Hope Street

In a world that is marked by turmoil and problems, what does true tangible hope look like?  As followers of Christ, we speak of the hope that we have in Him, and in our theologically trained minds, we understand what that looks like; however, to a lost world, hope in Christ is often hard for them to understand or feel.   

As the eminent parting of Jesus to heaven was taking place, He carefully chose the final words He would incarnationally speak to His disciples when he said this:  "All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.  And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  

A specific command spoken simplistically for us has unfortunately become so confused.  Rather than embracing and engaging this commission, we often find ourselves rewriting it to fit our current model for reaching the lost.  I am afraid we often unintentionally rewrite it to say, "Come to us, and we will attempt to make converts."  How has discipleship which was foundational to the words of Christ become supplemental to our current approaches?  How did we ever get away from the importance of our "going”? How did we ever get away from the importance of follow-through in discipleship? 

 Discipleship is difficult, messy, unconventional, and often unpredictable.  Discipleship relationships must be gospel-centered in order to have any baseline or standard by which we strive for.  Without the gospel at the heart of our relationships, we have no destination to point people to, only self-help and encouragement that points to nowhere.   

At Venue, we have adopted an approach to discipleship grounded in life in community.  Our community groups strive to understand four basic components:  

1.  We are Family.  We are a family because we are all children of God; we have the same Father.  The way in which we do life in community should be an illustration to the world as to what our God is like. 

2.  We are Missionaries.  As followers of Christ, we are sent by Him to carry the message of reconciliation through Jesus Christ to the world!  We believe that as missionaries we are sent INTO the culture with the goal of seeing all things restored to God through Jesus.  

3.  We are Servants.  As follower of Christ, we are called to serve Him by becoming a servant to those around us.  "No servant is greater than His master."  With this understanding, we take on the posture that Christ did by humbling himself as a servant to serve those around Him.  

4.  We are Learners.  Discipleship is critical!  As learners, we take our personal development in Christ, and the personal development of others as our responsibility.  This involves a dependency on the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us so that we are constantly being poured into by others, and are constantly being used to pour into others.  This happens through an incarnational approach to discipleship in community.   My prayer is that as a faith community, despite our flaws, we are being shaped into a people for God's possession, passionate to know Him more, and persistent in being used by Him to be faithful to His commission for our lives.  

This week, the community group I am a part of will be joining another community group to carry this message of hope in Jesus to a little street in Hattiesburg called, you got it, Hope Street.  My prayer is that God will tangibly use these Bible Clubs to replace a temporal hope being sought by the residents of this street, with an eternal hope of life through Jesus.  And my prayer is that it doesn't stop this week.  My prayer is that this will be the beginning of a long discipleship relationship with those we encounter.  

All glory and honor to Him!

23 Cents

As I sat at my desk this morning, grinding through thoughts for a new teaching series on stewardship I will be leading our faith community through, my mind was constantly driven back to this past week's stewardship offering by our faith community.  The significance, however, of this past week's offering had nothing to do with the dollar amount that we received.  Despite the generous offerings given to God by our people, it was  23 Cents that I can't keep my mind off of.  Now I have no idea who put this change in our offering basket, but nonetheless, it has impacted me in my thoughts towards what generosity truly looks like.   In Mark 12, we are reminded, as I have been this week, about what true stewardship looks like.  Mark 12:41-44 says this:   "And he [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums.  And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.  And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.  For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”   There was no pressure this day in regards to stewardship right???  Those who were extremely wealthy put in large amounts of money.  And this poor widow put in two small copper coins.  They gave from their abundance, but she gave everything!  Jesus instructs His disciples that this is what generosity looks like.   We often gauge our generosity on the amount we give:  the dollar amount, the amount of time, the amount of energy, or the amount of commitment.  Unfortunately, this becomes our litmus test for the level of our generosity.  This often leads us to give the remnants of our money, the remnants of our time, the remnants of our energy, and the remnants of our commitment.  The sad truth is, many of us often would be characterized by the qualities of the "rich" instead of the humility of the "poor."   What would it look like if followers of Christ truly began to live generous lives?  What if we "put in everything we have" for the sake of the kingdom?  What if we truly trusted God with our lives to the point that we went all in?    I am fully convinced that if we truly gave Him all, we would commit to give Him from the "firstfruits" of our finances and not just from our surplus.  We would begin to order our calendars and lives around missional living so that our lives are leveraged for His use in our neighborhoods and communities.  I believe we would prioritize what we pour our energy into so that we fully invest our lives for the advancement of the gospel.  And there is no question that we would begin to commit our lives to gospel-centered discipleship as instructed by Jesus in the Great Commission.