Vision of Crosswalk

February 29, 2012

Reposted from Bob Mayfield

To be effective, every small group in the church must have the church's mission as its primary reason for existing. Your group should not exist as an entity unto itself. Instead, your class is a vehicle your church uses to fulfill the Great Commission and take the Gospel to your Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and every corner of the planet (Acts 1:8). Understanding your purpose helps make starting a new group a joyful moment rather than a sorrowful one. Knowing your purpose makes sending group members to serve in other areas a pleasure instead of a pain! Knowing your mission makes personal care of your group a privilege instead of chore! Knowing your mission keeps your eyes on the field of lost souls that you and your group are in contact with every day.

When leading a Sunday School seminar, I often ask the participants what is the mission or purpose of Sunday School. Usually I get a definition of Sunday School that includes things like Bible study, ministry, and fellowship. These are the functions of a Sunday School and help define what we do when the group meets, but they are not its mission. The mission of Sunday School is to carry out the church's Great Commission mandate to make disciples - in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth. Sunday School is how your church is organized to do its mission. Ultimately, a mission statement is nothing more than a statement, until the church organizes itself to actually do its mission.

Twitter has become a well-known way to communicate. One "tweet" is limited to 140 characters. The mission or purpose of your group should fit on a tweet... and have room to spare!

Knowing your mission brings greater pleasure in being part of the big picture. Your group is not meant to be an island unto itself. Instead, your group is part of your church's overall strategy to disciple all ages of people and all people groups in your neighborhood. If you are an adult leader; the preschool, children, and student Sunday School groups depend on you to grow the adults in your group to become new leaders in these areas. Together with the other classes in your church, you are able to effectively minister and disciple every member of the church.
Imagine a church that has to design and sustain a different structure and organization for all of its various ministries. Missions operates out of one sphere. Stewardship is in another. Discipleship takes place here. The personal care of church members is handled in another way. Bible study is done at this time. Prayer needs are discovered and prayed for at yet another time. Oh, and if you want to make a few friends, well we have another program for that! Children are discipled at one time and parents at another. Since all of these activities are important, try fitting them all into your personal calendar every week! Now imagine trying to staff and lead all of these different, but critical organizations of the church. You may not have to imagine this church at all; this illustration might be reality for your church.

Now imagine all of these important ministries of the church taking place in your group. In fact, you may not have to imagine it at all. It may already happening. A well organized Sunday School class will effectively meet these needs. Rather than bouncing people around and keeping them in a state of confusion about where to go for what ministry and when, Sunday School takes all of these critical components of the church's mission and organizes them in an efficient, timely way so that people can grow into the image of Christ and still have time in their schedule for family and friend

Is It Possible to Change Ourselves?

Is It Possible to Change Ourselves?:

We like the idea of change, of starting over again, of becoming someone different than we are. Sometimes we move to a new place, thinking we can escape our problems. Sometimes we think if we had some new friends or get married that life will be better. Then we think if only we had kids things would be different.

Others think a change in their appearance will do it. A survey revealed that 80 percent of American women are dissatisfied with their appearance. And research has also shown that the more time people spend consuming media, the more unhappy they are with their bodies. They think that if they could look like someone in a magazine, it would meet the deepest needs of their lives.

If you think you would be happier if you were really handsome or strikingly beautiful, consider this statement from actress Halle Berry: “Being thought of as a beautiful woman has spared me nothing in life. No heartache, no trouble. Love has been difficult. Beauty is essentially meaningless and it is always transitory.”

A professor of sociology said, “The demand for instant identity transformation has never been so pervasive. People want change, and they want it instantly. From fame to the instant thrills of Botox or liposuction, the capacity to reinvent ourselves has become fundamental.”

But can we really reinvent ourselves? Can we really change? Here is the answer: No. You cannot change who you are on the inside. You can change your appearance. You can change your location. You can change your relationships. But you can’t change yourself any more than a drowning person can save himself.

Sometimes it is said the answer is within, but the reality is the problem is within. And that problem inside of you and inside of me is called sin. We have all sinned. And we can’t change our essential nature. The Bible says, “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” (Jeremiah 17:9 NLT). There is only one person who can change the human heart, and that is God. God can change your life. It is possible.

There is a story in the Bible about a woman who got caught committing adultery. Some religious leaders found her and decided she ought to be executed for this. We don’t know what happened to the man she was with, but apparently he walked away free. But they brought this woman to Jesus and threw her down at his feet. Now, they didn’t really care about this woman. What they really were trying to do was to trap Jesus. They wanted to know what he would do.

They said to him, “This woman was caught in the act of adultery. The Law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” (John 8:4–5) Now, Jesus was on the horns of a dilemma here. If He said, “Stone her,” he would have been justified, technically, but that would have been pretty harsh. If he said, “Let her go,” then he would have been seen as being too lenient.

So what did he do? He looked at them and started writing in the sand. What was he doing? I don’t think he was playing tic-tac-toe. I think he wrote something significant. And when he was finished writing in the sand, he stood up and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” (verse 7). Then he stooped down and started writing again.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus wrote, but I think he probably wrote the names of the religious leaders next to the commandments. Yeah, Caleb, I know what is up with you. … Hey, Joshua, I know where you have been. … Eliezer, I know all about you, buddy. And then they left, from the oldest to the youngest. And why did they leave in that order? I think it s because the older guys had more sins they had committed. They got busted. Instead of condemning the woman, Jesus condemned the self-righteous condemners.

Then Jesus said to her, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more” (verses 10–11).

Some might say, “How could Jesus pardon her? She was caught in the act. She wasn’t even a believer.” But I think she was. Why? Because she believed. I am not sure exactly when she believed, but probably right before she said, “No, Lord.” How long does it take to believe in God? Only an instant.

Jesus said four things to her that were very important.

Her sins had been forgiven. He said, “Neither do I [condemn you]. Go and sin no more.” God can forgive you of all of your sins. And not only will he forgive them, but he will forget them. They will be behind you. The Bible says it will be like they are buried in the depths of the sea (see Micah 7:19).

She did not have to fear the judgment day. There is a day of judgment coming when everyone will stand before God – the rich and the poor, the famous and the unknown. And the question in that final day will not be whether you lived or a good life or were a nice person or whether you recycled. The question will be: What did you do with Jesus Christ?

She had new power to face her problems. “Go and sin no more,” Jesus told her. God will give you the power to be the person he wants you to be.

I never wanted to be a religious person. I never wanted to be someone who went to church. But when Jesus started changing me, I said to God, “I don’t even know how to pray. But I will say this: if you are real, then you will have to make yourself real to me.” And he started changing me. He will start changing you too. You will see.

A Passion to Proclaim

A Passion to Proclaim:

By John Collins.

We’re swimming upstream with Harvest America. We know it’s not popular to hold an event in a public forum to boldly proclaim the message of Jesus—that He came, suffered, died, was buried, and then rose again from the dead—that it’s through Him, and Him alone, that man can find salvation. He is the only way!

That message used to be the red meat of American evangelicalism. Now, some in our culture view it as divisive and intolerant of other religions. How far we have fallen!

But the downward slide of American culture should not be a source of discouragement for followers of Jesus. It should be a source of motivation. The apostle Paul faced a similar dynamic in the culture he addressed. He was unpopular among the dominant secular culture—Rome. He was also unpopular among the dominant religious culture—Judaism. To their ears, to the ears of the “popular culture,” and to the scholarly who did not know God, Paul said his message sounded foolish. Then he said something that should cause our hearts to soar:

^“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” And also, “It pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe”!

God is not interested in the church looking cool. He’d rather we be faithful. I’m sure Harvest America looks foolish to some. There are those who say we should be eschewing the old-school methods of proclamation evangelism. Prevailing thought among many in the church is that we are better off demonstrating our faith via good works. Better to show people Jesus than talk about Him. It’s the ol’ saw, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care!” The days of Billy Graham calling thousands to faith are over, they say. Those “emotional events” just don’t work anymore. It’s with that logic that many in the church have forsaken the simple, bold proclamation of the gospel.

I will agree that good works earn believers respect in the eyes of the world. But respect does not and will not deliver a person from sin. God didn’t choose good works as the method for sharing the gospel; He chose preaching! Our lives can and should overflow with compassion for the hurting because of Christ in us, the hope of glory. But let us not confuse that with evangelism; it is pre-evangelism. It plows the ground for the seed to be planted. We must always remember it is the “goodness of God that leads men to repentance,” not the goodness of men.

The world looks fondly upon Christians when they feed the poor and care for the wounded. But there are kind and compassionate humanists, too! What separates Christians from these groups is our message. That message is and will always be “an offense” to those who are unbelieving, but we must not remain silent—even if we look foolish. The kindling of kind acts must somewhere burst into the flame of loving words. The gospel is not a philosophy to be used as seasoning for life; it is the supernatural power of God at work in our world. It is the power of God to free a drug addict from his addiction, to restore a hostile marriage, to redirect the course of a lonely life—and it can all happen in a matter of seconds as a penitent hears and believes!

In 22 years of bringing the gospel into arenas and stadiums around this nation and in Australia and New Zealand, we have seen the wise confounded, the confused enlightened, and the hopeless restored. Rebellious teens have turned to the mission fields, strung-out drop-outs have become pastors, all because they came to an event, a place where a preacher stood up and talked straight and clear about turning from sin and turning to Jesus.

I can’t say I understand it. But I will stand toe to toe with those who say it’s not effective. History has not recorded that revival broke out on the heels of good works; it always follows the passionate prayer of the saints and the passionate proclamation of the gospel. That’s why we’re pursuing Harvest America; our nation needs revival. As a people, we must cry out to God for an outpouring of His grace.

Harvest America is an event where we, the church of Jesus, can work to bring people toward a singular moment of preaching, where one of our nation’s most effective evangelists can declare the gospel, and possibly where we can witness a change in the course of our nation. It’s a time to be bold, and if necessary, to look foolish!

"By yourself" time can be good for you

The house is quiet; only the noise from the fireplace breaks the eerie silence. The lights are out, and I am thinking about my wife and kids and grand-kids.  It is times like this when I wish we lived closer to one another.

I find myself tempted to pray that God will remove the obstacles my kids face in their lives, but then I realize that God doesn't take away all problems and stress.  He uses adversities to grow us to become the market place witnesses He wants us to be. I am proud of all six kids and all eight grand-kids and really love a wife who is the glue that keeps us all together.

"By myself" time is a reminder of not only who my family is but more importantly, who God is.

If you could write the final words spoken about you, what would you say?

Moses had the unique opportunity to write the final words spoken about him on this earth.  No only did he write a speech which he subsequently delivered to all his friends, but he composed and sang a song.

How many of us have a legacy that we can write about?  The Bible says that Moses was a servant of the Lord and that he talked to God face to face.  We're better off than Moses because we have the Bible as well as the Holy Spirit - there is no excuse for us to not know what God wants, no reason that we do not follow His plan for our life.  We should live so that when we die people will remember our impact on the world for God's good.