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Do you have a plan to pass on skills for discipleship?
Part of the mission of FCMC is to pass on skills for discipleship. We feel called to equip people with the tools they need to imitate Jesus Christ in their daily lives and help others do the same. Many followers of Jesus would love to be able to do that, but simply do not feel equipped. Earlier today, a friend asked me about our church. As part of the answer, I was explaining our approach to discipleship. He stopped me and said, “I think people are really hungry for that.” He went on to tell me how frustrating it has been for him, because he feels he’s had opportunity to talk about following Jesus with some co-workers, but doesn’t know how to approach them.
We do training for discipleship in “leadership huddles.” These huddles are at the heart of each Missional Community. In these huddles, we do two things. 1) We make plans for MC gatherings. 2) We work on our skills for discipleship. After a few months of being in a huddle, those who are being led in huddles and learning about discipleship will seek other people to lead, in order to pass the discipling skills on.
Question: Are you hungry for learning skills for discipleship? If so, let me know. I’d love to help you get into a huddle.
Posted in Discipleship
Tagged community, Discipleship, Missional Community, Spiritual Growth
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Eight Guiding Words for Worship Celebrations
When planning and preparing for a worship service, we want these adjectives to apply to the end product. If we can hit these eight points, it will have been a very good day.
- Make it joyful. Create space for laughter, fun, celebration, and surprise. Create opportunities for people to celebrate life, expressing their freedom in Christ.
- Make it reverent. Create times for prayer, quietness, reflection, and thoughtfulness. Make space for people to honor God in sober seriousness and to still their hearts enough for hearing the “still, small voice.”
- Make it helpful. Give people something they can apply on a day-to-day level. Make sure it connects with what is happening in the real world.Our challenge is to create a relevant environment. Therefore, what we do must have some bearing on or importance for real-world issues, present day events, or the current state of society.
- Make it relational. People are created for relationships. Help people connect to one others individually and communally at the gathering and make it easy for them to take a step to connect with a missional community.
- Make it attractional: People have three felt spiritual needs: 1) to experience God, 2) to belong in community, and 3) to have a sense of purpose in life. Missional Communities (Up-In-and-Out) hit each of these. In our worship services, we want to inspire people to be a part of MCs through the use of testimony, teaching, conversation, and publications.
- Make it sustainable. People from MC’s will take responsibility for pulling worship together. Make it so a group of eight to ten people with jobs and families can pull this together without it becoming a burden. We don’t want to start any habits we can’t keep up – and we don’t want to pressure others.
- Make it relevant. What we do must not be estranged from addressing the popular beliefs, customs, practices, and social behaviors that are common on the First Coast. While our services will contain things that are more familiar to Christians than to non-Christians, our services should be intelligible to the average person living on the First Coast.
- Make it Christ-Centered. Celebrate Jesus Christ as Victor, Example, Sacrifice, Servant, God-With-Us, Prophet, Priest, and King. Point to Jesus, who he is, what he’s done, and how he did it. Equip those who are gathered to live like Jesus in a particular way.
4/22 Prayer Update
First Coast Missional Communities
Four Prayer Requests
1) The Fellowship of Believers MC has discerned a clear calling “to give themselves to those who give themselves to love children and youth with the love of Jesus.” They are now making plans to go “Out” and engage in their mission more intentionally. Please pray for this group to be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit as they do and for God to continue bringing new people into their fellowship for discipleship and mission.
2) The Cimarrone MC is nearing the end of the four month Missional Community Experience. The month ahead will be a time of transition. Pray for this MC during this season of as they move from the work of forming a fellowship to the work of sustaining and growing one.
3) The FCMC Board of Directors is also approaching a time of transition. Up to this point, the work has been primarily about getting set-up and organized. Moving ahead, the Board’s work will shift to providing on-going oversight, guidance, and accountability. This will involve identifying one or two new leaders. Please pray for this transition.
4) The number of those partnering in ministry with us continues to grow. Please pray for me as I give energy to building our church’s prayer and financial support network, These provide wonderful opportunities for me to talk about what God is doing, but also require a significant amount of travel. Also, please pray for my family while I’m on the road.
A Few answered Prayers
God continues to deepen our partnership with Young Life in Duval and North St. Johns Counties.
We’ve had wonderful, well-attended gatherings for worship during Holy Week.
Eleven are in huddles being equipped for disicpleship and discipling others.
God has brought new people to both MCs.
Rita Bay answered the call to become our treasurer.
The number of ministry partners and covenant partners continues to grow.
With that growth, our financial support is holding steady and starting to grow.
Posted in Prayer
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Good Friday Sunrise Worship Service
“Surely, he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows…” Isaiah 53:4
Every year, we gather with friends and family at the beach to worship God at sunrise every Good Friday. It’s become a tradition for our family. It was started by our friends the Wehmeiers – who host the Cimarrone Missional Community. We’ve been doing this together with them and others every Good Friday for the last five years or so. Naturally, we’ve extended this tradition to FCMC. After all, our missional communities are really just a gathering of friends and family trying to follow Jesus. This tradition just seems to fit. And it’s special, in part because I don’t know of anyone else who does this.
This is what we do. We gather. We enjoy fellowship. We share food. We remember what Jesus did for us. We give thanks and worship God. It’s pretty organic. There are a few logistics (time, a little coordinating of food, music, and this year, weather). Beyond that, there’s very little to organize. Email and the web-site make it pretty easy.
It’s pretty neat how God created in us a natural desire to form traditions. Traditions can become powerful, especially when they stay surrendered to Christ. (Sometimes, we turn things upside down.) Gathering for worship on Good Friday at Sunrise focuses me on Jesus in ways I had not anticipated. One of our friends, Abby, who was there for the first time, pointed that out and it made me think. As the story unfolds in the Bible, it was early in the morning, probably right after sunrise on Good Friday that Jesus would have been dragged before Pilate after being up all night. After experiencing agony in the garden, betrayal by one of his disciples, and desertion by the rest, Jesus was arrested, illegally tried, and humiliated. After all of that, Jesus was dragged across town and had to stand trial before Pilate – who knew Jesus was innocent, but condemned him anyway to appease the crowd. Think about it: Jesus allowed himself to be led right into the epicenter of injustice. Into our world’s indescribable mess, enduring unspeakable injustice, facing unthinkable evil, Jesus brought redemption, demonstrating grace, humility, courage, and love. In the middle of everything that demonstrates our separation from God and one another, Jesus stays on course – right to the cross. Jesus is just really good at demonstrating God’s transforming love. That’s good. That’s Good Friday good.
I think my brother-in-law Derek Maul captured it well in his blog entry: “Today is Good Friday. It’s a day when love stepped up beyond reason, set all defenses aside, and allowed hate to nail the best hope history ever saw to a wooden scaffold. However, rather than being ground into obscurity under the heel of fear and brutality, love transformed the crudely assembled cross from a symbol of torture and repression into the most enduring emblem of victory, promise, and redemption this world has ever known.”
That’s what I need to remember on Good Friday. And remembering that with friends at the beach as the sun rises, well, I just can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be.
Oh, and you are welcome to join us next year. Just bring a chair and a little food to share if it’s not too much trouble. We’d love sharing and welcoming new friends to our tradition.
LoveFirst Coast 