Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sermon on the Move

We all know Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Heh. No, we don’t. Well, sort of we do, but don’t quiz us on it, okay? Because our God is a creative God, and he wants us to be like Him, we should be coming up with our own sermons on the mounts. And because this is a new age and a new day, our ideas need to be new, too. His ideas were radical for his time, and ours need to be, too.
What’s YOUR sermon on the mount? Here’s ours, gathered from the best and most relevant and missional church sites available today.

1. Be Willing to Risk Time, Energy, Manpower and Money to an Idea (especially manpower) as long as you risk other people in making good ideas come to life, no problem.

2. We must exercise our responsibility to tend our own souls. It’s important to tend our own souls because if we don’t, who will?

3. To show honor to leaders is to treat them as being special because in reality that’s what they are. God has placed them in a unique position over you. Jesus honored Caiaphas and Annas, and we should likewise honor our superiors.

4. As the modern church strives to be relevant to a modern generation, I think it is important to remain focused on God and His spirit as the Decider-in-Chief of our collective mission. This is a great point. We should let the Holy Spirit have some say every once in a while, between leadership conferences.

5. All church starts with a very small group of people - sometimes even just a person - with a vision - and then should go global as fast as possible. Don’t forget the vision part. The vision part is THE most important part.

6. You never know when a game-changing blip will appear on the radar screen of your life. No. The game could change at any moment and we gotta be ready. My radar screen is showing a cold front moving in from the west. What does yours show?

7. Too many people both in and out of the church seem to have a vision that is unmovable. Movable vision. That’s what it’s all about. Do you have a fixed stare? The disciples didn’t. Their vision was moving all the time. Get a move on with that vision!

Feeling pumped? Time to be creative. Climb a mountain, or skate park hill, and come up with your own. It's easy!

Friday, August 6, 2010

When things go wrong

In the culturally relevant church, when a  team member exits, it's not just a matter of leaving the 90 and 9 and working to reconcile the brother. If the stray lamb doesn't return, you can't just shake off the dust from your feet and move on. No. In the relevant church, things are a little more complicated than that.