For the next 6 weeks the elders and ministers at Sugar Grove have suspended all of their normal meetings and are getting together weekly to do nothing but pray. However doing nothing but praying is anything but doing nothing.
I am now in my 23rd year of full time ministry and I have had the chance to watch church leadership after church leadership operate. At my first church I witnessed a bizarre exchange during an elders/ministers meeting in which the preacher proposed we take a leadership retreat to pray and the elder that held the most clout with the church asked why we would want to waste our time spending the weekend in prayer. (this church is, by the way, no longer in existence)At my second and third churches I witnessed time after time as decisions were made based not upon guidance by God or scripture but based upon what would make the most people happy.
Therefore as I was leaving my third church and looking for my fourth church I was very focused upon finding a church that sought to let God be a part of its decision making process. I did not realize this question would pose such a problem because I spent around two years interviewing with 45 different churches...
It was in the first half of 2003 when I came across one church that was different. This church had a story that was characterized by God's intervention time after time and a leadership that was willing to allow God to play a role in its direction. This church was, and is, Sugar Grove.
Sometimes being led by God means you have to be willing to change course midstream. This happened in the late 90's with a large piece of land at hwy 59 and West Airport and it happened in 2005 when thousands of people from New Orleans ended up stranded in hotels all around the church building. In this same manner there were no plans for an extended amount of prayer by the elders and ministers until a couple of weeks ago when it suddenly became clear that it would be very good to stop and simply pray seeking God's guidance and direction for Sugar Grove.
Sugar Grove has its flaws but one element of Sugar Grove that I really, really like is that it will drop everything at a moment's notice and simply go to God asking for guidance and direction. Now that's cool!
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
2013 Connecting
In 2013 Sugar Grove is going to be focusing upon Connecting. As the leadership has prayed and talked the Spirit continues to keep the issue of connection at the forefront of our thoughts. There are three areas related to connection that we will be focused upon:
Our association with one another is at the core of living out our life as a Christian. God uses our relationships with one another to help and transform each others life.
Our association with God transforms our experience in this world as we come to know him, accept, and live into the salvation that he offers through Jesus Christ.
Our association with the world around us is used by God to bring transformation to the lives of all who come into contact with the love of Christ.
The common theme here is transformation. Connection should bring transformation. However the idea of connection and association is predicated upon the idea that we are focused upon the one we are connected to- we are not focused upon ourselves. If we are focused upon ourselves then we are not connected but simply in the same proximity as someone else.
- Connection to One Another
- Connection to God
- Connection to the World around us.
Our association with one another is at the core of living out our life as a Christian. God uses our relationships with one another to help and transform each others life.
Our association with God transforms our experience in this world as we come to know him, accept, and live into the salvation that he offers through Jesus Christ.
Our association with the world around us is used by God to bring transformation to the lives of all who come into contact with the love of Christ.
The common theme here is transformation. Connection should bring transformation. However the idea of connection and association is predicated upon the idea that we are focused upon the one we are connected to- we are not focused upon ourselves. If we are focused upon ourselves then we are not connected but simply in the same proximity as someone else.
Monday, January 7, 2013
2012 and 2013 Focus
During 2012 Sugar Grove focused upon generosity. The word generosity has been hijacked to mean financial giving but our year long focus helped many people, including myself, to realize that generosity does have to do with your bank account, it has to do with an attitude that immitates God. A person with a generous heart is willing to give their time, their energy, their money, their forgiveness, their patience...
The Spirit has been leading the leadership at Sugar Grove to focus upon connection in 2013. God did not create us to lead a solitary life. He created us to live in relationship with him and he created us to be interdependent with each other. And, lest you forget, he adds us to the church when we accept Christ as our savior through baptism. All of these have to do with connection- connection with God and connection with each other.
However we live in a world that discourages connection. It says 'Don't connect with a church because it is a group of hypocritical people that simply want your money' and 'Don't connect with God because we are not really sure he exists and belief in God is simply a crutch for weak minded people.' These statements that come at us from every direction should come as no surprise because we know that the evil one still has his hand in this world leading our culture to directly attack God and church.
And then to make it even crazier our church heritage has encouraged a lack of connection to God and with each other. Somewhere along the way we began to believe that our entry into heaven was dependant upon how correct we worshiped God during our Sunday morning worship assembly. Consequently our focus as a church strayed away from God and each other and instead became focused upon the correctness of the worship assembly. We were not able to focus upon God because we became focused upon making sure we did everything correctly. We were not focused upon each other because the bulk of our time together was centered upon performing a correct worship service. This led to people viewing the Sunday worship service as a sacrament that purchased your salvation. The result being that 'church' was viewed as participation in a worship service- not as connection to God and other believers.
This sacramental view of worship is not Biblical and it harms us being the church that God needs us to be. We don't get to heaven because we worshipped without being entertained, without instruments, without women doing anything, and because we ate a small amount of cracker and juice. We get to heaven because of the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross to shed his blood for our sins. We are not saved because of what we do or don't do. We are saved because of what Jesus did. We are saved because of our receipt of the grace of God received through faith, expressed through baptism, and sustained through the work of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our heart.
The importance of 'church' lies in the development of relationship with God, each other, and the world around us. 'Church' happens wherever a few of us are gathered. Consequently the idea of focusing upon connection in 2013 is significant because it is at the core of being church.
The Spirit has been leading the leadership at Sugar Grove to focus upon connection in 2013. God did not create us to lead a solitary life. He created us to live in relationship with him and he created us to be interdependent with each other. And, lest you forget, he adds us to the church when we accept Christ as our savior through baptism. All of these have to do with connection- connection with God and connection with each other.
However we live in a world that discourages connection. It says 'Don't connect with a church because it is a group of hypocritical people that simply want your money' and 'Don't connect with God because we are not really sure he exists and belief in God is simply a crutch for weak minded people.' These statements that come at us from every direction should come as no surprise because we know that the evil one still has his hand in this world leading our culture to directly attack God and church.
And then to make it even crazier our church heritage has encouraged a lack of connection to God and with each other. Somewhere along the way we began to believe that our entry into heaven was dependant upon how correct we worshiped God during our Sunday morning worship assembly. Consequently our focus as a church strayed away from God and each other and instead became focused upon the correctness of the worship assembly. We were not able to focus upon God because we became focused upon making sure we did everything correctly. We were not focused upon each other because the bulk of our time together was centered upon performing a correct worship service. This led to people viewing the Sunday worship service as a sacrament that purchased your salvation. The result being that 'church' was viewed as participation in a worship service- not as connection to God and other believers.
This sacramental view of worship is not Biblical and it harms us being the church that God needs us to be. We don't get to heaven because we worshipped without being entertained, without instruments, without women doing anything, and because we ate a small amount of cracker and juice. We get to heaven because of the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross to shed his blood for our sins. We are not saved because of what we do or don't do. We are saved because of what Jesus did. We are saved because of our receipt of the grace of God received through faith, expressed through baptism, and sustained through the work of the Holy Spirit dwelling in our heart.
The importance of 'church' lies in the development of relationship with God, each other, and the world around us. 'Church' happens wherever a few of us are gathered. Consequently the idea of focusing upon connection in 2013 is significant because it is at the core of being church.
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