How's Your Community Group: Part 4

Pray to the Father. Jesus has opened up this communication for us anywhere, anytime. He intercedes for us, He presents our requests to the Lord (Matthew 6:9).

He alone is Holy and so we must meet Him in His righteousness in order to speak to and with Him. But we have no weight to throw around, no connections, we have no currency to purchase perfection. And let me clarify in case you're wondering, perfection is not subjective, it isn't what we each individually desire it to be. He endows us with eternal perfection through our relationship with Christ, the only one who can vouch for us (6:9).

Submit to and seek out the realization of His Kingdom here and now (6:10)

Submit to and seek out His will on earth here and now. What is currently in the Spiritual world will be tangible, visible, audible, smellable...(6:10).

With thanksgiving and humble expectation lean into Truth. Press into the Scriptures and lean on the Spirits guidance and gifts. Seek fulfillment not merely on nachos and chips but on Life Himself (6:11).

As with true fellowship and devotion both with the Lord and one another - forgive. You have been, are and will be. Share this basic element of relationship with others, everyone, even your enemies and especially your friends and family (6:12). It's amazing how much of His character, His holiness we display through the act of forgiveness. We incarnate the Gospel in dramatic ways.

Pray for speed. Run from temptation. Build walls where necessary for yourself founded on Scripture and guided by the Spirits conviction. Pray that you might move quickly when needed and exercise and practice speed in your free time (6:13).

He will deliver from Satan's temptations, schemes, lies, foolishness, pleasures, false joys...He delivers from and to (6:13).

Are you praying? Is your Community Group in prayer? Does your small group or life group pray together regularly?

Are you praying with your disciples co-leaders, future leaders, spouses, friends, families?

1. Begin a monthly community prayer night if you don't already have one.
2. Begin praying with your spouse at night after some time in the Word.
3. Challenge your co-leaders to lead in prayer. Pray out loud. Pray together. For and with one another.

Pray.

Read Matthew 6:5-18

Parenting Lessons from a Famous Made-up Father

A couple parenting lessons from a famous but made-up father.

Jesus once told a story about a Jewish son who demanded his inheritance early, while the father yet lived in fact. We know the story. The father agrees, the son takes his money and runs, wastes his life for a season and returns to his family. And the older brother who stayed was ticked and bitter. Read Luke 15:11-32.

The father in the story not only teaches us much about the love and character of our Heavenly Father, but about our role as parent to our own children. Let me draw out two observations.

First, the father attempted to live up to the sh'ma in Deuteronomy 6. To talk about God and model God-likeness in such a way that his children would know God personally. Your saying, 'but the younger son was a jerk, he was a rebel, he was a fool.' Right.

But the son also returned. He recalled the truth of his childhood and banked on it holding fast upon his return. His repentant response gives this away, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.'

1. The son noted his sin against heaven (the Lord) first and foremost.
2. The son noted his rebellion against his own father.

His paradigm was correct even when his heart and mind had been so selfishly distracted by the world. The dad here faithfully raised his family in Truth. In fact, I believe the training up of his sons was such a gracious overflow of his own life (Deut 6) that his faith was yet enticing to his son even amid rebellion.

Second, the father genuinely loved without bounds.

1. He Waited for his sons return and reconciliation.
2. He Watched quite literally for his son to one day walk onto the family farm.
3. He Welcomed him when he finally did.

So what can we take away from this parable as parents? Be faithful in raising up our children in the Truth. Not simply speaking Truth at them but discipling them in all things - from the moment we rise in the morning to the setting of the sun, with every word and deed, blanketed with the Word of the living God.

And WHEN rebellion occurs. Whether it lasts 10 minutes or 10 years, know that you have faithfully raised your children well, that the Spirit is yet at work in their heart, mind and soul.

And if they return, in whatever state they return, healthy and whole or broken and bruised - wait, watch and welcome with the very same love God offers you upon your daily return to Him.

Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9

The Call & The Drive

We can learn a lot from the attitude of John the Baptist. So let me ask you, are you called or driven? Confident in Christ or confident in yourself?

There's a difference. Here are four characteristics of a called man/woman of God. They:

1. Understand Stewardship: The crowds, followers, disciples and attention...they were not his to keep.'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' John 1:15. What are you holding to that isn't actually yours to keep?
2. Know their identity: 'I am not the Christ' John 1:20. Know who you aren't, namely the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, and you will begin to understand who you are, created and sustained by God. Reflect on this reality, it will impact you beyond compare.
3. Know their Purpose: He knew his role in being the forerunner to the Messiah, 'I am the voice of the one calling in the desert, "Make straight the way for the Lord."' John 1:23. Is your purpose to make your name great...or is it to make His Name Great?
4. Understand Commitment: John knew he was called by God. He knew his role, he knew his purpose, he knew who Jesus was and held fast to his own beheading. 'He must become greater, I must become less.' John 3:30. What or whom are you committed to? If it's anything or anyone other than Christ first and foremost...reflect once again on your role as a steward, your identity, your purpose in life.

Knowing that we are called (to follow Christ) fosters joy. Within this joy we find peace in our position in Christ as forgiven and sent on mission. Are you living a called life as a disciple of Christ or a driven life as a disciple of ________?

Read Johns Gospel chapters 1-3. Adapted from Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald. 

How's Your Community Group: Part 3

Fellowship. Sharing authentic life with a community of people. "He went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where the many people had gathered and were praying" (Acts 12:12).

When Peter escaped from prison, again (4:3, 5:17-42), where Herod had been keeping him to put him on murderous display as a Jewish rebel of this New Way simply because it pleased an audience, he went directly to the local oikos, household of believers. Why did he go there? How did he know he would be safe there? How did he know he could send a dispatch to James (Jesus' half-brother) at that hour of the night? Who would be up?

Fellowship is much more than time spent once a week discussing ancient biblical truths.

Fellowship, Christian fellowship, is that which goes on daily. Praying together, dining together, raising our kids together, studying the word deeply and intentionally, discipling one another, carrying burdens on every level, sharpening one another, sharing Jesus in your neighborhood together...as a body is together always, so is the church (1 Cor. 12).

Do you know if your oikos would so devoutly seek Jesus on your behalf? Are others in your group pondering the same questions about authentic commitment? You be this committed, you be focused and you be intentional about being in life together, being on mission together and inviting others into the Kingdom together.

Read Acts 2-12 and discover the explosion and dedication of the Jerusalem Church.

How's Your Community Group: Servanthood

Servanthood.

When we act like servants, people notice. A church had a "helping hands" ministry. Six men from the church were cleaning an elderly man's rain gutters. His curious and somewhat amazed neighbor asked, "who are these guys? Why are they doing this?" The neighbor was even more amazed when the six men proceeded to climb on his roof and clean his gutters. Servanthood matters, it opens hearts. Here are some suggestions:

1. Do menial tasks. This is one of the hardest things to teach in Western society. Even the well-educated and successful should learn to serve at a practical level.
2. Be available. A household servant must be available when the master calls. The Christian servant must also be available - to God, his/her family and others.
3. Be observant. A servant is alert to the needs of others and takes initiative to do whatever needs to be done.
4. Do more than you're asked. In our clock-watching society, people do just what they are asked to do, nothing more. A true servant does what he is supposed to do - and more. What is your 'more' in this season?

Adapted from a note by Pastor Jed Haas of Mercy Road Church - Appleton, WI. Find him on FaceBook

Hows Your Community Group: Part 2

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship...

Note that I am not separating teaching and fellowship here. Hearing the Gospel of Christ happened within the context of fellowship with other believers and the Apostles. If any of the 3,000 were interested in growing it meant community, it meant time with other disciples and time under the Apostles.

And there was a strong desire for and a commitment to this teaching. Have you ever made a vow? I did on my wedding day...I vowed once not to eat green olives, otherwise I don't recall specifically vowing to do or pursue anything in particular. It's not our language. Yet this is the language in the text. These early believers vowed to pursue the doctrine of the Apostles - the Gospel, the Truth of Christ, the Reality of the Creator of the Universe!

A hunger and a joy, an honor and a healthy terror, a newness of life in such incredibly new fellowship that I imagine a unified devotion being the only possible response in this season of the ecclesia, the budding communities of believers.

Foundational to both the devotion and the fellowship is the teaching. What were they teaching? The Gospel. This new Message regarding the life of the Messiah and how this alters their paradigm of life in God.

How did they teach it? Their immediate response was to gather together as many believers as possible and...well...talk about Jesus while living about Jesus. Talk about the OT with new light shed on the grand Story, a story they were all a part of.

Guys, if we're going to be a part of Kingdom growth in coming generations we must move beyond our Western view of partitioned community (family/friends/church members/neighbors/coworkers). Who we 'click' with doesn't ultimately matter. This lone-wolfism-amidst-the-crowd-culture is killing the mission of the Church (Matthew 28:19-20) and it's killing our built-in reputation (John 13:35). Put bluntly, we must wholly reengage in exegeting our communities, our culture, the next generation and so rebuild the bridge to Luke's Gospel movement in this Acts 2 devotion to the Word in growing fellowship.

1. Is your home church devoted to Scripture in fellowship? Let's stop thinking of genuine friendship as optional when we gather.
2. Are you leading out of a devotion to Christ both in fostering the Word and fostering genuine community?
3. Is your small group devoted? To one another, to the Word, to healthy community, suffering together, to enjoying life together, to sharing in this devotion with more and more people..

Read Members of One Another. Check out Building Missional Communities. Dig into to remaining story in Acts and trace out the connection between teaching and fellowship.

How's Your Community Group: Part 1

How's your Christian community going?

Do you like it? Not in a 'boy likes girl' sort of way, but do you get excited that your community is fulfilling the Great Commission and joyfully! Or are you just spending another night with a 'hang-out' crowd, or another Bible study, or another 'save-the-world' service group with no real discussion on Truth?

If you're anything like me you spend more than enough time evaluating whether or not your Life Group, Cell-group or Missional Community is healthy or not. While every church may have a different matrix for discerning health I want to take some time to discuss the early church koinonia (fellowship gatherings) that was forming and multiplying following the explosion of growth in Acts 2.

Disclaimer: I realize that some very brilliant theologians (much more so than I) push against the idea that the community we find in Acts 2:42-47 should ever be considered normal, especially not in our Western culture. Others lean in the opposite direction and say that if the early Church were able to more readily fulfill the Great Commission in Matthew 28 through tight-knit family/friend communities, then we ought to adapt and adopt.

I agree.

That said, I want to use this passage in Acts as a dynamic discussion guide to gauging healthy community. It's not nearly definitive and it doesn't have to be normative...but it says something about community in a time where the Spirit was rapidly moving (not to mention it was deemed noteworthy to be included in our Canon), so let's lean into it a bit.

Before we get started I've stolen and compiled different sources worth of information and put together a 'health' diagram to foster our conversation. You'll notice that there are several stages a community group grows through, each one being necessary and all a piece of the divine puzzle that is co-Mission.

I'm going to start with the assumption that if the Son of God rose from the dead to send us on a mission, then that mission must be central to our community - and so every other 'stage' of communal growth only drives us to our mission which never actually ends. In fact, if your group is on mission then you will grow through these stages time and again.

In the next post we'll start Teaching and clarify the text, ask some questions and press on our own experience in our community groups.

Read Acts 1-5 - crazy times. The Master Plan of Evangelism is a great compass in this discussion as well.