Church Planting and Prayer

Every day I am reminded of how much work is required to establish a church.  We have to connect with our new neighbors, get to know our new church plant team members, find our way around a new area, start planning for the new responsibilities of pulling off a meeting every week.  I have to work on messages and website content and outreach strategies and team building plans.  We need a structure for children’s ministry, the worship team, the set-up team, the tear-down team, the greeters, the ushers, the small group ministry.  And we’re not even trying to do a lot of programs right now!
There is a lot of work to do.  Actually most of life is like this, whether on a church plant or not.  For me, the one calling that gets lost in all the to do lists is prayer.  But without prayer all of these other efforts may as well be wasted time, wasted planning, wasted work.  I need the Lord to build this belief into my restless soul.  I need Him. I need to pray. We need to pray. We need communion and dependance and worship more than we need plans, strategies, effort.  So, I say with the disciples.
“Lord, teach us to pray.”

*Originally posted at www.rhchurch.com 

When God Comes to Church

"For those of us who have been Christians for a while, it becomes easy to think that we've pretty much exhausted the possibilities of the Christian life. WE can settle into a routine of activities at church and in our small groups and Bible studies, with little expectation of anything new. The familiar becomes the predictable, and everything from here on out will be more of the same. We dip our teaspoon into the vast ocean of the living God. Holding that teaspoon in our hand, we say, "This is God." We pour it out into our lives, and we say, "This is the Christian experience."

God calls us to dive into the ocean. he calls us into ever new regions of his fullness, his immensity, his all-sufficiency. there is more for us in Christ than we have yet apprehended. Let's never think that we have figured out or that we've seen all he can do. the Bible is not a guidebook to a theological museum. It is a road map showing us the way into neglected or even forgotten glories of the living God. "

                                                                         --Ray Ortlund, Jr., When God Comes to Church

Why Do I Need Forgiveness?

We all like the word forgiveness. Somehow it feels refreshing to say, liberating to see in print.  But why do I need it? Why do you need it? We are all very familiar with having things we don’t need–my garage is always filled with stuff I can’t seem to get rid of, but I’m not sure I really need. Perhaps it makes me feel good to see stacks of stuff ready for deployment–even if I don’t really need it.  Is that how forgiveness is? It’s available…if I ever really need it? Like that odd tool in your garage that you only need once every few years, but in that moment,  sure is nice to have.

Let me list a few reasons why I need forgiveness, not as a random tool, but as a declaration over every moment of my life.

God made me and He owns me.  A hard concept, especially in our country, but absolutely true.
God requires obedience to His Word and love for His Person all the time.
God is aware of every act of disobedience and disloyal affection.
God has the right to hold judgement over me for my failure to be what he made me to be.  God is not blameworthy or capricious in this; He is simply being God.

Forgiveness is God’s decision to not judge me for my sin, to count my punishment fulfilled in the death of his Son, and to remove the barrier of sin in our fellowship.  Nothing outside of God compels him to forgive.  Nothing inside of me compelled him to forgive.  He simply chose to forgive.

I need forgiveness, not as an abandoned garage relic, but as the dawning sun, as my daily bread, my water, my constant companion.  I need forgiveness because without God I am dead. But I cannot have God, unless I have His forgiveness. And in Jesus he forgives all my trespasses and remembers my sins no more.

*Originally posted at www.rhchurch.com

Church Planting in Austin Texas

       I’m sitting in a coffee shop about 35 minutes north of central Austin.  I’m surrounded by people that live here, work here, and call Austin, Texas, home. These people are the reason I’m here.  Two months ago you might have found me sitting in a coffee shop about 35 minutes east of Phoenix, Arizona.  I loved the people in Phoenix and especially the members of my home church, Sovereign Grace Church of Gilbert, AZ.  But our church felt that God was calling us to look outside the borders of our community and answer the New Testament call to plant churches.  So over the last few months a team of 22 people from Arizona have moved away from their familiar surroundings, their offices, homes, neighbors, and church to come to this new city.  We have also been joined by a number of people here in the city that have heard of our church plant and are excited about participating with us to found this new church. Because of God’s work in all of these team members, Redemption Hill Church is about to begin. By the grace of God, in just a few months, we’ll have our launch Sunday on September 15th, at 123. E Old Settlers Road, in Round Rock.  We are praying that people in our area, perhaps even some of the people sitting in this coffee shop now, will become friends and that some of them will join the church.  We are praying that God will lead us to our new neighbors that do not know the gospel, but would be willing to hear our testimony about the Lord Jesus Christ.  May the Lord give us boldness, kindness, and opportunities.  It’s good to be here.

*Originally posted at www.rhchurch.com