10 Questions from Building with Bricks

I'm starting a new thing today called "10 Questions". Each Monday there will be ten questions that I've asked people from church to submit concerning the message from Sunday. Our text from Sunday was Psalm 119:9-16 if you want to refer to it. You can also hear the sermon audio here. Here are this week's Ten Questions:

1. What was the last Scripture that truly affected your life and how?

2. Why does growing cease when learning ceases?

3. Is your first response to difficult situations to turn to the wisdom of the world or the wisdom of the Word and why?

4. How do you know God's "Living Word" is alive and evident in you?

5. What expectation does God have for you when you think upon His word?

6. How will meditating on God's word help you in discerning God's will?

7. Do you find yourself doing things you know are wrong or "pre-meditating" your sin?

8. What good is learning without implementation?

9. What foundation is your life built upon and what kind of "material" are you using to build your life?

10. Take an inventory of your week. Are the things you do a response to being a "doer" of God's Word?

These questions are to help you in going to the next level of applying Sunday's message. Take your time in answering them. Don't feel that you have to do them all or do them all at once. Wrestle with the questions, but be honest with your response. This is crashing into life.

Community

We've heard a lot of talk about "community" these days. It does not seem to matter what circle you are in, whether it be church, business, senior adults, students, etc, everyone seems to be talking about community. Community is made of of two roots of words. Com meaning with and unity meaning coming together. We talk about a global community, but we are not coming together. We talk about the political community, but that is an area of great division. We talk about local community, but we do not even know who our neighbors are. We talk about church community, but we see church that are in constant competition with one another. Community is something that we seem to talk a lot about, but we are doing a poor job of actually building anything that even closely resembles community. We need a coming together. I say, as a pastor, that our churches need to come together, as individual congregations and as the body of Christ, and build genuine community. In these times, when people are hurting, they are looking for a place of community but they are having a hard time finding it. Community is built when we put personal preferences aside and elevate the needs of others and meeting those needs. Community is about caring compassionately for those that are in need. Community is always other-centered and not self-centered. Community is about serving the Lord by serving people. The time has come for genuine community to be built in the body of Christ. It means getting our of our houses and into our towns. It means getting out of our church buildings and into the neighborhood. Community is about building relationships with people. You build relationships with people by getting to know them. Community is all about crashing into life. Crash on!!

Church Planting

I had the privilege yesterday of sitting down with some of the pastor's in our community yesterday for the first Pastor's Fellowship. It was a great time that I pray will continue to grow and thrive, bringing the churches of our community together for Kingdom work. Bill Gravell, pastor of Sonterra Fellowship in Jarrell, is a church planter. He made a comment about church planting that prompted this thought: aren't we all church planters? The church I pastor has been in existence for 153 years this year. Sonterra has been in existence 3 years. Nevertheless, our goal is the same. We are to continue planting the seed of the gospel of Christ in the community where we are. The church is a living, breathing organism, not just an organization. We must change the way we view the church. We are the body of Christ, His hands and feet in this world for this time. We are to grow and thrive. We are to be fruitful. I think sometimes we forget that we are constantly in the process of planting a church. Just because a church has been in a community for a while does not mean that it is established in that community or that there are people in that community that don't need Christ. The foundation of a church is not set on anything other than Jesus (Matthew 16:18). If we do not take on the mindset of a "church planter" our churches will die on the vine. Sadly, many already are. We must be about people and not programs. We must be about the Holy Spirit and not our holy (or unholy as the case may be) huddles. We must be about the gospel and not gossip. We must be about changed lives and not just changed minds. When we begin to view our churches as church plants and see ourselves as church planters, with something to offer the community, that is crashing into life. Crash on!!

Too Busy to Pray?

Our church is taking part in the Seek God for the City, 40 days of pray for revival in our community, state, nation and world. Jesus encourages His disciples in Luke 18:1 that they should pray at all times and not lose heart. Wow, what a great word for followers today. Then this statement was made in the reading today, "We have often scolded ourselves for prayerlessness, blaming our busy schedules. But we have not lost track of our schedules as much as we have lost heart and the hope that You (God) will really hear us." That is powerful and true! We have such a tendency to put the unimportant things of this life in front of the most important things of eternal life. We are a people who are no longer willing to bring sacrifices of praise before the LORD. I hear a man preach a few weeks ago who talked about got to's versus get to's. We live in a world where we feel that we've got to do this or got to do that. Because of a serious heart condition that could take his life at any time, he views things differently. He does not see things at got to's any more but as get to's. What would happen if we took that approach when it came to prayer? What would happen if we said we get to pray instead of we've got to pray? Prayer would move up our priority list. Things would be re-ordered in our lives and our lives would be re-ordered. The reason we "fail", many times, in prayer is because we get discouraged. We feel like we are alone in it. We must heed the words of Jesus again -- to not lose heart. God loves to hear from His people and wants to communicate with them (that means you). We should never be too busy to pray. Prayer must become a priority in the life of every believer is we, the church, truly desire to see the impact of the Holy Spirit in our communities. When we pray, we are crashing into life. Crash on!!