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“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.” 1 Corinthians 9:24

Two weeks ago I attended a conference for the Nehemiah Leadership Network on Systems Theory, the Life Cycle of the Church, Multicultural Ministry, among other teaching. One of the greatest things I came back with, was the title of this article. The Super Bowl is coming up and the question is, do you want to be on a team that going to give their all to win or try to not lose.

A winning team will put everything it has into play. Each person’s strengths are utilized and pushed beyond their limits to win. A winning team is focused ahead, pushing and striving to be better all the time. It is exciting to be part of a winning team, because there is energy and enthusiasm. On a winning team, the whole team works together for one goal, one vision.

Every so often a winning team becomes a team that strives not to lose. They hold people back. They try and save themselves. They are focused inward on what they have and trying to keep that. They are a team trying to preserve everything instead of giving their all. They don’t strive to win, they strive to keep things the same. There is no energy on a not losing team. People do not step forward to give their all or use their gifts. It is about maintaining more than winning.

In the verse above, Paul calls us not to be a team that focuses on not losing, but a team that focuses on running the race so that we will win. A team pushing and doing everything we can to be the first one at the finish line. A team in which all people use their talents and treasure and time together for the purpose of the Will of God.

We have taken some pretty hard hits this past week and lost some very dear loved ones, but we can’t now begin to pull back and preserve ourselves. We have to keep moving forward, keeping pressing on, keeping trudging to the goal with all that we are. We have to keep our focus on the prize of our vision and mission. We have to keep stepping out on faith, giving our all, getting out of our comfort zones.

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?” Let’s be the church that wins the prize. Let’s be the church that goes the extra mile to love our neighbors and our enemies. Let’s be the church that gives our all to reach out to a hurting and broken community. Let’s be the church that at the end of the day can say, “I ran to win.”

Everyday we have the choice to take a not losing mentality, or to trust God and run with all that we are. My prayer is that we will follow in Jesus’ footsteps and give everything we have.

I laid in bed after the New Year’s Ball dropped in New York City wondering what this next year will really hold for me, my family, our church, and our world. I thought about this past year and what kind of mark we left on our community. Did we make a difference in the lives of people? Did we reach out and touch a life? Did someone feel more loved? Did someone come to know God better? Did we really become the church, the hands and feet of God?

Looking over those questions I see a difference from years past. We have begun reaching beyond our walls, touching lives, giving and being the church. Looking at the events we’ve had this past year, it amazes me once again to see all that we have accomplished. As a church we are changing. We are becoming more mission focused and seeing that we can’t just talk about church, we must take another step in living that out.
As we change and grow, fear will set in and probably has for some already. The question then becomes, do we stop and pull back? Do we pull the reins back and say, “Woahhhh?” Do we allow our fears to direct us or do we continue to put our faith and trust in God who has brought our church through so much?

It would be easy to focus inward once again and allow the church to fall back into a survival mentality, but this was never the reason for becoming a church. If we go back to why this church was established, it was never to have a building in Williamson that housed the Christians of the town. It was to have a place where Christians could meet and then go from there out into the community to meet real needs, to do real ministry, to share real love. It was to have a place where we could learn about God and his love so that we could take it from here to our neighbor. The mission led to the formation of a building, not the other way around. The mission found that having a building could increase the number of people that heard about God and his love.

We have to keep this in mind whenever we do anything. Being the Church is not about maintaining or preserving a building, it is about maintaining and preserving a live and active Christian community. I spoke on Christmas Sunday, about a church that had a huge endowment that kept their building open and looking beautiful, but the church had no ministry or mission programs. In essence it ceased being a church. It ceased being what the church was created for. It took the hope and love and grace that it was given, and offered it only to those who came through the doors.

Ministry in our time has changed. People no longer flock to churches. We now have to go to them and it’s not the most comfortable thing to do. It’s not the easiest thing, but it’s the reason we are here in this place, at this time. We have been called for this moment in time and we must not preserve what we have, we must press on to reach out even more. We must allow the mission to shape us. We must allow God to move us forward. We must allow faith to guide us.

Being the Church in 2009 means that we will have to step out of our comfort zones even more. It means that we will have to give more. It means we will have to do things we may have never done before. It means that we will be stretched for the Gospel. I’m excited by what God can do with people willing to give their all and not hold anything back from him. I’m excited about the lives we can touch. I’m excited by the needs we can meet. Our time to minister is now, let’s not hold back for a future time, but let’s give our all now!

John Ortberg was once questioned about whether or not he got out of the boat in his life with this question: “What are you doing that you could not do apart from the power of God?” Each of us I believe has to look at this question and think about our own lives. The root of this question is not whether we are taking risks for God or not, I think what this question is really asking is whether we are truly living or not. You see life is supposed to be lived in the power of God. That is where Jesus lived his whole life, in the power of God. It is the way we were created to live.

Does this mean we take risks? Well in some ways yes, but the risks we take if done in the power of God are not risks at all. They rely on a faithful God who said if we seek first his kingdom, that he will take care of the rest. Who said if we keep our eyes on him and not on the storms of life, that he will hold us up. Who said that he will be with us always, no matter where we are.

God hasn’t called our church to be another statistic in church history. God has called us to be his hands and feet here and now. There have been people before us and there will be people after us, but right now. Right now in this moment in time, in 2008, this is our day. If God’s love is going to flow through our community, if his kingdom is going to come down, it will have to be through us, you and me. God is not going to come down and take our place, instead he has gifted us and told us that he will use us, but we have to get our feet wet. We have to take the first step when he calls.

Henry Blackaby writes,

“Some people say, “God will never ask me to do something I can’t do.” I have come to the place in my life that, if the assignment I sense God is giving me is something that I know I can handle, I know it is probably not from God. The kind of assignments God gives in the Bible are always God-sized. They are always beyond what people can do, because he wants to demonstrate his nature, his strength, his provision, and his kindness to his people and to a watching world. This is the only way the world will come to know him.”

As John Ortberg says, “This does not mean that God calls us in a way that violates our “raw material.” Where God calls, God gifts.”

It does mean though that we can’t be afraid to tackle the call of God especially when it looks impossible in our eyes. What is impossible for us, is always possible for God.
God has not stopped calling us, he has not stopped the miraculous from happening. What has happened is that we have stopped getting out of the boat. God wants to do powerful things through us. He wants to use every single one of his children to glorify him and share his love and grace with the world.

It is time that FBC makes its mark on the world, not as a church that was around for 186 years, but as a church that changed the world when it decided to stop hiding in the boat and take a step out to reach the world for Christ.What are you doing that you could not do apart from the power of God? If your answer is nothing, it’s time to start listening and looking for what God has in store for you and taking the first step. He’s Calling, and Now is our time and our turn to truly live in the power of God and reach a world for Christ!

The theme of our 5th Mission Encounter Weekend this year is immersing ourselves in others. This image comes from Jesus’ baptism. Baptism was seen at the time as a sign of repentance. It was an act of confession. I have sinned and want to be cleansed from it to follow God and prepare for him to come. When Jesus entered the waters, it was not about sin though, because he was a sinless man. Instead Jesus’ immersion into the water represented his taking on of our burdens and pains and downfalls. Entering the world was not enough for Jesus, he needed to be where we were. He needed to feel our pain and reach the depths that we have gone. He needed to know pain and unfairness and death. And Jesus went to great lengths to find us and meet us where we were. He wasn’t afraid to be with the sinners and tax collectors of the world. In fact they were the people he loved to be around the most.

Jesus also invested everything he had for others to know God and understand how much he loved and accepted them. He didn’t own a house. He didn’t have the best clothes in town. He didn’t own a car or anything that would make him feel unapproachable by anyone. You see immersion means “involvement in something that completely occupies all the time, energy, or concentration available.” Jesus did exactly that. His whole life was centered around that one principle of showing the love of God to others and everything he did showed that unfailing and unconditional love.

The question is, are we following in his footsteps. Does everything we do help others know the love and acceptance of God? Are we immersing in those around us or are we keeping the miraculous gifts of God to ourselves? Jesus was willing to give up everything he had for others to know God’s love. He was willing to be poor, to not have a place to meet, to wonder about his next meal, to share the little that he had. He was willing to do all that to reach the people around him.

In the golden years of the church in America, people just entered the doors of the church and started coming. Today though we are in a culture that needs to know its real and true before they come. They have to see to believe. They have to see what it means to be a Christian. They have to see people with integrity care for them without strings. They have to be loved and thought of and accepted for who they are. They have to see that grace is real!

This isn’t going to be a one weekend a year kind of process either. Immersion for Jesus was daily, making each second count. Seeing the opportunities around him and taking advantage of them. Making himself aware of the needs and meeting them.

Showing the love of God I believe is worth giving up our lives. It is worth giving up our building and programs and everything we have. It was worth Jesus’ life. The reason we don’t immerse, or don’t get our feet wet is usually fear. Whether its fear of failure or loss or rejection or that God won’t take care of us. But as John Ortberg says, “we can’t let the no of fear trump the yes of faith.” Let’s begin to stamp out the fears in our lives and begin the immersion. We are Baptists anyway, let’s make immersion into others truly set us apart.

I continue to run into people and hear from others that they’ve never been to or seen our church. When we’ve had community events or funerals at the church, I’ve been called and asked about directions from people living in Williamson. Our church unfortunately is set off the road a little, hidden behind houses, tucked back away from where people might notice it. It is one of the most unique churches around with our wonderful cobblestones and many people know about the Cobblestone Church, but this 25 or 30 feet of grass and sidewalk separates our church from the daily view of the world around us.

As I was thinking about this, I wondered about our ministries and missions. I wondered about our worship service and the groups that meet in our church. I wondered if our ministry to the community around us was getting the same way as our church. Set off the road a little. Not getting too involved. Keeping ourselves separate.

When I look at Jesus’ life, I’m always taken back by the way he immersed himself in those around him. He had no boundaries, no barriers to his ministry. He became approachable by anyone. Keep the blind away they said. He’s got no time for them and yet he would go to them and heal them. The leprous are unclean. No one would touch them and Jesus would lay his hands on them and heal them. The children are too young, too noisy, and Jesus took them in his arms and blessed them. The tax collectors are too sinful, the prostitutes too corrupt, the fishermen too smelly, the Samaritans too unclean, and the list could go on and on, but Jesus didn’t care about what the world thought of them. He loved them because they were his children.

My Dad said to me the other night, “You know there are people out there that when you help them will continue to go on living their lives in sin. Doing the same bad stuff they were doing, but you don’t help someone because of how you might change them or what you get from it. You help them because it’s the right thing to do!” Jesus immersed himself in people even if the cost was high and it was for him. It was his life. We need to take note of this. We need to get ourselves on the road. We need to immerse ourselves into our community. Open our church up, our lives up, our gifts, our time, everything. Not because we will get something out of doing that. Not because our church might grow in numbers. Not because we may meet our budget. Not because of the warm fuzzy feelings.

Because It Is The Right Thing To Do!

The right thing to love others, to care for them, to help them in their time of need. The right thing to offer grace, to make it possible for others to grow, to fight for what is right and stand up for those who can’t. And getting immersed, getting back to the road, means that we do have to give up some things. It comes with a price tag that will never be paid back to us in this life on earth. It comes with an uneasiness because we have to trust that God will take care of us. It comes with a wall that we will continually have to climb because our fears will mount up over and over, but these things that we will have to give up do not compare to what Jesus gave up for us so that we could know what true life is, what true love is, what grace is.

As the parable of the talents teaches us, God does not want us to sit with the gifts we have. Instead he gives us the glorious opportunity to use them in amazing ways. Will we fail at times? Will it hurt sometimes? Will it be scary and nerve wracking? Will it stretch us beyond our limits? The answer is yes to all of these. But if we don’t risk it, if we stay at our a little off the road place we will continue to dwindle. There is no growth in stagnation and at the same time there is no risk that does not cause us to grow too.

It is time…I’ve said that statement in over 100 sermons, but it is time. Time to put away our fears. Time to stop blaming our busy lives or our own agendas. Time to stop burying our gifts. Time to stop allowing the concerns and needs of our community to go unnoticed. Time to truly live out what it means to be a follower of Christ! Waiting off the road a little bit is a safe place to be, but getting immersed is how we were created from the beginning of time to live. It is time church. It is time!

Entering the Darkness

I think when I was little, I was a little scared of the dark. We used to play Hide and Seek outside at night and I would make sure to hide in a place I knew very well and a place that wasn’t too far from home. In the light I was fine. I could go anywhere I wanted, but there was something uneasy about the dark, something I didn’t like.

When I think of Advent, I think of darkness. It represents a time of wonder and questioning; A time in which we wonder and question if God is truly there with us. Is God in our heartache and pain? Is God in our suffering and strife? Is God in the violence we see around us every day, in the addictions, in the fear, in the poverty, in the diseases, in the cancer, in the deaths? Does he enter the valley of the shadow of death? These dark times are scary for us. They make us uneasy many times and test our faith, but Advent is a great reminder that in the midst of darkness, at the end of our ropes, God is there.

During the Second World War the US Army was forced to retreat from the Philippines. Some of their soldiers were left behind, and became prisoners of the Japanese. The men called themselves “ghosts”, souls unseen by their nation, and were forced on the infamous Bhutan Death March, forced to walk over 70 miles, knowing that those who were slow or weak would be bayoneted by their captors or die from dysentery and lack of water. Those who made it through the march spent the next three years in a hellish prisoner-of-war camp. By early 1945, 513 men were still alive at the Cabanatuan prison camp, but they were giving up hope. The US Army was on its way back, but the POW’s had heard the frightening news that prisoners were being executed as the Japanese retreated from the advancing U.S. Army.

Their wavering hope was however met by one of the most magnificent rescues of wartime history. In an astonishing feat 120 US Army soldiers and 200 Filipino guerrillas outflanked 8000 Japanese soldiers to rescue the POW’s.

Alvie Robbins was one of the rescuers. He describes how he found a prisoner muttering in a darkened corner of his barracks, tears coursing down his face.

“I thought we’d been forgotten,” the prisoner said.

“No, you’re not forgotten,” Robbins said softly. “You’re heroes. We’ve come for you.”

Often in life we can start to give up hope, to feel that God has forgotten us, abandoned us to dark and hurtful experiences, but the birth of Christ reminds us, “No, you’re not forgotten!” Jesus picks us up, finds us in the darkness and says, “I’ve come for you.” I’ve entered your world and I’m going to carry you through this.

This Advent Season, remember that though the world is dark in many ways, that Jesus has come. He has taken our pain and suffering, entered our darkness and he is bringing light and hope! You are never alone, never alone!

Good Reminder

I had the chance this week to talk with different people, look back through the last couple of years, and kind of evaluate some. It’s been good to go back and see the growth and amazing things, this small church in Williamson has been able to do. We truly are a blessed church with so many amazing people. I am privileged to be pastor here and want to say again, Thank You to each and every one of you for the impact you have made on me. We are on a great journey together and we have much ahead, but looking behind, I know we can face it, and knowing our God I know we can conquer it.

As Dave Morris said on Sunday, Let’s keep digging to 800 feet into all that we do here and be amazed by how God can use even us in the ministry here in Williamson and around the world. Be encouraged church for God is doing an amazing thing in the Cobblestone Building on Main Street and it’s leaking into the community. Keep putting God first, living out the word with integrity, and sharing your story with those around you. We are First Baptist Church and We Do Not Lose Heart!

Preparing to Share Our Story

Paul Little once wrote, “Witnessing involves all that we are and therefore do; it goes far beyond what we say at certain inspired moments. So the question is not will we witness, but how will we witness?”

Everyday, we act as a witness of Christ to those around us. We witness to the people in the supermarket, our coworkers, the other drivers on the road, the people we pass by on the street, our families, everyone. As a representative of Christ, others look at us and ask the questions, “Is Christianity good, and can it make me into a better person, or will it make me a jerk?” People ask these kind of questions about God all the time, mostly in their heads, but they do and their answers come from looking at us. Do we judge others? Do we stop and help those in need? Do we reach out to the outcast? Do we love our enemies? Are we really dependable? Does being a Christian impact our life? Are we different?

If we are living out the Gospel in our lives, opportunities to share will pop up all over the place as people see that it has changed us. Today’s culture does not want the easy step by step answers. The culture today wants to see that the Christian life really does impact who we are and change us. They want to be part of something important. They want to see integrity, that we believe what we read in the Bible and live that out, not because we have to, but because we know that’s the best way to live.

They want to go to a church where real things are happening. Where the people there can say, “At FBC we really worship, that’s why I go.” Or “I go to FBC because it’s a community where people genuinely love me.” Or “I go to FBC because I need help and it’s a church that really helps.”

These things above come with living out the Gospel. How are you doing with that in your own life? Does the Gospel impact everything you do and say? To be a true witness, it must. Take some time today to ask the tough questions, to sit down and think about why you believe and how that should impact the rest of your life.

The world doesn’t want to follow after a religion that is meaningless and has no impact. They want to follow after the truth that changes everything! That’s what we should be living out today!

Gearing Up

When I was in High School, I played soccer in the fall. Three weeks before the first day of school, the soccer team started practicing and I used to call those three weeks the worst weeks of the summer. I was normally in pretty good shape from walking the hills of Camp Vick, but nothing prepared me enough for soccer. It was in three weeks in which you made the team, or needed to hang up your spikes and go home. We ran up hills and back down again over and over. We ran timed miles each day. We ran so much that we hardly got to touch a soccer ball. Many people after the first couple of days didn’t return. If your love for soccer was not strong enough, there was no way you could make it to the real season.

Well as I went through that time in High School, each of us need preparation for our Church Season to start. I encourage you to set some time aside each day for the next couple of weeks to sit with God. Take some time to listen, to sit in solitude and silence, to pray, to read the Bible. As my soccer coach knew, we wouldn’t have made it through the season without those three weeks of preparation and as a church, if we don’t prepare, we will find ourselves tired and worn out by the end of the season too.

This is the time to set up some new habits and ways of doings things. Maybe your prayer life is not as consistent as you want it to be or your Bible study is becoming a thing of the past. Maybe you want to set time aside for solitude and silence. Now is the time to set some goals and get your family, friends, and church family to help keep you accountable. God wants to do great things this year through us and we want to be in top spiritual condition so that we can hear God’s voice clearly and give our all. It’s time to gear up Church! Let’s Go!

Offering Something Different: Worship

After coming home from my college alma mater, Houghton, I began an intense look at the worship service in our church. There was a class that week that I went to titled, “The Worship Wars.” The worship wars refer to this growing separation between contemporary music or praise music and traditional music or hymns. Churches are continually struggling with these two ways of worship and the object of this class was not to defend one position or the other but to find a place of Biblical and Theological integrity.

In looking at churches across the country two extremes start to appear. Either churches continue to do what they always have done without noticing the changing culture around them or they morph into the culture and lose their identity as the church. Churches that never change with the culture will continue to lose their voice in the culture, shut their doors to the changes outside, and never influence those around them because their message will not be relevant. Churches that take the second approach become the culture, but they are so immersed in the culture that they lose their identity and soon you can’t tell the difference between the church and the coffee house down the street. The key is finding a balance. We need to change and be relevant to the culture around us, but at the same time not become the culture. As Rev. Dr. Michael Walters puts it, “a service in which we can engage our culture with biblical and theological integrity is key.” That is where it begins.

In light of this, the deacons and I will be taking a hard look at our worship service. We will be asking questions about each part. Why do we sing hymns? Why do we have a Call to Worship? Why is there an offertory? Is there a better way to begin worship? Is the Lord’s Prayer important for us? Are there elements that are missing? As we go through this process, we will be defining what worship really is and who it really is about.

Many times we come from a service, (I do this quite often when I’m at different churches), and we critique the music, offering, sermon, leader or pastor, and other parts of the service. One small thing takes our minds off of the reason we worship. As we go through this process we will be looking at ways to keep our eyes on God, ways at keeping the worship about him, and ways that we all can participate in the worship of Him. We will return to the primary teaching of worship and the church. We will return back to our mission statement and vision statement and align ourselves once again. We will ground the lightning rod of worship.

I want us all to be careful as we go through this process to be open to new ideas, but also relevant to our congregation. It is difficult to change worship at times because we do many things that we have done for over 50 years. Much of this process will be relearning why we do the things we do and some of it will be adding new elements or changing the form of different elements of the service.

Our end goal is to make our worship service relevant to the culture around us and engaging to all who come with biblical and theological integrity. We want our service to truly be about God and lead God’s people into the worship of God. Please be in prayer for this journey and share your ideas as you have visited other churches and services. What services did you feel you truly worshiped God and why is that? As we begin the conversation, may our worship offer something different to the world!