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A New Normal

Esther Ritchey — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 09:00:43 +0000

By: New Churches

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A New Normal

By Ed Stetzer

As states have begun varied and nuanced approaches to reopening businesses, parks, and more, we find ourselves asking more and more “How do we move forward?” I’m concerned about life after the pandemic, but my concern is in a direction that may surprise you.

Many say they are concerned that after the pandemic the church will never be the same again. Some wonder, for instance, if the day of the large church is over. The thing that resonates with me is the statement that the church will “never be the same again.”

I’m more concerned the church will be the same again. Let me explain. For 2,000 years, we’ve had epidemics or pandemics. What’s happened in and during and after the pandemics hasn’t drastically changed the structure of church for most of the previous 2,000 years.

We built cathedrals and gathered in them. Then the Black Death came. After the Black Death, we gathered in cathedrals again. Don’t assume the church was unaware that gathering together accelerated the spread of sickness. They might not have known about flattening the curve, but they knew that gathering together exposed them to more illness.

I’m less concerned that the church will be forever changed and more concerned that we will snap right back into the status quo. Why? Because the best predictor of future behavior is the immediate past.

History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it tends to rhyme. We must not go back to normal. Instead, we must take the best of what we are seeing now and continue those things. Let me share three things that I hope we will keep moving forward.

First, that God’s people would be deployed.

God’s people are deployed at a higher level, a more faithful level, and a more fruitful level than before this pandemic began. We’ve seen small group leaders functioning like pastors or lay pastors. We’ve seen ministry leaders engaged in new ways of doing things. We’ve seen people caring for one another at higher levels. We’ve seen people making phone lists and calling one another, praying for one another, and then serving the poor and the marginalized in their community.

Wouldn’t it be amazing if we didn’t go back to consumer-driven Christianity where people line up like customers outside of Costco? Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t come in like consumers of religious goods and services but instead continued to see ourselves as the co-laborers in the gospel?

Some of those people who you’ve seen step up might meet those qualifications in 1 Timothy 3. You might think about how to raise them up as pastors and leaders. But how do we keep deploying people? We need to remind people that, in God’s good plan, he wants all of his people to join him on mission.

First Peter 4:10 says, “As each one has received a special gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” May this be true before, during and, especially, after the pandemic.

Second, that we would keep worship central but not at the center.

God’s gathered worship is central, but it’s not the center of church life. Conversely, the church is not the center of God’s plan in the world, but it is central to God’s plan in the world. Ephesians 3:10 says, “God has chosen the church to make known his manifold wisdom in the world.” God has chosen the church.

The church has not been able to gather in ways that we enjoy and love. Not only do we value that, but gathering is a mark of a biblical church. However, the lack of gathering has actually helped us to emphasize other areas in the life of the church.

I often use the example of chess. I played competitive chess in high school. Our chess club teacher taught us not to rely on the queen. He had us remove the queen, leaving two chess players with no queen on either side. When you do this, you are forced to use all the pieces: the pawns, the rooks, the knights, and the bishops.

The gathered worship of God is not the center, though it is important. Indeed, it’s one of the marks of the biblical church that was taken from us, which is why it was so hard.

But look at how the people are deployed. My hope is that God’s worship would be central to our lives but not but not the center of all we do.

Third, that we would see the heart of God more clearly.

I’ve heard a lot more people talk about the poor, the hurting, and the marginalized. There’s a fresh perspective on the “least of these.”

This crisis has focused us on the impact this has had on marginalized people. We’ve seen incarcerated persons who can’t social distance. We’ve seen the homeless.

We’ve seen the devastation in nursing homes, the elderly, the sick, and people with compromised immune systems. And, we’ve seen heroes like those who helped and served the poor, and stories of first responders and healthcare workers sacrificing greatly.

As we look forward, how can we continue on the positive movements and focus that we have seen emerge? Returning to normal after such a historic moment would be nothing short of missing one of the greatest opportunities of our lifetime. We’ve been handed the chance to be better and do better. Let us go and do it.

Source: A New Normal

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Living on Mission

Patrick Bradley — Sun, 08 Apr 2018 09:00:40 +0000

by Craig Etheredge: You were made to make an eternal impact.

God didn’t save you to simply live a life that was safe, predictable and cautious. He saved you to leave a legacy of faith — passed down from one person to another — that will change generations long after you are gone. I can say from personal experience that there is no greater excitement or thrill than seeing a person come to faith in Christ and begin to walk with Him in a new way. That calling is what Jesus invites every one of us into — the calling to leave a legacy.

It was a crisp morning as the sun climbed up over the mountains surrounding Lake Gennesaret in northern Israel. The fishermen had been working all night, catching schools of fish in their nets as they rose from the depths to feed on the water’s surface. These men were used to working all night with only the moon as their light, but now the dawn had come and the fishing was done. They were cleaning and repairing their equipment, mending nets, untangling cables, and replenishing supplies when suddenly Jesus came walking down the shoreline.

By this point in time, these fishermen knew Him pretty well. They had been following Jesus off and on for over a year. They loved listening to Him preach, and they were amazed at the miracles He performed. One time, while they were with Jesus at a wedding celebration in Cana — just a few miles away from the place they were working — Jesus turned water into wine. The crowds gasped in amazement, and it was then that these men realized that Jesus was no ordinary rabbi. He was someone wholly and completely different than anyone they had ever seen.

On another occasion, they were with Jesus when He went to Jerusalem to the temple for Passover. In a flash of rage, He flipped over the tables where the temple money changers were converting the cash of worshipers into temple currency, another way to squeeze money out of them. Jesus cried out, “My Father’s house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”

Jesus had authority. He had passion. More than anything, it was clear that He was on a mission, and no one was going to deter Him from that mission. They had seen Jesus go toe to toe with some of Israel’s most powerful religious leaders, and they had watched Him reach out to the outcast and marginalized with compassion and love. People were all the same to Jesus; they all needed to be reconciled to His Father.

“But on this one morning, Jesus walked up to these men and called out, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men’,” (Matthew 4.19 ESV). In effect, He was saying, “Hey guys, if you think catching fish is great, just wait until you experience what it’s like to catch people!”

That day Jesus was inviting these men to a higher mission. He was calling them out. He was challenging them to stop giving their lives to the mundane things in life and instead, live with a greater vision in mind, a greater sense of purpose. That day, He was calling them to go beyond just trying to grind out a living and start truly living the life God had intended them to live all along — a life on mission with Him.

I’m not sure where you are right now in life. Maybe you are just starting out with big dreams of success and fortune, and everyone knowing your name when you are done. Maybe you are just slugging it out day after day, doing your best to keep your head above the water of demands and expectations that keep rising by the minute. Maybe you have accomplished great things, and now you are left wondering if this is all life has to offer. I don’t know where you are in life … but I do know where Jesus is calling you.

Jesus is calling you to live on mission with Him.

The call Jesus extended to the men on the lake that day is the same call He extends to you right now. It’s a call to leave behind your preoccupation with lesser, temporal things and pursue eternal things. It’s a call to put aside a shortsighted vision for your life and lift your eyes to His greater vision. In a very real way, Jesus is calling you to an adventure of living with Him day by day, and being used by Him to leave behind a legacy of faith that will keep growing and transforming people’s lives long after you are gone.

Sound good? Here’s the catch — It will cost you everything!

The men who heard Jesus’ words that morning left everything — their boats, their nets, even their fathers. They left behind what was familiar to them in order to follow Jesus, and they had no idea where it would all lead. In the same way, Jesus’ call is a call to leave behind your vision of success and adopt Jesus’ vision of success, which is living with His mission as your passion.

Think about it. One hundred years from now, no one will care how high you climbed in your company, where you lived or what kind of car you drove. The only thing that will matter is what you did with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the lives you touched. If you give your best to things that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of eternity, then you will have wasted the one and only life you’ve been given, and squandered your opportunity to be used by God in a significant and powerful way.

If you surrender your life to Jesus and make His mission in life your mission in life, He will do more through you than you ever dreamed possible. Those simple fishermen made their decision that day and they became world changers. What choice will you make?

Written by Craig Etheredge

Craig is a gifted communicator, author, and Bible teacher. Craig and his family moved to Colleyville, Texas in July 2007 to serve as lead pastor of First Baptist Church where he currently serves. In addition to leading the local church, Craig is involved in the local community serving on the Board of Directors for Baylor Hospital, Grapevine, Board of Directors of Christian Counseling Associates, Mission Board SBTC, Chaplain for the Colleyville Police Department, and football chaplain for Birdville High School. He has a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Theological Seminary and a Doctor of Ministry from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Craig met his wife, Liz, in the fifth grade and they have two daughters, Leah Beth and Abbie.

This was originally posted on discipleFIRST’s blog here. Reposted here with permission.

Photo by Adam Zvanovec on Unsplash

Source: Living on Mission

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