks), I have been intrigued about the whole Starbuck’s holiday cup thing. While there are many bloggers that have talked about this, I want to take different angle that I think is at the root of the issue. I think there is a larger problem with Christian culture in American that few are addressing.

Christians in our nation are typically known for what we are against, not what we are for. This is something that disturbs me as a leader within Jesus’ church. Take for instance how many Christians are anti Xmas and think that it is an attack on Christmas! The reality is that Xmas is a great abbreviation that expresses our faith in a different way and many in ignorance immediately want to jump on the anti bandwagon.

There are certain Christians that are anti specific translations of the Bible (God forbid we make His Word easier for people to read), anti certain worship music, anti certain church movements, or even down on what people wear or don’t wear to church. The whole Starbucks controversy was started by a Christian blogger who wanted to call attention to a change in the holiday cup. Reality is that Starbucks wanted to be more inclusive not less in their design. So, why does all this bother me?

Because of this anti-attitude, Christians are known more for what we are against instead of what we are for. At the heart of this is a poor understanding of how to apply the principles of Grace and Truth. I think the remedy is to bring us back to looking at how Jesus embraced these two realities. Check our John 1:14 and see how Jesus was the perfect mixture of Grace and Truth. In our Savior is the perfect expression of Grace and Truth. For an example of how Jesus lived this out read John 8:1-11. However, most Christians today lack this mixture and focus way to heavy on Truth over Grace. We need to get back to a correct understanding of Grace and Truth the way Jesus expressed it!

This week at my church: Grace Seaford, I will be sharing on how you and I can learn how to be less anti (X-ing stuff out), and learn how to put the X back into Xmas living. If you can’t make it physically you can check out the audio later here: http://graceseaford.org/sermon-outlines-recordings. My hope is that this Xmas we may create a spirit where Christians begin to be known for our love, compassion, graceful forgiveness, patience, work ethic, and family centered living!