Sarah > Recent Status Updates

No, the church isn’t a building, but a building is a lot more than an irrelevant to or distraction from “real” ministry … without a physical, tangible place to call home, it’s hard to experience, let alone steward, God’s blessing

Theres no faster path to forgetting g the purpose of God’s blessing than taking it for granted and letting abundance remind you of what you don’t have.

The mark of the true church is an expanding witness to the presence of God: guest to our families, then to others in the church, then to our neighborhood, then to our city, then the country and ultimately the whole earth.

We typically understand that God’s presence is essential to his mission yet forget that God’s mission is unfinished without his spreading presence. The church isn’t just the means for how we live out God’s mission, the church is herself the fruit of God’s missional activity in time and space. [The church] is the earthly manifestation of our high priest extending his presence

“Sometimes [God] tells me my path as clearly as I am speaking with you now using the rhood. Other times, I must decide the best course of action, and then pray for him to stop me if it is not of him. Johnathan always told me to consider it carefully, pray for mercy, then attack violently.”

Being generous out of true empathy offers to others the dignity and respect they deserve; being generous, out of pity, introduces a hierarchical, transactional nature to the relationship, even if done unintentionally 1 Corinthians 9:19–23

Focusing upward (on those with more money) causes us to underestimate the need to be generous. The relative wealth of our local context blinds us to the tremendous needs of those outside our local context.

…pur role in counseling fellow believers in times they may be struggling … “you must model faithfulness, call our faithlessness, and pray for them. But you’re not responsible for changing them. You can’t take over.”

Lament is a form of prayer in which the details of our sorrow and the heaviness of our emotions are voiced before our God, who has an infinite capacity to carry them. … our cry becomes a bud for attachment. If we try to manage on our own, we miss the opportunity for care.

One question seems to get people talking more than any other: “what gets your church most excited?” Or “what gets you most excited about your church?””

The answer reveals passion, priorities, perspective, and personality

Cultural change is deeper than implementing new systems; cultural change requires a shift in values, priorities, and perceptions

Rather than disrupting the natural patterns in your church, use them! Give them a purpose. It’s much easier to go with the flow and steer people in that flow than to get everyone into an entirely new pattern

The status quo is focused entirely inward, on people who are already in the church body, without considering those who still need to be reached

You cannot lead change until you understand why some people resist it. Why does the baseball purist prefer the old rules? What is it about new development that may hurt a small town? Etc.

Every time we read Scripture and come across familial language it isn’t saying that church is like a family or household but that we are one… we belong to the body of Christian with whom we live day in and day out.

We’re often fooled into thinking that hospitality is a function of belonging rather than a means thereof. So we wait for someone else to go first.

There is a remarkably strong and consistent correlation between giving and belonging … you sacrifice for what you love and you love what you (cheerfully) sacrifice for

Paul isn’t saying “don’t tell obligated to give if you don’t want to” but that if we don’t feel pisits (faith, trust, loyalty) to give cheerfully, we don’t full apprehend the “indescribable charis (grace, gift, benefit)” we’ve been given. Then, we need to taste and see anew the even greater hospitality of our divine patron and host

We’ve achieved enough autonomy in life that we’ve forgotten that all friendships need healthy, reciprocal obligation potent enough to occasionally supersede individual desires

Faith is certainly not less than [mere belief / cognitive assent to the gospel] but … Faith means swearing allegiance to Jesus and his household. I don’t invite Jesus into my heart. I join his flock. I become part of his we.

Two essentials ingredients of healthy belonging: obligation and sacrifice

Modernity is uniquely unsuitable and inhospitable to starting and strengthening the bonds of friendship

So when Paul says the mister ion of the gospel has been revealed, he is using a familiar analogy to explain to the Gentiles that they now have access to full covenantal relationship with God (Eph 3:4-6) through the sacraments of baptism and Communion

Making bread and making babies … is often ridiculed in society today. Ironically, this critique supposed that activities historically performed by men are the standard by which to measure meaningful work — an assumption that is itself misogynistic and male-centered

Narrative bypasses, all kinds of objections and emotional barriers to inject truth straight into our bones

What story does our calendar tell about what is true, good, and beautiful? Is it a story of freedom and rest, or of drivenness and anxiety?… What story does our financial spending tell about what is true, good, and beautiful? Is it a story of generosity and wisdom, or of short-term satisfaction and consumerism?

Offering gifts to God while we have unrepentant sin in our lives actually dishonors him (Matt 5:24, Luke 11:42). He wants us to be generous, but only for the right reasons — to honor Him and to serve others

Jesus seems to encourage mindfulness around this issue of effectiveness (Mark 6:4, Matt 10:14). Implicitly, he encouraged maximizing the return in invested time in ministry, by giving more time to places where the Gospel was accepted

His path was a descent of many choices, each one a turning away. He did not rage against Yahweh; he simply stopped listening. He hardened his heart. He presumed upon the favor he once enjoyed. He stopped waiting and instead sought his own counsel. And when no answer came, he grew callous and bitter, like a man who curses the silence after breaking the instrument himself.He was not an evil man.But he ceased to tremble

He realized part of of his problem was deconstructing without questioning whether certainty was even the standard he should be aiming for