Hey Folks,
I picked up this video clip today at a leadership lunch and wanted to pass it along. As I watched it I thought, “Wow, what would the world be like if every Christ follower “danced” this way in their own lives?” How many folks would be drawn to the “Dance” of Christ if they saw it in us? Hmmm, something to think about. Dance
One of the things that I really like about our young fellowship is its commitment to global outreach. While we are making a difference in our local community here in Rancho, we’re also lifting our eyes to the need of the greater global community and that excites me. As one preacher said, we are becoming Glocal; both Global and Local. In fact, NHCC has been about that from the very beginning with a minimum 10% tithe going out to missions and church planting. Over the past two and a half years we have been networking with some other churches in the area to target new places and opportunities to plant churches. This past week we took another exciting step in this area as we designated $15,000.00 of the resources accumulated for church planting to go toward the Jonathan Project which will be equipping indigenous preachers in India to go out as church planters. The thing that excites me about this project is not just the potential itself for sharing the love of Christ across the world, but that we as a young church are building that into our long term DNA. In a time when many people and groups are hunkering down and pulling back in missional giving, we are staying the course. That’s a sign of faithfulness and maturity. That’s a sign of going forward. That’s incredible and I’m excited to be part of this young church with a mighty future.
Yes I know, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. No the sky hasn’t fallen; it’s just been a bit more busy than usual on this end. Anyone relate? One thing that’s for certain is that our study through the BIG 10 is really rocking our comfort zones. It’s funny how most Americans set up their own standard of holiness and then think their pretty good at it. At least on the outside anyway. It’s kind of like when we were kids playing war and WE decided whether or not we really did get shot by the enemy forces. Our own system just doesn’t measure up when it comes to God. If one of the purposes of the 10 Commandments is to show us our need for God’s grace, then we’ve certainly arrived. We’ve just now made it to number 5 and I’m seeing more and more of what real holiness is all about and I just don’t come close. But thanks be to God, we have grace through His Son Jesus Christ. Yup, we’ll be looking at number 5 this Sunday. Quite challenging! Almost scary. But doing things God’s way really does lead to true Freedom. What have you learned so far in this series?
I’ve pasted an article below that I hope to get printed in one of the local Russian newspapers soon. In short, it’s a challenge to all of us really as to whether we are basing our ideas of church on the Bible or traditions. Enjoy and feel free to chime in.
Good Church, Bad Church?
Ivan S. Prokhanoff
One of the things that I like the most about living in the Sacramento area is the huge number of Russian speaking immigrants. My wife and I lived in Moscow for a couple of years in the early 90s and were excited to find so many people of Slavic descent when we moved to Rancho Cordova in late 2004. Our purpose in moving here was to establish a new kind of church that would reach out to people from all over the world with the love of Christ. After all, isn’t that the kind of church that we see in Revelation 7 where there are people from every nation, tribe, and tongue? It was also our desire to plant a church based on the Bible alone as did the great Russian church leader, Ivan Prokhanoff. So we set out with the intension to love God and love others as we sought to plant this new kind of church. But the more I visited with people from the former Soviet Union, the more I was discouraged. What I found was a people who had fled to America in search of religious freedom, but have now embraced a slavery of legalism which should have died in the old land. Read the complete Post.
We’re off and running with our study over the 10 Commandments. When you think about it, this series is not the most politically correct subject. But when have I ever been concerned about being politically correct? However, I did have a moment last week when I thought about changing the series. The question was not about correctness, but need. I had heard that one of the mega-churches in the greater Sac. area was doing a big series over marriage and I paused for a moment and wondered about direction. Was launching into a 10 week series over God’s commandments for living the wisest step? Those aren’t the most sensitive of outreach topics. So was I wrong to launch into a series on something as archaic as the 10 Commandments from Sinai? I mean how important is this subject in our age and how many folks are going to come and hear about what God says they should and shouldn’t do? But the more I thought about it, the more I felt a certainty that we needed to move forward. Read the complete Post.
I’m looking forward to our new sermon series beginning this Sunday over the 10 Commandments. The more I thought about this over the past few months, the more I realized that this is actually an issue that we as individuals and a society desperately need. Over the past 10 to 20 years we’ve witnessed a number of battles over the placement of the 10 Commandments in courthouses and public buildings. In almost every occasion, the ACLU or other opposing agencies have won their case and the Commandments have been removed. Yet it’s now easy to see the fruit of such an attitude of removing Divine order from our society. Many, if not all of our present societal woes are a direct result of ignoring God’s plan for doing society. But yet a big question for me during those seasons of national attention on the Commandments was directed not to the media, but to the average Christ follower in America. Read the complete Post.
