Community Sustenance

Father: "How often do you eat?"

Me: "Once a week, usually on Sundays. That doesn't count all the times I just sit and stare at my food (daily Scripture reading)."

I had asked Him why I felt so weak and inconsistent - like a spiritual hypoglycemic...

Father: "Makes sense."

Me: "What?"

Father: "That you feel weak... You're not eating right."

Me: "Oh."

Father: "Manna only lasted a few hours, but it came every day."

Me: "So, I should eat every day?"

Father: "If you want to be strong."

Me: thinking...

Father: "Jesus made a big deal about food. Think about it."

Me: thinking... remembering...

Food was a big deal in John 21...

Jesus: "Guys, do you have any food?"

Disciples: "No."

Jesus was appearing to them after His resurrection, and it was STILL about food. They didn't get it. Still.

Jesus: "Peter, do you love me?"

Peter: "Yes."

Jesus: "Feed my sheep."

Food was a big deal in John 6:32-35...

Jesus: "I am the Bread of Life, sent by God."

Food was a big deal in Hebrews 5:12-14...

Paul: "Milk or meat? Grow up..."

Food was a big deal in Acts 2:42-47...

Early Church: "Join us - make a commitment to share, to each other's sustenance. Daily means you need to let your hair down around each other, no hair products, no need to clean the house perfectly before you fellowship."

Food was a big deal in Luke 22:14-20...

Jesus: "Communion is about food and fellowship - spiritual food, and spiritual fellowship. Do this often, and remember my food and my fellowship."
_______

Question 1: How will I feed myself well?

Question 2: How will we feed each other well?

Consuming vs. Creating Church

"Is there anyone here who has seen Jesus?"

"Can you lead me to Him? I need Him today..."

The most shocking indictment brought against the Church today is that so few of us can answer these questions.

It is not our right to bring such an indictment. We are neither judge nor jury - but rather a community already exhonerated of every sin.

Yet the indictment stands, as Jesus will one day declare to some of us, "Depart from me, for I have never known you." (Matthew 25)

My heart breaks over the Western post-modern church. We are guilty of synchrotism: our culture is addicted to entertainment and we have followed suit, aligning our major resources to recruit and entertain consumers, rather than trusting new leaders. Like Ephesus in Revelations 2, we have lost our first love.

My concern starts and ends with me. How would I answer these questions? Have I seen Jesus? Has He ownership - such capture - of me that I could, without hesitation or blush, lead others right into the presence of the resurrected Christ - that they can experience His resurrecting power?

I'm not into movements. This is neither message nor platform. This is the painful cry from a beautiful Bride, self-trapped by accepting her addictive environment, convinced that she's lost the trust and respect of her Bridegroom.

It is the treason of distance vs. the transparency of intimacy.

The gates of Hell will not prevail against the spotless Bride of the Church. Meanwhile, her affection is the balance on which hang her own life and health.

The greatest service I will ever do for those around me is to stay near the heart of God.

Would I rather be entertained, or led to the feet of the risen King of Love?

Am I consuming, or creating, the Church experience?

Acts 4:13

The Privacy of Calling

Luke 2: 19-20 "Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself. The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!"

Luke 2: 51-52 "So He went back to Nazareth with them, and lived obediently with them. His mother held these things dearly, deep within herself. And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people."

The shepherds shouted.

Mary was quiet.

The difference? The shepherd's revelation, and the realization of that revelation, had been completed. Mary's revelation was complete, but her realization was still in process.

So it is when God Calls and reveals.

During the incubation period between revelation and realization, we are called to quiet contemplation, to patient trust.

It's not about you. God didn't give you a calling to make you more significant, successful, or prevalent. He called you to glorify Himself, not you.

This is the patience of the pure.

The quiet confidence of the wise.

Secrets are powerful.

Mary and Joseph together held the most powerful secret calling the world had ever known.

Mary never stood on her calling.

She kept it hidden and deep, and made it a place of quiet communion with the One who had Called.

Let's not cheapen or sell our calling to buy attention or status among mankind.

A calling from God is first privately patient, then publicly obvious.

Missions at Christmas

Luke 1:18 Zachariah said to the angel, "Do you expect me to believe this? I'm an old man, and my wife is an old woman."

Luke 1:34 Mary said to the angel, 'But how? I've never slept with a man.'"

Zachariah knew how God worked. That was his job. Zachariah's training in the priesthood should have taught him to fear God. But when God revealed his plans to Zachariah at his point of greatest personal need and pain, he mocked God.

Mary simply questioned how... no disbelief - the Word was a foregone conclusion. Her question was a matter of practical mechanics: "How?" And her heart response was The Magnificat.

Maybe Z. was having a bad day, but his beligerance was effectively silenced.

My stance when God reveals His plans for me matters.

Perhaps Z. was older, and thus more cynical than a young, naive Mary.

In the end - same angel - practically the same message... an impossible but divinely ordained conception. One recipient received it well - one didn't. But in both cases, God's Word was revealed.

When God calls us, our stance and response matter.

Mary stayed on track by keeping something deep in her heart: the warm ember of belief that nothing is impossible with God. She hadn't a clue how - but she knew that.

Zachariah's doubt evaporated the day his son was born, and Z. was required to fulfill the angel's prophecy himself - to write on a tablet that his son's name was John. I wonder if throughout the pregnancy, Z. was on pins and needles, nervous of screwing the whole thing up. Just "waiting for the other shoe to drop." Wondering if the baby would make it to full term? If Elizabeth would, in her old age, survive the labor and delivery? He doubted the initial message... did he doubt all the way through the pregnancy? That doubt, at the critical point of God's revelation of His calling for Z., cost Z. dearly.

Discipleship with Christ is maintaining that flame of belief, so that when my Calling is revealed, my heart question is not "I wonder if...", but rather "I wonder how..."

Mission vs. Calling vs. Ministry

Mission: John 17:15-18, Matt 28:18-20

Jesus defined the Mission for His Church. Nobody has their own, private Mission.

• Mission is why we’re here
• Mission is Jesus’ purpose for His Church on earth
• Mission is the reason salvation and rapture aren’t simultaneous
• Mission is Corporate, not individual
• Our Mission is to Redeem the lost
• Our Mission is to Restore the broken
• Our Mission is to build transformational communities

Calling: Romans 11:29, Eph 4:1-16

Your calling is as unique as your fingerprint. Christ gave you unique gifts, talents, and affinities to fulfill His mission. But Calling requires death to our own “best self”, as Christ redeems our personalities, and His Life grows and bears fruit to fulfill His Mission.

• Calling is who you are
• Calling is an expression of The Mission
• Calling is God’s work in the world, thru your unique gifts, talents, and abilities
• Calling is the context in which you fulfill Christ’s mission

Ministry: Acts 26:13-18, Luke 4:16-21, John 14:11-12

Ministry is not forever – it has a beginning and an end. It carries The Mission into a particular context, thru your unique Calling. When Ministry is esteemed over Mission or Calling, we either avoid it, or perpetuate it way past it’s natural expiration.

• Ministry is something you do
• Ministry is an open door to be who you are in a particular context
• Ministry is one expression of your unique calling
• Ministry is typically just for a time
• Ministry is your relationship with God, on public display

Healthy Values

Ephesians 3:14-21
“For this reason I fall on my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth receives its true name. I ask God from the wealth of His glory to give you power through His Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, and I pray that Christ will make His home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, so that you, together with all God’s people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ’s love. Yes, may you come to know His love – although it can never be fully known – and so completely filled with the nature of God. To Him who by means of His power working in us is able to do so much more than we can ever ask for, or even think of: to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.”

Christ's love has set us free from performance based Christianity. The following are values that a healthy Christian walks out in their life because of the love and freedom that Jesus has given.

1. Reaching out and increasing relationships with God and others
2. Resolving to live with no secrets: open, honest, real, and accountable.
3. Remaining committed to God, family, Church, people, goals, self.
4. Reflecting areas of denial, apathy, minimization, misinformation in their life
5. Recognizing fears and feelings
6. Resolving problems

The Counterfeit "Calling"

We've all heard them.

We all fear them.

We fear them so much that the fear of a counterfeit calling may cause us to doubt a genuine Call from God.

A counterfeit calling seems to be inspired, smacks of the divine, and is simply - well, too good to be true.

Well, it is.

How do we distinguish between a true Calling from God on our lives vs. a counterfeit calling?

First, live your life in co-submission within a community of Godly people who know your strengths and weaknesses. Lone rangers don't have "missions", they have street fights.

Second, know the Scriptures, and test every "word" from God with the character and instruction we learn from His written Word.

Third, sell out wholeheartedly to personal discipleship, including the ultimate Ideal - to carry the cross that He has given you all the way to your own Golgotha.

There are common, distinguishing marks that help us recognize a Calling from God vs. a counterfeit calling.

A true Calling is teachable.

A counterfeit calling is closed to the counsel of Godly leaders.

A true Calling seeks fellowship.

A counterfeit calling thinks no-one would understand.

A true Calling is bittersweet - it is death, without the sting.

A counterfeit calling is self-aggrandizing.

A true Calling points to Christ.

A counterfeit calling points to me and the fulfillment of my "gifts".

A true Calling is selfless.

A counterfeit calling is about gain.

A true Calling is private and patient.

A counterfeit calling is driven and public.

A true Calling is birthed in the hush of Communion.

A counterfeit calling is formed from my own desires.

A true Calling is unveiled over time, and takes shape in the context of deep personal discipleship, requiring more work and more sacrifice than I could ever imagine.

A counterfeit calling is an epiphany, followed by an obsession.

Jesus' true Calling led Him to His cross.

Mine will, too.

Bob Mumford says we must embrace our own cross - the cross that Christ has called us to bear - so passionately, that we fall in love with the calling because of our love for the One who has called us, until we not only accept the high personal cost, but out of honor and love for the One we imitate, we kiss our own cross until we have a mouth full of splinters.

Permission-Based Ministry

The Ministry of the Masses is based solely on the authority that Jesus has granted to each believer, demonstrated in the Scriptures and the Call of God on their life.

In releasing our "everybody's" for ministry - the Ministry of the Masses of our Church into our community - we acknowledge and leverage the priesthood of every believer.

HOW do we do this? We derive our authority and calling to minister from Jesus Christ. But how do we derive permission from the people to whom we will minister? Who will give us the authority to speak into the deepest, tenderest part of their life - ministering the love and grace of Jesus Christ to redeem them?

In the institutional church, this authority is derived from the power of position - a licensed, ordained, and likely paid position within the church.

In the organic church, this authority is derived from a relational process that I'm inclined to call "Permission-Based Ministry".

The Permission-Based Ministry process goes like this:

1. PROXIMITY

We meet people where they are - in the context of their daily life.

2. AFFINITY

The Holy Spirit arranges divine encounters, and knits our hearts together based on similar struggles, compassion, and empathy for each other.

3. RELATIONSHIP

We choose to move outside our comfort zones and pay the price to begin to walk alongside non-believers, to accept them as they are, and to develop friendships with them.

4. NEED/INVITATION

As we build trust, we begin to share not only humor and food and fun - but struggles and need and pain. Our honesty and openness, and the Holy Spirit's drawing power, may result in an invitation from that person to speak into their struggle.

5. GIVING/INCARNATION

The depth of our own personal discipleship (not our "head knowledge" or pat answers) is able to meet the depth of pain and struggle in someone else. Since it's not about us, but about Jesus, we are able to relate to their need and lead them to the Answer in their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Thus, we incarnate Christ himself to those we are near.

6. FELLOWSHIP/CO-LABORING

We invite others into our fellowship, giving them the gift of a community that relates to them not as superiors who have it all together, but as friends with similar struggles who are looking to Jesus as their Hope, seeking Him together (e.g., church), and encouraging each other with His Words and Life.

This process is repeated over and over, and goes beyond relational evangelism - because our product is not simply conversions, but disciples who are passionate about Christ and His Cause in the world.

And in this way, we release all of our "Everybody's" to minister outside the walls of the church, building relationships outside the boundaries of the church, for the purpose of bringing people to Jesus Christ as the Healer of their souls.

We derive our authority to minister from Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church. But we derive our permission to speak into people's lives by invitation only, based on relationships of trust that we build over time by meeting unbelievers where they are, in THEIR context, and by incarnating Christ to them there in humility and honesty.

This is our Mission.

Organic Church (Church 2.42)

Whatever your ministry is built on
your ministry is maintained on

You harvest what you plant

Back to Basics

Read Acts 2:42


What did the Church look like in the beginning?


What were the core values?


What was important?


Who was the church?


What does that mean for us today at East Hill Foursquare Church?

Church 2.42 is based upon Acts 2:42

They devoted themselves
to the apostles' teaching
and to the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread
and to prayer.

Our Core Values in Church 2.42


Apostles' Teaching---------------------------------God’s Word - Good News

Fellowship-------------------------------------------Relationship - Friendship

Breaking of Bread----------------------------------Eating together - Food

Prayer------------------------------------------------Communication with God


The Church loved God

The Church loved each other

The Church took that love into their communities

"And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2:47b

Look at the core values:

God’s Word - The Good News

"It is a sin to bore a kid with the Gospel" (Good News)
Jim Rayburn, Young Life Founder

"You must earn the right to be heard"
Jim Rayburn


"Preach the word;
be prepared in season and out of season,
correct, admonish, and encourage
with great patience and instruction."
2 Timothy 4:2

"Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly,
as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom,
as you sing songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. "
Colossians 3:16

"It is written: man does not live on bread alone,
but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
Matthew 4:4

"The grass withers and the flowers fall because
The breath of God blows on them
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall
But the WORD of God stands forever."
Isaiah 40:7-7

Relationship -Friendship

Two greatest commandments-- Love God-Love People

Friendship is vertical and horizontal

"We will win the world when we realize that fellowship, not evangelism, must be our primary emphasis. When we demonstrate the Big Miracle of Love, it won't be necessary for us to go out they will come in."
Jess Moody


1 Corinthians Chapter13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self‑seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


Eating Together - Food

"Christmas, Easter, New Years Day, Thanksgiving, Weddings,
Fourth of July, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Birthdays, etc...
What do all the festivities have in common? FOOD!
Holidays and food have a close relationship-food's important!"
Dan Russell

"I do not want to send them away hungry"
Jesus feeds four thousand

"Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?"
Jesus feeds the five thousand

"Take and eat"
Jesus at the Last Supper

"Do this (Communion) in remembrance of me"
Jesus

When He was at the table with them
He took bread gave thanks, broke it,
and began to give it to them.
Then there eyes were opened and He disappeared from them@
Jesus on the road to Emmaus

"Do you have anything here to eat?"
Jesus appeared to the disciples

"Come and have breakfast”
Jesus appears after the resurrection

"Eating is deeply spiritual"
Dan Russell

Communicating with God - Prayer

"The glory of God is a living man; and the life of man consists in beholding God."
Saint Irenaeus, Against Heresies

"We read in the Gospels concerning Jesus that as he was praying, the fashion of his countenance was altered. Worship evidently did something for Jesus."
Albert W. Palmer

"Worship can only be boring if you are boring. Worship is active. You are the actor and God is your audience.
When worship is done you should ask, AHow did I do Lord?@
Dan Russell

O come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the Lord our maker
Psalm 95:6

Give unto the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
Psalm 29:2


I asked an elderly woman once, AIf I go to church and the preacher says nothing worth hearing, is it any use for me to go?" "Of course not," she replied curtly. But a young man overhearing our conversation intruded, "I don't see why a man, when he goes to church to worship God, would let a preacher butt in on his worship!"
-Senior Teacher


Leadership Requirements to lead in Church 2.42

Love God-Love People

Daily Devotion with Jesus

Listen to the Holy Spirit

Be Real, Open, and Vulnerable

Pray

Prayer is critical to the Mission

Below are some thoughts on how you might pray today.


1. Praying with thanksgiving

Psalm 100:4‑5
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Prayer of thanksgiving takes the focus off of us and places it on God an His goodness. When we do this it is amazing how God begins to lift us up.

2. Praying with Confession

Psalm 139:23‑24 (David)
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Is there anything offensive in my life? Search me! Make me whole and clean. I give these things over to you.

3. Praying with listening
Psalm 37:7A
Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him

Take a moment to be still before the Lord

4. Praying with requests

I John 5:14
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

God loves us to ask for his help! It shows that we believe that He is the answer.

5. Praying with declaration

Hebrews 10:23
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Hold on to the promises God has given you. Do not let go!

Solomon understood this prayer

2 Chronicles 6:14‑20
He said: "O LORD, God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven or on earth‑‑ you who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way. You have kept your promise to your servant David my father; with your mouth you have promised and with your hand you have fulfilled it‑‑ as it is today. "Now LORD, God of Israel, keep for your servant David my father the promises you made to him when you said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to sit before me on the throne of Israel, if only your sons are careful in all they do to walk before me according to my law, as you have done.' And now, O LORD, God of Israel, let your word that you promised your servant David come true. "But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O LORD my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in your presence. May your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which you said you would put your Name there. May you hear the prayer your servant prays toward this place.


6. Praying in the Spirit

Ephesians 6:18
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

When we do not know what to pray or how to pray...Let the inner most part of your heart cry to the inner depth of God. "As deep cries to deep" you will find strength, courage and power to walk through your day. Pray in the Spirit today.