Matt Chandler (Explicit Gospel), Josh Patterson and Eric Geiger (Simple Church) just released a new book this month with B&H Publishing called Creature of the Word.
The book looks at the scripture-based beauty of a church that makes everything they do about Jesus and outlines practical steps that church leaders can take to help form a gospel-centered ministry.
On Tuesday, Oct. 23rd, Chandler, Geiger and Patterson will host a three-hour interactive simulcast about the book. They will each teach on a different topic from Creature of the Word and then answer viewer questions at the end.
So how about a giveaway?!
I am going to give away three copies of the new book, each that come with an individual simulcast registration to watch the on the 23rd.
Here’s what I want you to do… comment and tell me something that your church is doing to make everything it does about Jesus. It can be simple, just leave a comment. I’ll choose 3 random winners.
Deadline to comment is end of day October 13.
And… go!
We have been working over the past year to align our mission, vision, health, and outreach with the heart of Jesus. Our conversation, practical ministry, worship services, and daily living are being redirected toward the things of Christ. As leaders, we recognize that it isn't about building our kingdom, but about building His Kingdom. As part of this, we are also being very intentional in identifying and redirecting (or scraping) those things which aren't contributing to the furtherance of the Kingdom of God.
Our church is looking into adding another service to reach more people, as well as trying to get people plugged into a Bible Study group.
The church I serve, live, and grow with encourages and equips the faith community to do life together in the way modeled by the New Testament oikos, keeping Christ at the center. The humility Jesus lived through service and community restoration is a major emphasis in the ministry we do. The anchor verse for our church is John 10:10 where Jesus says he came to give "life to the full". This is expressed in the threefold relationship Christ had with the Father, believing community, and the world.
we see ourselves as bridge builders into our community with the goal of making much of Jesus. we have done this three ways; we opened a coffee shop to intentionally build community, we run a preschool to show parents and kids the love of Jesus, and we run a food bank to meet tangible needs in our community. we preach Jesus and live intentional lives of faith.
We make sure Jesus is mentioned a lot during sermons. It's all about him and we focus on leading people into communion, and celebrating and remembering the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus each week!
Right now, my family is our church. We've moved to a new city and have a vision for starting a new church (or a new campus of the church we left behind and still identify with). Right now we're in a learning/approaching phase with our neighbors and are beginning the conversations about what it means (and doesn't mean) to be a genuine follower of Christ.
Our family moved to Missouri from Wa state. We came to Abundant Life during mission week 2004. It is prob one of the best weeks of the year. Missionaries from around the world come and are treated as VIPs and share what the Lord is doing. In a tough economy our church has continued to support more missionaries every year. I think we have a total of 150 missionary families. Our pastor is a visionary and saw a real need for a children's wing that is out side the box that would be a place for families and children to learn interactively plus a 2 story tree house, Holy Word theater, the mouse pad computer room, a drama play room.. it is like nothing I have ever seen. With that families have came and are growing in their relationship with Jesus. We now have a separate youth building called the Core for middle, high school and college. i have never seen so many youth going into ministry. Their is a modeling of Jesus everywhere. We have T.E.A.M. night Monday evening (Takes every Abundant member) write letters to folks who came the past Sun,make home visits and have passed out 60,000 DVDs of a message our pastor gave on Eternity. Abundant Life is a place where Jesus is Lord and People are loved. I know numbers aren't everything but when we first came our attendance was round 400 we are now 2800-3000 a week. It is so exciting to see Jesus's work.
"Dont' Go To Church, Be the Church"
New Hope PDX.org https://vimeo.com/50938274
Thanks
Everything comes back to Jesus: our messages, our teaching, our ability to change. He is the point of the story, we are just the supporting cast. We serve, because that's what Jesus taught us to do. We love, because that's what Jesus taught. This is central to what we're about.
Cool! We just saw Matt speak this past week at Catalyst. Good stuff coming from him.
Our church is trying to be more giving. Recently we held an outdoor carnival/bazaar where everything was free for the community. We gave away food, clothing, household goods, etc..
As a church, we try share the Gospel in the rural and untouched areas surrounding our locality. We as a church want to reach the unreached and share the good news of Jesus.
My pastor does a great job of focusing on the fact that the Bible may be for us, but it's really ABOUT Jesus. If we get that wrong, it will skew so much of what we read and understand about the Word.
Our church has always held outreach events in the comunity and has helped other churches hold outreach events in our community. But recently we have added small groups aimed at relational discipleship and evangelism and missional communities.
I know my church is Jesus centered when I read the bulletin. Last week it was about "feeding the homeless ministry, cell group prayer meetings, supporting the mission team in Uganda, and midweek Bible classes. I have read that 95% of church activities are self centered, and I have read church bulletins that seem to confirm that, describing bowling parties, trips to amusement parks, women's outings, kids trips to the zoo, men's golf classic, singles' pot luck, etc., etc. We need to organize and simplify the Kingdom mission.
Twitter: eccle0412
says:
I can't attend the simulcast and with grad school (and an exam in 90 minutes) not much time to read. But as always Ron, you inspire with good questions. i wanted to see how people answered. Thanks again, for what you do , Biblically to point us to influence by the Word as Jesus (the Word made flesh).
God is so generous to us!
Noted a few people pointing to books. Radical is a great book I read and realized the "5 points" God had shown me really had been life changing a bit at a time. Platt would say, READ THE WORD before his book.
Warning not too be a follower of men but allow men who follow to lead you to follow.
Back to pathophysiology…
We are switching our midweek children's ministry to be gospel-centered, outward focused on our neighborhood, and evangelistic. Kickoff is tonight!
Twitter: KariScare
says:
My church's main focus is on missions. We give a large portion of our budget to missions, and we are known by missionaries as a mission church. We have never not paid a mission pledge.
Wow, Ron, what good timing. I was just sitting at my desk yesterday looking at a blank screen trying to think of something to write about for our weekly E-Newsletter. We have so much going on at our church, so many activities, so many events, so many groups, it's sometimes overwhelming to pick just one to comment on. I opened my Bible and flipped through Acts. On coming to chapter 20 verse 24 where Paul says basically, my primary task is to share Jesus. I asked myself, "Are we really focusing on Jesus at our church or is He buried in all our activities?" God brought two books to my attention, Jesus – a theography by Viola & Sweet and Jesus by Wayne Cordeiro. I bought both! Now, I see this simulcast is coming soon! I think God is talking to me! Preach Jesus!
At our recent celebration for our renovated facility I presented them with a new Purpose, Mission and Vision. Our Purpose is "to bring fame to the Name of Jesus." Everything we do for 2013 will have that focus. I will soon be presenting a challenge that we do one thing as a church each month that serves as an outreach of some kind. This is new so it hasn't started yet. But the focus will be about HIM.
Our leadership team is going through James MacDonald's new book "Vertical Church," which talks about being a congregation that is singularly focused on God and his glory. Exodus 33:15 says, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here." The only distinguing mark of the church of Jesus Christ is the manifest presence of God himself–that is what we need to go after.
We are solidly teaching God's Word and pointing everything we do and everyone we meet to Him! Thanks for the opportunity!
Christ Fellowship Miami is currently focusing on evangelism training for our congregation. In our small groups, we had everyone role play sharing the Gospel and held them accountable to who they are sharing the Gospel with. Each Small Group is encouraged to take part in a "Love Miami" project that will allow them as a group to serve our city and share the Gospel with someone.
Check us out: http://cfmiami.org!
Under our new pastor, we are taking a very outreach/missions focus. We have just kicked off an outreach program into a local community. Even though this subdivision is only 2 miles from our campus, only 1 family attends our church. So, we have organized times, and we're taking Christ to this community, by being his hands and feet. We have plans to start 5 small group bible studies in this community, and hope to spread into the surrounding communities as well.
Our Men's Ministry is tackling "Radical" by David Platt, as well. John Piper books are being read at an increasing pace, as well.
Constantly reminding the people that "it's all about Jesus," and not about me or them. Preaching the Bible as a "Him" book, affirming always that it is a Christo-centric book.
Twitter: tylercrosson
says:
Our pastor does a great job helping the team focus in staff meetings on things that matter, as opposed to dedicating entirely too much time debating things that don’t. As a church staff, keeping our eyes on Jesus most certainly makes much of Him!