Relevant Beliefs

Friday, July 16, 2010

Ready for the weekend with my Family; God is Good!

Made for This: Ministry

Christ commands all of his followers to be servants. Service, Love, and Faith are so closely related that we should see view “non-serving Christianity” as a contradiction in terms.

Scripture Used

Luke 10.25-37 (NLT)
Galatians 5.6 (ESV)
Ephesians 2.10 (NLT)
1 John 4.21 (NLT)

Quotes

Vertical Love is Worship
Horizontal Love is Ministry

"If my life is fruitless, it doesn't matter who praises me,
and if my life is fruitful, it doesn't matter who criticizes me."
-John Bunyan

The Love that Pleases God is Active.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Made for This: Worship

Scripture Used:

Matthew 22.34-40 (NLT)

James 2.10 (NLT)

Deuteronomy 6.5 (NLT)

Colossians 3.23 (NLT)

John 15.9-11 (NLT)

Romans 12.1 (NLT)

Quotations:

Focusing on what you do instead of why you do it is religious legalism.

The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart.

Your biggest distraction in worship is you.

References:

Warren, Rick: The Purpose-driven Life

Friday, July 2, 2010

Made for This: Salvation

Scripture Used

Eph 1.9-11 (NLT)

Jer 29.11 (NLT)

Psalm 139.15 (The Message)

Ephesians 1.11 (The Message)

Colossians 1.16 (The Message)

John 20.31 (NLT)

Mark 16.16 (NLT)

Quotes

“The greatest tragedy is not death. It is life without purpose.”

When we die, we don’t leave home. We go home.

“Everything that is not eternal is eternally useless.” –-CS Lewis

When you live close to God, everything else just seems small and trivial. -–Rick Warren

“For us this is the end of all the stories…But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world…had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter

One of the Great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever and in which every chapter is better than the one before.” --CS Lewis, The Last Battle (p. 184)

“For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal…Our problems are manmade - therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be a big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” --Kennedy’s speech (1963 Commencement Address at American University: speaking on the Cold War)

References

Warren, Rick: The Purpose-driven Life

Monday, June 28, 2010

You Were Made for This

July 2010 Newsletter

Purpose: a priceless piece of clarity absolutely necessary for reaching our potential and truly enjoying life. With clarity of purpose, we enjoy more liberating answers and fewer frustrating questions. Allow me to discuss a few foundational elements of our purpose here at DCC.

As you all know by now, we’ve made some exciting changes to our Sunday morning programming. The purpose is simple: to open as many pathways as possible for people to approach Jesus Christ. The summer will mostly be used to collect feedback and tweak the two services toward something perfect for God’s Kingdom. In the fall, we will launch a city-wide advertising effort to get the word out about what DCC has to offer.

I invite you to explore the services and simply choose one that gives you the most freedom to approach the Throne in your own personal way. After that, settle in to serving your God and your church through DCC’s mission: “Preparing people to love God and each other.” It’s what you were made to do.

In addition, we’re going to start a sermon series to provide biblical clarity to the reason we’re all here. I will primarily be teaching through two of the most important portions of scripture: the Greatest Commandment (Matt 22.37-40) and the Great Commission (Matt 28.18-20). Read through these passages carefully and prepare for a great real-life study on how these direct our lives—giving us potential and purpose. They are truly what you were made for.

I highly recommend committing to a 40-day reading of Rick Warren’s Purpose-driven Life—even if you’ve read it in the past. He does wonderful things with these passages. The already-classic book will provide a great complement to the sermon series and truly enhance your summer “church experience.”

As always, I am excited about the horizon of DCC. We are laying great foundations this summer: both in preaching and in programming. I pray that you join in the effort to push our church to the forefront of God’s growing kingdom.

Friday, June 18, 2010

A Code to Live By

Bible Verses

Proverbs 11.3 (ESV)

Ecclesiastes 12.13 (NLT)

1 Tim 4.12 (NLT)

Deuteronomy 6.6-7 (NLT)

Ecclesiastes 2.22-24 (NLT)

Proverbs 22.6 (ESV)

1 Peter 4.10 (NLT)

Quotes

William Damon (professor of Education @ Brown University)

“When we teach children to concern themselves first and foremost with their own sense of self, we not only encourage self-centeredness but also fail to present a more inspiring and developmentally constructive alternative: that they should concern themselves about things beyond the self and above the self. We fail, that is, to convey to them a sense that there are other important things in life beyond their own individual circumstances and feelings.”