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Easter 2011

Easter is a powerful example of what happens when truth meets accusation.  The “Truth” – Jesus – obliterated the false accusations of His enemies and introduced death to its Master.  Hope was given a new and glorious image as death and the grave were proven powerless to prevent a resurrection.  New life, a new start, a new beginning all made possible by an experience called Easter.

It is never enough to say “Christ is risen.”  Each of us must also say, “I am risen.”  Have you risen above your circumstance, your doubt, your fear, your anger, your failure?

At theChurch we together rose to a new level of ministry this Easter as more than 8,000 people joined our Easter celebration and hundreds gave their life to Christ.  Thank you for being a part of this great miracle.  The Noel Project has risen to a new level with our Home for Hope Giveaway and we are anxiously awaiting to see who God has chosen to receive the house.  Christ is risen and we have risen!

Fueling the Spiritual Fire

In America, one out of every four fires is caused by arson, accounting for some half a million fires and $3 billion in direct property damage each year.  

When people intentionally set fires, lives are lost and property is destroyed.  When God ignites spiritual fires, hearts are filled with love and lives are saved.

In Exodus 3:2-3, The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush.  Moses was fascinated because although the bush was clearly on fire, it wasn’t damaged and it didn’t burn up.

Whenever a person or a congregation is truly on fire with God’s love people will come from miles around just to watch them “burn.”

When God sets the fires of evangelism loose in His people, these fires will bring more light, more hope, and more resources through the door than we ever dreamed possible.

Though God’s fires don’t burn people out, they do need spiritual fuel.

Fuelish attitudes are ways of thinking that ignite ordinary people in the church with a passion for introducing their family, friends, neighbors, and complete strangers into
life-changing relationships with Jesus.

The Fuel of Kindness:  Colossians 3:12 says we are to clothe ourselves with kindness…That means wrapping ourselves up in God’s love for anyone in need.

For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Taking the focus off of ourselves and putting it on God and the needs of others
is amazingly fuelish.    The Fuel of Fun.  The Fuel of Prayer and Worship.

People whom God loves and we love are lost in the darkness of sin.  Each of us has
a part to play in their rescue.

As Easter Approaches Us @ theChurch

Each of us has the experience of being lost in some facet of our living.

“Lost” is incomplete unless there is a “found” in the story.

Perhaps we should see the Church as the world’s greatest lost and found place.

There is a sense in which things and/or people are lost to us.  There is also a sense in which we are lost to things and/or people.

This means we as a church should do some pretty extravagant things, costly things, to find and rescue those who are lost.

The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son all have value to someone.

The Kingdom of God is a place where everyone has value – not because they are special or good or deserving but because they belong.

Life is at times a strange paradox – exciting, joyful, fun, and fulfilling on the one hand.

On the other hand, it’s more about being lost than found.  It’s more about feeling incomplete than whole.  It’s more about feeling excluded than included.

All of us stray at times.  We all get lost in the desert – loneliness, fear, rejection, disobedience, estrangement.

All of us need someone out there, willing to go looking for us.  We are always in the process of trying to turn back, to find our way home again.

God is not through searching.  The “lostness” within the human community is still a crisis for Him.

Every lost one is being searched for.  It’s kind of like a giant game of hide and seek, where, as soon as you are found, you join forces with the one who is “it.”

Jesus is inviting you to join the ones doing the searching.  Like Him, we must seek and save those who are lost.

Who will you invite to experience Axcess this Easter 2012?