the Grapevine 11/13/09

[Mark Jackson]

the Grapevine

November 13, 2009

the e-newsletter of NewLife Community Church

 

Un-Clutter Day

 

Hey, we're making a time change for Un-Clutter Day - we'll be starting at 1 pm (that's AFTER LUNCH). We'll also being having a yummy snack as well as some hard work cleaning out & cleaning up the church.

 

See you tomorrow!

 

Operation Christmas Child

 

Boxes are due on Sunday! Don't have a box? Just get some stuff for a kid and we'll find a box for you!

 

Thank You (Veterans Day)
 
Bunker Hill, New Orleans, Cemetery Ridge, Belleau Wood, Omaha Beach, Chosin Reservoir, Khe Sanh, Bagdad... and a thousand other battlefields. We will not forget the sacrifice of our veterans, the men & women who have given their lives so that we may worship freely.

 

Thank You (National Outreach Convention)
 
Marshall, Isaac & I had the opportunity for a time of training & bonding, thanks to the generosity of you guys here at NewLife. We drove down to San Diego, ate together, hung out together & were challenged to creatively find ways to "equip the saints" (that's you guys!) to do the work of God. (Ephesians 4:11-12).
 
And thanks to a neat kind of God-thing (ask me for more details later), I was able to attend the whole convention, getting even more encouragement & information.
 
I also received another precious gift - the chance to hear stories of angry churches & broken pastors. Now, that doesn't exactly sound like a gift... until you think about it from my perspective. As many of you know, I've been a part of churches that have split (the first when I was in elementary school) and that I've been fired for "having too much Bible study" and led by pastors & deacons who were more interested in not ruffling feathers than they were reaching people for Christ. So, when I hear those stories now, I have eeny-teeny-tiny flashbacks to my past (shudder, wince)... and a realization that I serve a church whose heart is to see people cross the line of faith, a church that is filled with people who would rather love & offer grace than backbite & gossip.
 
I am incredibly thankful for NewLife Community Church... being your pastor is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. (Please, do not give me a barrel of monkeys... or one monkey. It's a metaphor.)
 
Highlights (National Outreach Convention)
 
Just some quotable wisdom from the week... hopefully to encourage & challenge you!
 
Wednesday:

• Some of the earliest words of Jesus were about making the disciples into "fishers of men." His last words before He ascended were that we would be His witnesses, "even to the ends of the earth." There really isn't any reason to debate whether we're supposed to tell people about the good news of Jesus Christ. (paraphrased from Dan Kimball)
• We have to allow people to belong in our church communities before they come to believe. (Eric Michael Bryant)
• The reason we bring people back out of the water after we baptize them (rather than letting them drown & go straight to heaven) is that there are MORE people who need to know Jesus. (Eric Michael Bryant)
• If you only hang around Christians, you'll only design church services & programs for Christians... it's too easy to forget what life is like for non-believers. (Dan Kimball)
• We need to make decisions based on who's not yet here rather than on who has been here the longest. (Eric Michael Bryant)
• Maturity is not based on age or experience but on the willingness to obey Jesus. (paraphrased from Eric Michael Bryant)
• Change is normal... our church will look a lot different in a few years IF we are on mission. (Dan Kimball)
• "Every Christian is either a missionary or an impostor." (Ed Stetzer quoting Charles Spurgeon)

Thursday:

• Because we know the elder brother (from Luke 15) in ourselves, we suspect it will be true in others. (Anne Jackson)
• It's easy to be super-self-righteous to your self-righteous critics. (Anne Jackson)
• If this church closed down, would the community notice it? (Miles MacPherson)
• The newest generation (the Millennials) haven't walked away from church... they were never here in the first place. They need to us to explain what we are doing & why. (paraphrased from Bobby Brewer)

Friday:

• Leadership is listening to God & doing what He says. Anything else is disobedience. (Tony Morgan)
• Where there's division, there probably isn't a vision. (Tony Morgan)
• It's possible to be doing the work of God and NOT being doing the work God called us to do. (Tony Morgan)
• There has never been a day that God woke up & said, "I didn't see that coming." (Greg Surratt)
• Even though I didn't get the dad I wanted growing up, I get to be that dad to my boys. (Greg Surratt)
• The difference between a vision & a daydream is the audacity to act. (Stephen Furtick)
• You may not get the opportunity to do a great thing... but to do a small thing in a great way. (Stephen Furtick)
• Got to quit playing Mr. Potato Head ministry - great ministries are not born through cut & paste. (Stephen Furtick)