Bible in a Year: Genesis 1-11 Amazing, “Unbelievable” Stories

January 6th.  Who’s still keeping up with their daily reading plan?  I know that most of you are still going strong, at least I hope so.  The Leviticus slump is coming and the summer sleepies.  Let’s hang tough in January, especially during Genesis.  (I know that everyone is not doing the same plan, but just about everyone is reading Genesis right now)

As I finished Genesis 1-11 this week, I was captured again by how fantastic these stories, and if I could use the word “unbelievable” at least momentarily.  For some, we read those stories, we believe them but brush them off as kid’s Sunday School stories.  For others, we dismiss them like fables–cute stories, but no serious person would truly believe them.

Well, I don’t know if I am a serious person, but I believe them.  I believe that God created the world through his words and there are limits as to what science can tell us about what a supernatural God that cannot be observed did or does.  I believe Satan spoke through a snake in a literal Garden of Eden.  Jesus references these stories, Paul references these stories, and both of them as true stories.  They don’t simply reference the lesson, but the history.  It doesn’t bother me that I sound naive.  I’m also just naive enough to believe that a literally dead person literally came back to life after having literally been dead.  He walked around and then was taken to heaven.  If I’m naive enough to believe that, then believing animals walked onto a giant boat to avoid a worldwide flood seems like no big deal.

(I could go on and on.  My belief in these Bible stories is not shallow and pretty well thought out.  However, an apologetic article would be more like a blog series, and these Bible in a Year posts are designed to be more devotional.  If you have some interest in apologetic stuff, let me know.  I could write some stuff and I know some other folks who would love to do it as well.)

However, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that, because I think by spending a lot of energy trying to decide what fits with science and answering “is it true” questions that we miss some major themes of the Bible that God is wanting to introduce as we start through the Bible.  Here are just a few.

1) The main “character” of the Bible is God.  “In the beginning God…”  That’s where it starts.  We get to people later.  Too often we read the Bible the way we used to read our high school yearbooks.  Hundreds of pages in that book, we don’t notice most of them.  However the 4 or 5 pages (or more if you were some kind of superstar) where your picture is found are dog-eared. The Bible is not an instruction book, and it is not about us.  It was written for us, but it is about God.

2) God loves people and God hates sin.  Seems simple right.  I wonder though.  Do we believe both of those things?  I’m not sure.  Do we believe that God hates sin so much that it must be punished?  Kicked out of the garden, cursing the earth, banishment, a worldwide flood, confusing languages.  In a few chapters we will see the destruction of cities.  Does God hate sin that much?  Still?  We see God’s compassion, through the making of the clothes, sparing Cain, the remnant on the ark.  We see that even more in Jesus Christ.  However, compassion and forgiveness are only truly powerful if God hates sin and sin requires punishment.

3) God loves the whole world and loves diversity.  God wanted people to “fill the earth and multiply.”  He wanted the whole earth to be full.  He knew the result of that would be diversity.  People in different areas would adapt to different customs and languages.  However, people didn’t want that.  They stayed together and wanted to build a giant monument to keep them together.  God did to them what they refused to do themselves.  He made them diverse and spread them out.  Which leads to…

4) God is control.  He is working his plan.  If you are still reading your Bible every day in November and December (and why wouldn’t you be?) you will see God’s plan slowly unfolding over hundreds of years.  We should be both humbled and relieved.  God’s got this.  Whatever “this-es” you are going through, he’s got it.

There is so much more–redemption, forgiveness, the frailty of people, the devastating effects of sin.  The prologue (as some have called it) to the Bible is incredibly deep and powerful and sets the course for the big picture story of the Bible.  The God of the Universe creates a people who rebel.  He loves them and wants relationship with them, but they must be redeemed.

Glad you’re hanging in there.  Let’s keep doing this.

Resolution: Read Through the Bible This Year

I really don’t believe in New Years Resolutions.  I just think that the beginning of the year is a great time to start new things, make goals and try and improve yourself.  New Years Resolutions are just silly and arbitrary.

Something that we are doing as a church and family is we are going to read through the Bible this year. (Wait, you didn’t know that? Weren’t you at church on Sunday?  You weren’t? Don’t worry. We are not one of those churches that is real judgmental about people not coming…as far as you know.)

I have read through the Bible before, if you haven’t, it’s worth giving it a go.  Why you may ask?

1) The Bible has some great stories and teachings that most people haven’t read

2) You will get a better sense for the Bible as a whole

3) You will get a great sense of accomplishment (You know that you’ve always thought it would be a good idea, but never got around to it)

4) God will speak into your life every day that you are reading his word.

Here are some different options for you:

http://www.esv.org/resources/reading-plans-devotions/

I am doing the “Every Day in the Word” option.  It has a little of the OT, NT, Psalms and Proverbs each day.  A few times a week, I’ll blog about what we’re reading (Yes, I’m blogging again this year. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what happened and why), and teach a little through the Old Testament.  If you have any questions, you can email me and I can blog about that.  I really am hoping that a lot of people will make it their goal to make it through the Bible this year, and I want to do whatever I can to help you through (Especially when Leviticus hits).

Pick a plan, make the commitment and let’s do this together.

Well, Now What?

That is perhaps the most important question that should follow any sermon.  If what we have just heard and talked about doesn’t make any difference in our lives 5 minutes later, then we have wasted time. The hearing of God’s word should propel us to be different people, more like Jesus in what we do and in who we are.

We have spent the past four weeks talking about who God is calling us to be as a church.  We’ve summarized this into four words–Worship, Reach, Grow and Send.

God has called us to:

Worship him with our lives.

Reach people who are far from God.

Grow deep in our relationships with Him.

Send people into the world with the gospel.

Each week, we took a moment and talked about the “Now what?” Hopefully, there were a few different moments when you heard God nudge you:  “You need to do more than sing on Sunday. You need to worship me with your whole heart.”  “That person at work who is hurting, walk over to them and talk to them.”  “Spend more time in the Bible, hearing what God has to say to you.”  “Step out of your comfort zone and serve the needy in your community.”

Now that the series is over, I’d like to give you 3 more “Now whats.”  Three things that we as a church need to be committed to if we are going to see God move in a powerful way in our lives, our church, our community and our world.

1) Pray.  None of the incredible things that have happened at The Grove Church happened because of great planning.  In fact, much of it happened in spite of mediocre planning.  God has been moving.  We want to continue to see him move in our church.  We need The Grove body to pray.  Pray that God will reach the lost, grow us closer to him and send us out into the world.  This will take us all working together, but without God moving among us, it won’t matter.

2) Serve.  Find a place where God can you use your gifts, talents and passions.  You have a role to play.  God has placed you here, you specifically.  Don’t for one second believe that the mission that God has called us to will be achieved by the staff and a select few leaders.  It will happen when each one of us finds a place to serve.  So find a place on the Dream Team.  Serve in local ministries.  Take the gospel to an unreached people.  When we all “do the good works which He has prepared for us,” we will see God do something amazing. (Eph. 2:10)

3) Give.  I truly believe that the mission that God has given us as His church and His followers is worth giving your life to.  When God uses you to make a difference in the lives of other people, you will experience a closeness and fulfillment that maybe you never have before.  It is going to take each one of us, not only serving, but giving financially as well.  As God continues to reach more people through us, draws more families and students, the needs in the church will continue to grow.  The more people God sends out into the world, the more opportunities we will have as a church to support them.  That takes money.  Prayerfully consider what you are giving and join together with us to watch God change the world through us.

It is a privilege to serve alongside you.  These last 14 months have been incredible.  The next 14 years will be even more so.

Swimming in the Deep End

Lauren was just a little over a year and a half (turned 11 today) when her mom took her and her 4 year old sister to the neighborhood pool in Twin Chimneys where we had just moved.  She set Lauren down to get Maylee’s floaties set on her when she heard the big splash.  She turned around and Lauren had run and jumped in.  Now with her arms and legs flailing as fast as they could go, she is “swimming.”  Heidi quickly jumps in after her and pulls her out.  As she is pulling her out, Lauren is excitedly (Let’s not get confused here.  She was neither scared nor nervous this entire time.  Mom was.  Lauren was not.) repeating, “I swim. I swim. I swim.”

And so it was with Lauren Loften her entire life to date.  She always wanted to be able to swim, by herself, no life jacket, no floaties, nothing (Ultimately, Heidi had to make the decision to put the lifejacket on Lauren at the house, before we even got into the van to drive to the pool.  No chances.  She would have done it again.).  She also wanted to swim in the deep end.  She didn’t understand that rope and why other people got to swim on the other side of it and she didn’t.  Her goal, as with a lot of kids, was to swim in the deep end.

And why not?  It’s where everything is just a little bit better.  You can do more stuff.  You can dive, you can swim down to the bottom, it’s just better.

(Sudden shift) But what if everyone who was capable of  swimming in the deep end, exclusively swam in the deep end?  No one ever left and went to the shallow end.  What would happen?  No one new would ever learn to swim.  Experts could get better, but no one else would learn.  Who teaches new people to swim?  People who already know how.  (Wow, that is deep.  Is this going somewhere?  Yes.)

In part 3 of our vision series, we talked about how God wants us to grow.  He wants us to become more like his son, Jesus.  We want God to change what we believe and our character.  Ultimately, he wants to do this so that, like Jesus, we can lay our lives down for other people.  We are “blessed to be a blessing.”  We grow to help others grow.  We learn so we can teach.

I believe that God does want us to enjoy the “deep end.”  He wants us to have and enjoy all the benefits of being close to him.  He wants us to be strong swimmers so we can navigate the waves of life.  But in addition to all of that, he very much wants us to give our lives away to those who need help–physical, spiritual, emotional help.

There is something inherently selfish in the hearts of those of us who believe that we grow and draw close to God simply for our own benefit. He wants to GROW you so he can SEND (next week) you into the world, because he wants to change the world through you.

Philippians 2

Imitating Christ’s Humility

¹ Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

Thinning Out the Middle

No, no, no this is not a weight loss post.  I could use a little thinning out in the middle, but this post will be a little more metaphorical than that.

We have now done 3 services for 2 weeks.  It has been a lot of fun.  It has, of course, also been tiring, but it’s definitely a good kind of tired.  Anywho, we weren’t really sure what the crowds would be like from service to service going into it.  We were pretty sure that 1st would be the smallest, but we didn’t know about the 2nd and 3rd.

Through 2 weeks, the first service has been about half the size of the 2nd service with the 3rd service being somewhat in between.  This last Sunday, we had standing room only at the 10:00 service.  That makes for great energy in the room, but doesn’t make for great opportunities for new people to find a good place to connect in the long term.  We want to keep making room for newer people.  Most new people will visit at 10:00.

So…we need to thin out the middle service and move to the outer services.  If you can make it to 8:30, please do.  It is certainly the earliest, and for the most people, the hardest one to get to.  If we can make room for newer, less engaged people at 10:00, by coming at 8:30, let’s do it.  11:30 is also a good option.  You can get some extra rest, have a leisurely breakfast/brunch and come to church at 11:30.

BTW, you guys have been doing a great job parking farther away and making space for newer people.  Kudos to you and the coolest people in orange vests, Grove Parking Team.

We are at an exciting time at The Grove Church where God is blessing us a ton, and we’re excited to see what happens next.  Thanks for making some small changes to make a big difference.

Balance and the Body–Why We Need Each Other

I have a confession to make.  I’m not a balanced person.  Another confession: I never will be.  My skills as a gourmet chef are really lagging behind my other ones.  I, as of yet, have not even begun my training as a luthier.  In fact there are quite a few things that I’m just terrible at.  Chef and luthier aren’t even the worst.  “What is, then?”  Hmm, haven’t given it a lot of thought, but I’ll go with Lasik Eye Surgeon.

There are a few things that I’m good at, there are some things I’m great at, some ok, some mediocre, some slightly above average, some slightly below average, some..”Get on with it!”  All that to say, I feel I’m pretty good at public speaking and teaching, however, when the time comes for laser repair on my eyes, I’ll go with someone else.

(Sidenote:  This will never happen.  Ever.  I don’t want your finger within 18 inches of my eye, much less a laser, while I’m awake.  Not happening.  When the day comes, I will wear glasses, not contacts, glasses.  I don’t even want my finger near my eye.)

Hey Captain Ramble, you getting anywhere today?  Maybe, just move that threatening finger away from my face.  Seriously, it unnerves me.  In the same way that I am unbalanced, most churches are unbalanced as well.  There are things that churches do well and things that they don’t do well.  While it is impossible to get me into balance in the over the top, tongue in cheek ways I’ve described, it is possible for churches to be balanced.

You see, a church doesn’t have to rely on one person or even a small group of people to be balanced.  We all have each other.  We all bring different skills, gifts and passions to the church.  When we all work together, God can use us to be everything he has called us to be as a church.

If your church is weak in something that you are gifted and passionate about, guess what that is not the pastor’s fault or the leadership’s fault.  It’s yours.  God put you in that church with those gifts and passions.  Use them, play your part in the body, your church.  Help your church be better by serving your church in that way.

“But Cloften, my church doesn’t let other people lead and do stuff.  They are very controlling.”  Welpst, there is really only one solution to that.  Punch them in the face and tell them it was from me.  (Just kidding?)  Even still, if you believe that God has called you there and God has impassioned you in this area, do what you can to be a part of the solution.

We, by this I mean me as well, spend a lot of our time complaining about what is and wishing about what is not yet.  We spend less time being used by God to make what is not, is.  (Sorry)  If you are at the Grove, we need you.  If you are somewhere else, I assure you, your church needs you as well.

Especially if you are a luthier.

Worship–What It Is(n’t)

We started our (most likely to be) annual series on the vision and mission of the Grove.  (Ok, we need to decide this.  Is it the Grove? The Grove? the Grove Church? The Grove Church?  Does it matter?)

We want our church to be centered around four words:

Worship, Reach, Grow and Send

We worship God with our lives.  We reach people who are lost.  We grow deep in our relationship with God. We send people into the community and world with the love of God.

The foundation of those four words/ideas is the first one–worship.  Religious activity and doing the right thing can be empty gestures.  We want to make sure that the foundation of all that we do is our love and devotion to God.  That’s what worship is, the expression of our love and devotion to that one person or thing that we value above all else.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is what do we worship?  No, no, no.  I’m not asking what you’re supposed to say.  What do you really worship?  “But I sing to God every week at church.”

Worship isn’t singing.  Worship can involve singing if our hearts and minds are engaged with what we are singing.  My guess is that a lot of us sing along with songs in the car, but we don’t mean what we say (Think singing along to 80’s songs.  “Can’t stand the thought of you with somebody else, gotta have your tenderness, all to myself.”).

Worship on Sunday happens when we believe and feel what we are declaring to God with our songs.

Worship the rest of the week happens when we demonstrate with our lives that God is first.  How do we spend our time? What consumes our mind? Where and how do we spend our money?  Who or what is most important?

We can all agree, I’m supposing since you clicked the link to come here, that the answer should be God.  We need to take the necessary steps to make what we think should be true, actually be true.  How do I need to differently prioritize my time?  Do I need to be surrendering my finances to God?  Do I need to change what I think about during the day?

God is calling us to be used in the lives of people, but first and foremost we need to be fully devoted worshippers of God.  This is who God is calling tHe GrOvE ChurCh to be.

Dream Team, 3 Services, Parking and Where Did All Those People Come From?

Heidi, my wife or Hloften, and I were reminiscing last night.  We actually did a lot of reminiscing about the past and dreaming about the future, because Sunday was a bit overwhelming.  It was overwhelming in a good way, but overwhelming nonetheless.  In case you don’t know, there were 245 people in the second service.  Also in case you  don’t know, we can fit about 200 chairs where we worship.

Anywho, we were reminiscing about the same Sunday last year.  During the same Sunday last year, we went to two services, and for the first time ever The Grove did Greenhouse (Children’s ministry) during both services.  (For some nostalgia, read this similar post from last year.)  What a year it has been.  That seems like a long time ago.  So much has happened and there has been so much change.  Now we are less than a week away from 3 services, and I’ll confess a combination of being nervous and excited.

This post is primarily about logistics, but before we get into that, please pray.  Pray that God will continue to draw people to the Grove.  Pray that people who are lost will come and find Jesus there.  Pray that people will draw close to God.  Finally, pray that the numerous logistical difficulties will go smoothly.

The three service times are 8:30, 10:00 and 11:30 and it starts this Sunday.  For your consideration:

1.  Consider making the 8:30 service your primary service. Most likely this will be the last of the services to “fill up” this fall, especially in a college student heavy church.  It works great for early risers and people with little ones still taking morning naps.

2.  There is only Greenhouse during the 8:30 and 10:00 service. Limited childcare is available at 11:30 for families serving one service and worshipping one during the 10 and 11:30 service.  Remember this for you and for any families that you invite.

3. Park far away. We will have a parking lot team to help you.  But just to let you know in advance, there is a parking lot behind the Grove, where there is a huge strip mall with a hair salon.  It sounds and looks further away than what it is.  Brahms also allows us to park in their lot in the spaces on our side of the median in their lot.  The cool guys with vest and walkie talkies will be able to help you.  There is also a way to drop off your family and then park (Side entrance)

4.  Serve one, worship one. If you are serving in the Greenhouse, please, please, please come to worship the service before or after.  We want to worship with you and it is good for you to connect with God as well.  3 hours is not long to be at church.  Your kids will be fine and you will be glad that you did.

5.  That reminds me.  Are you on the Dream Team yet? Where are you serving?  We are missing out on you and your gifts if not. Email me today, if you are not and we will find a spot for you.

6.  Be flexible. There is some question in my mind which service, 10 or 11:30 will be more crowded.  Be open to shifting services if it will open spots for new people.  The same goes for parking spaces, picking up your kids, etc.  This is new to all of us.  A church our size with that size building and parking lot is trying something very ambitious by having 3 services.  But if you were there on Sunday, there can be no doubt as to why we are doing it.

7.  Along the same lines, be patient. None of us are experts.  The logistical difficulty that you may have one Sunday, we didn’t want it to happen either.  Let us know how we can do better.  Even better, help us.  If you see a problem, help us fix it, by fixing it.

This is going to be a great Sunday.  We are going to spend the next 4 weeks talking about who God has called us to be as a church.  We will look at the Great Commandments, the Great Commission and focus on 4 words–Worship, Reach, Grow and Send.  Looking forward to going on this journey with you.

Coming soon to a blog near you: Four Service Protocol.  (I think Miller just passed out)

We’re All in GT Now

That title is enough to get some of you ready to fight. Many of you believe that we no longer encourage or celebrate excellence and are disgusted by it. You think that “Every kid is a winner” is insulting to winners and not everyone can be excellent, by definition of excellent. In the great words of Dash Paar (The Incredibles) when told by his mom that everyone is special, he responds by saying that’s “another way of saying no one is.”

Your political ranting aside, what if every one is special?  What if everyone is gifted and talented?  (Hurry up, Blog Boy.  We see where this is going.)  In I Corinthians 12, Paul talks about the Church and uses the analogy of a body, that we are all parts of a body and all placed there by the Holy Spirit.  We are each uniquely and specifically gifted by the Holy Spirit. We are who we are (gifting wise) by God’s design in our lives.  No one part of the body can say that it is better or worse than any other.  We are all gifted by God’s Spirit and talented by his design, no one of us better than the other.

Comparing one person to another doesn’t even make sense, as far as what the Bible says, because these were never meant to be gifts and talents used independently.  They were always meant to be used together.  This is why Paul uses the absurd analogy of an ear thinking he was worse than an eye because he’s “just an ear.”  No individual piece makes sense except in conjunction with all the others.

Anywho, do you believe that?  Do you believe that you are uniquely gifted and talented by God?  Do you believe that God wants to use your gifts and talents in the “body” to change the world?  Guess what? It doesn’t matter what you believe.  It’s true nonetheless.

The next obvious question is how to know what my gifts and talents are.  For all you Grovers out there, we will talk about that this Sunday and work through some exercises to help us discover.

Here are some starter questions (we will talk more about this on the ol’ blog as well):

Are you more of a “in front of people” person or “behind the scenes?”

If you see a need do you want to fix it, talk to the people involved, pray about it?  What is your first response?

What kind of people do you think about, care about most?  Kids, teenagers, the poor, homeless, lost people…

What natural talents or skills do you have that you have used for God before and loved it? What are some skills that you haven’t been able to use, but would be great if you could? (Computer hacking skills, nunchuck skills.  I’m pretty good with a bowstaff.)

That’s just a few questions to get the juices flowing.  Put the answers to those questions together and put together and dream job description and then find a place to do that.  The best way to find out the way that God has gifted you is to take advantage of opportunities to serve other people and see what works and what doesn’t, what you’re good at, what you love, etc.  Then continually look for better opportunities that seem like better fits.

Above all else, believe that God has gifted and wants to use you and you will see God move mightily in and through your life.

Next Step:  Bumper stickers–”I’m in God’s GT Class”

Waiting on the World to Change

I know that this is going to be sacrilegious for many of you, but I’m not a huge John Mayer fan. So much so, I had to check to see how his name was spelled. I’m not a hater. I would just say that I’m solidly in the neutral camp. If a song of his comes on, I’ll check other stations to see if there is a better song, but I don’t turn off the radio or switch to NPR or anything. Aren’t most John Mayer fans listening to NPR already? Is that an insult? I’m confusing myself.

There’s one John Mayer song in particular that I’m a little confused by–Waiting on the World to Change. Am I supposed to be inspired by that song? Is that a comforting song? A rallying cry? I don’t want to get labelled a hater for all you Mayer fans drinking lattes reading this. (is that an insult?) However, I find those lyrics uninspiring and a bit of a cop out.

I get the basic idea that “we” are not in charge of the government, so in some areas “we” are helpless. “We” can’t bring the soldiers back from war. Therefore, we wait. For what? Duh, the world to change. How does that happen? Waiting? I would like to suggest not.

I have a friend (really?) whom you should follow on the twitters. His name is Aaron Reddin. His twitter handle? Id? Username? is homelessheretic. Here is a guy when you get to know him thinks the world needs to change. He will tell you so in vivid language. He thinks the “fight ain’t fair.” He thinks the deck is stacked against the homeless and people should care more. He laments the government and the local church for not doing more.

He is not waiting on the world to change. He is changing the world, one person at a time. He is ministering to people, loving people and mobilizing more to help him. He is doing something and making a huge difference. He even has a van. You may be thinking, so what my grandpa has a van? Seriously, check him out. AaronReddin.com and find out about what he’s doing with that van to serve people.

We need so much more of that. I would rather have 100 people skeptical of the govt and organized church that are making a difference in the world, than 1000 nice people sitting in church waiting and wondering when the govt or the church (whoever that is) to do something about what they care about.

Questions: what are you passionate about? What people or need in the world has God put on your heart?
What are you doing about it? Are you waiting for the world to change? Or are you changing the world?

Coincidentally, we will be talking about this at church the next couple of weeks, but you don’t have to wait for that.

« Previous Page — Next Page »