Sometimes getting kids to eat their vegetables is difficult. Trying new things (or things unfamiliar to us) can test us to our core. And, if it’s true with food, it’s probably certainly true with habits and rhythms of life. This Sunday, my sermon will deal with some of the objections people may have to this whole notion of life together. My hope is that as we work through these, your resistance might be broken and you’d step into this amazing life to which God is calling you.
A few weeks ago, Luke and I went to the 2018 Bethlehem Conference for Pastors. They finally have all the audio from this conference online. Some I would direct your attention to:
Paul Tripp – Danger of Familiarity
John Piper’s kickoff sermon – Seeking the Holy Spirit
Sam Storm’s appeal to not quench the Holy Spirit – Don’t Quench The Spirit
Francis Chan – Praying in the Spirit
There were many other sermons that were all helpful. We were really struck by these, though. I hope these encourage you, too.
We had a great day Sunday at Crestview Bible. First off, we introduced a new song, O How Good It Is, which tied in very well to our Life Together emphasis for the month. Also, Luke preached a sermon on The Picture of Life Together from Acts 2:42-47. The upshot of this morning was a digging into the rhythms that will characterize our lives as we intentionally live together on mission.
In the evening, I enjoyed the game with some friends. It was an entertaining game and a fun night to relax with people and enjoy this big part of our culture. I hope you had a great day.
This coming Sunday at Crestview Bible, we’ll continue exploring what LifeTogether means for us. Specifically, we’ll get to hear from Luke again as he provides a picture of what life together looks like. Once our eyes are opened to the reality of life together as God has presented it in the Bible, we’ll see that God’s heart for us is bigger than individualistic pursuits for our own gain. This week will, hopefully, open our eyes to this. Join us, then, 10:15AM, as we take a picture of life together in the Bible.
This past Friday and Saturday, I attended the Ready Conference at MBTS with students from Crestview.
There are so many good things to stay about this event. The audio/video isn’t live yet, but I’d anticipate them getting it uploaded soon. There are 4 main sessions: John Mark Yeats (Has God Spoken?), Owen Strachan (Is Jesus Lord?), Brian Key (Is Jesus Savior?), and Jared Wilson (Am I His?). There were also many breakouts on Saturday. Also, we got to see Tedashii (116 represent!) in concert. It was a great event for the students who attended and I got to hang out with our students, help them enjoy this event, and connect with old friends at MBTS.
Continue to pray that God does amazing things in the lives of our students.
Here are some pics taken by Monica Warren:
I’m trying to do a better job this year of keeping track of books I’ve completed reading. For those who are curious about how I do this, I use Evernote and have a note called “Books I’ve Read in 2018” which I add to as I finish a book. There are some books/things, I’m always working in like the Bible (I use ESV in daily reading and rotate translations depending on what I’m studying), Sonship (a course I’m working through with a mentor), as well as Crestview’s Leadership Pipeline material.
In January 2018, though, I was able to finish the following (some of these for the 2nd time):
Yesterday I highlighted my involvement with Youth Leadership Reno County. I had a super busy weekend last weekend. After the trip to Topeka with Youth Leadership, I traveled to Hesston on Thursday and Friday to help kick off the adult Leadership Reno County program. It’s another program of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce. I love the vision our local Chamber has to build the bandwidth of people in the community. They recognize that for our community to make progress, some leadership development has to be pursued among the people who are engaging in acts of leadership in our community. We use the principles and competencies of the Kansas Leadership Center to help our participants have a meaningful experience. We also do some work to help orient them to both the problems and opportunities that our community affords them. We’re looking forward to seeing this class engage in acts of leadership for the good of our community.
I’m privileged to facilitate Youth Leadership Reno County with Amy Conkling. We’re a program of the Hutchinson/Reno County Chamber of Commerce and enjoy a remarkable partnership with local public and private school districts. Thirty-two 7th and 8th (four from each public/private school in Reno County) participate in our program. We usually kick off in late October and go until late January/early February. We get to experience so many great things about Reno County. And, in a deeper way, I’m very grateful for the deep work that our students do around leadership challenges they face. This year, I had students working on projects related to fundraising for important school infrastructure (in the private schools), offering electives, how rumors in local communities affect student morale, relationships between teachers and students, bullying, helping students in districts maintain eligibility, and how a shrinking enrollment affects local school life. Digging into challenges like these can be daunting for any of us, but these students considered what their purpose was, who stakeholders were on these issues, how they might find a collective purpose with those stakeholders, as well as some experiments they could try. Our program culminates with a trip to Topeka where we get to meet the governor and local legislators. We had graduation this past Sunday at 1 PM. It was a full year, but I’m grateful to get to be a part of the work of such amazing people.
On Sunday, 1/28/18, Luke preached the next sermon in Crestview’s Life Together series entitled The Purpose of Life Together. This sermon unpacked Ephesians 4:11-16, showing what God’s heart is for us as a “together” people. There were so many applications that extend to leadership, how we view leadership, and even how we step into living this way. I was both helped and challenged hearing Luke’s heart and how it ties to a larger mission and vision. I hope you’ll take some time to dig into this sermon if you didn’t get a chance.
My 1/21/18AM sermon, God Builds Life Together, is now online. This sermon helped kick off Crestview’s Life Together series. We want our life together to direct us to mission and growth. And, this sermon was my attempt to get the ball rolling. We overviewed the Bible’s storyline to see how this notion of community was always in God’s heart. I do hope my sermon was helpful and encourages people to consider this. We will add content for these next few weeks to see what this might mean for us.
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