We’re kicking off a new sermon series called “Don’t Go Solo (in 2010)” that will take us right up to Easter and will focus on encouraging one another to do the work of producing Christian koinonia, or “fellowship” (see these links for more about koinonia: Definition of “Fellowship” in the Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, Scriptural use of word “Fellowship” found on NetBible.org.) Let’s face it… We all at times feel lonely and isolated. We could all use more koinonia in our lives!

• “Alone in the Garden” (Genesis 2:8-18) – Feb 21 – God doesn’t want us to be alone.
• “Alone on Top” (Exodus 18:13-23) – Feb 28 – The need to share responsibility.
• “Alone in the Palace” (2 Samuel 11:16-26) – Mar 7 – The isolating effects of sin.
• “Together With Friends” (Matthew 9:10-17) – Mar 14 – The need for friendship.
• “Together in Transformation” (Mark 9:2-13) – Mar 21 – The long process of change.
• “Together on the Path” (John 6:60-70) – Mar 28 – Sharing the burden of the cross.
• “Together in Celebration” (John 20:19-22) – Apr 4 – Celebrating the resurrection.

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday mornings!

We start off with dinner, from 6:00-7:00 pm (almost) every week (except if school is out… We follow the school schedule.) Costs are $4/adult, $2.50/child (11 and under), $12 max/family. First-timers are free for dinner! Here’s the rest of the lineup:

• Children’s Ministry Activities, 6:45-8:00 pm – led by Shelley Smith, Children’s Minister, (Email Shelley)
• Nursery/Toddlers (infant-2 years)
• Preschool/Elementary “Kids Club” (Preschool-5th grade)
• Youth “180″ (6th-12th grades), 6:45-8:00 pm – led by Tommy Staggs, Minister of Youth/Families, (Email Tommy)
• Adult Education Classes, 7:00-8:00 pm – Sign up on the Resource Tables or by calling the Church Office
  • “Simple Church” book discussion group – led by Scott Wakefield, Senior Minister, (Email Scott) – Come learn about our church’s vision for ministry & making disciples! Cost will be $10 to defray costs of buying books. Couples may share a book. Childcare provided.
  • “The Gospel of John” – led by Steve Duer – Learn about life of Christ in the Scriptures in this good old-fashioned verse-by-verse bible study class. Childcare provided.
  • “Financial Peace University” – led by Bill Richards – Learn a proven way to develop good habits that will bring financial peace, meets from 6:30-8:00 pm. Cost will be $90 per FPU kit. Financial scholarships available. Childcare provided.

1. I’m driving a minivan with a few dings in the back and I really don’t care… in the least. It needs a few things done to it. The shocks need to be replaced. The brakes squeak. The engine sounds, well, like it doesn’t work… well. But I really don’t care. So, I’m a 36-year-old man, sitting in line to pick up my daughter at school… driving a minivan. And I have no goal to drive anything fancier.
2. My daughter asked me to hold her windchime she made in VBS this past summer. It’s a little upside down clay pot with a few colorful beads and bells hanging on some wire. So, being an in-the-tank parent, I say with enthusiasm, “Why don’t I put it on the rear view mirror?!” And I realized a few seconds after I’d attached it, ‘Wow, that really does look pretty dorky!’ And, finally…
3. I’d been looking for literally the last few years for those clip-on sunglasses that will fit over my glasses. Y’know, the ones you find in Walgreens or CVS that are all together on a display. But I hadn’t been able to find ones that fit my nerdy hipster Verizon-guy glasses… until last week. It said, “Fits plastic frames.” I finally found them, and I was excited! I even tried on those gargantuan plastic sunglasses that fit over the entire frame, just to see. And I was excited. Actually excited that I finally found them.

So here I am, 36-year-old man, pulling out of my driveway in the morning in a dinged-up minivan, with my child’s homemade wind chime hanging from the rear-view mirror, and goofy clip-on sunglasses… signs I’ve given up being cool. At least I’m not wearing those clip-ons with the flip-up shades my grandpa used to wear… at least not yet!

If you are hungry to follow Jesus with courage and faith, then let’s go:

• BEYOND the Old Life (Mark 1:14-20) – Daring to follow Jesus past the edges of the way things are–even when you know it means leaving treasured things behind–so he can lead you to a new place. You need to drop some nets, because the life you are living right now is the Old Life. In so many ways, Jesus is calling you BEYOND.




• BEYOND the Great Omission (Matthew 28:18-20) – Making more and better disciples–with Jesus-like passion for both and letting God stir in us an equal passion for reaching the lost and growing up disciples.




• BEYOND Words (Matthew 4:23) – Being Jesus in word and deed through holistic global impact–that makes our mission more than just talk. When the Word becomes flesh, faith becomes action.




• BEYOND Racial Zones (Galatians 3:28) – Moving past our self-segregating ways to the way Christ’s church looks in Acts. When we realize this issue is close to God’s heart we’ll move beyond racism… to gracism.




• BEYOND The Walls (Matthew 5) – Reaching beyond our buildings into our community with uncommon love and service. We need to stop going to church. It’s time to be the church.




• BEYOND Me (Numbers 13-14) – Living today with an eye on eternity will help me make an impact, and finish well. The biggest obstacle to going BEYOND is… me.

On the shores of Galilee, Jesus called out to some friends one day with words that would change their lives forever. “Follow me.” When they dropped their nets and followed Jesus it changed everything. Those first disciples found themselves going BEYOND what they knew to new worlds of trust, love, courage, and powerful action. That’s what it meant to follow Jesus back then.

It still does. In days like these, those who truly follow Jesus are being led BEYOND where we’ve been as disciples. BEYOND where our comfortable Christian lives are these days. BEYOND where our churches are right now. BEYOND the horizons of our expectations, and BEYOND the limits of our comfort zone.

The world is in trouble without Christ. Our culture is adrift. More and more people are hurting and misguided–so many aimless sheep without a shepherd. The colossal problems we see in our families, our communities, our cities, and our nation are overwhelming. It’s truly BEYOND us.

What’s worse, the Christian church in America is losing ground–big time. Many congregations seem invisible. Most have lost their impact. Too many Christians are seen as irrelevant, often missing the issues people–and Jesus–care about. In the world’s eyes, the reputation of Christians is bleak: we are bigoted, marginal, irrelevant, weak.

And inside the church we sometimes wonder if we’re really getting the job done–are we truly making real disciples, transforming lives, changing the world the way Jesus intends?

This is no time for business as usual. We need the Power and the Presence that will take our lives BEYOND where we are now and lead us BEYOND. It’s time for our ministries to go BEYOND our current ways of “doing church.” We need believers with guts and leaders with faith who will drop the old nets and follow Jesus–wherever he leads–even if it means changing everything. Ready to go BEYOND?!

At the conclusion of our time we have a little worship service together that ends with participating in the Lord’s Supper. This time my Dad started by talking about the generations of Wakefields who have followed Christ. He held up pictures I’d never seen and read from a Bible owned by my great grandmother. I felt a great sense of pride and belonging as we sat around the table and listened to him talk about how generations of Christians before me remained faithful, sometimes at great personal cost.

With my arm around my daughter, and my son sitting on my wife’s lap, we heard him talk about his own dad’s faithfulness… How for years he served in church leadership; how he helped plant a church in Southern Illinois; how he was generous in helping those who needed help, even if money was scarce; and how he stood for what was right, once telling the church leaders that if they wouldn’t let him bus in both black and white kids to Sunday School, they could find another bus driver. (”You go, grandpa!”)

And then he read, from that old Bible, these beautiful words from Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (English Standard Version).

Our faithfulness to Christ, recognized as the true founder of our faith, is bolstered when we remember the “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone before. And we are encouraged to keep from sin and remain faithful, like them, based on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

May we stand on the shoulders of our forebears… acknowledging today that Jesus Christ’s sacrifice is reason to remain faithful, no matter the cost to us. Friends, Jesus’ death on the cross was too costly a price to pay for us to be anything less than faithful!

For the sake of the Kingdom,

Scott

Here is the schedule:

• Sept 6 – Esther 1 – “The Queen Says, ‘No!’”
• Sept 13 – Esther 2 – “The New Queen”
• Sept 20 – Esther 3 – “An Old Enemy With A New Name
• Sept 27 – Kevin Morrow from Good News Productions (FCC-supported mission)
• Oct 4 – Esther 4 – “A Day of Decision”
• Oct 11 – Esther 5 – “A Day in the Life of the Prime Minister”
• Oct 18 – Esther 6 – “Warning Signals”
• Oct 25 – 1-2 week break to cover Stewardship/Giving/Finances & Church Leadership
• Nov 1 – Esther 7 – “The Mask Comes Off”
• Nov 8 – Esther 8 – “From Victims to Victors”
• Nov 15 – Esther 9-10 – “God Keeps His Promises”

Most of the time, I don’t care if someone says “Ain’t” or a sign says, “Kidds eat free.” (True story.) But I couldn’t keep quiet on this one for what it says about our laxity in multiple ways. The pharmaceutical behemoth Merck has a vaccine for cervical cancer called Gardasil. On their commercials young women hold up a sign reading: “One less” to show they are one “less” woman affected by cervical cancer, which is, of course, great. But, grammatically, this is wrong. It’s one FEWER woman. One woman is a quantifiable entity. (”Well, at least in theory!”)

Here’s the rub… There is no way that mistake escaped the dozens of marketing people to which Merck outsourced that campaign. No… possible… way. So, assuming I’m right that “less” did not escape the notice of many well-educated professionals, that means Gardasil’s motto is intentionally incorrect. Intentionally wrong.

Why? Because (I know, don’t start a sentence with “Because!”) it’s easier to capitulate to rules of language passively directed by democratic principles than principles derived from hundreds of years of the evolution of English. Apparently communicating correctly is less important than communicating easily, which is a malady that subtly and carelessly conveys the lie that our world is just chemistry and matter. Casual language doesn’t reckon with the idea that what we say means something, that our words are far more weighty than we are aware. Language is so important it can be sacramental, carrying the weight of eternity.

Jesus came as a written as well as lived Word. When Jesus said “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” he was stating in principle that our earthy, seemingly mundane existence is never really just that, but that we can help or hurt with our mouths. James writes, “Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing.”

Of course ‘less’ versus ‘fewer’ often seems to count only in English class and I realize blessing and cursing are far weightier causes than grammatical accuracy, but ‘help’ versus ‘hurt’ is an important principle for language, and disciplining one’s word usage can be part of a lifestyle of using the resource of language to bring God glory instead of disrepute.

Sometimes there really are better words, regardless of the cultural vote. God’s creation deserves better than the soft bigotry of language by democracy. And, while I am sometimes (okay, regularly) accused of straining out a gnat to swallow a camel, God’s creation deserves better, and I don’t think we’re called to succumb to the lowest common denominator.

Fewer shoddy words, less inadequate language… for the sake of God’s glory!

Scott

All participants will receive a a FREE 8 x 10 Portrait and a FREE Church Picture Directory! Please know that there is no obligation to buy anything, but there will be an opportunity to purchase photos if you’d like (i.e., come prepared with photo ideas and a way to pay: cash, check, credit/debit cards.) Plan ahead! Here are four time slots for which you can sign up. After you sign up, Olan Mills Church Directory Customer Service will call you with a friendly reminder of when your photo session is scheduled.

• Thursday, July 16, 3:00-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, July 17, 3:00-9:30 p.m.
• Tuesday, July 28, 3:00-9:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, July 29, 3:00-9:30 p.m.

In-church sign-ups begin mid-late June. To sign up online, Register for your photo session here. After you’ve signed up, if you ever need help rescheduling, please call 800-866-2263.

We’ll cover all the basics of First Christian Church leadership structure, history, ministry teams (Education, Evangelism/Assimilation, Fellowship, Finance, Missions, Property, Shepherding, and Worship), expectations of membership, basic beliefs, and take a tour of the building! There will also be plenty of time for you to ask any of those pressing questions you’ve been wondering about. Childcare is provided for birth through 5th graders.

Just click on this link: Register for FAQs Class!

Make sure you come join us on Sunday, June 7, from 7:00-8:30 p.m. for a great time of music and fellowship together with our friends from Central Christian Church in downtown Greeneville! Many of you will remember Mike and Sue Filisky from last year’s joint concert at Central downtown. This year they’re coming to us!

Mike and Sue make up the Southern Gospel duo called Grace Harmony. They travel over 20,000 miles a year sharing their musical gift and ministering to churches all across the United States. Make sure you check out their new website at www.graceharmony.org. You can learn more about them and listen to music samples. A brief ’social’ and time of fellowship (with desserts and resfreshments) will immediately follow the hour-long concert.

Please don’t miss this great time together to be encouraged in song by Mike and Sue! Please also note that a free-will offering will be taken to help with their expenses as they travel and they will also have their CDs available for purchase.