Why does God allow pain and suffering? It’s one of the most frequently asked questions about God and one that keeps many from choosing to follow Him. Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t offer clear and concise answers to every question we have about suffering. Suffering is unpredictable, messy, and deeply personal. The good news is that Scripture offers us stories of real people who live through suffering and still draw near to God despite not having all their questions answered. Acts 27 is one of those stories. After years of trials and suffering , Paul finds himself in the middle of a violent storm as he sails to Rome. Through Paul’s experience and example, we uncover some profound truths that will help us to live well in the midst of suffering in our own lives.
What do we do when we are overcome with the brokenness in the world around us? Often, Christians respond in one of two ways: we separate or we assimilate. We remove ourselves from the culture so that we are not affected by the brokenness; or we assimilate so that we are not bothered by it. Both of these responses prevent us from being able to have any meaningful impact on the world around us. Instead, Jesus offers a third way: We call this contextualization.In Acts 17, Paul is overwhelmed by the brokenness that he sees in the city of Athens. But instead of isolating or conforming, he contextually engages the culture. As a result, the people of Athens hear the message of Jesus in their own language and are compelled to consider if Jesus is truly God and King of the world.
In this episode with have a conversation with Larry McCrary, missionary and founder of The Upstream Collective. Larry and the Upstream team train marketplace missionaries to go abroad and engage their context through their vocation. They partner with churches to send well and support people during their time overseas. Larry shares a helpful tool for assessing the unique rhythms of your neighborhood or missional context and identifying the best times to build relationships and connect with people on a deeper level. If you want to learn more about The Upstream Collective, visit https://www.theupstreamcollective.org/.
As the early church continued to grow, more and more people outside of the Jewish community began to follow Jesus. This created questions regarding the relevance of the law for the Jesus community.In Acts 11, the leaders of the church are wrestling with some of these questions when Peter shares a vision that he received from God. The vision revealed that though the law was a good thing, it was not the ultimate thing. The law was given to God's people so that they could understand and reflect God's heart. It was not just a list of rules to follow. It was a gift that revealed the will of God for their lives and their community. As they navigate this new era of the family of God, the leaders of the church need to make the difficult decision to follow the heart of God as displayed in the person of Jesus, even if it means breaking their old laws and customs.
In Acts 9, we read about the radical transformation of Paul after his encounter with Jesus. He goes from being a ruthless persecutor of early Church to being persecuted for declaring that Jesus is the resurrected Son of God. What we learn through Paul's transformation is that we can think we are following God's will but be completely missing what he is actually doing. We need to see the world with His eyes. We can only gain this new way of seeing the world through a personal encounter with the gracious love and presence Jesus.
Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation and disciplines with a guided meditation around the practice of silence and solitude.
In Acts 8, we see a shift in the spread of the Jesus movement. The persecution, culminating in the martyrdom of Stephen, caused the Church to scatter, and the message to spread to surrounding nations and people groups. This is all because a small group of people listened to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and did what he asked them to do. This is particularly on display in the life of Philip, who has the opportunity to tell people he never thought he'd meet all about Jesus. Through his interaction with a man from Ethiopia, we learn that when you are following the voice of the Spirit, he will take you to people and to places you never thought you'd go.
One thing that is made very clear in the book of Acts: when you follow after Jesus, suffering is unavoidable. Jesus invites us to join him in his mission, but in doing so, we also join him in his suffering. This reality is on full display in Acts 7, as Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr. In his final moments, Stephen reflects the story and the heart of Jesus to the world and to his murderers. Instead of destroying the Church, Stephen's suffering becomes the catalyst for its rapid spread across the world.
Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation and disciplines with a conversation around fasting.
For centuries, the church has been a community that unites people across social, economic, racial, and cultural barriers. Jesus has called his people to unite on him and him alone. Unfortunately, we tend to drift back into our old identities and affinities - prioritizing those who are like us and overlooking or neglecting those who are different. This tendency causes deep hurt and insurmountable fractures within a community. In Acts 6:1-7, we see the leaders of the early church respond in a radical way to the hurt and fractures that were forming within the community. Instead of dismissing or simply placating the hurt, the apostles pursue healing by diversifying the leadership and sharing power with those who had experienced hurt.
Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation and disciplines with a conversation around sabbath.
In the early pages of the book of Acts, things are going well for Jesus' church. The Spirit of God has filled the community and empowered them to fulfill the mission of Jesus in the world. But things take a disturbing turn in Acts 5, when a couple people in the community introduce something that could be the undoing of this faith family. In this passage, we learn about the importance of trust and honesty in community, and the danger that deception poses to authentic connection and intimacy.
At the end of Acts 2, we get a beautiful portrait of the shared life of the early church community. It is something that Christians have aspired to imitate ever since. But we miss the point if we treat this passage primarily as a model on how to do church. Instead, this is a picture of God's character embodied by God's people. It is a display of what God had been calling his people to do from the very beginning. In other words, this is what it looks like when the church cares about what God's cares about.
Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or story on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we continue our series of workshops on spiritual formation and disciplines with a conversation around prayer.
As we come to Acts 2, the small community of Jesus' disciples are in Jerusalem waiting for a promise to be fulfilled. Jesus left them saying that he would send the Holy Spirit who would fill and empower them to engage in the mission that he set before them. In this passage, we learn that the Church must first wait on the Spirit, be filled by the Spirit, and then be propelled into the mission by the power of the the Spirit.
Spiritual formation is the process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others. Disciplines create the space for that formation to happen in and through us as we encounter the presence and power of God.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short workshop or interview on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we introduce a new series of workshops on spiritual formation and disciplines.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus didn't give his followers the Church, he gave them a mission: "Be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the Earth." (Acts 1:8) In the books of Acts, we see that the Church ends up being a natural product of a group of people living out that mission together. The problem is when we lose sight of the mission, we end up losing the Church. And we cease to be good news to the world around us.
What makes the Church the Church? Throughout history, many have boiled the Church down to three essential rhythms - worship, community, and mission. Though these rhythms can take a wide variety of forms, almost every community of Jesus-followers across generations and traditions have incorporated these into the life of their community. Therefore, we use this as a framework for thinking about the life and rhythms of our microchurches.Our All-Family Gatherings begin with a short worskshop or interview on missional living and/or microchurches. This week, we discuss the essential rhythms of a faith community (aka ecclesial minimum).
During the season of advent, we celebrate the fact that Jesus has come and the promise that he will one day come again. But it is also a time when we can celebrate and experience Jesus' presence with us right now! We invite you to take a moment to pause and listen to what Jesus might have to say to you in this season.