CTK WEEKLY 1.8.18

We're one week into the Renewal Project and I have been greatly encouraged by the things I'm hearing.  I especially like that families are using the journal for family devotions and that we're doing this together as a church; reading the same text and praying the same requests each week binds us together even more as a family on mission together. Also, The weekly readings and prayer requests will be made available at the bottom of this post each week.  

I want to remind and ask that corporate prayer be added to your weekly schedule on Sundays at 3:30pm.  We can do everything else perfectly but if we forget to pray we do it on our own efforts.  May God continue to strengthen us by his grace in the weeks and months to come this year.  Soli Deo Gloria!

LIFE TOGETHER

Yesterday's Sermon - 1 John 1:1-4-From Eternity to Eternity

Missional Communities - There will be a joint MC gathering this week in order to recast vision for the new year at Corey & Emily Figgins' home on Wednesday January 10 @5:45pm

2038 Magnolia Parkway, Grovetown GA 30813 (coffee and refreshments will be available)  

DNA Groups: Smaller, same gender groups that meet up throughout the week to study the Bible, pray together and hold one another up in the grace and mercy of the Gospel.                  If you need help connecting with a DNA please contact Kevin Figgins or Lance Cheely for men's groups and Tara Figgins for womens.  

1/14/18 Kids Ministry Volunteers - 1/14/18 Kid’s Ministry Volunteers- Abby Wigginton, Seanette Epley, Ashtyn Figgins, Lance Cheely (extra)

RENEWAL PROJECT READINGS & PRAYER

WEEK 2 EPIPHANY: Jan 6-13

Epiphany is concerned with the "manifestation" of Jesus as the light of the world and the bringing of God's reign.  Our word epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning “manifestation or appearance,” and in church history this word has become closely associated with the revelation of Christ in connection with the visit of the Magi.  

READ

• Day 1: Job 1 The Story of Job

• Day 2: Job 2-3 Job questions God

• Day 3: Job 38-39 God Answers Job

• Day 4: Job 40-42 God Restores Job

• Day 5: Psalm 3

DAILY PRAYER FOR CTK

• For the children of our church to come to Christ and grow in Christ

• For the men in our church to lead their wives and families well

• For the women in our church to encourage and “hold up the arms” of their husbands and manage their households with dignity

The Forgotten Community

As a Christian in America you are more than likely involved in a number of different organizations that very easily become a tight knit group of friends with common interest and goals.  But the community that is sadly forgotten amongst Christians is this new community that we have been made apart of through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  This new community, also known as the Church, is represented across the world in local expressions that God calls us to join in covenant with.  Yes, this "place" you go to every Sunday or Wednesday.  Yes, this gathering of humans that God himself has placed you in.  Yes, this body of Believers that the majority of the Bible is addressing.  This is the community we most often forget; the community of the bread and wine, the community of the resurrection, the community that God is using to mold and shape you. Why is this?  Why do we forget this new community that we would say we are a part of as believers? A major part of the problem is that we don't recognize the biblical teaching that the church is to be our family.  In his prolific book of 2016, You Are What You Love,  James K.A. Smith writes,

Our baptismal promises attest to the fact that "the church is our first family, then our second homes should be defined by it, and our doors ought to be open to the stranger, the sick, and the poor."  Baptism opens the home, liberating it from the burden of impossible self-sufficiency, while also opening it to the "disruptive friendships" that are the mark of the kingdom of God (118)

God, in his kindness, plants us, as believers, in the midst of this new community not because of how good we are, our socio-economic background, the color of our skin, or any other embarrassing reason we try to come up with to make ourselves appear like we have arrived.  No, we are planted in this new community, this new family because God loves us and wants to work the Gospel out in us in ways we would've never come up with on our own.  

Joseph Hellerman says in his book, When the Church was a Family, 

Long-term interpersonal relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay also grow. People who leave do not grow. We all know people who are consumed with spiritual wanderlust. But we never get to know them very well because they cannot seem to stay put. They move along from church to church, ever searching for a congregation that will better satisfy their felt needs. Like trees repeatedly transplanted from soil to soil, these spiritual nomads fail to put down roots and seldom experience lasting and fruitful growth in their Christian lives (1).

The local church is where the rubber meets the road.  It is the chaos of human relationships that stretches and pushes us so that we don't remain stagnant, sleeping in the corner waiting for God to do something in our life.  So we must engage with the chaos, we must continue even when relationships turn south or things are not going our way because God is working and why would anyone want to miss out on that?  

Soli Deo Gloria,

KF

Bible Reading Movement

This week at CtK Augusta we will talk about the importance of the Word in our church community.  In my current reading stack(see list below) I have come across the idea of creating a Bible reading movement within our local congregations over and over again in different formats. The book Trellis and the Vine says,

"Imagine if all Christians, as a normal part of their discipleship, were caught up in a web of regular Bible reading - not only digging into the word privately, but reading it with their children before bed, with their spouse over breakfast, with a non-Christian colleague at work once a week over lunch, with a new Christian for follow-up once a fortnight for mutual encouragement, and with a mature Christian friend once a month for mutual encouragement."  

This is not necessarily a program but a natural, simple movement that starts in our Sunday morning worship, flows out into our week creating Gospel liturgies forming grooves of truth into our lives that we so desperately need in a world that tries to rip us apart.  

The simple act of Bible reading begins and continually sets our hearts aright.  We are allowing the very words of God to inform our minds and to shape our hearts.  There is no way we can live the Christian life apart from this type of rhythm.  

 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  - Hebrews 10:21-25

Part of my current reading stack: 

• The Trellis and The Vine by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne
• You are What You Love by James K.A. Smith
• Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin

What is a Church Plant?

It's exactly what it sounds like, right?  At least this is what I have always thought until we actually began the church planting work and started to get this question.  So, I will try to dispel as much of my limited knowledge as I can in trying to answer it in a couple of paragraphs.  

This may be overly simplistic but when you plant something in the ground (tree, bush, vegetable) you are attempting to replicate something else, another tree, bush, or vegetable.  This is what we attempt to do when church planting.  We are wanting to replicate what has been happening in church history since Acts chapter 1.  We want to replicate a body of believers that is living out the Gospel in their daily lives.  

Every church that has ever existed is a church that at some point had to be "planted."  That means whether you are sitting in the pew of a 200+ year old church or the folding chairs of a 2 year old church, it was planted by a man, who had a vision, and gathered people to study and live out the Scriptures, thus a church was born.  Lord willing the church grows and matures and then, again, becomes a church that takes from itself (money & people) to plant other churches.  Just as you use the seeds of other plants and vegetables to plant another plant the same is true for the church.  We are planting and producing more churches that reach more people with the Gospel and presenting them mature in Christ.  More churches are needed until Jesus comes again, to expand the borders of his Kingdom so we must continue in this hard work of reproducing and replicating ourselves as the church.  

Soli Deo Gloria,

Kevin

Building a Team

In Paul's letters we see over and over again his thankfulness to people.  They come from all walks of life too - men, women, married, single, families, pastors, business people, politicians, lawyers, doctors, slaves, slave owners, rich, poor, young, old, Jews and Gentiles.  Without this team the church would not have grown the way it did in Paul's day.  That is why he can confidently say in Philippians 4:17,  "Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to YOUR credit."  Paul is recognizing that apart from this eclectic group of people his ministry of planting churches would not be possible.  

    We realize this too, as we are seeing this type of team being built up around us.  We recognize, as Paul did, that there is no way that we can do this work apart from this happening.  A team that will give to us financially, pray for us, and work alongside us in the trenches of ministry.  We are thankful for those God has already given and want to invite you to be a part of this team with them.  

Soli Deo Gloria,

Kevin

Scrappy Work

In her book, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert, Rosaria Butterfield comments on her family's church planting experience, "We were church planters and that is scrappy work."  There could be no truer description of church planting.  We jot notes and names on scraps of paper and sort through emails and texts from people who are interested in being apart of this plant.  Weekly, I meet with different people, opening my ears and heart to the needs of the community, I share conversations with various others who are in need of the Gospel, and all of this feels scrappy and pieced together.  

These are the fingerprints of a church planter.  And somehow, through the scraps - God is working to weave together a beautiful tapestry.  Something so beautiful, in fact, that though our eyes can't see it now, the lens of faith tells us we can risk it all for the sake of this glory - and He will get a name for himself.  

The reality is, whether our church has been around for decades or still has the pink, wrinkled skin of a newborn, they still share the common bond of bringing together broken people beneath the cross of Jesus Christ.  That, my friends, is scrappy work.  

Soli Deo Gloria,

Kevin