Good Friday Sunrise Worship Service

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

“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.

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It’s What God Does That Matters

Posted on April 14, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

About that title, I bet some of you are thinking, “yeah, that’s what you say when a ministry isn’t doing well.”  But no, I mean it.  It’s what God does that matters.  Everything else is filler.  And I’ll go beyond that. I believe that when we focus on what God is doing, we find joy and hope regardless of how the ministry is going. This Sunday, Tita, Cathy, and Tracey shared what God has been doing in their lives and in Fellowship of Believers MC and all of us found some joy and hope.  Here’s a sample:

Tita: “Becoming a member of FCMC has strengthened my faith and walk with God. We experienced answered prayers, hope, changed lives, testimonies after testimonies of God’s love. I never knew the power in Jesus’ name until now.”

Tracey: “Discovering our vision for mission was really a journey – back and forth – leaning one way then another  – but we kept together as a group.  And it was clear that God had brought us together and was speaking to us about somehow working with children and youth and people who work with them.  Everybody had these experiences with God and we tell each other when we got together.  And we finally came to agreement.  God is calling us to give ourselves to those who give themselves to love children and youth with the love of Jesus.”

Cathy: “I used to read the Bible and I’d make little notes here and there.  But then, in Experiencing God, we were working through unit 5,  learning how God speaks through scripture.  I’ve been in church all my life but had never heard that explained.  And then I opened my Bible and suddenly words would be popping out here and there and there. And then I turned over to our memory verse which said, “The reason you do not hear is because you do not belong.”  And I thought, “That’s it!”  Now I’m hearing.  Now I know I belong to God!  Since then, my Bible looks like a coloring book.  I’m highlighting everywhere!”

April Celebration

Nap, Tita, Heather, and Tracey Make Palm Crosses

What the three of them shared reminded me of why I’m in ministry.  They reminded me of the things only God can do.  Only God can: answer prayers, reveal the power of Jesus’ name, speak through scripture, assure us we belong to Him, bind a group in love and bring them into agreement about mission.  It’s what God does that matters in ministry.

But to dispel concerns, let me share briefly, and straightforwardly, how the ministries of our church are going.  Because I’m convinced that if we are doing what God called us to do as well as we can, we’ll see God do more and more.

Our strategy is three fold: we disciple leaders, connect people to missional communities, and gather for worship.  We measure our success against our strategy.  So let me give you a status update.

 

Discipling Leaders: We have ten people in discipleship huddles.  Discipleship is caught as much as it is taught.  Objectively, everyone in the huddle is picking up the lessons.  (They are a bright group.)  But subjectively – and this is so essential – those in the huddles are picking it up.  The real test is multiplication – that’s when people currently in a discipleship huddle begin meeting in huddles of their own. We’re months away from that, but I feel like we’re on track.

In terms of connecting people to missional communities – we have two places to do that right now. The Fellowship of Believers MC – which is really a missional small group of 9 people, just pulled together their vision for mission.   If all goes to plan, they will begin attracting people into their MC as they live into their mission.   Our second group is the Cimarrone Missional Community.  This is a “Missional Community Experience” designed to let people try out following Jesus in missional community.  It began in February and wraps up in May.  Involvement and commitment have been, overall, encouraging.  We’ve had fifteen to twenty-five people whenever we’ve met.  I’d say there’s a core of a ten adults and several youth who form the core.  I believe most will want to continue.   In the middle of May, we’ll offer those who so desire the opportunity to be a part of an on-going missional community there.  I feel very positive about the way both groups are unfolding. That’s about thirty people connected to missional communities – up from a six when we started in November.  We’re thankful that God has drawn people.  I hope we can start a third one this summer or fall.  Full disclosure: three quarters of our folks have been in ministries I led before.  But I am deeply grateful for them.   I meet new people all the time and what’s really cool is how members of our MCs are inviting others on their own.

Finally, we gather for worship on second Sundays to celebrate what God is doing.  Our bench mark here is for 75% of the people in missional communities to attend worship. We have hit that at every worship service.  And people have been coming out to worship who haven’t yet experienced missional community or a discipleship huddle.  In case you are wondering, we are very okay with that – thankful even that God is bringing people!

And lastly, God is providing financially.  On the FCMC board, we’re conservative with finances, for sure.  We won’t spend what we don’t have.  My salary is at about 50% (and growing), but it is covered by giving.   But God has put an excitement and conviction in my heart.   I want to do this full time.  So with renewed enthusiasm, I’m inviting people into the ministry.

By the way, if you are interested in becoming a ministry partner with us, I would love to pray with you, speak with you, and share the vision for First Coast Missional Communities.  It’s the sort of opportunity that doesn’t come around every day.  You could be a part of what God is doing.

We believe… only God can do this.

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Do you have something worth sharing? Do you know how to share it?

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

I’m preparing to preach this week for Second Sunday Celebration and it happens to be Palm Sunday.  The biblical story is pretty well known – you can read about it in Luke 19.  Jesus rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, after the fashion of a King arriving in peace.  The people celebrate by putting on a royal welcome.  They praise God, wave branches, put their robes on the ground ahead of the donkey, and they say “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”  The Pharisees tell Jesus to tell the people to be quiet.  Jesus warns, “If they are silent, the rocks will cry out.”

Let me reflect on that a bit.  The people who were welcoming  Jesus so enthusiastically knew some things about him – but there was a lot they didn’t know.   They knew he was a prophet.  They hoped he’d be their king – and it seemed to them he was declaring himself king. But there was a lot they probably didn’t know.  They probably didn’t know he was the Son of God.  They probably could not believe that he was God in the flesh.  They didn’t know that he was about to die on the cross to take away their sins.  They didn’t know he was going to be resurrected.  And here’s something I think is even bigger: Most did not know him on a personal level.

But they did know God was up to something wherever Jesus was.  They knew that when it came to Jesus, God was close at hand, active, and real.

I believe that has a lot to do with why they were shouting.  God was close and they had to speak up.  In Jesus, they had something worth passing on, even if it meant making a spectacle of themselves.  Even if it meant getting in trouble with the political and religious authorities.

I don’t know how well you know Jesus, but you very likely know more about him and know him better than they did.  What do you know about Jesus that excites you, that makes you want to “shout”?  If so, you have something from Jesus worth passing on.  What is it?  Follow on question: how will you share it?

In the first ten verses of I Thessalonians, we read about a group of Christians who were able to pass along something good about Jesus.   They received God’s Word when they heard it and they were successfully passing it on. Not only did they hear the Word from Paul, they saw the Word demonstrated in how he lived his life among them.  They imitated Paul.  They did what he did.  Paul learned it from Barnabas – who learned it from Peter – who learned it from Jesus.  They passed it on to people in their city and beyond.

Let me reflect on that.  Paul gave them something to pass on.  First, he demonstrated God’s grace, love, and power.  He did God’s works.  And he taught them something to believe.  He taught them God’s Word.  And he showed them how to live it out.  He showed them what the Bible calls, The Way.  And they were able to do it.  They demonstrated God’s Works, shared God’s Word, and lived out God’s Way.

This pattern would repeat itself and continued on.  Eventually what they passed on  turned the world upside down.  Many people learned God’s Works, Words, and Way.  And that changed everything.  God’s Works, Words, and Way brought light into darkness, gave hope to hopeless, reversed the curse of sin, and led people into life.  The gates of hell collapsed against the great force of God’s love, grace, and power working through ordinary people.  *History recounts this (and in an era when some suggest that our faith is a force for injustice and intolerance, we should be informed enough to say otherwise).

Now, here’s the connection: If you know something of God’s Works, Word, and Way, then, by golly, you definitely have something worth sharing.  How are you sharing it?

I’m convinced we can share it –  that you can and I can – and your church can and so can ours.  And maybe you are already.  But most church folks I know aren’t intentional about sharing.  But empowered by God’s Spirit, I know we can do this.  We can pass on this thing we’ve been given that is so worth sharing.  That’s why we, at FCMC, are starting missional communities.   It puts us in fellowship with people doing the Works of Jesus, creates an environment for learning the Words of Jesus, and allows us to recover living the Way of Jesus.  And that’s also why were getting people in discipleship huddles.  We’re also gaining experience with **specific tools that are helping share what us pass it on.  That’s how we’re going to do this.  Generally speaking that’s our plan.

Alright – what’s you plan?

* A few recent books that give an idea of the impact of the Christian faith.

  • Water from a Deep Well by Gerald Sitzer (like history text with lots of stories)
  • The History of the Christian Faith by Tony Starke (more scholarly)
  • Who Was This Man by John Ortberg (inspirational, but backed by heavy scholarship)

** Tools that we are finding helpful

  • The Alpha Course
  • Experiencing God
  • Missional Communities.  We like what we’re learning from 3dm here.  Verge network has great stuff, too.
  • Life Shapes – for use in Huddles – Connect with 3dm  (weare3dm.com) before diving into this.
  • The Tangible Kingdom – great curriculum.
  • Oh, and regular exposure to good preaching helps, too.

 

 

 

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Clear about how we will give ourselves away

Posted on April 6, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

“We will give ourselves to people who give themselves to love children and youth with the love of Jesus.” – Fellowship of Believers Vision for Mission.  Does this seem like a clear sense of call to you?  I just got back from a huddle with the Fellowship of Believers leadership team.  We all have an assignment – to contact our “people of peace” (see Luke 10) and tell them about this vision.  I can’t wait to hear what God does with these conversations.

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Race For Kids

Posted on March 29, 2014 by Pastor Jesse

Race For Kids

When a church goes “out” it can look like this.

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