TEN ENDEAVORS FOR THE SAKE OF UNITY

Below is the text of a handout from Pastor Jeff Tague at a Calvary Baptist church picnic. (Really. Pretty cool, maybe radical) 

Ephesians 4:1 "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit"

1. Become an actual member of a church. I'm serious. Membership shows your loving commitment to one another. This is truly radical. Go against the grain and show that you are really crazy in love with Jesus and join a church. And just think, the less cool the church the more the opportunity to demonstrate real love! And if you're already a member of a church, love someone who's not by encouraging him or her to join too.

2. Turn down jobs that might take you away from church, even if they pay more.

3. Time together: Arrange family vacations around your church's schedule. Or take your family on a vacation with other members of the church. Or better yet, go on a short term mission trip. This will blow people's minds. 

4. Move to a house closer to the church and use your home as a place of hospitality. 

5. Turn heads really practice the biblical teachings of giving and receiving forgiveness. Be quick to forgive others (Ephesians 4:32). Be quick to say you’re sorry (Matthew 5:23 24). Forgiveness may be one of the most radical ways to express love and unity in a congregation, and it's rarely practiced. 

6. Help: Take care of people who are in need physically in your congregation (Romans 12:13). 


7. Purpose to Pray: Pray for each other (Ephesians 6:18). Don't just say you'll pray. Actually put into place some ways to pray for each and every member. 

8. Heart Check: Sympathize with other believers (Romans 12:15). Check a critical spirit. 

9. Discipling: Focus on caring for one another spiritually by discipling one another (Galatians 6:1 2). Though discipling only looks like having lunch, it's secretly and subversively radical. Over a Caesar salad ask the dangerous question: "How are things spiritually?" 

10. The Ministry of the Pew: When you walk into a church service, pray about where you sit. If at church we are working to strengthen our fellow believers, where we sit becomes important. Part of our work will be talking to our neighbor in the pew, welcoming people, helping each other understand God's Word, and praying with each other. Meet others and find out their concerns and pray quietly with them. This will look a bit weird to newcomers, with pairs of bowed heads all around the building; but they will know that we love each other. Once we make the attitude shift from being passive pew sitters and receivers to active workers and givers, there is no end to the difference we can make to others. The key to people work is to observe what happens around you and respond to people's needs.

The first nine endeavors are adapted from J. Mack Stiles book, Marks of the Messenger. He lists 16 ways to demonstrate love and unity in the church, and calls them radical, mind blowing, and world-changing principles, though they are also counter cultural and bizarre to the watching world. The last endeavor is based on Colin Marshall's article for The Briefing titled "The Ministry of the Pew." The entire article can be found at www.matthiasmedia.com.au/briefing/library/1855/.

win·some (Have we forgotten?)

 

win·some

 adj.  Charming, often in a childlike or naive way.

 

So what does it mean to be winsome? 

Word History: Winsome people easily win friends, so it is not surprising that winsome and win have a common root.  Their shared root *wen-, meaning "to desire, strive for,"  has a number of descendants in the Germanic languages:

1. wini- meaning "friend" (literally, "one who desires or loves" someone else), which became wine in Old English 
2. wynn: "pleasure, joy ", preserved in winsome. 
3. win: "to strive for with success, be victorious."

Longing to win loving, joyful, friendship.  (Did we forget what it means to be a child?) 

 

Matthew 19:15 "Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” 

 

John 15:11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. "

 

 

Grace,Gratitude, Glory: Beauty from Ashes

I met Patrice at a Habitat Build (the resident).  She told me, with a beautiful smile and grin about her son with inoperable brain cancer.  He was held alive for 3 years beyond the 6 months Drs. had given.  Patrice was giving glory to God and gave her son to Him at diagnosis, not after he died.  Every day a gift, her son a miracle and a testimony to the Deliverer.    How much like the man born blind....John 9.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Grace,Gratitude, Glory.

GRACE:  John 9 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth.  2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.  4 As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.  5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

GRATITUDE: This same man went on to challenge the Pharisees, their "wisdom" and their religion, out of gratitude, not bravado.   He was thrown out of the temple because he would not be persuaded by the pharisees that Jesus was a sinner, and because his testimony was actually teaching them truth.  

GLORY: The healed man went on to meet Jesus AFTER he had left everything (parents, the temple).  He answers Jesus' only question...do you believe in the son of man?

 38 Then the man said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.

 39 Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Test:

1.  What is my response to healing, is it worship?
2. What is my effect on others, testimony to truth?
3. Today, can I see, or am I blind?  
4. Do I have joy (Jn 15:11) from my ability to see?  Patrice did.

a little boy, again

Rend my soul, of all I love
and give to me from above

At night I lay awake in tears
counting o'er the many years

My dreams have passed, my future dim
when I look at all within

Worst of all, my little ones
have grown to fear, and hate and lunge

A wrenching fear bids me to hate
To plot and plan and preserve our fate

It will not work if plans are mine
I need your love to give me thine

Restore to me your hope and joy
Make me again...a little boy

Nothing to loose, all to gain
Take what's mine, and let it rain

Give me YOU, my hope and joy
Make me again YOUR little boy.


John 15:9-11

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. "

*actually that is me and my dad, circa 1962-63. He passed about 14 years ago, and my last words were from Psalm 23.  My son came about a year later.  As a son and a father I can bear witness, God has something very special in mind for that relationship.