Soul Talk

Lifting Up Jesus

My daughter, Laura, attended a young adult worship gathering at Heartland Community Church last night. When she came home she was so pumped. She enjoyed the worship and the speaker so much and started talking about her desire to experience more worship like that. She said something that I've been thinking about all day..."sometimes it seems we focus so much on the numbers, when what we ought to focus on is worshipping God. If we really worship him, people will be drawn to it."

I hope anyone reading this will understand that I do not mean this to be critical of our church's worship team.

I wonder if we (the church) have lost focus of the importance of worship. For years I ha've taught that our worship services are designed to be a safe place, to help us to reach our target audience. I still think there's merit in that, but Laura's statement made me ask myself, have we made worship a safe place at the expense of worshipping God? 

Just to be fair, I believe worship is about the heart...not necessarily how well the band plays, or the speaker speaks. If our hearts lift up God in the congregation is there any doubt that people will be drawn to him?

God restore my heart to worship you and help me to be a shepherd that leads other to worship you as well.

Serving Together

I have switched responsibilities on my job this year. My passion is discipleship and for almost seven years I led the small groups and bible study ministry of Westside. I loved it.

Discipleship is still my passion but I have taken on the job of encouraging people to give their lives away. It is a next step for many believers. As we grow in our knowledge of and love for Jesus serving others is the most obvious outcome. We are most like Jesus when we serve each other.

Creating a culture of serving in a church is a real challenge. Westsiders are generally great at the short-term serve, and many are shinning examples of sacrificial living, but there is so much we need to do to lead our people to begin to give their lives away. I have lots to learn and I really covet any prayers and guidance.

Dinner with Dan

my family and I enjoyed a dinner with Dan Southerland in our home last night. It was fun to fellowship together and share a meal. Dan has been a solid rock for our church and leadership team for almost five years now. That is especially true of this last year. As I wait for our worship to start I want to pause to give thanks for Dan. God is so good to send us blessings like Dan and his wife Mary.

Amazing Israel

My oldest daughter and I just returned from a 12 day journey in Israel! It was an amazing trip! The trip was sponsored by HEMI, the mission organization of Heartland Community Church. An anonymous donor offered significant scholarships to pastors in the Kansas City area who traveled with a teen leader. Laura and I received the scholarships and traveled with a group of nine teens and 7 pastors/leaders. This was one of those life altering trips that I'll never forget. The people we journied with, the people we met on the journey, and the many sites we visited have given me a new dimension in my walk with Christ and my understanding of Scripture.

Part of our journey was working to help a messianic congregation in Tel Aviv. We did some basic grunt work for them and spent an evening with our teens and theirs together. We also worked with an organization based in Jerusalem called, "Bridges for Peace." They guided us to a day of painting a school for Israeli children. As our group painted we pray that we formed bridges to the Messiah for these children and their families.

The sites we visited are too numerous to mention in a blog, but I'll list a few: Galilee, Capernaum, Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, Tel Aviv, Tiberia, Caesarea, Joppa, Megiddo, and more. Each place left a neew mark on my heart.

If you ever have the opportunity to travel to Israel I would encourage you to take it! It was truly profound!

Matt

Stop Selling Tickets

I am reading a new book by Scott McKnight titled, "A Community Called Atonement." He opens the book by addressing what I believe is a significant issue among the Christian community. In summary he states:

Christians believe that God really did atone for sins in Jesus Christ and that God really did redemptively create restored relationships with God, with self, with others, and with the world..... The bad news, the anti-gospel as it were, is that the claim Christians make for the atonement is not making enough difference in the real lives of enough Christians to show up in statistics as compelling proof of what the apostle Paul called the "truth of the gospel." Does this new relationship with God really transform the individual?

Would we all agree that there is a gap between the Christ-life and the lived-life among many believers? I am concerned that there is, and that one of the reasons this is true is that we have, for decades, been selling tickets into heaven, instead of inviting people into relationship.

Jesus never said "accept me as your Lord and Savior" as a means of getting into heaven, but he consistently invited people into relationship by inviting them to "follow" him. Following implies an ongoing relationship. I don't believe this was ever the intent of the evangelistic methods of the past, but I believe it is the outcome.

Many christians understand far too little of the ongoing relationship that is necessary for real spiritual transformation. God has been invited into their life, but he is just one part of it. This is why I titled this blog, "Stop Selling Tickets." We need to get past the idea that we can someone gain admission into heaven by praying a modeled prayer. And move strongly into the mindset that Christ invites us into a relationship with God, and with others.