This past week at Ephesus Church we looked again at the vision God has given us as a church in Uptown Charlotte. I was just looking over some notes from a sermon we had on what the church is supposed to be back about 5 months ago. I saw many things in that sermon that dovetailed very nicely with this past Sunday. So in a first, never been done before, I’m posting my notes from that sermon in their raw form. Basically I’m being lazy and not wanting to reformat and edit for the blog (the bullets and tabbing is off too, oh well!) so enjoy and get a taste of how I arrange my thoughts for Sundays while also digging deeper into who God has called Ephesus to be as a church…
The Church Pt. 5 27 April 2008
REVIEW last week
1. Ekklesia
o “called out”
2. an assembly of believers
3. A place of belonging
q Salvation was not meant to be spent alone
4. the church belongs to Jesus
PART 2
- A place to discover Jesus
- A place to encounter God
q Supernatural origins
- A healthy community
q The church is designed for relationship
- A place to be challenged
q Edification-building up and encouraging
q Exhortation
5. A place to serve
q Being in a church gives us a place to serve with eternal purpose
Worship
q Giving adoration and devotion
q Includes music and includes lifestyle
The Lord’s supper/Communion
1. Remembrance
2. Communion
3. Expectation
How the church reaches out
q Many names
- q Evangelism
- q Outreach
- q Missions
q Many different ways it has been done in
- q Crusades
- q Tracts
- q Apologetics
- q Altar calls
q All of these are fine within the right cultural contexts
- q Culture today has changed
- q Its full of slick marketing
- q Slick sales-pitches
- q Mass advertising
- q Creating events with mass emotional appeal
- q People are burned out on it
- q We see through the hype
- q We’re wary of it
- q We’re calloused and bitter most of the time
q We have the most important message on earth but have to be challenged in how we present it
- q STORY> stripper turned Christian
- q Stef
o Teenager
o Drugs sex
o Stripping
o Boyfriend
o Moved in together
o Missing something
o BUT didn’t want to be told what to do
q Began with relationships
- q Began with a church and its people willing to accept her and her boyfriend where they were
- q AND pursue friendships with them
- q Not an emotional response to a big event
- q A process in which she was led to Jesus
q People all over this city, need to be loved, need to find friends and need to know Jesus
q Our vision as a church is “Loving Jesus, loving people, loving the city”
q That begins with reaching out in love and building relationships with people
q It is our biblical mandate:
Matthew 28.18-20
All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all the things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
1. Jesus is the man
2. Go make disciples
- q Get deep
- q Get real
- q Follow Jesus’ example
o He didn’t start with a huge blowout laser and light extravaganza giving out free donkeys
o He started by meeting a couple of guys down at the lake, doing some fishing, going to a party, turning a little water into wine
3. Trust him when he says he’s with us to the end
How
1. Focus on Jesus
John 12.32
And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself
q Jesus’ resurrection will draw people in
q There’s the victory and hope we have
q Jesus is alive, he defeated sin
2. Understand, then practice Missional living
q Change in American culture requires a change in how people discover Jesus
q George Hunter-Celtic Way of Evangelism
i. Celtic population of the British Isles was reached through integrating into the culture
ii. Becoming a part of their lives, while still living by Christian principles-“lifting up Jesus”
iii. Through relationships the Celts discovered Jesus
q This applies in our culture today
i. Peter Berger “Social Construction of Reality” wrote this in 1966 about how people can shift their worldview in our culture
1. Person’s view of reality is shaped within the community into which they are socialized
2. In a pluralistic society (of which we are certainly a part!) conversion, or changing the way one perceives reality, is opened up through conversations with people who live with a contrasting view of reality
3. One adopts and internalizes the new worldview through resocialization into a community sharing that new worldview
q What does that mean for us?
i. Get out there!
ii. Make friends, build relationships, have conversations
Colossians 4.5-6 MSG
5 Use your heads as you live and work among outsiders. Don’t miss a trick. Make the most of every opportunity. 6 Be gracious in your speech. The goal is to bring out the best in others in a conversation, not put them down, not cut them out.
iii. Live life together
iv. Trust Jesus to be with you until the end of the age
3. Bigger scale-Plug into the city
q God loves the city
i. The bible ends with the city
ii. First missionaries went to plant churches in the city
iii. Nehemiah sent to rebuild the city of Jerusalem
iv. Jonah sent to the “great city” of Nineveh
v. Culture flows out of the city
1. Change happens in the city
2. Density of population
a. More relationships
b. More communication
c. More openness to life change
q We have to be praying a seeking how to better plug into Charlotte
i. Opportunities
ii. Key, strategic relationships
iii. Give back to the city in real tangible ways
iv. Make a positive name for ourselves in Charlotte
All this may happen before someone even comes to church
q That’s tough for me
o This is where I’m measured and judged right?
o This is the big deal…
4. When folks come Welcome and include everyone
q As someone’s social network includes more and more Christians they may get plugged in
q We have to be open and welcoming to everyone
i. Goth chick
q Allow them to “belong, then believe”
i. Maybe they play in the band
ii. Help with the website
iii. Shake hands at the door
iv. Whatever
q We have to be intentional about this
5. Preach about Jesus
q 2 issues to avoid as we live missionally
Syncretism
1. Culture becoming more important than the Gospel
a. Dangerous because the Gospel is controversial
b. In our fear of offending people we could water down the Truth of Jesus
Romans 12.2
do not be conformed to this world
Sectarianism
1. Making the church more important the Gospel
a. This leads us to create a “holy huddle”
b. We become protective of what we are and don’t engage people who don’t yet know Jesus
John 17.15
I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.
q Jesus is the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father
q We do contextualize
- o We have to continually adjust our methods to bring relevance within the culture we live
- o Paul in Acts 17 in Athens
- o Missionaries around the world
o MISSIONAL
o If not, the church will die of irrelevance
6. Baptizing
a. As someone’s life is transformed through the Christian relationships they develop they to become a follower of Jesus
b. May not be a precise moment of raising a hand or checking a box
c. They fully grasp Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection
d. Tell their friends and the church celebrates
e. Then they are baptized as a public example of what has happened in their lives
i. This is an opportunity for others to see Jesus
ii. An opportunity for the church to celebrate
f. More on my blog this week
g. Do you want to be baptized?
7. Continue living life together
q Be real and be repentant
q Romans 6-we’re free from sin, and become slaves to righteousness
q So step up our lives and accountability as we journey together
Challenge
q Salt of the earth
Matthew 5.13-16
q Will you be salt or will you be thrown out, marginalized?
q This is the call on all of our lives
Ephesus is called to this city and the people-are you going to step up, are you willing?
