Why Join a Growth Group?

This Sunday (April 15th) Refuge is hosting our first CommunityLINK.  The goal of this event is to connect people to growth groups.  We’ll be having a special set-up in the Fellowship Hall right after our worship experience.

As I push groups, I often wonder why people would actually join one.  We live in a fairly lonely world where people seem content to be individuals. Why get involved in a community?

There are alot of ways to answer that, but the #1 reason that comes to mind is INTENTIONALITY.  Left to ourselves, we tend to drift.  If we want to be intentional in life, we need teaching, training and community.

A church that does this best (better than any I’ve heard of) is Soma Community down in Tacoma, WA.  The following shows the power of some people intentionally doing life in community and trying to live out the Gospel …

 

Missional Communities at Soma in Tacoma

‘It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.’

I ran across this helpful thought on “Rest” and the Sabbath in an odd place … the New York Times.  It was written by Judith Shulevitz, a Jewish lady who had given up her Sabbath practice and found an unexpected hole in her heart.  Towards the end of her article, she writes:

Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily, the way you might slip into bed at the end of a long day.

As the Cat in the Hat says, ”It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.”

Rules like the Sabbath did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction.

Read the full thing here.

5 Reasons Groups or People Stop Growing

Rod Edmondson, over at Catalysts’ Blog gives five reasons why churches stop growing.  I think they apply to individuals as well.  They are:

• You get comfortable…It’s okay to be comfortable, but when you hang out there too long, it can be dangerous, because you stop trying new things to spur growth and excitement.
• You quit dreaming…Dreams inspire, challenge, and grow people and organizations. You’ll never dream bigger than the dreams God has for you or your church.
• You stop taking risks…You can’t succeed at anything without a measure of risk. Playing it safe never grows anything. The call of God always involves risk-taking.
• You start maintaining…When you fall into the mode of protecting what you have, you’ll be less likely to encourage growth for fear of losing ground.
• You fail to walk by faith...Especially for the church…we are a faith-based organization. If you aren’t walking by faith in what you are doing…it’s impossible to please God. (That’s Biblical…look it up!)

Leaders Aren’t Responsible for Church Growth, but for Church Health

Continuing to talk about how leaders influence the life of the church.  Yesterday we looked at #1 “Leaders Aren’t Responsible For Your Spiritual Growth”

Today we’ll think about Principle #2 Leaders Aren’t Responsible for Church Growth, but for Church Health.

Since we spend so much time focusing on the church’s commitment to the mission of Jesus, it is easy to think that all pastors are interested in is church growth.  I’ve heard dozens of pastors criticized for being “all about numbers” and for “just wanting a big church” when they encourage people to do personal evangelism and to invite others to church.

The truth is that while most leaders love it when their church growth, they also know that a personal commitment to evangelism is indispensable for any individual’s spiritual growth.

Church leaders and pastors can’t make you share your faith … and even if they could, they can’t make the church grow.  What they are called to do is to keep the church healthy.

There are lots of ways to define a “healthy church,” but here are a few that come immediately to mind:

• A healthy church is unselfish, knowing that the goal is not to make “us” happy but to glorify God and fulfill His mission.
• A healthy church has people who are generous with their time, talents and treasure.
• A healthy church is marked by radical honesty and real grace.
• A healthy church is governed by the Bible.
• A healthy church listens to people’s concerns but still leads boldly in the direction of the Gospel Mission.
• A healthy church worships with passion with music and words anyone off the street can understand.
• A healthy church equips every follower of Jesus to do their part in serving Him.
• A healthy church has people who are broken, yet manage to love each other and forgive each other through the bumps and bruises of life.

How else would you describe a “healthy church”?

 

Leaders Aren’t Responsible For Your Spiritual Growth

Last Sunday at CGS I preached on the role of leaders in the life of a local church.  (Check out www.cgschurch.com/sermons to hear the sermon).  At the end of the talk, I gave four points on leadership, but had to burn through them pretty quick.  Over the next few days, I want to highlight those principles, both for my own thinking and for the health of the church.

Principle #1 is: Leaders Aren’t Responsible For Your Spiritual Growth

Leaders are responsible for providing environment and the raw materials for your growth … but your personal growth depends on you and your relationship to God.

As one pastor writes: …think of it this way:  a chef can set a spectacular dinner table and cater a great meal, but at the end of the day he can’t make you eat or make you have fun.  That’s your business.  All he can do is create a great environment conducive to wonderful dining.

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about the local “big shot” teachers who had been through the church.  People grew under these different men’s leadership.  Paul is pretty clear, men serve and God gives growth:

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building

Real growth comes from Abiding in the Vine of Jesus.  In John 15 Jesus says:

Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Jesus gives salvation and Jesus gives growth.  My job, as a pastor, is to help people abide in the Vine of Jesus.  I pray that they do.  I teach so that they can.  The elders and I carve out room for classes, growth groups, prayer nights, etc so that we can abide in the vine … but we cannot force anyone to abide.

In a strange and wonderful way, we remember that God is sovereign, people are responsible and leaders are accountable.  In that mix, stay close to Jesus and grow!

Am I Making Progress? I Sin Less … But Maybe Because I’m Just Tired

How do you know that you are growing?  Growth is easy to see in others, but so difficult to measure in ourselves.  This post doesn’t have many answers, but the questions and ramblings below might help …

Am I making progress? If I am really honest, it seems to me that the question is odd, even a little ridiculous. As I get older and death draws nearer, I don’t seem to be getting better. I get a little more impatient, a little more anxious about having perhaps missed what this life has to offer, a little slower, harder to move, a little more sedentary and set in my ways. Am I making progress? Well, maybe it seems as though I sin less, but that may only be because I’m getting tired! It’s just too hard to keep indulging the lusts of youth. Is that sanctification? I wouldn’t think so! One should not, I expect, mistake encroaching senility for sanctification! But can it be, perhaps, that it is precisely the unconditional gift of grace that helps me to see and admit all that? I hope so. The grace of God should lead us to see the truth about ourselves, and to gain a certain lucidity, a certain humor, a certain down-to-earthness.  – Gerhard Forde

How’s Your Growth Group Going?

You have a name, that’s enough

No awkward silences

No conflict

No Gospel

When You Hear God, Do You Listen?

“>One day during my morning run I noticed a blind woman walking on the other side of the street with her Seeing Eye dog, a beautiful golden retriever. As I was about to pass them, I noticed a car blocking a driveway a few paces ahead of them. At that moment the dog paused and gently pressed his shoulder against the woman’s leg, signaling her to turn aside so they could get around the car.

I’m sure she normally followed his lead, but that day she didn’t seem to trust him. She had probably walked this route many times before and knew this was not the normal place to make a turn. Whatever the cause, she wouldn’t move to the side and instead gave him the signal to move ahead. He again pressed his shoulder against her leg, trying to guide her on a safe path. She angrily ordered [the dog] to go forward. When he again declined, her temper flared.

I was about to speak up … when the dog once more put his shoulder gently against her leg. Sure enough, she kicked him …. And then she impulsively stepped forward—and bumped square into a car. Reaching out to feel the shape in front of her, she immediately realized what had happened. Dropping to her knees, she threw her arms around the dog, and spoke sobbing words into his ear. -Ken Sande Resolving Everyday Conflict

What has God told you lately?  (Either in His Word or in prayer)

How you doing?

What do you need to get on your knees an apologize for?

do you Rely on what HE did or on what YOU do?

“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation.  This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”

Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102, italics his.

Piper’s Prayer Pattern (IOUS)

Sometimes prayer is hard work.  If you’re a follower of Jesus, you probably know that at some level … but most people want more.  Sometimes we can get stuck in a rut.  That’s when tactics like I.O.U.S come into play.  Though this formula isn’t “magic,” it can be a helpful way to re-energize your prayer life.

IOUS (From John Piper)

I—(Incline!) The first thing my soul needs is an inclination toward God and his Word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his Word and draw near to him. Where does that “want to” come from? It comes from God.

Psalm 119:36 “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” Very simply we ask God to take our hearts, which are more inclined to breakfast and the newspaper, and change that inclination. We are asking that God create desires that are not there.

O—(Open!) Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened so that when my inclination leads me to the Word, I see what is really there, and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart?   God does.

Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.”

U—(Unite!) Then I am concerned that my heart is badly fragmented. Parts of it are inclined, and parts of it are not. Parts see wonder, and parts say, “That’s not so wonderful.” What I long for is a united heart where all the parts say a joyful Yes! to what God reveals in his Word. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? It comes from God.

Psalm 86:11 “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Don’t stumble over the word fear when you thought we were seeking joy. The fear of the Lord is a joyful experience when you renounce all sin. A thunderstorm can be a trembling joy when you know you can’t be destroyed by lightning. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to . . . the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name” (Neh. 1:11). “His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” (Isa. 11:3). Therefore pray that God would unite your heart to joyfully fear the Lord.

S—(Satisfy!) What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is for my heart to be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God.

Psalm 90:14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”