This past Wednesday I continued my series, “Sticky Thoughts”, and I just thought I would briefly sum up what I shared. 

If you haven’t been coming on Wednesday nights or been following along on the blog, my goal in this series of messages is simply to share some principles, some truths, some statements that have “stuck” with me over the years, and have had a profound effect on my life and ministry.

Anyway, the thought that I shared on this most recent Wednesday comes from the book, “The Purpose Driven Church” and it is this:  “It takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.”

So, here are a few of the thoughts I shared in that message:

“I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this as you’ve read the New Testament, but there are lots of different kinds of churches.”

“It’s very obvious that God is using multiple churches in Middle Georgia, who in some ways, are nothing alike, to impact the people in this area who do not know Christ…and I love that!”

“Occasionally I’ll get an e-mail or phone call from someone I know or from some hyper-religious person, who wants to go off on our church.  They typically quote a lot of Scripture out of context and are extremely judgmental and mean.  And while part of me wants to get in there and defend our church and argue our point of view, I really don’t have time to get into Junior High name calling contests with people who supposedly are already going to heaven.”

“I don’t know how you feel about other churches in this community, but I love them!  I’m thankful for them.  I hope they prosper.  I hope they have success.  I hope they grow and flourish.” 

“There has to be a church in this community, and really, there needs to be multiple churches, that will really go after lost people.”

“I want as many people in this community as possible to go to Heaven, and we need to be the kind of church that makes it a priority to see men and women commit their lives to follow Jesus.” 

With my recent trip out of town, and the recent renovations in our offices, I’ve not been posting with any regularity. I’m sorry. I’ll try and do better.    Today, I figured I would catch you up on the latest two sermons from my “Sticky Thoughts” series.     

My “sticky thought” during week two of the series was this:  “The local church is the hope of the world”  

About seven or eight years ago, I first heard this thought from Bill Hybels, the pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, and I’ve never been able to forget it!   

Anyway, here are a couple of the thoughts I shared during that message on that thought:

“God can do anything He wants to bring about change in people’s lives, but I think we can all agree, that throughout history, God has used and continues to use the local church to change people’s lives.”

“It’s not wrong to say that Jesus is the hope of the world or the Gospel is the hope of the world, but the reality is that the church is the institution that God planned from the beginning of time to be the vehicle through which Jesus would be known, through which the Gospel would be spread.” 

“I love the word devoted.  We don’t use that word very much anymore.  And yet, that is what the early church was.  They didn’t play church.  They weren’t hot and cold with their Christianity.  They were ‘devoted’!” 

“How strong would this church be if we were more attentive to the teaching of God’s word, if we were more devoted to community, if we more serious when we took of the Lord’s Supper, and we were more constant in our prayers to the Father?” 

“These early Christians did life together.  They didn’t just see each other every weekend.  They did more than shake hands and sing a fellowship chorus every week together.  They made commitments to each other.  They opened up their homes to each other.  They shared meals together.  They cared deeply for one another.  They even made sacrifices for each other.”  

“For almost 2,000 years now, Jesus has been building his church.”  “Jesus said, ‘I will build my church’.  He didn’t say he would build your church.  It’s His church, not yours.  Southside isn’t your church.  It’s not my church.  It’s His church.” 

Things are going to be slow on the blog these next couple of days.  We’re moving all of our offices around and as a result, we have stuff everywhere. 

In the meantime, if you have any topics you’d love for us to blog about, we welcome your ideas and suggestions.

Don’t go away…we’ll be back soon!

We finished week 3 of Daniel.  It was week 2 of Mark & Amber leading worship.  Here are a few things I saw / heard this morning…

• Pastor said, “do you make God famous in your life” - Good stuff.
• Once again, saw some amazing moments in peoples faces leaving the service…Holy Spirit was working big!
• It was sinfully hot.
• Went by Discovery Zone (4-5 year olds)…those kids were having a blast!  It’s fun to see kids enjoying church.
• Saw one of my neighbors in the second service…Yea God!
• Music was awesome…its strange to think that Mark isn’t a “seasoned vet” in leading worship.  Looks like it to me.
• I helped with our Awali Land team this morning…lots and lots and lots and lots of kids - great job guys.
• I saw an older adult ministering to a young single mom in the hall for about 30  minutes…lots of pray and many tears.  Love to see senior adults pour their lives & wisdom into younger people.  Trust me, if there is one thing my generation needs is wisdom.
• Did I mention that it was hot this morning?

Once again, great job to all our volunteer teams this morning.

As Matt has stated before, we both read alot of blogs.  When reading one this morning (www.leadingsmart.com/ ), I came across something very interesting.  It was thought provoking, intentional and really struck me in a challenging way.  The motive behind this list comes out of “Christians” who really don’t get what church is all about.  There is a time and place to leave a church (doctrine issues, moral failures, location, etc…) but lets be honest that is usually 10% of the cases.  Most people leave churches for preference reasons…and miss the point of church.  Read these bullet points and see if they hit you like I know they hit me.  Would love a comment or two about them.

Weekend Update:

• Our worship was amazing.  It was a new experience for us with no “official” music pastor and let me just say that we have a great worship team.  It was a Home Run.
• We began a new check-in process for our preschool / children ministry….went smooth.  Our team did a great job - Going high tech!
• Pastor completed week 2 of his Daniel series.  During the invitation I saw so many broken people come forward…what a great moment.
• We had 40 people come to Class 101.  37 of them were not members, I think most, if not all, joined and I know 2 gave their life to Christ.
• Our parking lot was 71% full (I’m a stat freak) which is great considering it was the first Sunday in June.
• Saturday night’s family movie night was a huge hit.  Our Family ministry team did another outstanding job.  As much as I wanted a count for that night, kids dont sit still and it gets dark really quick…therefore I’m saying we had thousands.

Let’s keep Loving God, People and the World on the Journey to Life Change.