That I May Know Him ... Some thought provoking words from Francis Chan

That I May Know Him....

Moving Forward

Well, it's Christmas Eve. Just settled in to watch a movie with my wife and kids. Looks like it might be a little "Hallmarky." Oh well... I'm a little preoccupied tonight. I was reminded again today of the vanity of religion and the danger of pledging allegiance to anyone or anything other than God. It is sad to me that we have missed the mark of conformity to Christ by such a huge margin. How quickly we tend to replace that which is essential to vibrant, abundant life and worship rightly directed toward almighty God with tidy things that fit more neatly into the religious box that we have constructed in our imaginations. I think, sometimes, that Satan has us right where he wants us - neutralized, powerless and ineffective. We pose no threat to him or his agenda. Instead we waste our time comparing ourselves to the wrong standard. We are critical of those who worship differently than us. If they pursue Christ with more or less emotion than we do... well. Instead of pursuing Christ with the scripture as the guide we dogmatize personal preferences and deify our religious grace-denying thought processes. We want religion that costs us nothing and soothes our conscience. What Jesus offers is radically different. It costs us everything, everything that is religiously comfortable. But in exchange we get deep, rich relationship with Christ. Relationship that satisfies and brings joy. My prayer personally and for those in our faith family is that we move forward. That we leave the emptiness and vanity of religion behind and go hard after that which is authentic and fruitful and satisfying.

Lord, give me passion and strength to make a priority of my relationship with God during the year before me.

Merry CHRISTmas!

Sunday Preview - Christmas Worship

Exposure to the Living God

Recently, a member of our faith family challenged me with this brilliant quote:  “A Christian lifestyle alone might cause your children to long for Christianity, but only regular exposure to the living God will cause them to long for Christ!”  Wow!  Powerful.  Don’t you think?  But it begs another question.  What does regular exposure to the Living God look like?  That’s a question worth considering.  Can I offer a few ideas?  Of course we are exposed to God through His Word, the Bible.  After all, that is what the Bible is – the revelation of God.  Regular time in the Scriptures is regular exposure to God, and it seems that the more time we spend in the Scripture the greater our appetite for it becomes.  In the case of our kids, an appetite for the Bible seems all but absent in most cases.  There is so much vying for their attention, and so much that is (seemingly) more appealing.  But the exposure to God that is gained through time spent in the Word is a component of authentic relationship with Christ that cannot be done without.  The Bible is a staple, a mainstay of spiritual nutrition.  Without it we starve to death.  So sad is the diminished priority of regular time in God’s Word amongst those who claim to seek deep and rich knowledge of God.  I’m afraid that we have mislabeled our infatuation with religion and the good feeling that we think it will afford us as genuine, take-up-your-cross-daily / fellowship-of-His-sufferings pursuit of God.  Just how believable is our assertion that we long for Christ when we struggle to recognize the necessity and ready availability of the clearest and most comprehensive revelation of God at our disposal – the Bible.  Well that’s a start.  We’ll consider other means of exposure to the Living God in posts in the near future, but for now this is conviction enough – at least for me…

"...That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,  that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."  Philippians 3:10-11

To the Neighbors and the Nations

Grace Missions

To the Neighbors… To the Nations

Recently, I was reviewing the history of our Grace Missions endeavors here at Faith Baptist Church. It is hard to believe that fifteen years have passed since the commencement of the Grace Missions program.  God has been incredibly good!  In 1996 we supported six missionaries and our annual missions budget was just $5800.   Currently, our budget is ten times that, and we generously support seventeen different missionary families and ministries.  That's exciting!  In 2011, twenty-three families or individuals participated with Grace Missions commitments.  That is a tremendous representation of our faith family.  Again, praise the Lord!  

God has been working in me and giving me a vision for our church where the proclamation of the gospel is concerned.  While consideration of Grace Missions from its humble beginnings until now clearly demonstrates God's provision and a generous spirit of giving on the part of our people, it also highlights the potential within this church to be even more effective in our gospel effort both here at home and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

This has been a trying transitional period in the history of our church and many things, including our missional focus, have taken a back seat to the search for a pastor for this fellowship.  With that search behind us it is time for us to realign our priorities and get back to the things to which we have been called as a church.   It has been over a year since we placed any special emphasis on the global ministry of the gospel through missions.  I want you to know that I, along with the other leadership of Faith Baptist Church, am working diligently on a strategy to draw us together with renewed vigor and vision for the spread of the gospel to both the neighbors and the nations.   My heart for Grace Missions here at Faith is more than material.  We should continue to give, and as God continues to prosper us we should give more.  But engaging in missions is so much bigger than just our wallets and checkbooks.  Missional emphasis needs to be more than a month set aside out of the year.  Missions must occupy a place at the forefront of our daily thought.  Give? Yes! But also pray, connect, encourage, equip and go!  In the months ahead we will be developing ideas and strategies that will take us to a place where we are more missionally minded as a congregation.  Your ideas and participation are critical and very much invited. 

I am so thankful for the great things that God has done in us and through us over the years.  I am tremendously excited about the things that I know God can and will do in and through us in the years ahead!

To the neighbors and the nations!

Pastor Mick

Have a Very Merry and Godward Christmas.....

Sunday Preview 12/16

Sunday Recap 12/11/11

Friday Message from Pastor Mick

Desiring God Mission Update...

I enjoyed this brief glimpse into the ongoing mission of Desiring God and the ministry of Pastor John Piper - just really challenging and encouraging. Chew on this thought a little today; that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Hmmm.... begs a question of me. "What is it that is most glorified in me and where do I seek to be most satisfied?" I know that I must be in a state of constant evaluation of the priorities of my own satisfaction and the glorification of whom or what that results. Wow, that is a sobering thought........

Desiring God Mission Update — with Pastor John from Desiring God on Vimeo.

For Bill and Maggie...

Pure Inspiration....

Some dear friends of mine shared this with me this morning and I cannot stop thinking about it. Amazing truth, in an amazing lyric wrapped in an amazing melody. Enjoy and be amazed...

Sunday Recap 12/4

Preview for Sunday 12/4

Here's an idea for this Christmas...

Are you looking for a practical way to affirm Jesus as the "Reason for the Season?"  Have you considered exchanging the vanity of simply receiving for the overwhelming blessedness and joy of giving?  Here's a place to start... Gospel for Asia.  Go prayerfully.  Ask God how he might use you to make a Gospel difference!  To the neighbors... To the Nations!

Recap 11/27 / Preview 12/4

Looking Forward to Sunday, November 27

Ed Stetzer - Why I Have No Difficulty Helping "Issue Christians" to Move On

Ed Stetzer - Why I Have No Difficulty Helping "Issue Christians" to Move On

Truth In Song for Today

Joel Rosenberg Simulcast

Jesus and Religion - A brilliant sermon from Mark Driscoll

Encouraging Song of the Day - You Are Still Holy

The View from My Morning

"...And God saw everything that he had made, 

and behold, it was very good..."Genesis 1:31 (ESV)

Challenging Song of the Day

"Seen with My Dad at the Pole"

It was a great morning. I joined my kids (perhaps to their chagrin) in their prayer gathering at the pole at their school. What a joy it is to see young people pour out their hearts to God for their classmates and teachers. Life is no cakewalk for a Jesus-Follower in the hostile environment of our high schools. It's great to see the kids recognize the strength that is theirs in their relationship with Christ. It was also great that the principle of our high school joined us and prayed.

"Thanks, Lord, for the Godly leaders you've providentially and purposefully planted in our schools."

Encouraging Song of the Day - Gentle Savior

The Laughable Pharisaical Conspiracy

"...But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him." - Mt. 12:14

Destroy Jesus?  Really?  It's a laughable proposition.  Yet it seems to be the mission of those in Jesus' day who were religious for religion's sake.  Jesus was utterly offensive to them.  The things He taught.  The things He did.  The day upon which He did them.  The authority He claimed in all of His teaching and doing.  Who did He think that He was?  God?

We're quick to gather the perfect throwing stones when we read stuff like Matthew 12:14.  But I'm not sure how foreign the conspiracy is to us religious types in our day and in our contexts.  We wouldn't dream of destroying Jesus!  Right?  We can't imagine even being thought of as opposing Jesus.  Why, look at all of the religious stuff with which we busy ourselves.  Yet, it's true that we have made an idol of religion.  It's true that when Jesus rubs our religious fur the wrong way we hiss and show our claws (in a tidy, religious way of course).  It is true that while we may not make a concerted or overt attempt to destroy Jesus, by our allegiance to what we have known and practiced traditionally and religiously we are unconsciously waging war on Jesus' Kingdom agenda.  I'm not suggesting that we indiscriminately scrap the old and look for something new.  Indeed scrapping the old for the sake of scrapping the old is no more noble than functioning religiously for the sake of religion alone.  I think what I am suggesting is that we be willing to examine all of it beneath the lens of divine revelation, expectations and agendas and be willing to part with that which brings nothing to the Kingdom table and embrace and engage ourselves in all the things that do.  In the end Jesus and His Kingdom continue undeterred - and as for the conspirators?   Well..............

Basic Church Math

"...So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied."    Acts 9:31 (ESV)

Another Great Monday Night Pregame Men's Study

Week two of our "Not a Fan" journey is in the book.  We continue to be challenged by the truth that we are, in fact, called to be true followers, not fans.

"Lord, give us a heart that goes hard after yours....."

The Challenge to Authentic Body Life

This last weekend was formative for me.  My wife and I spent a couple of days in Minneapolis at the Desiring God National Conference.  It was timely and inspiring.  On the not so distant horizon I can see a dynamic shift in my ministry.  God is leading me to be a senior shepherd.  Of this I am certain.  The uncertain parts of it are where exactly, and when.  Currently, the church which I have served for 10 years is without a "senior pastor."  It's been almost nine months.  God has done marvelous things and continues to do marvelous things as He prepares our faith family for what I think will be a deeper, richer body life and function than we have ever known.  It's exciting.  I'd love to lead these people toward a vision and mission that God has given me for something authentic and dynamic - a body life marked by commitment to holiness, passionate an perpetual growth, and biblical, practical function.  My prayer is that God will bring us to a place where we are no longer religiously stoic and static - a place where joy is evident everywhere and is realized through obedience to the mandate that we live the gospel.  I long to be characterized as a congregation by Great Commission living - a people that are reproducing themselves both personally and corporately.  I dream of missional awareness that causes us to be both effective "goers" and "senders" as God's Spirit leads us and allows us.  I beg God to develop in us an attitude of selflessness and deference as we live and serve with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.  I pray that through all of this that the name of God would be magnified and glorified to the fullest.  Yeah,  I'd love to lead a church like that.... who wouldn't.  I've experienced the joy of jettisoning religion and embracing authentic relationship with Christ.  I desire the same for this flock.................

"Do this Lord.  Please do this here and do this now."