Discipleship Archives - Page 104 of 167

Are you looking for some practical suggestions for way to give presence in your community? Here’s five I thought of real quick, some of which I am actively pursuing. I’m not talking about community service events, but places you can hang out just to get to know people.

If you know of others, leave them in the comment area below.

Go to your local Chamber of Commerce or city website and get a community calendar, as well as a list of civic organizations and community service events. Then be present at as many of these events and projects as possible. Be the most active, joyful, service-minded citizens your city has ever seen.
Join activity-based clubs such as hiking clubs, book clubs, and tourist clubs.
Adopt a park and hang out there on a regular basis, cleaning and restoring it.
Hang out a local bar or nightclub, getting to know the regulars, and blessing the owner with your business.
Participate in the tractor-pulling contest or the art festival. Look around in the newspaper and on community bulletin boards for events that you can join.

God is Not a Sport

By Jeremy Myers

4 Comments

Have you ever heard pastors say that church services should have the same excitement and thrill of a professional football game? I’ve even preached one. Many years ago, I told my congregation they should get just as excited about God as they do for their favorite sports team.

But recently I’ve realized a flaw in this way of thinking: God is not a sport. I don’t know that we should be “giving a cheer for God” or “giving God a hand” or shout and jump up and down for Him so that He plays better.

While we’re at it, He’s not a rock star either, who shows up on Sunday morning, complete with amped-up speakers, strobe lights, and fog machines. Nor is He a Wheel-of-Fortune game show host, who makes witty comments while we spin the wheel, cross our fingers, and hope for the vacation to Jamaica.

Yet we can find all of these models at work in one way or another in many of our modern churches. To keep people coming, we keep them excited and entertained.

I’m not against excitement or entertainment. I love sports, rock concerts, and game shows as much as anyone. I just don’t think they provide a good picture of God, or of how it looks to worship Him in spirit and truth.

While it’s true that mega churches do a good job of creating excitement and enthusiasm, even they admit they don’t do the best at developing devoted followers of Jesus who are able to spread the Kingdom of God.

Of course, we must not fall into the opposite trap either. God is not a classroom professor who passes out class notes and pop quizzes three times a week to caffeine-guzzling grad students. Worshiping Him is not about filling our notebooks with Bible facts.

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus in the Gospels. If you want to know how the church should look, once again, look at Jesus in the Gospels. We are, after all, the body of Christ.

Dump Your Christian Worldview

By Jeremy Myers

3 Comments

Bob Roberts questions the usefulness of having a Christian worldview. See his post WHY I’M COMING TO NOT LIKE “CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW”. These two paragraphs really got me thinking:

Third, the kingdom of God is an unfolding journey moving towards God – not a rigid play book. For we Christians to believe in grace and the priesthood of the believer so much – we practice it very little. I’m reformed – but I’m no robot – I love the adventure, the journey, the unexpected turns, the people that come in and out of your life, the treasures you find unexpectedly and the deep learning you go through in times of pain and trouble. When we have a tight Christian worldview – there’s not much room for people to hear from God and move in ways we normally wouldn’t in mass.

Fourth, if I limit myself to my worldview – I will never truly understand where others are coming from. What made me, for good or bad, what I am today was not staying in Texas – but getting out of it and even more than that developing deep friendships with people of different cultures, ideas, religions, nations, etc., It enriched my faith and my dramatically and continues to do so.

The End of the World as We Know It

By Jeremy Myers

Give Presence

By Jeremy Myers

5 Comments

If pastors are serious about getting people to serve in the community, they must lead the way. I have suggested earlier that one way to show such seriousness is by cancelling one or two Sunday services per month and taking the people into the community serve others.

Such leadership-led church service in the community will show the people that church is not about entering a brick building on Sunday morning, but having a tangible presence in our cities, towns, and neighborhoods. This ultimately is what incarnation is all about, to be present among the people, not asking them to come join us in what we are doing, but to go join them in their activities and events, their sorrow and their pain, their laughter and their joy.

Follow Jesus into the world, not away from it

Too many Christians are trying to escape the world when we should be entering more fully into it. Following Jesus is not about escape. We are not here on earth to say prayers, sing songs, study the Bible, and wait for the rapture. We still have something to do. We must love and serve. We must restore peace and joy. We must announce that the morning has come, the sun has risen, the exile is over. People must be shown that God is not mad, the world is not all evil, and the kingdom is at hand. We must reveal hope, restoration, and redemption. And the only way we can reveal such things is by being present in the world with the people.

Give Presence

But presence is not about going where the people are so we can preach on the street corner, sing Christian songs, or hand out bottles of water with Bible verses on them. Presence is not simply being among people. Presence is sharing life with people, spending time with them, being friends for the long haul. It’s not about getting people to reform their lives so they can be accepted by us and our community. It’s about us entering fully into their lives if they will accept us into their community.

To be present with people, it is quite possible that we must change more than they. We must become more like them then ask them to become more like us. Remember Jesus, according to Philippians 2, when He entered this world, emptied Himself of nearly everything which identified Himself as God, and became fully human. Jesus did not ask us to become more like God; He became like us.

And as we enter into the world, we must do the same.

Suggestions for Presence

God is Not a Sport

Dump Your Christian Worldview

The End of the World as We Know It

Give Presence

Follow Jesus into the world, not away from it

Give Presence

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