A Smattering

“It’s not that you’re doubting that God can do something. You believe in your heart that God can do something.  You just don’t want to accept his timing.  We accept his strength. We don’t want to accept his calendar.” -Pete Wilson

“I tend to live the way that I drive. I’m going to get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time and by the easiest route possible, but I’ve come to realize that getting where God wants me to go isn’t nearly as important as becoming who God wants me to become in the process and God seems far less concerned with where I’m going than with who I’m becoming.” -Mark Batterson

What do you need to trust God’s timing with today?

Where are you impatient in God’s timing?

Even now, I find myself straining toward the future.  Toward the next great adventure.  Toward wherever I go next.  Yet, the call is to live in the present.  To be fully present. Right here. Today.  Not living tomorrow. Not looking back, but embracing the now.  Fixing my eyes ahead and putting my hand to the plow.  The road will be tough but He will be right beside me.

“You can’t have it both ways.  You can’t put your hands to the plow and then take a break from the plow and do something else.  If you follow me, you stay on that plow.  There’s no looking back.” -Andy O’Rourke “The Road of Discipleship” Luke 9:57-62.

Passion

What is the greatest passion in your life? What drives you? What motivates you? What is your credo?

Go read Philippians 1:18b-26

Okay, so some of you did and some of you didn’t read the verse.  For those of you who didn’t, the key verse is “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  Some would say that’s Paul’s credo.  That’s Paul take on life.  Everything that he lives and breathes is Christ.  He wants to “magnify Jesus in every situation” he encounters.  Dying means perfect and complete fellowship with Christ for Paul.  While, living means that he can be used by God in the lives of others.  He can continue to magnify Christ and help others magnify Christ.  Yet EITHER way Christ is with him.  Whether Paul lives or dies, Christ is with him.  While he is living, the prayers of others and the work of the Holy Spirit help lead him to boldness for the Gospel and for magnifying Christ.  Furthermore, when the primary passion is to magnify Jesus in every situation our prayers change from “Get me out of this!” to “Get me out of this, but help me glorify you in this and cherish you as gain no matter what happens.”  How do You want to use my now?  If magnifying Jesus become my overarching theme how will I use my other passions to encompass that credo?

 So, the real question is what is your passion? What drives you? Is it Jesus? Or is it something else?

 

–Thoughts based off of the sermon series “To&ether for the Gospel: A Study in Philippians.”  Sermon from November 16th, 2008 “What’s your Credo?” by Pastor Andy.  Check out Antioch Community Church for more information or podcasts.  The sermon from today should be posted on the blog later this week.

Finalized Antioch Community Church Core Values

Truth

We believe Jesus Christ is the supreme embodiment of Truth.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  All things find their ultimate meaning and purpose in Him.  We also believe the Bible is God’s written, authoritative, and completely true revelation to His creation.  We are passionate about being transformed by God as we grow in love, zeal, knowledge, and obedience to the truth He has revealed. (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; Hebrews 4:12; 1 Timothy 3:15; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21)

Pursuing God

God is the center of everything we do.  We seek to glorify Him as we live out our lives as an expression of worship.  We acknowledge our complete dependence upon God and strive to be people of faith and prayer.  We pursue an active, growing, obedient, and abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 12:1-2; Colossians 4:2; Ephesians 6:18-20; John 15:1-8)

Organic Community

God exists as a community of three in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  God’s people are called to live as a relational community expressing diversity within unity.  We strive to cultivate loving, authentic relationships that are centered in Jesus Christ.  Our goal is to be an active, healthy, growing, and life-giving organic community that reflects the reality of who Jesus is to the world around us. (John 13:34-35; John 17:20-23; Acts 2:42-47; Ephesians 4:1-3)

Creativity

We have been created in the image of God.  As followers of Jesus, we are part of God’s cosmic work of redemption and new creation.  We desire that our community be an expression of the creative work of redemption God is doing within and among us.  Our goal is to utilize the diverse gifts and abilities God has given us to creatively engage people and culture with the gospel. (Genesis 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 12; 2 Corinthians 5:17; Acts 17:16-34; 1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

Holistic Mission

God is a missional, sending God.  As the Father sent the Son, we have been sent out into the world by Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Acknowledging we are hopeless apart from Christ, we desire to become “friends of sinners” as we guide lost and broken people to Jesus.  We believe in the power of the gospel to transform people, our city, and our world.  Therefore, we believe the gospel must be both tangibly demonstrated and courageously declared in our culture.(John 20:21; Luke 24:45-49; Acts 1:8; Matthew 9:9-13; Jeremiah 29:7; Matthew 5:13-16)

Intentional Multiplication

In obedience to Jesus’ mandate, we intentionally strive to make disciples of all people.   We are committed to developing and multiplying leaders.  We also desire to start new churches that start new churches.  Our goal is to help ignite a movement of the gospel in the Twin Cities and beyond that will contribute to the advancement of God’s Kingdom upon the earth. (Matthew 28:18-20; 2 Timothy 2:2; Ephesians 4:11-16; Acts 11:19-30; 13:1-3)

 

Sound interesting? Inspiring? Encouraging? What do you think? 

Read Andy’s message about the Core Values here and find out more about Antioch Community Church here.

Core Values

Churches often have “Core Values” unique to their situation, location, ect.  But how often do members even know or “value” these 7 or so principles?  How does a church embody and live out these values in such a way that they are evident?  How do you possible narrow down your Core Values when the Bible contains SO many great principles?  Plus, I often find myself mixing up Core Values and Doctrine.  I’ve been wrestling with Core Values for two weeks and I still feel overwhelmed.  I feel like I have so much to say and so many beliefs and values, but at the same time I’m speechless.  I don’t want to say anything because of all that I’m leaving out…  So what are your Core Values?  What would you want your church to value?  I’ll report back tonight or tomorrow after our Core Team meets and discusses more…until then enjoy the wrestling!

What It’s All About

Loving these quotes from this post:

“I think we focus too much energy on church growth. I think it’s all about personal growth. It’s not about growing a big church. It’s about growing big people–people who serve sacrificially, give generously, dream ridiculously, and love gracefully.”

“The way to grow larger is to grow smaller via small groups. I honestly don’t think God will grow us beyond our ability to disciple people. And if small groups are our primary context for discipleship, then the number of small groups we have will determine our growth potential as a church.”

—-

One of the things we have been talking a lot about at Community Group and Core Team Training has been how to multiply and keep our core values.  How do you emphasize evangelism, discipleship and community while expanding?  In part, the community groups serve as a way to relationally provide accountability, encouragement, and discipleship.  They can be one venue that spurs on personal growth.  Mentorship serves as another way to enable people to grow. Being involved in a community group and in Core Team Training, I have really started to realize the importance of these values and relationships even more than before.  Being able to share prayer request, praises, struggles, and fun with a group of people heading toward the same goal definitely has begun to create relationships and unity.

p.s. Lately, I’ve been reading through the New Testament and am struck again and again by how many times “unity” of the body is emphasized.  I’m on the verge of a blog delving into unity–so watch out!  

 

Performance Review

What if God gave out Performance Reviews?

Prayer: You’re doing much better, but you still have plenty of room for improvement. Also, what about listening a bit more? Sometimes you get a little talkative and get off subject. I encourage you to be brave and pray more with other people. Oh and one last thing. Praying right before bedtime usually makes you fall asleep.

Bible reading: What happened?? You were doing so well for a while. I know life got busy with graduation and moving, but I had hoped you would still keep with the before bedtime reading. What about lunch time? That might be a good time to read a little and then pick up the before bed and first thing in the morning. You really don’t need to check your e-mail ten times in the morning.

Church: I’m so happy that you like Hope and the Church Plant and that you genuinely miss being there when you’re away. Keep pursuing community. I know it’s hard, but keep at it. Also, keep finding ways to serve and be an integral part of Hope and Antioch Community Church.

Contentment: I know, I know, you had hoped this one wouldn’t come up. I know you want things that you don’t have. I know the desires of your heart. So, let’s keep working on this one.

—
Okay, so I’m lacking on substantial big topics. I know there are plenty more that I could touch on, but you get the idea. I had my 90-day performance review at work. Yikes, I am WAY emotional. I have known this about myself for a while, but today brought it home. I have a hard time seeing the positive (even if there are lots!) alongside the negative. The negative strikes home and becomes all that I remember. I become irrational and feel like I am being personally attacked. I go into the “I’m a horrible person, ect” cycle and get caught up. Rationally, I am thankful for the tips on what I can do better and areas where I need to improve because I honestly want to do the best job that I can in everything that I do. Feedback is important and is helpful. I just need to get beyond the self-esteem issue and wrap my head around the logical, rational side that sees how the criticism will be beneficial and helpful in the end. This covers all areas of my life from spiritual to emotional to work-related to physical to relational. Now, to get to work on changing and improving!

All Scripture is God-Breathed and repeat!

Last week our Core Team decided to memorize a scripture verse together and now I can officially say that I have this verse put to memory!  Now…we’ll see how long I can keep the verse memorized

2 Timothy 3:16, 17

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

White Chocolate Covered…well Anything!

I’m obsessed with white chocolate and chocolate covered things!  Therefore, I decided I’d go the healthy/unhealthy combo of fruit and chocolate for the Core Team tonight   Ha, I actually took a picture for one of my friends back home so I’ll post that later once I get it uploaded.  In other news, the weather is gorgeous!! I’m SUPER excited to go camping this weekend and get away.  Plus, before that I get to have dinner with my mama and brother and then hopefully go sign a lease.  I already started giving the relatives a list of garage sale items to be on the lookout.  The list includes: a grill, dining room table and chairs, deck furniture, a bike and a few other items.  We’ll see what happens!  Well, I better go shower so I don’t smell (I went running today…happy day!) at Core Team tonight.

Cereal Bowl Mania

Apparently, the little blogging break sparked a blogging fire in me! I sure did not lie when I said I had a lot of “blog-worthy” material inside me.

On to tonight’s topic, ceramics! I started a beginning wheel class about two weeks ago. Every Monday night from 6:30-9:30, I get to have fun with clay and get my hands dirty. I draw pretty flowers and make lots of bowls. I’m obsessed with bowls especially cereal bowls. Plus, I get to interact with a totally different crowd of people. Art people draw me right in because I don’t consider myself artsy. I am horrible at drawing and even copying pictures. I am even pretty bad at drawing and painting in the lines. I feared art classes in school because they would lower my GPA. Yes, I was that “Little Miss 4.0″ I’m pretend crafty. I have made one scrapbook in my life and I like to think it turned out okay.

I found out about my passion and love for ceramics in college (So weird that I can say that now that I’m “officially” out of college). I had to take the dreaded A class, aka an art class. I almost took the easy way out and took a writing class, but changed my mind at the last minute. I enrolled in a ceramics class because my grandma is an amazing potter. I love looking at her work and everyone in the family wants her work.

I quickly found that I could actually do this kind of “art.” Ceramics incorporates enough functionality that you don’t have to possess a lot of artistic ability. A bowl is a bowl no matter what. I also discovered that I love getting lost in the work and having the finished products. I lose myself in the work while I’m bent over the wheel with an ipod on my arm and my elbows dug into my hips working on centering and pulling this frustrating lump of clay. I definitely have a little worship fest going on while working.

I’m not sure where this passion will lead, but for now I’m enjoying getting to know some new people, worship God through a functional but creative outlet, and maybe make some mugs to have on hand for the future (maybe to use at Antioch Community Church or a coffee shop?). Plus, I can always use more cereal bowls!

p.s. I’m willing to take requests to make things for people…though, I can’t guarantee how great they’ll be or when they’ll be done

*The photos are all of pottery the instructors at the place I’m taking the class made. Northern Clay Center

Wizard + Community + Desserts = FUN and FELLOWSHIP

Fellowship night! Antioch Community Church came together last night for some food, games, conversation and fun. I spent the afternoon making fruit pizza and oreo truffles–delicious! I love making food for other people especially desserts. The only bad thing about making food right before going somewhere consists of my inability to refrain from eating while baking so that by the time I’m done I’m full. Such is life!

I really enjoyed watching the two community groups come together and get to know each other more. We also had some new people check us out, which is always exciting. I’m pumped to see this church grow and where my role will be!

The night also was amazing simply because some of us ended up playing cards. I love card games. Spades, Rook, Hand and Food, War, Solitaire, Poker, pretty much anything. We played Wizard last night. Liz, my friend who is in Australia right now!, and her family play Wizard a lot so I’m glad that I finally got to play after hearing about it so much. Plus, I won and always got my bid (that’s impressive in case you didn’t know! haha). Not that I’m bragging or anything

All in all, a great night and I had some really fun conversations (including one about seminary! and another about Mark Driscoll’s sermon series Religion Saves and 9 other Misconceptions and a little about Rob Bell). I’m definitely excited for next month’s fellowship time!